Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Bear

"And now we get to do something I wasn't sure we could ever do. Thanks to Tony and Nikki, it's a possibility, and when they pulled Steve into the mix, he encouraged it. We had eight cottages. Fiona took Hollywood's. Then we got the four others enlarged and Paddy, Bulldog, and Reboot took one of them apiece. That leaves us with one big one and four smaller ones. Plus I think Fi's going to take the spare bedroom at the work house once she starts college," Patch says, talking about Penny's grandparents' house down the road where she and Mavis work, "so we'll have five of the smaller ones available."

He starts passing out packets of papers as the rest of the women and I look on. "Take these back to your cottages with you and look them over. And yes, ladies, you get a say too. These are men with whom you'll have to live and work, so you should be able to have a say. Each couple should agree on three possibilities, and we'll all get back together. Bring those three. We'll sort them out and the pile with the most returned is the one. We'll keep the others in order of selection and maybe revisit them after this one is settled. And thanks, everybody. I don't know about you guys, but this is exciting for me. I had to make the original choices, and that's a heavy burden to bear. Thankfully, I did good with every one of you, but having some help is nice."

"Listen, if we get to give somebody else the chance we've been given here, I think it's awesome," Priest says, and the other voices rise in agreement, mine included. This is super exciting to me. We'll get a new brother. I couldn't be happier.

That excitement gets tamped down once Sela and I start going through the possibilities. There are so many. "Well, I like this guy. He was a mechanic on the outside. We could use one of those," she says from the other side of the table.

"Yeah, and I like this guy here." I hold up a sheet. "Did time for manslaughter. Killed his wife and her sister in an accident while he was driving drunk, but according to the paperwork, he's not an alcoholic. It was an isolated incident. And he's the kind of guy we like offering second chances to."

"Does he have a skill set?"

"Mmmm." I roll down through the details. "Not that I can see. Looks like he was a truck driver. In town, not long haul. Deliveries. Worked there for fourteen years, so he had job longevity. What have you got over there?"

"This one is interesting. Take a look." She hands it to me, and I scan the page.

The first thing that catches my eye is his conviction. First degree hard time in max for the murder of a police officer. And then the conviction overturned after twenty-two years when they did DNA testing and discovered he wasn't the shooter. Prior to that, he'd worked for five years as… "A welder."

She nods. "Yeah. A guy who understands metallurgy. Talk about a good fit."

"Yup. Says he did some electrical classes in prison. He could really help out in the shop."

"That's what I was thinking."

I lay the paper on the table and sit there for a minute, my brain racing, trying to put my thoughts into words. "Doesn't it seem wrong?"

"What?"

"Sitting here, deciding a man's fate? I mean, we choose one, but the others are all deserving in some way. What happens to them? I mean, who are we to make those decisions?"

"Miles." Sela stands, walks around the table, and kneels beside my chair, her hands on my thigh. "Baby, we can't save the whole world. But the man we choose, we can change his world, and he in turn changes the whole world with his actions. It's not a splash. It's a ripple. But that ripple extends out past where we can see. Remember the kid at the funeral who stood up and said if Curtis hadn't arrested him, he never would've gone to jail, and if he hadn't gone to jail, he never would've learned to read? And by learning to read, he got a job when he got out, and now he's making a living for his family. That's the kind of change we're making. And this guy would give as good as he gets."

"True. And that doesn't mean we can't choose some of the others on down the line." But I know the truth. If those guys are aimless for the next few years, their chances of going back to prison increase exponentially. My mind is rolling when she takes my hand, and everything stops.

"Babe, no matter what we do, we do the right thing. We give a guy a chance he didn't have before. And to that one guy, that's everything." She's right. I'm living proof.

To that one guy, that's everything.

"This one," I say and drop my free hand onto the paper. "This is the guy."

"I agree."

I guess tomorrow will tell the tale. For tonight, we choose two more, and then it's bedtime. There are no pliers. There is no craziness. We just make love, and it's glorious, her skin against mine, the softness of her hair, and the sweetness of her lips. "I love you, my banrigh ," I whisper into her crown.

"I love you too, my righ ," she whispers back as I feel her relax against me, naked and warm.

" Righ ? You know what that means?" I ask with a grin.

"Yeah. You might have Grandpa, but I have Google. And you are my righ . You're my king." The happiness in my heart with her beside me is something I've never had before, and it's more than enough.

For the first time in my life, I'm whole.

Dinner is over, everything is cleaned up, and we've moved to the big table in the lodge. We sit at the table, and the women stand behind us, their hands on our shoulders. When Sela's fall onto me, I pat the back of the left one as I slide the papers out with my right. Patch starts to sort them, and we all watch, wondering who it'll be.

One pile has one. Two have three sheets. One has four, and one has five. But one has eight. Every couple picked the same man, and I can feel my heart pounding as we wait. The first seven go back into a stack on their own, and then patch picks up the stack with four sheets. "Okay. Third choice, manslaughter conviction for DUI with two fatalities. Truck driver." That was one of ours. He sets that stack aside and picks up the stack of five. "Second choice, production with intent to distribute. Prior work as a mechanic. Has completed all drug and alcohol rehab and did great." Our other one. Then he sets that stack aside and picks up the big one.

"Convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of an officer of the law. Conviction overturned after twenty-two years with new DNA evidence. Prior work as a welder. This stack has eight sheets in it. That means every one of you picked this man as one of the best candidates, including Penny and me, and he was definitely my first choice. For every household at this table, stand if this man was your first choice." The sounds of chair legs on the floor is deafening as every man at this table stands. "The choice is unanimous. Tony, Steve, and I will be contacting him this week. He's living in a halfway house in…" Patch looks down at the sheet, but I remember. "Provo, Utah. The other two will stay in their own files and hopefully we can make some kind of offers to them in the very near future. Good work, brothers. Our family is growing, and I couldn't be happier."

There's a lot of handshaking, back-slapping, and hugging, but the smiling faces are enough. We're getting a new brother. Iron Oak Farms is growing. And with it, our search and rescue capabilities.

We are the Appalachian STAR team―search, train, assess, and rescue. We will fulfill our duties to our community and our families, and we'll gladly risk our lives to bring the lost home. It's our vow. It's what we do. It's who we are. It's my family.

And I couldn't be prouder.