Let It Be (Butler, Vermont #6) - Marie Force Page 0,8
blunt style.
“Sorry to worry you.” After a deep breath, he took the plunge. “You know I never talk about my family. My original family, I should say. I’m sure you’ve wondered why we don’t see them or hear from them. It’s not something I like to think about, let alone talk about, which is why I’ve steered clear of the subject. My father… He’s a difficult, exacting man who likes to be in control of everything in his world, especially his children. When my older brother, Hunter, was killed in an accident when he was twenty, we were shattered.”
“God, Dad,” Hannah said. “I’m so sorry you lost him.”
“It was brutal, and my father… He became more unyielding than ever after we lost Hunter. As his eldest living son, it was understood, by him, that I’d take Hunter’s place, come into the family business like my brother was supposed to and take over for him when he was ready to retire.”
“What was the family business?” Will asked.
“Commercial real estate in Philadelphia.”
“What happened to your brother?” Wade said.
“He was hit in the head with a boom while sailing and was knocked overboard. The autopsy determined that he drowned.”
“I’m so sorry, Dad,” Ella said.
“It was an awful, shocking loss, especially since Hunt was such a skilled sailor.” Linc thought of his late brother and his other three siblings just about every day. He retrieved worn family photos from his wallet and handed the first one to Hunter. “That’s the uncle you were named for.”
Hunter studied the image. “I look like him.”
“Yes, you do. Here’s one of all of us.” He gave the second photo to Hannah. “My sister, Charlotte, and my other brothers, Will and Max, are in that one.”
“You named us after them,” Max said.
“We did, because I never stopped missing them.” The raw pain of their initial split had been replaced, over time, by a feeling of nostalgia for the years they’d spent together. Back then, he’d been naïve to think that nothing could ever come between them. He’d found out otherwise in the most painful way possible.
“Since I didn’t really have a better plan for myself, I went along with my father’s plan for me after Hunter died. I wanted to keep the peace and not upset anyone after what we’d already been through.” Linc forced himself to continue the story, determined to get it over with once and for all. “I mean, it’s not like he was trying to hand over a crappy business. Quite the contrary. It was a thirty-million-dollar-a-year enterprise at that time, and from what I’ve seen and heard, it’s only grown in the ensuing years.”
Hunter let out a low whistle.
“In the back of my mind, always, was this niggling feeling that I wasn’t meant for the commercial real estate business. But as long as I did what was expected of me, I was in my father’s good graces. I had one more year of school planned at Oxford, which I’d insisted on out of fear that I might never get to the UK if I didn’t make that happen, and then it would be time to go to work. I was resigned, if not very excited about it.”
He glanced at Molly and smiled. “And then I met your mother.”
At the end of his first full day working on the construction site, Lincoln was tired, dirty, sweaty and sore. He’d had a true comeuppance when it came to realizing how easy college and grad school had been compared to the work he was doing now.
“How you holding up, Yank?” Joseph asked with a good-natured grin.
“I’m wrecked.”
Joseph threw his head back and laughed. “You’ll get used to it. Eventually.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.” Lincoln stretched the kinks out of his back that’d come from hauling building supplies from the delivery point to houses in various stages of construction. They were located around a wide swath of green space that would be used as a community gathering place once the development was completed.
Some of the houses were only framed, while others were much closer to completion. Joseph had told him that different teams worked on different houses, from framers to drywallers to finish carpenters, with plumbers and electricians coming and going as needed.
Lincoln could only imagine the coordination that went into the dizzying activity.
“Hey, Joseph,” one of the foremen called from a house a few hundred yards from where they were standing. “We’ve got a problem you need to see.”
“Ugh, it’s always something.” Joseph checked