by Marie Force
“She’ll be okay.”
“Will you?”
“I’m much better after talking it out with you. At times like this, I wonder what I ever did before I had you.”
“I have a hard time remembering what life was like before I lived in this gorgeous house with you, Stella and Matilda. It’s the most perfect life I could ever picture for myself.”
“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” he said, as he often did.
“Same goes, my love. Same goes.”
Chapter Twelve
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
—Ringo Starr
As he did every night after dinner and bath time, Max rocked his baby son until he fell asleep, well aware that soon his little boy would be too big to be rocked. Max was determined to stick with their bedtime routine for as long as he possibly could. He’d read an article on one of the parenting sites he followed about how there’s a “last time” for everything—the last time you’ll ever change their diaper or pick them up or rock them to sleep. Often, you won’t know it’s the last time until much later when you realize you haven’t done those things in a while or they stopped happening without you noticing.
He wasn’t ready for any of it to end and could barely believe Caden was already thirteen months old, walking and saying a few words, such as Max’s favorite word—Dada. Being Caden’s Dada was the best thing to ever happen to Max, even if it was also the hardest thing he’d ever done. While making sure his son had everything he needed, he grappled with the nonstop parental guilt he’d learned was normal, even if it sucked. Did he spend enough time with his son? Was it right to ask his mother to watch him while he was working? Would he be better off in daycare with other kids his age?
Max tortured himself with those and a million other questions, thus his reliance on the parenting sites that were a wealth of information, as were his parents, who’d been there, done that, ten times over. Even though they hadn’t been single parents, they’d seen it all with him and his nine siblings and generally knew what he should do in any situation.
“I know you couldn’t understand the stuff your Gramps was saying today, buddy,” he said softly to Caden, who was on his way to sleep. “But you should know that I’d never make you choose between me and the one you love. I’d never, ever do that to you. All I want is for you to do whatever it takes to be happy. I want you to love and be loved and to find your place in this world, whether it’s here or somewhere far away. Although, I sure hope you end up close by, because I’d miss you something awful if you weren’t around every day. Didn’t my grandfather miss my dad after he kicked him out of the family? I hope he regretted what he did. I hope he regretted it every day.”
He continued to rock until Caden’s little body went slack, but he didn’t move to transfer him to the crib. Not yet. Tonight, he needed a little something extra from his son. He needed the comfort of knowing, no matter what happened, that he would love and support Caden in everything he did, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with his choices. As long as he was living a healthy, productive life, Max would have his back. It was really that simple.
While holding his son a little tighter, Max rubbed his tiny back and ran his lips over the soft silk of his blond hair. The two of them were a team and always would be, come what may.
From across the hall, he could hear his mother laughing, which happened a lot when his parents were together. They were #couplegoals to Max and his siblings, all of whom had found their perfect match. He hoped his was out there somewhere, waiting for him to find her. A year after his relationship with Caden’s mother had imploded, he was starting to feel ready to take a chance on something new. He’d hoped he’d hear more from Caroline, his sister-in-law Mia’s cousin, whom he’d met at Mia and Wade’s wedding in Boston and had one great night with. But after a few weeks of regular texts, they’d dropped off to once in a while as they both went on with their lives.
He’d really liked Caroline a lot and had enjoyed the night they’d spent together, but she lived in Boston. He was hours away in Vermont. Unless she relocated to Vermont, she wasn’t going to be the solution to his predicament.
After the holidays, he needed to get serious about dating again. As much as he loved being with his parents and appreciated their help, he didn’t want to live at home forever. He wanted his own home and family and was determined to make that happen. Somehow.
In the meantime, he’d do whatever he could to support his dad through the next few days the way Linc had supported him every minute of his life. That was how families were supposed to work, and Max couldn’t wait for his “grandfather” to see what a great father his son had turned out to be, no thanks to him.
Success was the best revenge, his other grandfather, Elmer, had reminded them earlier, and Linc had been a smashing success as a husband, father, grandfather and businessman.
Max and his siblings would do whatever it took to make sure Linc’s father saw that.
Elmer poured himself a glass of Bailey’s, tossed another log on the fire and sat to enjoy the snap, crackle and pop of the fire that cast a warm, cozy glow over his small home. In the corner stood the Christmas tree that Landon had brought from the farm, as he did every year.
Landon put the lights on for him, and then Ella and Charley decorated it with the ornaments he and Sarah had collected over a lifetime together. Some were from her family, some from his and a great many of them were theirs, made by their kids in school or purchased as mementos from trips or events that make up a life.
His grandchildren took good care of him, always doting on him and making sure he had what he needed. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t have bothered with a Christmas tree since he lost his Sarah. But the kids had insisted he needed it, and because he had a long track record of giving his eighteen grandchildren whatever they wanted, he’d ceded to their wishes. They were good kids, every one of them, and he couldn’t be prouder of them.
