When Major had found out about it, he’d lost his ever-loving mind.
“I’m going up there to give them a piece of my mind,” he’d fumed.
“That’s cute. Who’s going to push your wheelchair?” I’d drawled lazily from the hospital chair next to his bed where I was working on a crossword puzzle.
“Dammit, Doc. This is serious.”
“Mm-hm. What’s an eight-letter word for stoic and gruff?”
“Liam,” he’d snapped.
“Babe,” I’d replied, writing in taciturn.
“What are you going to do? Apply here at the hospital and wind up with a longer commute?”
I’d looked up at him, appreciating the strong jaw under all the bruising. There was more salt in his pepper hair than there’d been even a year ago.
I sighed. “You’re one of those men who gets more handsome with age. It’s not fair.”
His face had lit up with an idea. “I’ve got it! You should open your own practice in town. We could look for office space and set up—”
That’s when I’d pulled out the folded piece of paper from my back pocket and handed it to him. He’d looked at the photo of the historic Victorian house we’d admired many times while walking around town. It wasn’t far off the square and had the perfect setup for a small private medical practice. It even had space upstairs that had already been made into a separate apartment in case we ever needed or wanted to spend the night in town or needed a rental to bring in extra income.
Major had studied the For Sale flyer before looking up at me. “They’re going to love you, Doc. It’s going to be the best decision you ever made. I’m proud of you.”
And they had loved me. My practice had grown so quickly, I’d had to bring in another two doctors over the next five years. I’d justified hiring the gay applicant over the straight one because he was an army vet just like me which meant we had a lot in common. And when the next hiring decision had come down to choosing between a well-qualified man and a younger but equally qualified woman, I’d chosen the woman because I’d remembered Betsy wishing she’d had access to female doctors.
With the new docs on board, I’d had more time at home with the kids and Wes. My dad had spent a full year transitioning management of the ranch over to Wes before showing up one day with a gigantic recreational vehicle and declaring himself officially retired and inviting my mother on the road trip from hell. At least, that’s what my mom had called it. My dad had called it “seeing the world one campground at a time.”
They’d already built a small “retirement nest” on the ranch property and moved in to give Wes and me free rein over the large farmhouse. We’d argued with them about it, but in the end, we’d had to admit it couldn’t have been easy for them to think about their son sharing a bedroom upstairs with another man. And even after they’d moved into their own place, my mother had still retained ownership of the farmhouse kitchen, letting herself in and out whenever she wanted and making all the meals as usual.
It took me a while to realize that Weston had been right to insist on staying in Hobie. As hard as it had been dealing with the stares and whispers, I began to recognize how our children were thriving in a way they wouldn’t necessarily have experienced in a big city.
For one, Billy had gone down to Dallas one summer during high school to participate in a high-level baseball camp at the university there. While he was there, he managed to take some kind of seminar course in accounting. He returned to the ranch and threw himself into optimizing our finances. By the time he applied to colleges, he was essentially the CFO for a large family agriculture business. That led to his work in international finance, which was how he eventually met his wife, Shelby. Shelby had fallen in love with Hobie and the ranch and had insisted on raising their ten children there. We’d helped build them their own home on the property so Wes and I could help with the kids. Our first grandchild, Hudson, was born less than ten years after Wes and I got together. At that time, we still had Jackie at home with us. Since she was only fourteen, she made a killing babysitting for Shelby and Bill.
Then there was Brenda, who might have been happier in a big city, but whose fierce determination to love “Uncle Major” despite how strict he was had turned into the feisty commitment to defending him from anyone who dared disparage him. She was the first one of the four of them to start calling him Pop, and she’d even come screeching like a banshee into his hospital room after his assault, insisting that no one was allowed to touch him except Daddy because he was a doctor. But when she decided to attend SMU, she got super prissy and preppy. And when she met and married Hollis, they decided to live the country club life in Dallas which seemed to suit the two of them just fine. We loved how, despite marrying a socialite and becoming a stay-at-home mom, Brenda never lost her fire and sass. And when any trouble hit the ranch, she was the first to jump in her fancy Wagoneer and come running.