Let It Be: Butler Vermont Series Book 6 Read online

  Vermont ran through his blood, with her mountain peaks, aspens, evergreens, cool crisp air and pure, raw beauty. He’d been fortunate to travel widely, but he’d never been anywhere that had called to him the way this place had from the first time Molly brought him home with her.

  He loved the way the house smelled of pine and spice this time of year, when Molly had their barn decorated for the holidays.

  Ringo’s excited barking a short time later alerted Lincoln to Molly’s arrival.

  She came in a minute later, chatting with the dog, who darted into the kitchen and then back into the mudroom, torn between wanting to be with both of them.

  They’d wanted dogs, kids, a comfortable home and a life in Butler, Vermont. They’d gotten all those things—in spades.

  Smiling, Molly walked into the kitchen, her cheeks red from the cold, her eyes sparkling the way they always did when she looked at him. “This is a nice surprise. Thought you had the staff meeting this afternoon.”

  “I did. I mean… I do. Hunter is handling it for me.”

  She took a closer look at him, insightful as always where he was concerned. “What’s wrong, love?”

  “Sit with me?”

  “Did something happen? The kids…”

  “Everyone is fine.” He took her hand and led her to the kitchen table, the scene of so many of their most important conversations.

  “You’re scaring me,” she said when they were seated next to each other.

  “I’m sorry. My sister, Charlotte, called me.”

  Shock registered in her expression. “You… your… Oh. What did she want?”

  “To tell me my father is dying and wants to see me.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes no longer sparkling. Now they were flat with the start of anger. “All this time… He wants to see you now? After he excommunicated you from his life, your mother’s life, your siblings’ lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you told her to tell him where to go.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Lincoln… You can’t actually be thinking about going there. After everything he put you through…”

  “I know.”

  “Are you?” she asked hesitantly. “Thinking about going there?’

  “I don’t know what to do. One part of me says screw him. Where’s he been the last forty years? The other part…” He let out a deep sigh. “The other part is the dutiful son who still feels he needs to come when his father calls, even after all this time.”

  Molly stood and came over to him. “Make room.”

  He scooted his chair back so she could make herself at home on his lap.

  She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “How dare he do this to you!”

  Lincoln had known she’d be angry, and with good reason. His father had been awful to both of them once upon a time, forcing him to make a dreadful choice. He leaned his forehead against hers, drawing on her for strength the way he had for so long now. She and their family were the best things to ever happen to him. He had no doubt he was leading the life he was meant to, and nothing, not even a blast from the past, could change his mind about that.

  “What’ll you do?” Molly asked after a long silence.

  “I suppose I’ll have to go, or spend the rest of my life wondering if I did the right thing by not going.”

  Molly’s deep sigh said it all. “I hate this for you. He has no right to tie you up in knots this way after decades of silence, especially four days before Christmas.”

  “No, he doesn’t have the right, but that’s never stopped him before.”

  “I’ll never understand how you were raised by someone like that, but still turned out to be the kindest, most loving husband, father, uncle and grandfather.”

  “It’s all thanks to my mother and a progression of kindhearted nannies who taught me compassion and empathy. I certainly didn’t get any of that from him.”

  “I want to say something,” she said, “and it may not be the right thing, but it’s how I really feel.”

  “You know you can say whatever you want to me, love, and I always want to hear it. Why do you think I came straight home to you after Charlotte called?”

  “What I want to say is this—you don’t owe him anything, Linc. Not one damned thing. We’re taught to honor and respect our parents, but he’s done nothing to earn your respect. He’s ignored you for decades. He let your mother die without ever seeing or speaking to you again. He’s never met your children or once inquired about your health or welfare in all that time. You owe him nothing, and you have every right not to reopen that old wound because he’s suddenly grown a conscience in the final hours of his life.”

  Lincoln couldn’t help but smile at her vehemence.

  “What’re you smiling about?”

  “You. You’re magnificent, and I love you more than anything.”

  “What’s that got to do with your father?”

  “It’s got everything to do with him. Every time I see your gorgeous face or listen to your words of wisdom, you remind me of why I chose you, why I still choose you every day and twice on Tuesday.”

  “The fact that you ever had to choose is the problem. That never should’ve happened.” She ran her fingers through his hair, straightening it while gazing into his eyes with care and concern and love. Always so much love. “What do you want to do? You know I’ll support you no matter what, even if it means trekking to Philly four days before Christmas.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to go, love. I know how busy you are before the holidays.”

  “There’s no way in hell you’re going there alone, so let’s not bother to have that fight.”

  Lincoln gathered her in close to him, weighing the pros and cons of the decision the way he would a business challenge. Take the emotion out of it, he always told the kids. Sometimes that was easier said than done.

  The mudroom door opened, bringing a whoosh of cold air into the kitchen, which preceded George galloping in ahead of Hunter. “You forgot someone at the office.”

