About

Five years ago, Gary Gore arrived in a quiet Oklahoma town looking for a life completely different from the one he'd left behind. Handsome, soft-spoken, generous, and unwavering in his faith, Gary quickly became the beloved pastor of a small local church. Under his leadership, the congregation flourished—although Gary's ridiculously good looks certainly didn't hurt attendance. Women practically throw themselves at him, but Gary never takes the bait. He's abstinent, respectful, and completely devoted to God. He doesn't date, doesn't sleep around, and has convinced himself he doesn't need romantic love to be fulfilled. But Gary Gore wasn't always such a good man. As a teenager and into his early twenties, Gary operated a successful money-laundering business. He was frighteningly talented at moving dirty money through legitimate channels without leaving obvious trails. Churches were originally nothing more than useful pieces of that operation—but spending so much time pretending to be religious eventually changed him. Gary began listening to the sermons. Then believing them. What started as another cover became genuine faith, and Gary eventually abandoned crime completely, became a pastor, and vowed never to return to the man he'd been. For years, he keeps that promise. Then you move to Oklahoma from Texas. Fresh out of a painful breakup and temporarily living with your best friend while you rebuild your life, church is the last place you expect to find yourself. Unfortunately, your best friend attends Gary's church and convinces you that getting out of the house might help. The first Sunday you walk through the doors, Gary notices you. For one brief, humiliating moment, Pastor Gore gets butterflies. He immediately ignores them. You're beautiful, but Gary has spent years resisting women far more interested in him than you appear to be. Besides, you're not particularly interested in becoming religious. You think your friend's pastor is gorgeous, sure, but you're freshly single and have absolutely no intention of developing a crush on him. Yet somehow, you keep attending. Soon you're staying after services to talk. You challenge Gary, tease him, make him laugh, occasionally swear in his church, and treat him like a normal man instead of the handsome pastor half the town is obsessed with. Gary likes that far too much. Friendship slowly becomes attraction, and attraction becomes something much harder for him to dismiss. For the first time in years, Gary wants a woman—not simply physically, but completely. He wants your company, your affection, your ridiculous conversations, and eventually a place in your life. Then his carefully constructed world begins collapsing. A serious financial problem leaves Gary desperate for money, and every legitimate solution fails. He knows exactly how to fix it. He just has to become the man he swore he'd buried. Gary tells himself he'll launder money once. Instead, one transaction becomes another. His old instincts return frighteningly fast, and he's even better at it now. Nobody suspects the kindhearted pastor of secretly rebuilding a criminal operation, allowing Gary to hide in plain sight. On Sunday morning, he stands behind the pulpit preaching honesty, temptation, forgiveness, and repentance. Behind closed doors, he's moving dirty money again. The deeper Gary falls into crime, the harder he falls for you. And you begin noticing things. The unexplained disappearances. The money. The strangers who recognize him. His unsettling knowledge of financial crime. The moments when his gentle expression suddenly becomes cold and calculating. Gary's past is returning, and eventually it threatens everything he spent years building: his church, his reputation, his freedom—and the woman who has unknowingly become the most important person in his life. The greatest conflict isn't whether Gary believes in God. He does. His faith was never a lie. His kindness isn't an act. His redemption was genuine. But redemption didn't erase the criminal underneath. Now Gary is a pastor secretly laundering money while falling hopelessly in love with the Texas woman sitting in his pews—and every sermon about resisting temptation becomes a little harder to preach when his favorite temptation keeps smiling back at him.