His sons, both quite a bit older than Molly and Hannah, had never married or had kids, and had moved out of state years ago to pursue careers in public safety. His older daughter was married but didn’t have children. He was thankful his youngest girls had stayed in Butler to raise their families, which had kept Elmer involved in the daily lives of his grandchildren as they grew up.
The events of the day had brought back so many memories, including the day Molly had stepped off the bus from Mississippi, holding hands with the good-looking young man from Philadelphia, and introduced him as her boyfriend. Elmer chuckled to himself at the visceral reaction he’d had to Linc’s arrival in Butler—and how wrong he’d been about his future son-in-law.
He’d never told anyone how wrong he’d been, but Sarah had known, because she was the one who’d told him he had it all wrong. Elmer had liked Mike Coleman, the man Hannah had married, from the get-go, but he’d been suspicious of Linc Abbott. He certainly understood what Linc saw in his beautiful Molly, but what did a guy with a Yale MBA and a fancy Philadelphia pedigree want with tiny Butler, Vermont, and Elmer’s small-town family business?
Elmer had been hard on the guy for months, waiting for him to show his true colors, but all he’d seen was a genuine young man on fire with ambition and a desire to contribute to the business. And, he’d had to grudgingly admit, he saw how much Lincoln loved Molly.
Then the kids had gone to Philadelphia, where Linc’s father dropped the hammer on him. Elmer would never forget the two of them returning to Butler, looking like survivors of a natural disaster.
They’d arrived at dinnertime, and Elmer had seen from the first second they walked in the door that something was terribly wrong. For one thing, they’d lost the sparkle they both had when they were together. For another, they were unusually quiet. It’d taken an hour or maybe two to get the story out of them, and afterward, the four of them had sat in shocked silence so loud it had roared in Elmer’s ears.
To this day, he still had no idea how a man could do such a thing t
o his own child. He’d been a bit extreme in his protectiveness of his precious daughters, but never once had he forced them to choose between him and something or someone else they wanted.
“Daddy,” Molly had said that night, taking him aside in the kitchen while Linc was in the living room with Sarah. “I want you to do something for me. It’s something big and important and probably not something you particularly want to do, but it’s something I need.”
“Anything, sweetheart.” At that moment, he would’ve given anything to see her smile again.
“I need you to marry us. Right now. Tonight. I want Linc to know he has a new family, me and you and Mama and Hannah and Mike and the children we’re going to have. We’re his family now, and we’ll never turn our backs on him.”
She was so fiercely beautiful in her outrage and in her love for Linc. “You need a license, sweetheart.”
“We’ll take care of that tomorrow. Please, Daddy. I know you’re still not sure about Linc, but I love him so much, and…” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please.”
He was powerless to deny her this or anything she wanted, especially when she’d been so deeply hurt by people he’d never meet or know. “Of course, love. It’d be an honor, and I like Linc. I don’t want you to think I don’t.”
“But you’re not sure he’s right for me.”
“No, I’m sure he’s right for you. I’m just not sure he’s right for Butler and the life he’s decided he wants here.”
“He loves it here.”
“He loves being here with you. Anyone can see that. I’m concerned about him suddenly getting itchy and deciding a few years down the road that small-town life isn’t for him.” As soon as he said the words, he regretted them, because the last thing his Molly needed was anyone else raining on their parade.
Molly raised her chin defiantly. “That’s not going to happen. He said this is what he wants, that I’m what he wants, and after the way his family hurt him, I just want him to know that he has a home here with me and with us. I think he needs that.”
“I think so, too, sweetheart.”
“You do? Really?”
Elmer swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. His baby was getting married. Right now, apparently.
“You’ll marry us?”
“I will.”
“And when we leave here to spend the night at our home, you won’t come looking for Linc with the rifle?”
“I’ll do my best to resist that temptation.”
She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him as tightly as she had in years. “Thank you so much for being the best dad in the whole world. After what I saw at Linc’s house today, I appreciate you even more than I already did.”
Touched by the compliment and the emotion behind it, Elmer had hugged her back, even though his heart was breaking at the thought of his sweet girl getting married and leaving home for good. He knew it was the natural order of things, and she was more than old enough, at nearly twenty-three, but he would miss having her sleeping under his roof and eating dinner at his table every night. “Love you, my sweet girl, and I hope you and your Linc will be happy together forever.”
“We will, Daddy. I’m sure of it.”
Elmer could only hope she was right as she took his hand and towed him into the living room to present her plan to her fiancé.
“Daddy is going to marry us! Tonight.”
Sarah looked at Elmer, her brow raised and a thousand questions in her expression.
“What?” Linc said. “We have a wedding planned… January…”
“We’ll still have that day, but I don’t want to wait any longer for us to be married. Earlier today, you were given an impossible choice, and you chose me. Well, I want you to know that I choose you, too. I choose you for the rest of my life.” She got down on her knees in front of him. “Will you marry me tonight, Linc?”
