“Doc, when I first met you, I was a soldier. Period. The only thing I had was the army, so I dedicated my life to it. But when you offered me the gift of your friendship, suddenly I had something more to live for, to fight for, to return home for. And when I did return, you were my home.
“I never in a million years expected to have children, a partner, family, a home to be proud of. Even when you were still married to Betsy, you gave me those things. She gave me those things. Your parents welcomed me like a second son, your wife like a close friend, and your children—our children now—like another father. From the very beginning of my life in Hobie, I had everything I ever dreamed of. My life was full. And then I got you too.”
He reached for my hands again and brought them up for a quick kiss to my knuckles, a move he’d done a million times over the years without thinking.
“Sweetheart, the day I first met you I swore in my heart to keep you safe. The day I first kissed you I swore in my soul to love you forever. The day we first married I swore to stay with you forever. And today I swear to you that you will never live a day of your life without feeling my love for you. It is a living thing that has grown wild and strong between us like Betsy’s roses on the farmhouse porch rails. After all these years of loving you, I don’t think I’d know how to take a single breath without it. You are my home, Liam. The one I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have.”
I stepped into his chest again and held him tight, crying into his uniform coat and letting all the emotion come out. Our four children gathered around us to form a group hug, and I could distinguish the sounds of each of their happy sniffles.
When we stepped back into position, Felix cleared his throat. “You people are killing me. Liam, do you promise to love, honor, cherish, and protect Weston forever?”
“I do,” I said loud and clear. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
“Weston, do you—”
“I do. I dooooo,” he said with twinkling eyes. I couldn’t hold back a snicker.
Felix rolled his eyes. “Okay, Doc, do you have the ring?”
I turned to Bill, who handed me Wes’s wedding band. As I slipped it onto his finger, I repeated the words Felix prompted. “This is a symbol of my love and oath. With this ring, I renew my vow to you.”
When it was Wes’s turn, he reached for my ring from Tilly and placed it on my finger, repeating the words.
Felix looked at each of us in turn, grinning like a loon. “It is one of the greatest honors of my life to declare you husbands. Now kiss each other’s brains out so we can eat cake.”
Wes’s hands returned to my face, and his eyes bored into mine. In them I saw everything. Every man we’d tried to save in the jungles of Nam and the night I’d crawled into his bed to take my comfort from him. Every time he’d made Betsy smile through her pain and the knitting he still attempted in her memory. Every scrape on the kids’ knees he’d kissed and every time he’d been the disciplinarian when my heart wasn’t strong enough. Every dirty look we’d received holding hands in town and every time someone had surprised us with support or a kind word instead. I saw late nights crawling into bed after losing a patient when Wes would wake up just to remind me I was human and loved. I saw his face across the kitchen table the day he decided to retire from ranching. The way his hand felt in mine while I watched the preacher lay my mom and dad to rest. The way his hands moved across my body with the knowledge of how to play it like a fiddle after all these years.
In his eyes I saw a lifetime. One that stretched long into the past, but stretched forward into the future too.
I leaned in to kiss him. This wasn’t the end of our time together, after all.
It was a new beginning.
Epilogue
aka Can Lucy write a scene with every Marian and Wilde in it?
(best appreciated if you’ve read the previous Made Marian and Forever Wilde novels)
It wasn’t until late Saturday night well after the wedding ceremony that things got a little… exuberant. Or as Granny called it, “Off the chain-link fence.” To which Simone rolled her eyes and muttered to her about maybe leaving off the fence part.
They’d all migrated from the barrel room where the reception had been to the lodge lobby where there were tons of sofas and chairs to lounge in while the giant blaze in the fireplace added to the atmosphere. This location had the added benefit of being within spitting distance of the bar where all the beloved liquor lived.