We traveled home, Sully in the front seat with the cab driver and me in the back with the children. The entire six miles from the warehouse back to the apartment, Sully had his hand wedged behind him through the gap between his seat and the door, gently stroking my leg, his fingers curled around my ankle, touching me in one way or another.
We ate dinner with Rose and the children, and then stayed to bathe the kids and put them to bed.
“Will you tell us a story, Uncle Sully?” Amie pleaded. “A story about when you and Daddy were little, like me and Connor?” Sully looked uncomfortable for a second, and then he sat down on the end of Amie’s bed, folding his arms across his chest.
“All right. But your dad and I used to get into all sorts of trouble together, so you have to promise you won’t follow our lead, okay?”
Both Amie and Connor nodded solemnly.
“Right. Well. There was this one time, when Ronan and I were maybe a little bit older than you are now, maybe ten years old, and he and I did something very bad. We burned down the McInnes feed store…”
I backed out of the room, cringing. Trust Sully to tell them something completely inappropriate like that. He’d taken to the children so well, though. He loved being their uncle. Would he have ever gotten to know them if Ronan and Magda were still alive? It was doubtful. Most likely, they would have grown into adulthood and never met him once. Now, despite the fact that their parents were both gone, Connor and Amie had a loving uncle and a loving aunt taking care of them, as well as me. I may not have had a familial title for them to call me, but the way they said my name—with love and buckets of affection—was enough.
An hour later, Sully came down into our apartment, red cheeked and looking very sheepish. “Rose says she needs to vet my bedtime stories from here on out,” he told me, huffing as he sank himself down onto the sofa beside me.
“I’m not surprised.”
Sully stuck his tongue out at me, reaching up to stroke his index finger down my temple, cheek and underneath my chin. “You look very beautiful right now, Miss Ophelia Lang from California. Did you know that?”
I bit back a smile. It would be no good if he knew how happy his compliments made me; he’d tease me over them without mercy. “Sure I do,” I said airily. “You don’t look so bad yourself, I suppose.”
Sully laughed, rolling his eyes. “Come on. We both know I’m the most attractive man on the planet. Heavy lies the crown and all that.” He was joking, but he was also telling the truth—he really was the hottest guy on the planet to me. I leaned over him and planted a kiss square between his eyebrows, and Sully moaned softly under his breath.
“A letter came for you,” I whispered to him, face still hovering only an inch above his. “It’s from The Causeway.”
“Probably from Medical Center Gale, wondering when I’m leaving you and going back to her,” he told me, winking. He got up and collected his mail from the table, then opened it, scanning the letter he unfolded in his hands. There were two pieces of paper in the envelope. Sully read one and then the other in silence, then he just stood there staring at them both.
“What is it, Sully?”
He didn’t move.
“Sully?”
He folded the papers together and walked slowly back to the sofa, where he handed me both pieces of paper. “A voice from the grave,” he said quietly.
The first letter was from Linneman. It was brief and to the point:
Dear Sully,
Before your brother died, he came to see me and he made significant changes to his last will and testament. As you know, he provided a significant sum of money to you, along with your childhood home to do with as you pleased. He also made sure the children were financially secure for the rest of their lives, thanks to their majority share holding in the Fletcher Corporation. Additionally, Ronan also left me in possession of a letter addressed to you, to be mailed to you wherever you were living as of today’s date, being October 19th. As such, please find enclosed his correspondence as per his instructions.
I wish you all the very best in your new life with Ophelia and the children in New York, Sully. I can’t say that I will ever forget the drama and the chaos that came with knowing the Fletcher family, but then again I can’t say I would want to forget, either.
We may not have been able to save my dear brother-in-law that night we climbed into that boat together and rode into the unknown, my dear friend, but I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to weather the storm beside such a man as yourself.
My best regards,
Robert Clyde Linneman.
I unfolded the other piece of paper, holding my breath, not sure if I should even look at Sully to make sure he was okay.
Brother,
It’s been my greatest honor to call you this for the past thirty-one years, even if it has been your greatest shame to acknowledge me with the same title.