Wilde Love (Forever Wilde 6)

He passed the photo to me and then pulled out his lighter so I could see the image.

They looked like three little pill bugs all in a row. I’d never seen anything as pure and good as that little smiling boy and the two newborns he held.

“You were right,” I said, trying not to feel envy snake around my heart and my gut. This golden boy had it all. The wife, the kids, the family ranch back home. Everything a good man with a kind heart deserved. And everything I would never have.

I handed it back and met his eyes. “When those bad memories hit, think of those three perfect angels, Doc. They’ll guide you home.”

“And what about you? What do you think about when the bad memories hit, Major?”

You, I wanted to say. And that deep blue endless sea.

“Peace,” I said instead. Because to me, they were pretty much the same thing.

Chapter 9

Liam “Doc” Wilde

At the end of three more months, we were all due for R&R. Lynch, Dial, Major, and I decided to take our leave together, and we planned our trip to Bangkok like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wasn’t sure why I even cared, since I certainly had no plans to be unfaithful to Betsy. All I wanted was time away from Nam, time away from the constant threat of death, the smell of blood, and the same faces everywhere I looked.

But when we finally got there, I was out of sorts. Seeing my fellow soldiers in their civvies was strange, and when Dial and Lynch started talking about renting women, I felt wrong-footed. Dial was single, but Lynch had a wife and baby back home in South Carolina. It wasn’t my business, really, but perhaps I was most bothered by the major. Because I knew that he wouldn’t want to rent a woman, but I also knew that no matter how close the four of us were by that point, and we weren’t nearly as close as we’d been with Moline and Rusnak, Major wasn’t about to pursue male companionship when any of the rest of us could see.

The first night was spent getting drunk off our asses and dancing like idiots at the closest club to our hotel. At some point both Dial and Lynch disappeared into the back with different women only to reappear later looking more relaxed. It was enough to take the edge off, I imagined, and we kept drinking until we were barely able to crawl back to our rooms.

But by the second night, it was clear everyone wanted more. Sure enough, Major Marian shined himself up and told the rest of us we were on our own that night. When he walked out of our shared hotel room, he took one last look at me. Our eyes met long enough to acknowledge what wasn’t being said by either of us, and when the door closed behind him, I felt such a sickness in my gut, it surprised me.

I’d never thought of myself as particularly bothered by men who liked other men. Sure, I didn’t have much experience with men who were like that, but to each his own, really. So why did it make me feel torn up inside knowing he was going out into the Thailand summer night to find a body to lose himself in?

When Lynch and Dial knocked on my door a little while later to see if I was ready, I admitted that my stomach was all out of sorts and I thought I needed to stay in. They teased me for being a chickenshit, but I told them to go to hell and remember to use a rubber when they got there.

I lay in bed and thought of home. I’d had a chance to call Betsy when we’d gotten to Danang two nights before but before we’d boarded the plane to Bangkok. Hearing her voice had been both strange and wonderful. My throat had damned near closed up with the familiar comfort of that sweet sound. I’d heard one of the girls crying in the background, and even that had been a gift. She’d told me all the news from home, including the story of Brenda taking her first steps for the sole purpose of trying to get her hands on Gina’s tippy cup of milk. She’d described all of our parents doing well and finding enough seasonal hands to get the work done on the farm and ranch.

My wife was a strong woman who was single-handedly raising our three children while not knowing what would become of me over here. She had the unspoken task of making sure not only our kids were cared for while I was gone, but also our parents. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d told me her doctor wanted to do some testing on a birthmark on her scalp, which would involve shaving part of her hair.