Let It Be (Butler, Vermont #6) - Marie Force Page 0,38
a way to work it subtly into conversation maybe.”
“Subtlety is my middle name, baby.”
She laughed. “Sure, it is. None of you Abbotts are known for being subtle.”
“I’m the most subtle of the unsubtle Abbotts.”
“I’ll give you that.” She let out a deep sigh. “I miss you.”
“I miss you more.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Trust me, it is.”
“Will you call me from Philly and let me know how it goes?”
“Of course.” He’d borrow Max’s cell phone to call her. “Wouldn’t miss a day talking to my favorite person.”
“I hope it all goes well for your dad and the rest of you, too, so we can enjoy a fabulous Christmas.”
“Christmas will be fabulous no matter what, because it’ll be our first one together.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Me either.”
“I’ll be home and waiting for you to call me tomorrow night.”
“Will do, honey. Drive carefully coming home. The roads are slick in the mountains.”
“I’ll be fine. I hope it all goes well for your dad and family in Philly.”
“Thanks. Love you.”
“Love you more.”
“No way,” he said.
“Yes way.”
“We’ll finish this ‘fight’ when we see each other.”
“I’ll look forward to that.”
Chapter Eleven
“I feel the older I get, the more I’m learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it’s all about finding yourself.”
—Ringo Starr
As he did whenever he was agitated, Colton went straight to the wood pile when he got back to his home atop Butler Mountain. Lucy would still be working in the cabin they called home. After giving his dogs, Sarah and Elmer, perfunctory pats on the head, he picked up his ax and got to work splitting the never-ending pile of wood they needed to heat the cabin through the winter and boil the sap during sugaring season. He split wood year-round, especially when he needed to work out aggravations, like he did now.
Apparently, he was the only one who didn’t agree with the plan for the family to traipse to Philadelphia to appease the dying wishes of a man who didn’t deserve one minute of their time, let alone two days of their lives at the worst possible time of year for such a mission.
He’d never met his grandfather or even seen a photo of the man, and yet he was able to picture his head on the log before he brought down his ax to split the log in half. That’d been rather satisfying, so he did it again and again until the imaginary head on a stick was good and dead.
Even though it was freezing, he worked himself into a sweat and had his coat and flannel shirt off by the time Lucy came out to find him stripped down to only a thermal T-shirt in twenty-degree weather.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked him, as she did almost every day.
He glanced at her and saw she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her whiskey-colored hair was in a ponytail with multiple mechanical pencils sticking out of it. She was fucking adorable. “The usual stuff.”
“Why’re you working like that when you’re usually done by now?”
“Because.”
“Well, that answers all my questions.” She watched him for another minute. “Did something happen?”
“Yes, something happened. I found out my grandfather is a scum-sucking, piece-of-shit asshole.”
She gasped.
He looked up to find her sweet face gone blank with shock. “Not Elmer.”
“Thank goodness you didn’t mean him.”
“I mean the other one, the one I’ve never met. The one who kicked my dad out of his family because he wanted to marry my mom rather than work for the family business and now…” He brought the ax down on the imaginary head that apparently wasn’t dead enough yet.
Lucy approached him and gently took the ax out of his hand, tossing it aside.
Colton put his hands on his hips, breathing hard from exertion.
“Now what?”
“Now he expects my dad to drop everything and come running just because he’s dying and has apparently developed a guilty conscience that he wants to purge before he croaks. And it’s all just so fucked up.”
“Oh, Colton. That’s so fucked up.”
“I’m glad you think so, because everyone else is telling him he should go and take us with him so they can see what came of this marriage they were so opposed to. But I’m like, whoa, people. Why in the world would we let him do that when this guy hurt him so badly? It makes no sense to me.”
“Let’s go inside and talk about it.”
“I’d rather stay out here and smash things.”
“Is that helping?”
“No, but…”
She took hold of his hand and