Let It Be (Butler, Vermont #6) - Marie Force Page 0,53
letting his mind wander to a childhood filled with good times with his mother, siblings, cousins and grandparents. His father had worked—a lot—so they hadn’t seen as much of him, especially during the summers when they decamped to his grandparents’ place on the shore.
Those had been idyllic days until they lost Hunter and everything had changed for all of them, and particularly for him, who’d suddenly become the heir apparent to the family business his brother had been groomed to lead. After Hunter died, it became clear to Linc that his father expected him to take his brother’s place in the company. They’d never actually discussed it. Rather, it’d been understood, one more thing that changed amid the shock and grief of his brother’s sudden death.
A knock sounded on the door he rarely closed. “Dad?”
“Come in.”
His late brother’s namesake came in, tall, dark, handsome and smarter than Linc would ever be. “Morning, son.”
“How’re you doing?”
“I’m all right. You?”
“Same.” Hunter took a seat on the other side of his father’s desk. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, but thank you for asking.” He looked at his firstborn, who definitely bore a familial resemblance to his late uncle. “I was just thinking about my brother, the one you were named for.”
“I was curious about him after you mentioned him.”
Linc nodded. “Losing him was the worst thing to ever happen. He was an expert sailor. No one could explain how it was possible that something like that could happen to him. It’s one of those things we’ll just never know.”
“I’m so sorry you lost him that way.”
“Thank you. He was supposed to run the company. And after we lost him…”
“Your father turned to you.”
“Yes. Only, Hunter wanted it, and I didn’t.”
“Did your father know that?”
“He did, but that didn’t matter. His father had started the company, handed it down to him, and it was coming my way whether I wanted it or not.”
“That’s a heavy thing to put on someone so young.”
“It was, and sometimes I felt like an ungrateful jerk for wanting something different, even if I didn't know yet what that different thing was. More than anything, I didn’t want my entire life decided for me before I was twenty-five.”
“I can certainly understand that. What was it about this place that interested you when that didn’t?”
“The potential,” Linc said. “That was the first thing I saw when I came here, that it could be so much more than it already was. Gramps would tell you he was guilty of doing things a certain way because that was the way they’d always been done. I tried to show him another way, and for a while, he fought me. He’s not big on change.”
“He and I have that in common.”
Linc cracked up. “That’s a fact. I like that we sell a way of life here, a simpler way, and people connect with that. We’re all nostalgic for simpler times in our lives, and in our fast-paced world, we give our customers something different. I’ve said from the beginning that the potential here is limited only by our own imaginations.”
“You got the new P&L, right?”
“I did.”
“I guess it’s safe to say you were right about the catalog and the intimate line.”
Linc smiled. “Had a feeling I would be. I’ve been wanting to do the catalog for twenty years. Just took a while for all the pieces to come together.”
“The business is on the verge of exploding, Dad. Like exploding to a level we never saw coming. Or I should say, a level the rest of us never saw coming.”
“That’s a very good problem to have.”
“Indeed, but one we’re going to have to manage.”
“Let’s talk about that after the holidays.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I believe time wounds all heels.”
—John Lennon
Molly waited until nine o’clock, when she was sure her sister would be up and at work as the Butler town clerk. Her office was attached to her home, and Molly often stopped by for coffee and a chat while Hannah was working.
When she pulled into Hannah’s driveway, she was surprised to see the closed sign on the door to the clerk’s office and Ray Mulvaney’s SUV parked in the driveway. Well, well, well, Molly thought. Good for them. Her sister had been alone for years after Mike left her, and no one was more thrilled for her and Ray than Molly.
The last thing she wanted to do was interrupt anything, but damn it, she needed her sister, one of the few people in the world who