  “I realized that after I got home.”

  Hunter saw his mother sitting on his father’s lap and paused inside the kitchen door. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  “You didn’t,” Linc said. “Come in, son. Your mother and I were just talking.”

  Hunter joined them at the table, taking the seat Molly had originally occupied. “Is everything okay? It’s not like you to miss the Friday staff meeting.”

  As he gave George a scratch behind the ears, Lincoln hesitated. He wanted to tell his son what’d happened, but that would require him to share things he’d never discussed with any of his children.

  “Tell him,” Molly said softly. “It’s time.”

  “You’re kinda freaking me out,” Hunter said, looking between them. “Someone had better tell me something.”

  Since there was no easy way to share this particular story, Lincoln went with the highlights—or rather, lowlights, such as they were. “You know I’m not in touch with my family.”

  Hunter nodded. “You’ve never said why, and we figured out a long time ago not to ask.”

  “I had a falling-out with my father.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” Molly said, glancing at Hunter. “Your grandfather gave your father a terrible ultimatum, and now he’s on his deathbed and apparently having regrets. He asked your aunt Charlotte, who your father also hasn’t heard from in forty years, to call and ask him to come.”

  “I have an aunt Charlotte?”

  “And uncles Hunter, Will and Max. Hunter died at twenty after an accident.”

  Hunter absorbed the information in his usual contemplative way. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

  “It was the worst thing to ever happen to me, until my father forced me to choose between your mother and my family.”

  Hunter stared at him, incredulous. “He forced you to choose…”

  “Yes, and when I chose y
our mother, I never heard from any of them again, except a single letter from my father’s attorney letting me know my mother passed away several years ago.”

  “God, Dad. I’m so sorry. That’s unbelievable.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Linc said with a sigh.

  “And it was just as unbelievable then as it is now,” Molly added.

  “What are you going to do?” Hunter asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “We need a family meeting,” Hunter said. “Isn’t that how we always make the big decisions?”

  “Yes, but…” Lincoln hesitated at the idea of sharing the ugly story with the whole family.

  “Let us help you the way you’ve always helped us, Dad.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Molly said. “And Hunter’s right. It’s what we do when there’re decisions to be made.”

  Though he hesitated to burden his children with his concerns, Lincoln had to acknowledge they were right about how the family addressed big decisions, and now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, there was no putting it back in. “Okay.”

  “I’ll call the others,” Hunter said, rising to use the phone.

  “It’s the right thing to tell them,” Molly said when they were alone.

  “Are you sure about that?” Linc asked with a small smile.

  “They’re the wisest people I know, other than you and my father. They’ll know what to do.”

  “You should have Elmer come, too. It’s not a family meeting without him.”

  “Hunter,” Molly said. “Call Gramps, too.”

  “Will do.”

  Molly stood. “I suppose I ought to see about some food for this meeting.”

  “Hey, Mol?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks, you know, for having my back.”

  “Always have, always will. No matter what you decide to do, you have us. We won’t let anyone, even your own father, hurt you.” She kissed his forehead and then went to see about food for the troops. There was never a time when their children couldn’t eat, but the thought of food with this decision weighing on him turned Linc’s stomach.

  His thoughts were all over the place, but he kept coming back to the moment that changed his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined, the first time he’d laid eyes on young Molly Stillman, fresh off a thirty-hour bus ride from Vermont to Mississippi to spend a summer building homes for those who’d lost theirs in a devastating hurricane the year before.

  She’d been a recent graduate of Middlebury College, wanting to see more of the country and volunteer to help others before she went to work for the family business in Vermont. Back then, she’d had long honey-colored hair, freckles on her nose and an inquisitive nature that had immediately intrigued him. He saw young Molly in all three of their daughters—in Hannah’s curiosity, in Ella’s kindness, in Charley’s determination.

  Fresh out of grad school at Yale, Linc was volunteering on the housing project before spending a post-graduate year at Oxford. As a lifelong Anglophile, he’d dreamed of living in the UK and retracing the steps of The Beatles, his favorite band of all time. The two months in Mississippi were supposed to have been a brief interlude before he got on with the rest of his life.

  Little had he known then that those two months would change everything.

  The first thing Linc had noticed when he arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi (population 39,600 at the time), was the heat. He’d been told it would be hot, but nothing could’ve properly prepared him for the thick blanket of humidity that made it almost hurt to breathe. Thankfully, Gulfport benefited from the sea breezes off the Gulf of Mexico, which provided a bit of relief.

  He’d been met at the bus depot by Joseph Tolman, a tall, muscular Black man with a big smile and a crushing handshake. “Thanks so much for coming.” He gestured for Linc to follow him to his pickup truck. “We need all the help we can get to finish this project in time to receive the second half of our federal funding.”

