“Mm?”
“My dad wanted to show you to the bunks so you can wash up for dinner. Is that all right?”
I rubbed the stupid off my face with both hands and looked past Doc to a taller, broader version of him standing in the doorway.
After standing immediately, I strode forward with my hand out. “Sorry. Of course. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Wilde. I’m Weston Marian.”
His friendly smile was identical to Doc’s and put me at ease right away. The handshake was warm and firm, and I felt the same appreciative welcome I’d gotten from the rest of the family. “We’re so happy to have you here, Major. Sorry I don’t have a decent bedroom in the house to offer you. With Liam and Betsy in one, and the kids in two others, I’m afraid—”
“A bunk is fine, sir. I’m used to much worse, I promise.”
As he led me back through the house and across a stretch of dry lawn toward one of the large barns, Mr. Wilde pointed out some different areas of the ranch we could see from the yard. When we reached the wide open barn doors, he gestured me inside.
“The bunks are in the back of the main barn. Right now I have three hands living here full-time. I hire on two more come spring to help with calving season, and Jerry—Hobart, that is, Betsy’s father—hires extra for the harvest and baling in the fall. I put up any overflow since his hands live in a trailer that’s seen better days.”
I was surprised to hear about the extra men since I’d gotten the feeling Doc felt like he had to put in a full week’s worth of work on the ranch every weekend to help keep the place afloat.
“How’s business?” I asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Going strong right now. Been a good few years. Liam mentioned you were interested in agriculture. He said you got an ag science degree up in Kansas while you were enlisted. You ever want to get your hands dirty, let me know. I’m sure we’d love to have you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Major Marian, how about you call me Stan instead of sir?” His grin was the same crooked one I’d been goofy over for going on two years now.
“Yes, sir,” I said stupidly before catching myself. “Stan. Call me Weston.”
“Sure thing. Major,” he said with an easy smile and wink.
We chuckled companionably together in a moment I looked back on for years to come as the beginning of something special. Stan Wilde was something special—a good man, hard worker, fair boss, and a loving father. But that night, he was still a stranger to me, a man I’d assumed before now was a tough rancher with strong opinions and a strict demeanor.
So it shocked me when he stopped me in the narrow doorway to a tiny closet-like room with a bunk bed in it and said, “I need you to do something for my boy, Major.”
I met his eyes and tried hard not to see Doc’s heart in them. “Yes, sir?”
“Encourage him to go to medical school. It’s his dream. It took me a while to see it, but… if that’s what he wants, then I want him to have it. We’ll do fine here while he’s gone, and he deserves to choose his own future regardless of mine. Will you tell him that?”
“Already done, sir,” I said. Doc was lucky to have a father like Stan Wilde.
And when the comparisons to my own father snuck into my thoughts like poisonous gas, I did my best to breathe in a different direction.
Chapter 15
Liam “Doc” Wilde
My years in med school flew by faster than I ever expected. When I wasn’t studying or doing clinical rotations at the hospital, I was teaching the girls to swim at the community pool in our neighborhood or racing to catch one of Billy’s Little League games at the park.
Betsy had joined a garden club and met some wonderful women who’d made a big difference to our time in Dallas. She was happy which made me both happy and relieved. Things were good. More than that, they were great. Everything was falling into place, and I felt like I had everything I could ever want.
Even when we’d discovered Betsy was pregnant again just a few weeks after we moved to Dallas, it had seemed like it was meant to be. She said it’d helped her make the decision to embrace her role as mother and stop feeling like she needed to find a career to somehow prove herself.
When little Jackie was born, the girls were over the moon. They got the real-life baby doll of their dreams. Billy wasn’t as impressed, but by then he’d started school and made plenty of friends outside of the family. I pictured us staying in Dallas long-term and always being within a few hours’ drive of Hobie.