Between Here and the Horizon(93)

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.

I can’t say I’m sorry anymore. I can’t ever mean it enough, and so the word has lost its meaning to me. Instead, I write this letter to you now, knowing the circumstances under which you will receive it, with the greatest of thanks in my heart.

You always were and always will be the better man. I’m so grateful that you will be a father figure to my children. I’m so grateful that you have found happiness, too. The moment I laid eyes on Ophelia, I saw a great and beautiful love story laid out before you. I know this because I know I would have fallen in love with her, too, of course. Wasn’t that always the problem? We were doomed to love the same women throughout our lives? Not this time, though. This time the happily ever after belongs to you, dear brother. At least I hope it does, anyway. Good luck to you, and to Ophelia.





Enough time has passed now that I also hope the hurt and suffering I caused you has dulled a little, and that as the coming years pass you by, you may even learn to forgive my weaknesses and my betrayal. Because my love for you is second only to the woman who died in my arms last year, Sully. Please know I would never have risked the precious bond I shared with you for anything less.





Thank you for doing what I could not, Sully.

Thank you for doing the right thing.





Your brother always,





Ronan.





I folded the paper again, taking a long moment to consider Ronan’s words. He orchestrated this from the beginning? He knew Sully and I would fall in love? How could he possibly have known such a thing? But then again, perhaps he could see it. They had both loved Magda, after all. Perhaps Ronan knew when he met me what would transpire between his brother and I.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked quietly.

Sully held out his hand and took Ronan’s letter from me. It was already cold in the city—a fire burned and crackled happily in the grate—and I thought for a moment that he was going to cast Ronan’s letter into the fire. He didn’t, though. He placed it down on the arm of the sofa and looked at it for a very long time, shadows playing and flickering across his face as he thought.

“No. No, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said all of a sudden, smiling at me. “I just want to feel you in my arms, Lang. That okay?”

I moved over, lying my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat slow and steady beneath my ear for a long time. Sully absentmindedly stroked his hand up and down my arm for a while, before he leaned down and kissed me.

“Are you happy?” he asked me quietly.

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“More than I ever thought possible.”

He went quiet for a moment, then he curled his index finger underneath my chin and lifted it, so that I was looking up at him. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life me with, Lang?” His eyes searched mine, looking for something that might or might not be there. My heart slowed, barely beating at all. Was he asking me…was he asking me to marry him?

Carefully he reached into his pocket, hunting for something. When he removed his hand from the pocket, he had made a fist, clutching hold of something tightly in the palm of his hand.

“I was going to do this tomorrow,” he said. “When we were standing underneath a giant Velociraptor skeleton with both the children watching so you couldn’t say no. But I see now how that might be unkind. I don’t want you to be swayed by Amie or Connor. Or an eight-billion-year-old dinosaur. I want you to make up your mind on your own, okay? So tell me, Ophelia. I need to know. Would you like to be my wife?”

I couldn’t look away from him. So much had happened in the last year. It was crazy to think that Sully was this sure of us this quickly. But then again, was it really? I was this sure of him. He was all I wanted. All I was ever going to want. I placed my hand on top of his, smiling.

“I would very much like to be your wife, Sully Fletcher. I would very much like that indeed.”

A blazing smile lit up Sully’s face. “No bullshit?” he asked.

I grinned, incapable of keeping my happiness from my face. “No. No bullshit, Sully. No bullshit.”