Wilde Love (Forever Wilde 6)

I was glad Billy didn’t look at me since I probably would have won the World’s Goofiest Grin Award right then. “See you two at home.”

On my solo drive home, thoughts of Betsy snuck into my dreamy reverie. I’d always assumed Betsy would be my last-piece-of-pie person. I thought about what she’d say if she knew how I was feeling about my best friend.

Her voice was so clear in my head, I realized she’d said the words over and over while she was alive to make sure I’d know exactly how she felt.

He’s one of the best men I’ve ever met. You bringing him here was a gift to all of us… I want him to stay here. To be here for our children when… if something happens to me. They adore him.

She’d even known he had feelings for me, yet she’d never once pushed him away or said a single negative thing about him. Instead, she’d recognized how much he’d needed us and had given him the gift of love right back in spades.

Was it possible for lightning to strike twice? For me to be loved by two incredible people in my lifetime?

I got home on a bed of clouds and floated into my parents’ house with the same goofy grin. My father looked up from the newspaper he was reading and saw my expression. “The boy must have scored a home run.”

“Nah, but he played great. He’s with Major. I think they stopped off to pick up some ice cream at the store.”

I pulled off my tie and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. “Mom, you need any help before I run upstairs to change?”

I thought about my plans to go over to Major’s house after the kids were in bed. Maybe I needed to shower before I changed my clothes.

“We’re just making hamburgers tonight,” my mom said. “Nothing fancy. Go on ahead and change.”

I turned to head up the stairs when I overheard my father mutter about Anita Bryant and the Save Our Children Coalition. Something about his tone stopped me.

“Pastor Dickerson mentioned this at Bible study last week,” he continued. “The coalition is trying to raise money here in case the gays come to Texas to do what they did in Florida and California. They’re organizing a fund-raiser. Sounds like he’s jumping the gun a bit. We don’t have gays here like they do in those other places.”

My stomach plummeted. I’d never thought of my father as particularly bigoted. In fact, he was downright open-minded compared to most of our neighbors. But the man had been born in 1906. He and my mother had tried for years to have children, and by the time they’d finally had me, he was forty. Which meant he was already in his seventies and stuck in his small-town ways. He was ignorant about things he didn’t know much about. Well, I guess that was the very definition of ignorance anyway.

“Dad, there are plenty of gay people in Texas,” I said carefully.

“Maybe in Dallas or San Antonio,” he muttered. “But I don’t see why our small-town church needs to participate when it doesn’t affect us at all.”

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat in it, facing him. Confidentiality reasons and fear for the man’s livelihood insisted I not mention a word about Assistant Pastor White and hypocrisy, but it was a near thing.

“First of all, there are plenty gay people in small towns. Second of all, there’s no threat from gay people. Why would we need to raise money to fight anything?”

Dad lowered the paper to the table and seemed to think it over. “That coalition says they prey on little children, Liam. They’re immoral. And that’s in the Bible.”

My stomach churned with mixed feelings because he wasn’t wrong. According to our church, it was in the Bible. But so were many other things that didn’t make sense and were contradictory.

“Patty and Hal Ritches are both having extramarital affairs,” I said. “Are we going to ask the church to raise money to fight them?”

“Liam!” my mother gasped from across the room. “What in the world?”

“Sorry, Mama, but it’s true. I’m pointing out some basic Christian hypocrisy right now. If the Ritches’ affairs aren’t hurting anyone else—which by the way I would argue they damned sure are or will hurt those children—then what business is it of ours if two men or two women want to be together?”

“Two of God’s children temporarily losing their way isn’t the same thing as the deviant behavior of homosexuals,” my father said. “Obviously, I personally would be more concerned about the Ritches because that’s actually happening in our community.”

“Dad, homosexuals aren’t deviant. And I assure you, there are plenty of gay men in our community. Nice men. Good men you wouldn’t ever expect or consider deviant in any way.”