There is a man who has long since lost faith in himself. A dim past that played out wrong overpowered his spirit, and he came to believe he was not good for this world. For some years he has been in hiding, subduing the malevolent nature he feels he owns in a cloak of powerless anonymity. He has been saving the world from himself, an unlikely clergyman engaged in hidden, quiet servitude to humanity. He doesn't see the heroism in that choice. But coincidence, perhaps Fate, causes Mick Calahan to become entangled in the equally mysterious saga of strangers. And circumstances bring him unwillingly into the open, where looms his greatest fear-that his decisions might affect and destroy real lives. And so even as he hesitantly peels back a remote western town's uneasy past, he finds that again he must choose-between retreat into a martyr's insignificance or overt protection of a broken family that desperately needs his help. Dare he stand, pretend he's not a lightning rod for calamity, and shield a woman and child he has grown to love? Dare he stand, and sink back to the terrible place his soul once knew, forfeiting what's left of his own humanity? As in the ancient, timeless biblical fable from which the story's title and parallels derive, the fate of paradise rests in this lone defender's hands. And the chance for redemption from old demons can be a powerful lure. But Destiny is never fair, and the classic heroic warrior must this time walk an inglorious path. If not for a dignity he denies he has...and the subtly tantalizing motive of forbidden love.... There is a man who has long since lost faith in himself. He is a man whom every woman needs on her darkest day, whom every man becomes in his finest hour.