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PROLOGUE

"I lass toward his friend Seth Barnes "I just agreed to protect and see after your wife and you don't even have one"

The tinnywith shouts and conversation by rowdy miners and other h and wild place, working in the erous profession Life was perilous at best

Richard Randolph tossed back a shot of rotgut whiskey and pointed at Liam "You have to vow, Anderson I don't want my woman claimed by one of these bastards" He waved his hand around the rooed men that surrounded thereement

"Perhaps clai a woman should be our first steps," Aaron Moore added, his voice slightly slurred He was the least sober aroup of four

"Da everyone's glasses from the half empty bottle on the table

"What about you?" Aaron asked

"I'll know her when I see her" Seth tossed back his next shot with a wince, wiped the back of his hand across histo die anyway," he told Aaron "You're too big, too smart to let Death take you"

"A woman would be smart to keep her distance," Richard countered "She'd surely be crushed beneath him if he tried to bed her"

All of the hed at that

"You'll do it?" Richard asked Lia sober as he did so

Liam met his friend's stare, held it "I promise"

"And you?" Aaron questioned Seth

"I'll protect your woman just as I know you'll protect mine"

"Now let's drink to old age," Lialass

The other men lifted theirs as well, content that the pact was made, their words bound by their honor, but they all kneould never need to be fulfilled They were too bullheaded to get themselves killed