by Marie Force
“What’s going on?” Molly asked when she walked over from one of the other houses.
Linc caught her up.
“Come on. No way. He’s the best kid. They can’t just do that.”
“That’s what we were just saying,” Linc told her, “and apparently, they can do it. From what Desmond said, it happens far too often.”
“That makes me sick,” Molly said, folding her arms as if she needed a hug.
He understood how she felt.
Much later, they sat with a subdued group of volunteers in camp, wishing they could do something for Joseph and Keisha. But they’d done what had been requested of them and had stayed put while they prayed for Jalen and his family.
Linc gave Molly’s hand a squeeze, got up from their gathering and walked away, needing a minute to himself. He stood by the tree line, staring into the darkness as despair seeped into his soul. Jalen was the best kid—fun, funny, talented at sports and music, an A student except for the math he struggled with, and respectful to his parents as well as the volunteers he worked with. The thought of anything happening to him, an innocent kid caught up in something so much bigger than him…
Then Molly was there, her arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder, and that was all it took for him to feel slightly better, to know she understood, that she felt the same way he did.
“It’s so awful,” she said softly.
“I wish there was something we could do.”
“We can continue to support Joseph and his family and the other friends we’ve made here and come back next summer if they’ll have us. We’ll come as often as we can, and maybe, over time, we’ll start to see things get better.”
“I like that idea a lot.”
Linc put his arm around her and held her close to him, needing to keep her there for a lot longer than this summer. “I’m not going to England, Mol.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He let her have the last word, but his mind was already made up. After spending this summer with her, the only thing he wanted was more of how he felt when she was in his arms.
“What happened to Jalen?” Will asked.
“They released him two days later without charging him with anything.”
“They didn’t hurt him, did they?” Ella asked.
“Thankfully, they didn’t, but it took a long time for their family to get past the incident. Keisha would tell you that Joseph was never quite the same afterward. But Jalen, he survived and thrived. He’s an attorney now, working on behalf of Black men and women who are unjustly detained or incarcerated. He’s made quite a name for himself.”
“They came here,” Hunter said. “I remember it.”
“They did,” Linc said. “You would’ve been about three or four. Jalen was looking at law schools up here and toured UVM. They stayed with us.”
“I remember, too,” Hannah said. “He pushed us on the swings. They had a daughter, too, right?”
Linc nodded. “Jasmine. She was three years younger than Jalen. She’s an accountant and has three kids. We hear from them at Christmas, and I talk to Joseph at least once a month.”
“We spent a second summer working with him.” Molly snuggled Callie, who was sound asleep in her arms. “And made a lot of good friends over those summers. It was the most rewarding work we ever did. Joseph built almost three hundred homes, and we still support the foundation he started to help other first-time homeowners.”
“And Dad didn’t go to England,” Max said.
“Not that fall, but I did get there eventually.” He smiled at Molly. “Your mom planned a trip for our tenth anniversary. You older kids might remember how she took me on a Beatles tour. We went to Liverpool, Abbey Road, Eleanor Rigby’s tombstone, Penny Lane and Strawberry Field, among other places. She was very thorough.”
“I never wanted him to regret giving up that year in England for me.”
“And I never did. Not for one second, as you know.”
“Mom, what would you have done if he’d had to go to England?” Hunter asked.
“I suppose I would’ve gone with him, but I’d promised Gramps I’d come to work at the store when I got home from Mississippi. I didn’t want to disappoint him, either.”
“What I want to know is how you ended up in Vermont running Mom’s family business,” Will said. “Any time we’ve asked you about that, you’ve always said it was a long story that was better left untold.”
“I still feel that way, but now I need to tell you because today I heard from my family for the first time since my father made me choose between him and your mother.”
Charley gasped. “What? Seriously? He made you choose?”
“Very seriously,” Linc said, gazing at Molly. “Of course, there was never any contest, but that was a terribly difficult time for us.”
The night before they were due to break camp and head home, Lincoln went looking for Molly. Since the camp wasn’t very big, she shouldn’t have been hard to find, but after he’d looked everywhere, he started asking the others where she was.
“She said something about going into town,” one of the other volunteers said.
“By herself?” Ever since Jalen’s arrest, he’d been more aware of the potential for trouble. Alarmed, Linc was running for his bike before their friend Gloria could finish confirming that Molly had gone into town by herself.
Just as he rounded the corner to head for town, he encountered Molly coming back and knew a moment of pure relief as he turned his bike to ride to camp with her.
“What’re you doing out here?” she asked.
“Looking for you.”
The rode back to camp together and stashed the bikes before going to sit inside Molly’s tent. “What were you doing in town by yourself, sweetheart?” he asked.
“I wanted to buy you a present, but I couldn’t find anything I liked.”
