EPILOGUE
Sutton
One Year Later
The sound of laughter echoing from the outside patio makes me smile. It’s hard for me to decipher whose laugh is whose because when the three of them are together like this, they sound the same.
Another laugh sounds off and my heart swells in my chest.
Who knew these weekends away at their father’s estate in Sag Harbor would further heal the wounds and strengthen the bonds they have been mending over the past twelve months?
Their agreement to meet here once a month, away from the office, with the promise of no talk about work while they slowly go through their father’s things he left behind, hasn’t wavered.
Every month they come.
Every month they go through pieces of their past and learn more of their father’s history.
Every month they grow closer.
I peek out the open French doors to watch them. Callahan is sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, a beer in one hand, his smile wide. Ledger sits across from him in a similar position, while Ford is pushing photographs out of a box across the table toward them.
Photos their father had kept over the years. Moments captured that allow them to reminisce or learn something new altogether.
It’s the first time Callahan has asked me to come along on his monthly helicopter flight out here. I told him I didn’t want to come. That him being here with his brothers was more important than anything.
He insisted.
“We’ve gone through all the legal, hard-to-deal-with stuff. We’ve hashed out our differences on that. This weekend we’re going through pictures.”
“I still don’t feel right. Like it’s an invasion of privacy,” I say.
“I want you there, Collins.” He kisses me and pulls me against him. “I need you there.”
And even though I feared Ledger and Ford might resent me being here, being a part of something so very personal to them, they’ve made me feel like part of the family during the past twenty-four hours.
“Do you remember that?” Ford can barely get the words out he’s laughing so hard.
“Fuck. I got in so much trouble for that one,” Callahan says, holding the picture and staring at it.
“You?” Ledger all but spits his beer out. “You’re the one who poured the bleach on the lawn and spelled D-I-C-K, and I’m the one who got in trouble when I was just trying to clean it up.”
“I told you to use spray paint to hide it,” Callahan says. “Works like a charm.”
“Fucker,” Ledger says but laughs.
There is an ease between the three of them that is so inviting, so welcoming, I step into the open doorway and simply smile.
Callahan notices me and motions for me to sit beside him.
“C’mon, Sutton,” Ledger says when he notices his brother looking my way. “I’m certain we’re getting to some really embarrassing pictures of Callahan when we were little.”
“Bowl haircuts and all,” Ford says.
“Dude, if I had one then you had one,” Callahan says.
“Blackmail material?” I ask as I move toward the table. “Yes, please.” I yelp when I go to sit down and Callahan grabs me by the waist, pulling me to sit on his lap.
He kisses my cheek as he wraps his arms around me.
Effortless.
That’s what this is between us and it still astounds me every time we’re together.
How easy this love we have is. We’ve spent a month working in Manhattan, three months at an old property in Napa that needed some work, and then back in Manhattan again .
. . and while that time included long, hard hours of work, the time between was incredible.
Laughter and love making and comfortable silence interspersed with more laughter.
For a man who didn’t think he knew how to love, he’s shown me daily how cherished I am, how important and vital I am to him. He’s shown me how it is to be loved by someone’s whole heart.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Callahan murmurs in my ear, giving a perfect example to illustrate my thoughts.
“I am too.”
“See? Bowl cuts,” Ford says, sliding a picture in front of me that has me laughing so hard it brings tears to my eyes.
They show me pictures, one after another. They share pieces of their life with me, stories, and images of their father I never met, but who still remains present. We laugh. Eyes water. Glances of brotherly love are exchanged.
“See? I told you that you picked the right brother,” Callahan says after he holds up a picture of them as teenagers. Callahan has his shirt off and is flexing.
“Let me see that.” I take the picture and hold it closer to my face. “You sure that’s you? I’m pretty sure that’s Ford,” I tease.
Ford laughs and high-fives me.
But it’s only when I look back toward Callahan does the laughter fade from my lips. “What is it?” I ask suddenly at the bittersweet look on his face.
I follow his gaze to the photograph that was apparently stuck to the back of the muscle pose one, and my heart leaps into my throat.
The image is faded and worn at the edges. The color is washed out in several spots. But as Callahan lifts it off the table, there is absolutely no mistaking what the image is of or where it was taken.
A young Maxton Sharpe is standing on a sandy bluff, the sun is overhead, and a peculiar yet unmistakable stack of rocks is to his right.
His hair is blowing in the breeze, his smile mesmerized, as he looks over to the woman beside him.
She’s in a conservative sundress with a stylish hat on her head and the same adoring look on her face.
“Do you know where this is?” Callahan whispers, his eyes swimming with tears when he looks up from the image of his mom and dad.
I nod, my words escaping me and my own eyes filling with tears. “I do,” I finally whisper.
It is the bluff in the Virgin Islands. The same one Callahan took me to on our last night together where we swayed in the hammock, sipped wine, and said a silent goodbye to each other.
“He was there. He remembered.” And when Callahan closes his eyes and exhales a shaky sigh, I can only fathom how much this picture means to him.
