Guarding Gideon

GUARDING GIDEON BRITTANY COURNOYER CONTENTS Prologue 1. Gideon 2. Silas 3. Gideon 4. Silas 5. Gideon 6. Silas 7. Gideon 8. Silas 9. Gideon 10. Silas 11. Gideon 12. Silas 13. Gideon 14. Silas 15. Gideon 16. Silas 17. Gideon 18. Silas 19. Gideon 20. Silas 21. Silas Acknowledgments About the Author Other works by Brittany Cournoyer: Copyright © 2023 by Brittany Cournoyer All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or events are purely the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, establishments, businesses or locales is purely coincidental. The amazing book cover was done by: Cate Ashwood: ASHWOOD DESIGNS - Home (cateashwooddesigns.com) Edited by: Jennifer Smith Proofed by: Lori Parks Formatted by: Devon Vesper Created with Vellum PROLOGUE SILAS “Come on, Demetri. Please, just one more chance.” Demetri feasted his icy blue eyes on me. He was covered from head to toe in white, which was a stark contrast to his raven black hair and piercing black eyes. Whereas my head-to-toe gray looked very drab in comparison and completely washed out my pale skin and light blond hair. “No.” That answer wasn’t a surprise. It’d been the same one I’d heard all week since approaching him about it. “Why not?” “You know why. Your last assignment was a nightmare that took weeks of cleaning up. No way.” Demetri pushed past me, clipboard in hand, to walk out of the room, no doubt to hand out other assignments on the list my name wasn’t on. Not to be deterred, I immediately followed. Knowing I was on his tail, Demetri huffed. “You’re not going to give this up, are you?” “Nope. I think I deserve a redo. That last assignment was a disaster in the making. Their minds were made up long before I’d gotten there and there was no helping them. We both know that.” Demetri came to a halt with a long sigh. “Who were you with?” “The Andersons in Hemlock.” Demetri flipped through the pages on his clipboard. Finding what he was looking for, he paused to read over the document. His face was nearly expressionless, and I braced myself waiting for him to get to the dreaded moment of my epic failure. His grimace let me know he’d arrived. “Silas, there’s no coming back from this.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I glowered at him. “How can you say that without giving me a chance to try?” “Why should I? Look what happened with the Andersons! Here at Helping Halos, we strive for perfection and getting it right the first time.” Resisting the urge to roll my eyes at the stupid name he called our division for guardians, especially since halos and wings had become obsolete eons ago, I clenched my jaw. Demetri was set on calling it that name, though, but only because he’d come up with it and thought it made us sound less sterile and more…helpful. I guessed saying the true name—Celestial Guardians—wasn’t inviting enough. Which, that logic made zero sense, since our assignments weren’t supposed to know who we truly were anyway. Loosening my jaw, I took a deep breath and tried again. “People are allowed to make mistakes, Demetri.” “Not us. You had one job, and you failed. Epically.” Was there any winning with this man? He was being so stubborn! With a frustrated groan, I threw my hands in the air in frustration. “Yes, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, which was save their marriage. But it was doomed! Doomed, I tell you! They weren’t right for each other. Anyone with eyes can tell they are so much better off now.” “But are they really?” “I think they are.” Demetri’s eyes narrowed. “You truly believe that, don’t you?” “Wholeheartedly. Yes, it shook things up a bit, especially for the children, but I do check in with them from time to time, and they are thriving.” “Thanks to the cleanup crew.” Well, that stung a bit. Even though Demetri was set in his belief that those who had to go in behind me were, as he put it, cleaning up my mess, I knew in my heart that I had done the correct thing. All I needed was one more chance to prove my worth and that I could handle anything thrown my way. Otherwise, my future was going to look very grim if I was taken off this detail and put behind a desk filing papers. I mentally shuddered at the thought. “Ouch. You are acting as if I set their house on fire or something,” I grumbled. “You lit a fire under her to get a divorce lawyer. And need I remind you of all the other instances from your past assignments? This isn’t your first failure, Silas, but it is your biggest one.” Leave it to Demetri to throw my past in my face. Deciding to ignore that particular part, I put my hands together to plead with him once more. “Just one more chance. That’s all I’m asking. And if I screw this one up, I’ll…I’ll… Well, I don’t know, but I’m sure we can come up with something.” Demetri pursed his lips, and I braced myself for his final rejection. Visions of a life spent behind a wooden desk fetching specialty teas for Demetri and filing anything he shoved my way filled my brain. It looked bleak, and my eyes started to sting with unshed tears over the turmoil I’d forced upon myself. “Very well then. Come with me.” Shocked. Stupefied. Surprised. So many S words that could describe how I felt. I hadn’t been expecting that response from him at all. When I didn’t move from my spot, he rudely snapped his