Let It Be: Butler Vermont Series Book 6 Read online

  Let It Be

  Butler, Vermont Series, Book 6

  Marie Force

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Let It Be

  Butler, Vermont Series, Book 6

  By: Marie Force

  * * *

  Published by HTJB, Inc.

  Copyright 2020. HTJB, Inc.

  Cover Design by Courtney Lopes

  E-book Layout: E-book Formatting Fairies

  ISBN: 978-1952793905

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  MARIE FORCE is a registered trademark with the United States Patent & Trademark Office.

  marieforce.com

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  * * *

  Reading Order for Green Mountain/Butler, Vermont Series

  * * *

  The Green Mountain Series

  Book 1: All You Need Is Love

  (Will & Cameron)

  Book 2: I Want to Hold Your Hand

  (Nolan & Hannah)

  Book 3: I Saw Her Standing There

  (Colton & Lucy)

  Book 4: And I Love Her

  (Hunter & Megan)

  Novella: You'll Be Mine

  (Will & Cam’s Wedding)

  Book 5: It's Only Love

  (Gavin & Ella)

  Book 6: Ain’t She Sweet

  (Tyler & Charlotte)

  * * *

  The Butler, Vermont Series

  (Continuation of Green Mountain)

  Book 1: Every Little Thing

  (Grayson & Emma)

  Book 2: Can’t Buy Me Love

  (Mary & Patrick)

  Book 3: Here Comes the Sun

  (Wade & Mia)

  Book 4: Till There Was You

  (Lucas & Dani)

  Book 5: All My Loving

  (Landon & Amanda)

  Book 6: Let It Be

  (Lincoln & Molly)

  Book 7: Come Together

  (Noah & Brianna)

  * * *

  The Butler, Vermont Series Boxed Set: Books 1-4

  View the Butler Family Tree here!

  Chapter One

  “Life is what happens to you while you’re

  busy making other plans.”

  —John Lennon

  Fridays were Lincoln Abbott’s favorite day of the workweek, and not just because they were the only thing standing between him and two full days off to spend with his wife, Molly. He also enjoyed Fridays because his executive team—all of them his grown children—were usually in good spirits as they prepared for the weekend. Another thing to love about Fridays was that most weeks, Linc enjoyed lunch at the diner with Molly and her dad, Elmer, both of whom were at the top of Linc’s list of favorite people.

  He loved everything about his life in Butler, Vermont, from the breathtaking scenery to the entertaining town moose named Fred to the Green Mountain Country Store, Elmer’s parents had founded the store, and Lincoln had poured his heart and soul into for forty years, the last fifteen of them as CEO. Mostly, though, he loved the family he and Molly had raised. Their ten children had grown into adults he loved, admired and was proud to consider friends and colleagues. Molly, their marriage and those ten kids were his greatest accomplishments.

  As he crossed Elm Street on his way back to the office after lunch with Molly and Elmer, he took note of the work being done to rebuild the Admiral Butler Inn that had burned earlier in the year, nearly taking his son Lucas with it. Linc couldn’t bear to think about that night or how close they’d come to losing their beloved Luc, who, like his identical twin brother, Landon, was a lieutenant in the Butler Volunteer Fire Department.

  Linc shook off those morose thoughts and gave thanks once again for Luc’s good health and his rapid recovery from injuries that might’ve killed a lesser man. Lucas had also saved the life of Amanda, who was now blissfully engaged to Landon.

  His seven sons were in great shape from their many outdoor pursuits, including rock-climbing, skiing, snowboarding, mountain search and rescue and numerous other things that he and Molly were probably better off not knowing about. That conditioning had saved Lucas’s life in the fire.

  Linc’s nephew Noah Coleman’s construction company was rebuilding the inn, and Linc couldn’t wait to see how it came together under Noah’s leadership. Out of all the kids—ten Abbotts and eight Colemans—Noah was the enigma, the one who kept his distance from the family, especially since the dreadful breakup with his ex-wife, the details of which had been kept in lockdown. Linc kept hoping they’d get back the old Noah again. He’d once been a happy, outgoing kind of guy, but there’d been no sign of that Noah in years.

  Linc had left Molly and her dad enjoying a cup of coffee and a slice of the apple pie their daughter-in-law Megan had made to return to the office for the weekly Friday afternoon staff meeting. They didn’t really need the meeting, but Linc enjoyed getting everyone in the same room once a week to share ideas and energy. Some of their best initiatives had resulted from the meetings they tried to have weekly unless they had something better to do, such as a long weekend at their place in Burlington or their son Wade’s wedding in Boston this past June.