He raised his hands to her face, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
Elmer found himself holding his breath, waiting for him to say something.
“I’d love to marry you tonight, sweetheart.”
She let out a happy squeal and kissed him long enough that Elmer was forced to clear his throat to remind the lovebirds that they weren’t alone.
They broke apart, laughing and teary-eyed and smiling so big he wondered whether a face could actually crack under all that happiness. He was so damned grateful to see them smiling again that he was almost able to forget Linc’s impertinence.
“So how does a last-minute wedding without a license work around here?” Linc asked.
“Dad is a justice of the peace. He’ll marry us tonight, and we’ll take care of getting the actual license tomorrow. It’s a little backwards, but it’ll be okay.”
“As long as I have you, everything is okay,” Linc said, kissing the top of her head.
Now that the two of them were about to tie the knot, Elmer was realizing he’d be in for a whole lot more PDA than he’d had to tolerate up until now. Ugh, he thought. I’m so not ready for that.
“Where do you want us, Dad?”
“How about in front of the fireplace?” Sarah suggested.
“That’d be perfect,” Molly said.
He thought she’d want to get changed or put on makeup or do her hair, but all she wanted, it seemed, was to marry Lincoln Abbott.
Elmer stood before them, gazing down at one of the faces that had ruled his world since she and her siblings were born, and told himself he could do this. He could give her away to another man and entrust her health, safety and happiness to him. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly and walked them through the exchange of vows, which were said with tears and laughter and love.
He couldn’t deny the presence of love as much as he might’ve wanted to when she first brought Linc home. They didn’t have rings yet, so he skipped that part. “By the power vested in me by the state of Vermont, I now declare you husband and wife. Linc, you may kiss your bride. Chastely.”
They laughed as they came together for a kiss that was the furthest thing from chaste.
Elmer looked away, catching the gaze of his own beloved, who wiped away tears. Their darling Molly was a married woman. He stepped away from the newlyweds and went to his own bride, putting his arms around her.
“You did good up there, pal,” Sarah said.
“I was trying not to lose it the whole time.”
“I know.”
“It was the right thing to do this for them, wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely. They’re going to make a go of it. I’m sure of it.”
“Our little girls have ended up with good guys.”
“One of them has. The jury’s still out on the other one.”
Elmer drew back from the hug to look down at her. “What do you mean?”
“I feel pretty confident that Linc will stick. I’m not so sure about Mike.”
“Huh. Well, you’ve never said that before. Did he do something?”
“Not at all. Just a feeling I have, but we don’t need to dwell on that tonight when there’re happy things to celebrate. Let’s find some champagne to toast the newlyweds.”
As always, his Sarah had been right about Mike Coleman, who left Hannah with eight children, the oldest of whom had been sixteen at the time, and never looked back. Recalling that dark time in their lives never failed to make Elmer as angry as he’d ever been. Luckily, the Colemans had had him and Linc, and they’d tried to fill the void Mike had left as best they could, but nothing had ever been the same for them after their father left. Or for his daughter Hannah, who’d only recently found new love with Ray Mulvaney after many years alone.
Elmer had found that life was a strange and often wonderful journey that also included its share of heartaches. Losing his Sarah had been the biggest heartache of Elmer’s life, followed by the crushing disappointment of his son-in-law leaving his wife and eight children.
But there’d been far more magic than pain in
his blessed life, and with the benefit of age, wisdom, perspective and forty years, he counted Lincoln Abbott among the greatest of his many blessings. There was nowhere else he’d rather be than with his son-in-law in Philadelphia to make sure Linc’s father knew that Elmer had stepped up to fill the void left by his father’s unimaginable actions—and that Elmer loved Linc like a son.
Chapter Thirteen
“Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given
never forgotten, never let it disappear.”
—John Lennon
Linc hadn’t expected to laugh after the day he’d had, but as always, Molly came through for him, teasing and joking with him until he’d almost forgotten the pending mission to Philly.
Almost.
“Remember that night we came home from Philadelphia and what happened next?” she asked.
“How could I ever forget our first wedding?”
They’d never told anyone else that they’d gotten married that night. Even Molly’s sister, Hannah, hadn’t known about it. Only Molly’s parents had known, and they’d kept the secret in the months between that night and their January wedding.
Linc turned on his side in bed to face her, noting she’d freed her long hair from the braid she wore it in most of the time. Her hair was silvery gray now, but still as pretty as it’d been when they first met. “You had no idea what it meant to me that night to have you ask me to marry you right then and there, or how much I needed it after what’d happened earlier that day.”
“I knew what you needed, and that’s why I did it. You’d been set adrift, and I wanted to bring you home.”
He placed his hand on her face and caressed her soft skin. “You are my home. You have been since the day we met, and you always will be.”
“Same for me with you. Remember what happened after my dad married us?”
“Is that a trick question? Of course I remember. I remember every minute of that day like it was yesterday.”
