"Happily ever afters" rarely came to men like these... Joey Ballios was a cop. For ten years his life had been little more than long foot chases through the cold Detroit snow, piles of paperwork, and forty hour shifts. Laird Fox climbed mountains. He was a mountain guide in Alaska, a man who spent his days taking strangers to the top of the world, fulfilling their dreams while ignoring his own. The two men's lives should never have touched, their worlds never have crossed, but when three gunshots ring out in a sweltering summer night, some lives are cursed while others are saved... Sometimes Fate arrives on tragedy's tail, a post-script that begins with "Once upon a time."