Then she chided herself. How could it be more private than what she witnessed on a daily basis or at the party?

Mac watched as she opened the folder.

Sully’s will sat on top. She glanced through it and faltered as she realized everything he had—quite a considerable amount—totally went to Mac in the event of Sully’s death, with a provision to care for Tad, if he was still alive. The power of attorney paperwork covered medical as well as financial decisions and again gave Mac total control of everything.

The folder contained similar paperwork for Mac, ceding power to Sully. A huge life insurance policy on Sully naming Mac as the sole beneficiary. The cars and properties had been set up in a trust with the two men as the sole beneficiaries. Deeds for the house and several rental and commercial properties listed Mac as co-owner through the trust. And a sort of pre-nup, a private contract between them, notarized, specifying how they would divide their assets if they ever split, regardless of who wanted the “divorce.”

With Mac getting quite a considerable amount. Then she noticed a number that concerned her. “Why would you only get twenty-five percent of your bank account?”

“Because I only contribute approximately twenty percent. He was generous. I was willing to settle for a flat sum, or even something like ten percent. He wanted to make sure we split it fairly. Between his pension, benefits, writing, and speaking engagements, he makes a helluva lot more than I do in a good year, sugar.”

“What’s all this stuff mean?” She closed the folder and set it on the table.

“I wanted you to see that this isn’t all it appears to be on the surface. He went through a lot of trouble to make sure I was protected. That’s why he got the life insurance. Again, Sully did that, not me. He wanted to make sure that if something ever happened to him, I was protected and no distant relatives could swoop in to try to take over. That’s the only reason I’m on the properties and the trust. I didn’t want to be. I wanted him to totally own everything, but the lawyer said with properties that it would be better if we were both on them because it would save the other on IRS crap in case one of us died, and it would help prevent any other issues.”

“Relatives like who?”

“Sully’s ex-wife, for one. She’s friends with a cousin of his. I wouldn’t put it past them to try something. Fucking bitch.” His expression darkened as he took another pull on his beer. “My brother’s cool with it. He wouldn’t try something.”

“Ex-wife?” She didn’t realize Sully had been married.

“Yeah.” He leaned back, crossing his legs. “She presented him with divorce papers while he lay in the hospital after the shooting.

Could barely open his eyes, and she forced him to sign everything.

Fortunately, I helped him get that overturned because he wasn’t coherent.”

Rage built inside her. Despite her stubborn, lingering reservations about Sully, the fact that someone would take advantage of him like that boiled her bacon.

Mac hadn’t finished. “He told me I could tell you about how we got together,” he softly said. “I think you should hear it.”

Clarisse nodded.

“It started almost nine years ago.”

* * *

Mac sat at the lunch counter with the paper opened to the want ads. His mood darkened with each failure. He didn’t want to reenlist, even if the Army would take him back. He’d end up in the brig after punching some CO out, without a doubt. Since Betsy’s death, he struggled every day just to get out of bed, and then it was a fight not to kill someone until he went to bed every night. He couldn’t get rid of the anger.

The guilt.

The waitress, Lisa, walked over and refilled his coffee. “Real fucking shame, isn’t it?”

If she wanted to bust his balls, today was not the day to do it.

“What is?” he growled.

She gave him a strange look. “Didn’t you hear?”

He slammed his pen onto the counter. “Hear what?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! You haven’t.” She set the coffee pot down, her mood totally changed. “Sweetie, there was a shoot-out last night. A drug bust at some bar went bad.”

A chill washed down Mac’s spine. He didn’t want to hear, but he asked anyway. “What happened?”

“That detective friend of yours. The one who worked your sister’s case. He’s in Harborside’s ICU. They don’t know if he’ll make it.”

Mac didn’t remember the drive to St. Pete. He knew the way to the ICU and fortunately recognized two of the officers standing vigil outside the unit. They found their supervisor, who spoke to the nursing staff and got Mac in. HIPAA be damned, Sully was a cop, one of their brothers, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

There was no one else there, no family, no friends. One of the other detectives walked in with him, a friend of Sully’s, and explained the basics.

Mac remembered how hollow, nearly dead he felt as he forced his feet across the room to stand beside Sully’s bed. Unconscious, on a ventilator, tubes, and IVs and monitor leads all over him.

For a moment, he flashed back to when Betsy lay in a bed in this very unit, then he shoved that away.

Mac didn’t want to admit what he felt. He’d meant to call Sully several times over the past few months, just never got around to it.

He’d thought about him a lot, especially over the past several weeks as the anniversary of Betsy’s death drew near. They’d talked all the time in the beginning, several times a week, sometimes several times a day after Betsy’s funeral. Then Mac let things drift, didn’t return all of Sully’s calls.

Didn’t want to admit he struggled with his anger, grief, and guilt.

Didn’t want Sully to think he was looking for a handout or pity.

And here he lay in a bed with fucking tubes and wires in him. The only person who seemed to understand him, who’d had the right words, and knew what he had gone through because he’d lost a loved one in a similar way. The anger.

The guilt.

Love. He wanted to break down and cry and hold Sully’s hand and confess that yes, maybe it was weird and strange, but he loved him.

The detective who stood on the other side of the bed while helpfully droning details about Sully’s condition made that impossible.

So did the wedding band on Sully’s left hand.