  Nothing came before family time, not even the business his father-in-law had entrusted him with after he retired. It was a huge honor for Linc to continue the legacy that Elmer’s parents began and Elmer had continued, and to serve as the steward until one of his kids took the helm. He suspected it would probably be Hunter, but Linc was determined to let them figure that out for themselves. Any of the five who worked in the office with him would be qualified to take over when the time came, but that day was still a long way in the future. Linc was having way too much fun to think about retiring. As long as he and Molly could get away by themselves once in a while, they were happy with the status quo.

  He loved the work of running an old-time country store and the challenge of maintaining the nostalgic feel of the place while applying modern business strategies to spark growth. Such as the catalog they’d launched in September that had doubled their monthly gross revenue in the three months it’d been in circulation, giving them their busiest holiday season in the company’s history.

  The catalog and the warehouse that fulfilled the
orders had lit a spark of excitement within the company that was palpable, as had the intimate product line Linc had championed—to the dismay of his children—which had brought in scores of new customers. He often chafed against his children’s more conservative approach to growing the business, but wasn’t afraid to pull rank when it suited his purposes. That’s exactly what he’d done with the intimate line, and he had no regrets there. Not to mention the product line had brought Amanda to town, and she and her daughter, Stella, would officially join their family when Amanda married Landon.

  He went up the flight of stairs from the store to the executive offices where his nephew Grayson’s fiancée, Emma, greeted him. Her sister, Lucy, was married to Linc’s son Colton.

  “How was lunch?” Emma asked.

  “Excellent as always. Anything going on?”

  “I put through a few calls to your voicemail, but nothing that sounded urgent.”

  “Thank you. I meant to ask earlier how Simone is doing with her new braces.” Emma’s daughter had gotten the braces the week before.

  “She hates them, but we keep telling her she’ll get used to them. She’s not convinced yet.”

  “My kids hated them at first, too, but you’re right. After a while, they forget about them.”

  “I hope so. She’s pretty miserable.”

  “Poor baby.”

  The ringing phone took Emma back to work as Linc headed into his office to check his voicemail. At a quick glance, it seemed the others were still at lunch, but they’d be back in time for the meeting at one thirty. He listened to a message from Lucas’s fiancée, Dani, who managed the warehouse for them.

  “Hey, I wanted to let you know I’m not going to make the meeting today. We’re totally slammed here, and I need to stick around. I’ll check in with you at Sunday dinner to find out what I missed. The good news is we’re slammed. The bad news is we’re slammed. Haha, see you.”

  Linc smiled at the message. She was right—it was great news they were slammed, but he’d have to talk to her about what they could do to support her and the warehouse team in the last days before Christmas. Dani was such a terrific addition to their team—and their family. She and Luc were great together, and seeing his son take on the role of father figure to Dani’s one-year-old daughter, Savannah, had been nothing short of amazing.

  His voicemail beeped with the next message.

  “Lincoln. It’s Charlotte. Your sister.”

  Shocked to the marrow of his bones by the sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in forty years, he sat up straighter.

  “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue, but we wanted you to know that Father is gravely ill and doesn’t have much time left. He’s asked to see you. He knows he has no right to ask, but he’s asking anyway. If you would, please call me.” With shaking hands, Linc grabbed a pen to write down the number she recited. “I’ll understand if I don’t hear from you, but I hope I do.”

  For a long time after the voicemail disconnected, Lincoln sat perfectly still, staring at a spot on the wall from a leak in the roof the previous winter. They’d gotten the roof fixed, but the wall still bore the watermark. And why was he thinking about a water stain on the wall when his sister had just dropped earthshattering news into his lap?

  His father was dying and wanted to see him.

  Lincoln had no idea what to do with this information. He hadn’t heard a word from any member of his family since that dreadful day more than forty years ago when he’d been forced to make an unfathomable choice. He’d made that choice and had never regretted it, not for one second. But the heartache of what he’d lost had stayed with him, like a long-festering wound that refused to fully heal, despite a life of unimaginable joy.

  For a second, he feared he might be sick as the tuna sandwich he’d eaten for lunch churned in his belly. He took a sip from a water bottle on his desk. Then he pressed the voicemail button on the phone and listened again to Charlotte’s message.