His dad had remembered the beach. The promise to his mom. It was all real. Not something the dementia stole and warped. It was one last truth his father shared with his son that Callahan could hold on to when he was gone.
The deal for the resort, the reasons he let his father sign the deal, and the reason we met, all were valid.
“He was right,” Callahan whispers as he slides the picture across the table to his brothers. “He remembered.”
Callahan
“I don’t know where your head is, but if it’s anywhere near where I think it is, you might want this.”
“Want what?” I look over to where he’s holding a black velvet box.
“Ford and I agreed that you should have this.”
“Ledge. What . . .” I open the box and stare. Nestled within the cushioned insides is an oval cut solitaire set in place by an intricate band. Our mother’s engagement ring. I look up at my brother and then back to the ring. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say.” His smile is as kind as the hand he pats on my back with before walking out and leaving me staring at something that was so incredibly special to my mom.
Just as Sutton is to me.
The sun is slowly rising over the Atlantic. Its warm rays fill the room we’re staying in at the Sag Harbor house. I stare at the ceiling and take in everything that has happened in the last forty-eight hours.
The ring. The picture. I mean . . . I feel like my dad is here, speaking to me, getting the last laugh out of everything.
Maybe one day you’ll fall in love and bring her to this place too, Callahan. Your mother would love that.
If he only knew.
Then again, I have a feeling he does. And a part of me wonders if he’s had a hand in all of this somehow—the reconciliation with my brothers, finding my place in the company and making it my own. And in finding Sutton.
With a soft smile on my lips, I turn on my side. She’s lying beside me, her dark hair fanned out on the white sheets and her unmistakable natural beauty on display.
How did I get so fucking lucky?
Two years ago, I was a man drowning in misdirection, one who was pissed off at the world. And now . . . now, there’s the woman beside me.
Sutton’s eyes flutter open and a slow, sleepy smile lights up her beautiful face. “Morning.”
“Hi.”
“You’re staring at me,” she says and when she brings a hand up to cover her face, I reach out to stop her.
“Don’t. You’re beautiful.”
Yes. I’m that sap now. The ones I used to make fun of, but I’m perfectly fucking okay with it, because look what I get out of it. Her.
“Why do you look so intense this early in the morning?” she asks.
“I’m just thinking.”
“About all the stuff yesterday?” She reaches out and runs a hand over my bicep before letting it rest there.
“That and some other things.”
“Like?”
“You.”
“Me?” she says through a laugh.
I nod, nerves suddenly rattling around. “Mm-hmm. About how you deserve a big fancy proposal. One filled with a million flowers and balloons and the fanciest of everything from our bluff in the Virgin Islands.” There is shock on her face, but rest assured, I’m just as surprised by my own words.
“But to be honest, I don’t want to wait for that.
I’m an impatient man, and while I could take the time to set that all up with some fancy coordinator, I don’t want to waste another day.
I want to ask you now. In the house I spent summers in, down the hall from the room I last saw my mother in, in a place I’ve only ever known happiness. ”
“You do, do you?” she says calmly, her eyes owning mine, as I too, try to wrap my head around what the fuck I’m doing.
But I know.
I think deep down I’ve always known.
Collins is the one. She always has been.
“I do. It’s as simple as that. I want to marry you, Sutton Pierce.
And I will give you a lifetime of the luxuries you deserve, of all the sexy panties you want, but all I have to offer you in return is me.
The me who’s stubborn and defiant and sometimes a little unyielding.
The same me who promises to love you with all my heart.
” I chuckle. “Not that I ever had an option when it came to you.”
“You’re being serious, aren’t you?” she asks, suddenly realizing that I’m not playing around.
I shift and sit up in bed. “It’s funny how that happens—how we happened.
One day you weren’t a thought on my radar, and the next thing you were the only thing I could think about.
And you still are, Collins.” I reach behind me to the nightstand drawer and pull out the box Ledger handed me yesterday.
“So yes, you deserve to be in a fancy dress instead of naked under covers. Yes, you deserve to be wined and dined before being asked instead of on an empty stomach. Yes, you deserve the world instead of sitting in a bed at seven in the morning, staring wide-eyed at me.”
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” She presses a kiss to my lips.
“This—you—us—is all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve ever needed.
All the fancy stuff doesn’t matter, Callahan, because at the end of the day, it comes down to you and me and the naked truth that I love you with all my heart and would be honored to be your wife and share your family with you. ”
“You will? You would?” I stutter the questions out like a nervous schoolboy because, while I didn’t worry about what her answer would be, I still needed to hear it. Still needed to know.
“I will and I would,” she says shifting in the bed to sit up, her cross-legged knees hitting mine as the sun lights up her face.
I open the box and pull the ring out. “I’ve only ever loved two women in my life, Sutton, you and my mother. It’s only fitting that you wear what was once hers. What was once a symbol of an unbreakable love across time, beyond sickness, and even after death.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says, the first tear sliding over and down her cheek.
“Will you marry me?”
She leans forward and kisses me tenderly, her hands framing my face before leaning back and looking in my eyes. “Yes. A million times . . . yes.”