Mac didn’t even know what that meant for him. He wasn’t gay, yet here lay a man he’d gladly spend the rest of his life with if given half a chance. A man who’d talked him out of killing himself, who’d spent more than one night sitting with him, watching him until he sobered up. The man who’d called 911, rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital, and stayed there three days with him, then drove him home and stayed a week with him after he’d decided to chase fifty Tylenol PM with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s following Betsy’s husband’s conviction.

A man who’d given him hope. Friendship.

Who had faith in him even when his own had shriveled and died.

After their fifteen minute visitation ended, the detective led Mac back to the waiting room. He asked to speak to Sully’s wife, he thought he remembered her name was Cybil, but he’d never met her.

After some of the officers exchanged uncomfortable looks, they told Mac she wasn’t there and probably wouldn’t return.

Protective rage surged within Mac. He pulled Sully’s partner aside to talk with him privately. He’d been helpful with Betsy’s case but Mac didn’t feel a fraction as close to him. “What’s going on?”

The detective, Jason Callahan, glanced around and lowered his voice even more. “She’s on the way out, okay? He didn’t know it, but she was planning on filing for divorce next week. She’s met someone else.” He looked disgusted. “She told us all of that while we waited on him to make it through surgery. Once he was out and stable, she took off. We got the impression she’s hoping he doesn’t pull through because it would make her life easier. Bitch.”

“Who’s taking care of him?”

He shrugged. “We’re here for him.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“He doesn’t have any close family, if that’s what you mean.”

“Can I stay and help? Please?”

Jason’s expression softened. He knew Sully and Mac were close friends. “He wouldn’t expect you to do that.”

“Please?”

“Okay. We’ll talk to the staff for you.”

Jason convinced Cybil to sign permission forms allowing Mac to be there in her absence, to help care for Sully.

To make things easier on her, he’d explained. So she could work at her business and not have to spend all day at the hospital.

Mac admired how Jason skillfully handled the bitch. She’d signed the paperwork, glad to have one less burden. Mac found out from Jason that she was ten years older than Sully, and he was her third husband. Her first two, much older than herself, had both died of natural causes, leaving her fairly well off.

The seemingly endless hours marched on until four days later, when Sully finally opened his eyes.

Mac sat at his side. Despite what it might look like to others, Mac openly wept and held Sully’s hand. Sully couldn’t speak because of the ventilator, but he looked at Mac. When Mac squeezed his hand, Sully squeezed back.

Mac rarely left his side. Good thing he could crash on Tad’s boat, because he’d basically lost everything and had to vacate his apartment since he didn’t have a job. When Cybil had waltzed in one afternoon and demanded Sully sign the divorce papers, Mac had wanted to stop it but couldn’t at the time. She’d threatened, as Sully’s wife, to have Mac removed from the room and banned from the hospital.

She could have done it.

Mac thought fast enough to have a nurse and doctor come in and witness everything so they could testify Sully wasn’t competent to sign the paperwork because of his medication and physical condition.

As Sully grew stronger in body, he withdrew emotionally. The stunning shock of being served with divorce papers put him into a tailspin that Mac didn’t know how to pull him from. But damn, he sure could sympathize.

One evening, once Sully’s cop friends left after their daily visit, Mac pulled his chair over to Sully’s bed. The nursing staff let Mac stay bedside since Sully had been moved to a regular room. Sully had asked them to allow it, especially after Cybil’s bombshell.

“You okay?”

Sully’s grey eyes appeared dead and distant. Mac knew it wasn’t just because of the pain meds. “I want it over. It’s all fucking bullshit.

Why bother?”

Mac wanted to confess and knew he couldn’t. Sully had quit wearing his wedding ring, but Mac didn’t know if Sully would ever want him the way Mac wanted him. “You told me life goes on, one step at a time. That’s what you told me.”

“I was wrong. It’s all fucking bullshit.”‘

“No, it’s not.” Mac wanted to cry for him. He’d seen the depths of Sully’s compassion and love for others, his emotions, his selflessness.

This man was an empty wasteland. “You can’t give up on me, man.”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t have a home. Don’t have a wife. I can’t take care of myself. Can’t be out in the field anymore, I know that.

They’ll offer me a desk job if I’m lucky, probably disability, retirement, and benefits, shuffle me off.” He looked at Mac. “What difference does it make?”

“I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you get better.” His need approached desperation. How could he prove it? “Please, Sul, you were there for me with Bets. Let me help you through this. You didn’t give up on me. I won’t give up on you, I swear.”

Two months later, after extensive rehab and rounds with a lawyer to protect Sully from Cybil, Mac helped Sully walk through the door of their new apartment. They’d gotten the divorce settlement overturned. Cybil had to pay Sully half the value of the equity in the house. That would help him. Mac, along with Sully’s lawyer, had gone in with a court order, deputies, and Jason Callahan, and retrieved as many of Sully’s personal effects as they could.

Sully was still a broken shell. Worse, he’d sunk into anger.

Mac didn’t take it personally. One evening, while Sully lay on the couch watching TV, he fell trying to stand by himself. He pitched an angry tantrum that dissolved into nearly hysterical tears. Mac held him, his heart breaking for this man, his friend.

His soul mate.

And he couldn’t even tell him.

“Let me lie here, Brant,” Sully cried. “Like the fucking trash.