Once we were in the car Salem reached out and put her hand on my knee as we drove the dark Denver streets.

“No matter how the road winds and turns, as long as you are there at the end of it I’ll be happy, Rowdy.”

I felt her words spread and expand in my chest so there was no room for it to be empty, no room there to be afraid of what might or might not happen in the future. Any bad luck I might have had paled in comparison to the supreme good fortune that had given me this woman as my own. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and told her the only thing I could:

“I’m a lucky man.”

Asa and Royal’s story to be continued . . .