  In the wake of Hurricane Frederic the year before, Tolman and several local contractors had committed to building a hundred and fifty affordable housing units by September 1 and had advertised nationally for volunteers willing to spend a summer learning on the job. Linc had been immediately intrigued by the opportunity to acquire practical skills while also helping people before he left for Oxford.

  Since they’d lost his older brother Hunter three years earlier, nothing had been the same. Linc had grappled with his own grief after the staggering loss and had found it harder to be home, where pervasive sadness hung over their family. Spending the summer in Philadelphia hadn’t been an option he’d been willing to entertain. When he’d heard about the project in Mississippi, he’d jumped at the chance to have something else to do.

  “My friend who told me about your project said it wouldn’t matter that I don’t have any construction experience,” Linc said.

  When Joseph started the engine, AC/DC’s new song, “You Shook Me All Night Long,” came blasting out of the radio. Smiling, Joseph turned down the volume. “Your friend was right. We’ll teach you what you need to know and rough up those soft hands in the process.”

  Linc laughed at the teasing jab that was delivered in the sweetest Southern accent. “I’ve been in school my entire life, or at least that’s how it seems.”

  “Now it’s time for some life skills.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “We work six days a week from sunup to sundown, but Sundays are all yours. We have almost seven miles of white sand beaches here in Gulfport.”

  “I read about that and can’t wait to check it out. I can see myself spending a lot of Sundays there.” Some of his favorite summers as a kid had been spent at the Jersey Shore with his grandparents, who’d had a summer home there.

  “We’ve set up a campsite for the volunteers. It’s nothing fancy, but it has everything you need.”

  “I’m sure it’s great.”

  “When we realized we were in danger of missing our deadline to keep our federal funding, one of my partners suggested we put out a call for volunteers to the colleges. We really appreciate y’all coming.”

  “I appreciate you keeping me from having to spend the summer at home under my father’s thumb.”

  “It’s a pretty strong thumb, is it?”

  “You have no idea. He’s waiting for me to finish school and come into the family business.”

  “Which is?”

  “Commercial real estate.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  Linc laughed. “Not so much, but it pays the bills.” The company was enormously successful, thanks to his father’s vision and hard work. However, as the date got closer for Linc to join the company’s executive team, he felt more and more trapped in a life of someone else’s design.

  “And that’s what you want to do?” Joseph asked.

  “I’m not exactly excited about it, if that’s what you’re asking, but that’s the plan.” All their plans had changed when Hunter died, and his father turned his sights on Linc as the new heir apparent. What Linc wanted didn’t seem to matter, but since he didn’t have a viable alternative, he’d gone along with his father’s plan for him, albeit reluctantly.

  “Huh,” Joseph said.

  “It’s okay to say what you really think.”

  “Then I’ll just say life is short. You should do what makes you happy, not what’s expected of you.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, but I’ve yet to find anything that makes more sense to me than the family business.”

  “Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places.”

  “I suspect that might be the case, which is why I jumped at the chance to spend the summer somewhere I’ve never been, working on something meaningful.”

  “The work you’ll do here will mean so much to so many. We have a hundred and fifty families who were displaced by the storm lined up to get the first group of new houses. Many of them will be first-time homeown
ers, and they’re so excited.”

  “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

  “I think so, too, but it’s turned out to be far more stressful than we expected due to the rigid deadlines that come with federal funding. It’s giving me gray hair.”

  Linc figured Joseph to be in his late thirties, and sure enough, he had a few grays in his otherwise dark hair. “It’ll be worth it in the end when those families are happily settled.”

  “Keep telling me that.” Joseph hooked a left onto a dirt road that led to the campsite where a bunch of tents had been set up. “Y’all have your own tents, but you’ll share the bathrooms,” he said, pointing to a building to the far left.

  In another large tent with open sides, a group of people bustled about.

  “Food,” Joseph said when he saw Linc looking at the larger tent. “My wife, Keisha, and several of the other wives are in charge of feeding the volunteers. Keisha also runs the business side of things for my company, while taking care of our kids.”

  “You all are busy.”

  “You have no idea. Come meet my bride and the others.”

  Lincoln got out of the truck and followed Joseph into the tent. “This is Lincoln Abbott from Pennsylvania by way of Yale. Linc, this is my wife, Keisha, our daughter, Jasmine, my business partner, Desmond, his wife, Charity, and their daughter, Shanda.”

  Linc shook hands with the adults and bent to say hello to little Shanda, who was about three. “Nice to meet you all.”

  “You, too.” Keisha had a warm, welcoming smile, golden-brown skin and bright brown eyes. Her braided hair was captured in a high ponytail to keep it out of her way while she worked. “You have no idea what you’ve signed on for around here.”

  “That’s probably true, but something smells really good.”

  “We’re going to work you hard, but one thing I can promise is that you’ll eat like a king,” Joseph said.