“You don’t have to get me anything.”
“I wanted you to know how much I’m going to miss you.”
His heart broke when he saw her subtly swipe at a tear. Linc put his arm around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. “You’re not going to have to miss me. I’m going home to Vermont with you. I bought my bus ticket yesterday.”
“You did not!”
“I did, too. I told you… My plans have changed. I want different things now.”
“You can’t. You’ll regret not going to England.”
He held her even closer. “The only thing I’d regret is letting you get away. I’m going to Vermont.”
“You’ll hate it there. You’ll be so bored.”
“Will you be there?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. If you’re there, I’ll never be bored.” He pulled back from her, tipped her chin up and kissed the tears off her cheeks. “I swear to God I’ll never regret not going to England, but I know for sure I’d always regret not going with you.” Then he kissed her lips, lingering over the sweet, salty taste of her. “I really need you to believe me when I tell you I’ve fallen madly in love with you this summer, and any chance I have of being happy is all wrapped up in you now.”
She wiped new tears from her face. “I’m still trying to figure out how that’s possible.”
“Have you met you? You’re the best person I’ve ever known. Anyone would want to be with you.”
“Do you promise you’ll never blame me for giving up Oxford?”
“I promise.”
“You’re sure, Linc? Really, really sure about this?”
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“I love you more than the Beatles.”
Chapter Six
“Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, and you’ve got to let it grow.”
—John Lennon
Molly laughed as she subtly tended to the tears that
came any time she recalled the most important moment of her life, when she knew for certain that Lincoln Abbott truly loved her. “That’s what convinced me he was serious.”
“Dad had some serious game,” Hunter said. “I’m impressed.”
“I was, too,” Molly said. “When he said he’d never regret not going to England but would always regret not coming with me…” She fanned her face. “He definitely had me on the hook with that, but when he said he loved me more than the Beatles… There was no going back from that. Not that I wanted to.”
“So, you guys left Mississippi and came to Vermont?” Wade asked.
“Yep,” Linc said. “It was a thirty-hour bus ride that we spent making plans. I’d find a job, we’d get a place to live, we’d figure out how soon we could get married and get busy having the babies your mother wanted.”
“You never considered living anywhere else?” Landon asked.
“I knew from the way your mom talked about Vermont and her family that she wouldn’t be happy living anywhere else, and since I’d never felt that way about anywhere I’d been or lived, I was fine with doing whatever it took to make her happy.”
“You see why I fell madly in love?” Molly asked.
“This is heading into the TMI category,” Charley said in her typically blunt way. “What I want to know is what happened when Dad told his father he wasn’t going into the family business.”
“We’re getting to that,” Linc said. “But before we do, we should tell you about the first time I came to Vermont and met your grandparents.”
The bus ride was long, but being with Linc made it more than tolerable. He was so full of excitement and plans for their future that Molly could hardly keep up with him. She still wanted to pinch herself that the kind, intelligent, incredibly sexy man she’d met in Mississippi loved her more than the Beatles and wanted to marry her as soon as possible.
Her head was spinning, but in the best possible way. His excitement was contagious, even if she still worried that someday he’d be sorry he’d given up the chance to live in his beloved England for a year. He’d promised he wouldn’t, and she had no choice but to believe him, especially since he was making plans that required her full attention.
“I called a Realtor in Butler before we left Mississippi,” he told her when they were outside of New York City.
“You did what?”
“I called a Realtor, told her how much I could afford to put down, and she found me what she called a fixer-upper. We can use everything we learned this summer to make it our own.”
“You did not buy property without even seeing it first.”
“What if I did?”
“Lincoln! You’re insane! No one does that. And when were you going to tell me about it? We’ve been on this bus for more than twenty hours already!”
“People do things like that when they’re trying to convince the one they love that they’re serious about making a life in the place she loves.”
“You told me you love me more than the Beatles. I’m already convinced you’re serious.”
“We’re going to need a place to live.”
“So you wait until we get there to figure that out. You don’t call some random Realtor who might be a scammer for all you know. Who is it anyway?”
“Someone named Gertrude who goes by the nickname of Dude.”
Molly began to laugh. She laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“What’s so funny?”
“You bought a house from the woman known in town as Snow White because all she really cares about is animals.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. What the heck did she sell you?”
“Now, don’t freak out or anything…”
“Oh my God. What did you do?”
“She told me about a barn on Hells Peak Road. You know that road?”
Again, Molly laughed until she cried. She laughed so hard, she ended up in a coughing fit. “Tell me,” she said between gasping breaths that had the few other people on the bus staring at them, “that you didn’t buy the old Andersen barn.”
“I’m not sure who the current owners are,” Linc said, a bit indignantly.
“You have no idea what you bought, do you?”
“I bought us a place to live.”
