Page 1 of The Oath We Take

PROLOGUE: ATOM

FIVE YEARS EARLIER

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 taught me that lesson 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 quotes Marcus Aurelius.

A lot.

Accept the things to which fate binds you.

He says that one all the time. Through bad winters or wet summers. When the hay goes moldy or wild animals kill 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 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 eventually 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 majority of the ranch because my father likes giving orders and has no concept of a hard day’s graft. 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.

The relationship between the ranch and club dates to the founding of the Outlaws, and a time in ranching history when your land wasn’t your own if you couldn’t protect it. The club needed a safe place to carry out their business, the ranch gained built-in protectors.

My grandpa’s road name was Breaker. Back in the day, there wasn’t a man alive who could stand up to Grandpa’s style of interrogation. In contrast, my father got his road name, Wheeler, because he was a schemer, a wheeler-dealer who always had some scheme on the go to make a fast buck. Always hustling rather than working.

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 more weed in without prying eyes. We can launder money through the ranch in return for a fee. But I’m worried about my dad’s ambitions. The man sees cash everywhere he looks.

I’ve got a strong suspicion he’s hankering for a different kind of life.

Flashy trips. Flashier car. A life outside this slice of heaven in Colorado.

He doesn’t know this, but I saw him two weeks ago at a resort across town when I did a weed drop-off for the club. He was sipping whiskey with men I didn’t know but heard mention they were some of the biggest developers in the country.

Technically, he’s a member of the motorcycle club, like Grandpa and me. But I don’t feel like his heart was ever truly in it. Or maybe it was twenty years ago, but it’s not now.

All he wants is money.

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 alongside the field before I see the horse.

Lemmy, a dark bay Holsteiner, lives in our stables, though 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.

The strawberry-blonde hair that flies behind the rider can only mean one thing: she’s back.

Ember Deeks is home from college for the summer.

And I can tell that she missed Lemmy as much as he missed her.

They practically soar when they jump to clear a fallen tree stump, moving in such synchronicity that it’s sheer perfection.

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