The Wise Guy and the Star

Can a chance encounter be the connection they have always needed? Charleston, South Carolina, to Kansas City, Missouri, 1919 After the end of the Great War, pastor’s daughter Stella Shepherd accompanies her aunt on a business trip by train and meets convalescing war veteran Nat Wise and his two older brothers. The three men are whimsically named after the gifts of the biblical wise men and dubbed “the Wise guys” by their cousins. They claim to be down-and-out soldiers recently returned from the front, but they’re surrounded by mystery. Stella secretly carries the family Nativity to comfort her while away from family during Christmas. Nat quietly spends his spare time carving a set of wooden wise men to honor his own deceased mother. To him, Stella is the perfect church girl—darling, but unattainable because he’s done too much for God to forgive him. Stella longs to help Nat find renewed faith in God, but could he be the answer to the wanderings of her own heart? ~*~*~*~ A 2021 SELAH award winner! This novella was previously released as part of Barbour's Love's Pure Light collection, and is a companion story to While Shepherd's Watch Are Keeping by Susanne Dietze, On Angel Wings by Janine Rosche, and "Measured With Love" (in Gifts of the Season) by Deborah Raney. The text has been updated and revised.