“You bought us a falling-down wreck of a barn where cows were living a few months ago!”
“She said it was the only property currently for sale in Butler, but she didn’t mention the cows.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Is this woman named Dude an actual Realtor?”
“Among other things. It’s okay. You can get the money back, right?”
“Um, well, so…”
“Lincoln Abbott! You did not put down money you can’t get back on a falling-down wreck of a barn where cows lived a few months ago!” She paused, looked at him, her eyes wide with alarm. “Did you?”
“Maybe?” he said with a sheepish grin.
“How much?”
“Like ten thousand?”
“Dollars?”
“Yes, dollars, and don’t look at me that way. If I want your parents to take me seriously as their daughter’s future husband, we needed a place to live.”
“Did it have to be a falling-down barn where cows lived a few months ago?”
“It needed to have room for all the kids you told me you wanted.”
“At least they’ll each have their own stall. Will they get fresh hay every day, too?”
Linc gave her the side-eye. “I had no idea that my sweet Molly Stillman could be so sarcastic.”
“Still want to give up Oxford to live in a broken-down barn in Vermont that probably smells like cow shit?”
“Hell yes, because sarcastic Molly is sexy Molly.”
“You’re not right in the head.”
“I believe I told you that the night we met when you called me a sociopath.”
“I should’ve paid closer attention that night. What else did Dude sell you besides a broken-down barn with a sagging roof?”
“She sold me on a dream of a life in Butler, Vermont, with you and our stable full of kids and maybe your family’s business if your dad decides to hire me, and snowy winters and breathtaking autumns, of apple picking and maple-syrup making and a simple, fulfilling life that sounds better to me than anything I’ve ever experienced. But only if you’re there to make it all perfect.”
“I’m thinking about forgiving you for the barn. Eventually.”
“When that barn is the coolest house in Butler, you’ll be thanking me for having the foresight and wisdom to get us a home that can accommodate the five children you told me you want.”
“Five? I said maybe three.”
“I heard five.”
“Now you’re hearing things, too. I’m starting to seriously question my choices where you’re concerned.”
“You’re not really, are you?”
“No, but I’m not having five children.”
“Four, then.”
“Three.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky with twins.”
“I’ll kill you if that happens.”
“No, you won’t. You love me too much to kill me.”
“If you knock me up with twins, I will kill you. Stand warned.”
“Good to know. I’ll tell my boys to focus on one egg at a time.”
“You do that.”
“How soon can we do that? All this talk about eggs is making me hot.”
Molly giggled when he kissed her neck and made her shiver. “Soon. I promise.”
With almost no privacy in the camp, they’d had to put their ardor on ice until they could be alone somewhere. And there was something she still needed to share with him that she hadn’t yet. Not because she didn’t think he’d understand, but because it was still too painful to talk about, even with him.
“So my dad will probably meet us at the bus station, and he’s kind of weird about me and my sister, Hann
ah, when it comes to boys and dating and stuff.”
“Weird how?”
“Weird in that he’d rather we didn’t date or speak to boys at all if possible.”
“He knows that’s ridiculous, right?”
“Of course he does, but you have to kind of ease him into the whole ‘Molly has a boyfriend’ thing. Let him get to know you a little before you let on that we’re, you know…”
“Dying to have sex?”
“Lincoln! Stop.”
He absolutely loved the way her entire complexion lit up when she was embarrassed. That made embarrassing her some of the best fun he’d ever had. “Are we or are we not dying to have sex?”
“If you say that again, you’ll never have it with me.”
“Have what? Say it.”
“I won’t say it, and neither will you if you know what’s good for you.”
“I know what’s good for me,” he said, nuzzling her neck again, “and her name is Molly. Sweet, sweet Molly. I can’t wait until we can sleep naked together every night.”
“Stop.”
“I’ll never stop wanting that. When we’re old and gray, I’ll still want to sleep naked with you.”
“My advice would be not to mention anything about that when you’re within five hundred miles of my father, or it may never happen.”
“Good to know.”
“He’s a really, really good guy, and you’ll love him once we get past the initial awkwardness of him realizing I met a guy who wants to marry me and have babies with me. Maybe don’t mention babies until we’re safely married.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Keep your hands to yourself when he’s around, or you might lose one of them.”
“Also good to know. Please tell me your mother is normal.”
“She’s the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, and he is, too. After you get to know him.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
“You’ll see. He’ll come around. It just might take him a minute or two to decide he can trust you.”
They sat with their heads together, hands clasped, and dozed during the final stretch of the seemingly endless trip. By the time they pulled into the station in Rutland, Linc was more than ready to get off that bus and check out his new home state of Vermont. As he made his plans with Molly, he still had things to contend with at home in Philadelphia. But he would deal with that after he put the pieces together in Vermont.