  The original Charlotte, his baby sister… Four of his children bore the names of his siblings, but none of them knew that. They never spoke of his family. By some sort of unwritten rule, the topic was left untouched by a group that dissected everything. It’d been a while since he or Molly had talked about that fateful summer in which so many things had been decided. With one phone call from his sister, he was right back there, being forced by his father to choose between the woman he loved more than anything and his original family.

  He’d chosen Molly and had carried the pain of losing his mother and siblings with him every day since.

  His mother had died years ago. He’d been told after the fact in a letter from his father’s attorney that had come to the office weeks later. A few times over the years, he’d searched for his siblings online and on social media, but he’d found nothing about them, only news of the business itself. He had no idea who they’d married, if he had nieces or nephews, if they still worked for the family business or lived in the Philadelphia area, where they’d been raised.

  He knew nothing about the people he’d been closest to as a child.

  A quick glance at the clock told him he had fifteen minutes until the kids would be back for the staff meeting. If he was going to return Charlotte’s call, he needed to do it now or be forced to wait until after the meeting.

  Somehow he knew if he didn’t make that call right now, he never would. He picked up the phone and dialed the number, holding his breath while he waited for her to pick up.

  “Linc? Is that you?”

  His phone number, bearing the distinctive 802 area code, must have shown up on her screen. “It’s me.”

  “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “You, too.”

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, but Father… He asked me to call you. He doesn’t have much time left, Linc.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s suffered from emphysema for years, and it’s gotten progressively worse. The doctor told him this week to get his affairs in order. He said the only thing he needed to do was speak to you.”

  “I’m not sure what to say to that. It’s been forty years…”

  “I told him it was too much to ask of you, but he asked me to call anyway. No one would fault you if you chose not to come.”

  “I… I don’t know.” The thought of revisiting that pain was almost more than he could bear. “I need to think about it.”

  “I understand, but I recommend you think quickly. The doctor said he has a week, maybe two. He’s in hospice care at home.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Linc… You have my number now. Even if you decide not to see Father, please call me when you have time to catch up. I… I’ve missed you so much.”

  Her softly spoken words brought tears to his eyes. His father’s mandate had left a lot of carnage in its wake, and not just for him. “Likewise. Thanks for calling. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

  Linc put down the phone and thought about what she’d said. His father wanted to see him. He didn’t have much time left. His sister had missed him. Taken one at a time, any of these things would’ve been a bombshell. Taken together… It was more than he could process after decades of complete silence from his family. He’d made his choice, and he’d been forced to live with it, cut off from the people he’d loved first.

  Molly. He needed her.

  Just as he had that thought, his son Hunter came into the office. Tall and handsome, with dark hair and eyes, Hunter reminded Linc so much of the older brother his son had been named for, the brother he’d lost far too young.

  “What’s wrong?” Hunter asked, always perceptive.

  “Nothing’s wrong, but something came up, and I have to leave a little early. Would you run the meeting and check in later?”

  “Of course. No problem.”

  Lincoln grabbed his coat and keys and headed for the door.

  “Are you sure you’re
okay?”

  “I’m sure, son.” He squeezed Hunter’s arm on the way by and stopped to speak to Emma. “I’ll be home this afternoon if you need me.”

  Emma’s brows knitted with concern. “Oh. Okay. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. I’ll see you Monday. Have a nice weekend.”

  “You, too.”

  He rushed down the stairs, eager to get out of there before he had to explain his abrupt—and unusual—early departure to the rest of his children. They knew him far too well and would see right through him the way Hunter and Emma had.

  Linc got into his Range Rover and headed for home. He wasn’t sure if Molly had other plans after lunch with her dad, but she’d end up at home eventually, and he’d be there, waiting for her to help him figure out what to do.

  She always knew what to do, and he’d never needed her wisdom more than he did right then.

  Chapter Two

  “Love is the flower you've got to let grow.”

  —John Lennon

  When Lincoln got home, he realized he’d left George, one of his two yellow Labs, in town with his daughter Charley. She’d taken George with her on a lunchtime run and hadn’t returned before Linc left. He’d have to retrieve George later, after he’d talked to Molly. He let out their other Lab, Ringo, and poured himself a glass of ice water.

  He really wanted bourbon, but he needed to keep his head clear. Standing at the kitchen window, he gazed out at the snow-covered landscape that had become so familiar to him since he arrived in Vermont. Back then, he couldn’t imagine hip-deep snow for months on end. Now it was as much a part of his life as his lovely wife, the barn they called home and the ten children they’d raised there.