Page 138 of The Grief We Hold

“Would it be corny to say it’s not as beautiful as you?”

“Not when you just asked me to marry you,” she says, lifting her lips to mine.

I kiss her, hoping she can feel everything I want her to know in the connection of our bodies, but in case she can’t…

“I’ll give you the best life a man can provide for his family, Raven. I promise.”

She grins up at me. “And I can’t wait to live that life with you either. To build a home and grow our family together.”

I cup the cheeks of her butt and put my lips to her ear. “How soon were you planning on the growing our family part? Because I’m thinking we should start right now.”

“Axel,” she says, the single word filled with laughter. “Maybe, tomorrow.”

I nuzzle the side of her neck. “I’m joking. Not until your hand is properly healed.”

“Spoilsport,” she whispers.

Fen bursts into the room, and Raven drops to her knees to tell him the news and show him the ring I’ve just given her.

The kid cheers as she tilts it left and right in the sunlight, and it throws rainbows up at the ceiling. And the sight of them tells me we just got our happily ever after.

EPILOGUE TWO: ATOM

FIVE YEARS AGO

Sweat trickles down my temples and the side of my neck as I check the hay to see if it’s ready for baling. I lift my Stetson and wipe my forehead with the blue and white bandana before stuffing it back in the rear pocket of my jeans.

“You gotta measure and monitor the moisture content for four days before baling,” my grandpa used to say when I was old enough to follow him around the Oakum Ridge Ranch that has been in my family for over a hundred years.

He also used to quote Marcus Aurelius.

A lot.

Accept the things to which fate binds you.

Used to say that one all the time. Through bad winters or wet summers. When the hay went moldy or a wild animal killed expensive cattle.

As I look towards the mountains, I consider the difference between fate and destiny.

Some people think they’re opposites.

Fate can’t be fucked with. It’s yours, predestined and predetermined before you’re even a twinkle in your old man’s eyes.

Destiny, on the other hand, is the sum of all the twists and turns and decisions you make in life.

But as I look out over land that will be mine one day, I don’t really care whether it was destiny or fate or free will that brought me here.

The truth is, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

I’m only twenty-five, but I already oversee the running of much of the ranch. And I’m a patched-in member of the Iron Outlaws Motorcycle Club that has a clubhouse on a small corner of the acres we own.

When I have more say in the long-term strategy for the ranch, I want to propose we combine the two more. We have land we can grow weed in without prying eyes. We can launder more money through the ranch in return for a fee. Grandpa isn’t a fan, and while I don’t wish for his demise, it’ll be easier to run this place the way I want when Pa is in charge.

The hay is bone dry, zero moisture, ready for baling, which means tomorrow will be hard work. But there’s something rewarding about earning an ice-cold beer at the end of the day. I feel the thud of horseshoes on the parched dirt that runs alongside the field before I see the horse.

Lemmy, the dark bay Holsteiner lives in our stables, but he isn’t ours. I take him out for a ride every now and then. But he’s a thing of beauty when he’s ridden by his owner.

And the strawberry-blonde hair that flies behind the rider can only mean one thing. She’s back.

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