Page 119 of The Oath We Take

“Choose, Dad,” I say. “Do you want your ink cut off or burned off?”

Dad drops to his knees, his head falling forward. “Cut,” he says quietly, the fight gone out of him.

Wraith drags my dad to his feet. “We’re gonna do this up behind the clubhouse.”

Butcher points to me and Grandpa. “You two need to stay here. We’ll make sure he’s packed up and off your land by lunch.”

I let out a slow breath. “The vote was to let him live.”

Butcher nods. “Purely out of respect for the two of you.”

“Thank you,” Grandpa says.

And we stand on the porch and watch them leave until there’s no sign they were here beyond the swirls of dust on the trail.

“Shit,”I say, feeling so dizzy that the world tilts after reading the documents he’s handed me, an hour later. “When you said you’d take care of me, Gramps, you weren’t kidding.”

In the past hour, we’ve reconciled our feelings about my father. The disappointment, the embarrassment, the grief. It will feel raw and tender for a while to come.

“We’re only the custodians of the land, Hudson. It’s never truly ours. I steward it, your father should have stewarded it, and now you have to.”

“I’ve still got so much to learn to run the whole thing.”

Grandpa squeezes my shoulder. “I’m not dead yet. There’s, hopefully, still lots of time to learn. Just promise me this: You’ll never take more out of the land than it can give. You’ll let fields run fallow, you won’t overbreed the cattle, and you won’t allow anyone to pour swaths of concrete into it or desecrate it to get the oil out.”

“I promise,” I say.

“Good. And one more thing.”

He goes to the dresser and pulls out a square box. When he offers it to me, I open it. “It’s your great-grandma’s engagement ring, a pale pink topaz because she was born in November. Those other longer stones are diamonds. Had it cleaned and valued. It’s not hugely expensive, but your great-grandma was a true rancher. Rode horses as good as any man and had an eye for raising strong bulls.”

I tilt it from left to right. It’s set on a simple white-gold band, and the pink stone is unique, the diamonds sparkle.

I look up at my grandpa, who says, “I know you probably have something else in mind for Ember. Something bigger, flashier. So, I don’t expect you to propose to her with it, but maybe if she wore it once in a while, that’d be nice.”

I close the box and hug my grandpa. “It’s beautiful. And I know she’ll love it.”

He pats my back firmly. “Now, as Marcus Aurelius once said, the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. Your father is gone, for now. So, it’s time to make this a better day. Go see your woman, and don’t let your father cast a longer shadow.”

The whole ride back to the house, I’m shaking. Ember isn’t working today, so I know she’s going to be home when I get there. I jump off the bike and storm the porch steps before practically kicking the front door down.

I keep thinking about what I said that night by the river.

Then we get on with the rest of our lives because as long as we’ve got each other, that’s all we need.

If we both believe that, why not ask her and make it formal?

Except, even with that caveat, I’m still nervous she’s gonna say no.

Even though she already said yes to being my old lady.

“Em,” I shout when I don’t see her.

Then, I notice the back door is open, and I realize she must be on the bench swing she had me rig over the tree in the fenced-off yard.

She’s sitting, barefoot, on it, book in hand. The breeze lifts her hair softly, and she’s nibbling on the side of her finger as all her rings sparkle in the sunlight.

“How’s the lion smut?” I ask, walking up behind the swing set

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