“No, sir. He needs the exercise or he’ll get ornery.”
Stan nodded and released my hand with a final squeeze. “That’s exactly what I told him. Hurry up and get better, Major. We miss you. And, uh… well, I think I might want to talk about you taking over the reins soon at the ranch. If you’re up for it.”
Doc’s hand was clapped over his mouth as his eyes met mine.
“Yes, sir,” I said, clearing my throat. “Yes, sir. I’d be honored. And I won’t let you down.”
“Course not.” Stan walked back over toward Doc and clasped his shoulders. “We are your parents first and foremost. When God sent you into our lives after all the years we’d tried for a family and failed, well, we knew we’d cherish you no matter what. We were simply grateful to have a baby, a son. And when you came back whole from Nam, in part because of that man there in that hospital bed, we were even more grateful. So you aren’t going to lose us no matter what. Now, I’m not saying it’s going to be easy living in this small town with a lifestyle people don’t know much about. But you two are some of the bravest men I know. If anyone can do it, you can. We love you, son.”
Doc stepped into his father’s arms and embraced him. I closed my eyes and thanked any god who was willing to listen for putting me on that helicopter with William Wilde all those years before.
Chapter 33
Liam “Doc” Wilde
It wasn’t easy, living in Hobie, Texas, in 1977 as a gay man. Well, as a bisexual man in my case. But it wasn’t as hard as we’d expected either. We realized very quickly there were quite a few people in town whose deep respect for Weston didn’t waver much when they discovered he liked men.
He’d already spent several years putting down solid roots in town. He’d volunteered at the vocational rehab center and had spent years doing free upkeep and repairs at the Boys & Girls Club. Wes was already well-known as one of the men in town you called when you need an extra hand moving something heavy or shoveling snow. He was quiet and polite. The man had never made waves in town before the night at the Roadhouse.
And as for me, my family had been around longer than anyone, and my children were descended from the two most historic, prominent families around. Not to mention, there were quite a few Hobians who were bound and determined to see the two of us as nothing more than brothers, joined at the hip and raising “those poor motherless children” the best way we knew how.
We never corrected them. In fact, for many years we continued to live our lives relatively quietly and tried not to make waves. We rarely touched in public, and we did our best to keep our private life private. After a while everyone settled into a kind of détente in which we didn’t flaunt our sexuality and everyone else politely pretended it didn’t exist.
It didn’t hurt that one of my father’s closest friends was the sheriff, and he arrested four of the five men involved in the assault the same day Weston said their names.
Things would have been very different if we hadn’t had the support of the sheriff during those years, but we did. And he was one of the first people to congratulate us when word got out two years later that Weston Marian had legally changed his last name to Wilde. Back then, we didn’t really think of it in terms of marriage. It was more like wanting, needing, him to officially become part of our family.
We found a good lawyer down in Dallas who drew up paperwork to protect Wes in case something happened to me. He would become the trustee of the ranch and farm after my parents’ passing, and he’d take guardianship of the kids. We even had paperwork giving him rights to make medical decisions for the children, but not once in the remaining years of their childhoods did anyone accept them. Even my colleagues and coworkers had insisted on getting my approval before Wes could so much as consent to an X-ray the day Billy sprained his ankle sliding into home base during a high school baseball game.
Hobie itself also changed during that time. Pastor Dickerson retired and Pastor White took his place in charge of the largest congregation in town. While he never came out of the closet, he also made sure his focus was on modeling and teaching love and acceptance to his congregants. It made all the difference.
The biggest negative repercussion to come out of Major’s assault besides the damage to his body had been me losing my job at the clinic. As soon as the powers that be had heard the rumors about my relationship with another man, they’d used my walking off the job that day as cause for termination.