Let It Be (Butler, Vermont #6) - Marie Force Page 0,1

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