For years, I believed my story had already been written. Love, loss, and grief—I thought that was all there was for me. My wife, Jessica, was my world, and when cancer took her, it felt like she took the best parts of me with her. I buried myself in work, in routine, in the quiet of a house that still held her touch but no longer her laughter. I told myself I was fine.

Then Ethan Williams came crashing into my life.

First as the cop who pulled me over. Then as the handyman restoring the unfinished pieces of my home—the projects Jessica had dreamed up but never got to see completed. And now? Now I don’t know what he is to me.

Ethan is everything I didn’t know I needed. He’s sharp-witted, fearless, and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders without ever stopping to think about himself. He works himself to exhaustion, balancing his job as a K-9 officer with taking care of his parents, never asking for help, never complaining. And somehow, despite all of it, he manages to bring light into every space he enters—including mine.

At first, I thought it was friendship. A connection I hadn’t felt in years. But the more time we spend together—the more I watch him laugh, the more I catch myself looking too long, feeling too much—I realize I’m in uncharted territory. I’ve never looked at a man like this before. I never wanted something I couldn’t explain.

And Ethan? He’s patient. He’s young. He’s understanding. But he’s also real. And I know, deep down, if I step forward, there’s no turning back.

I spent years believing love was behind me. That my heart belonged to the past. But now, for the first time, I wonder if maybe… just maybe, it’s been waiting for someone to help me find it again.

Guardians of the Heart is a story of love after loss, of rebuilding not just a home but a life, and of learning that sometimes, the heart knows where it belongs long before the mind is ready to accept it.