The Millionaire Next Door

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Bethany stared at him quizzically. Okay, so commissions were probably a little much for a four-year-old to comprehend.

“Say a house is a pie,” he tried again. “It’s my pie and I want to sell it. Amanda knows someone who wants to buy a pie, so she introduces the two of us. I sell the pie to this other person—but I give Amanda one slice as her reward for finding the buyer.”

Bethany wrinkled her nose. “So this person buys a pie with a piece gone?”

“Never mind. I’m tired of fishing, how about you?”

She nodded.

Was ten-thirty too early for lunch? Nah. They were still on Boston time, he reminded himself, and they’d had those Pop-Tarts before the sun was up. They gathered up the fishing gear and returned it to the garage. Then Hudson carried Bethany’s fish to the house. The pot seemed awfully small. He really, really didn’t want the fish to die. So he put the stopper in the bathtub, filled it up and transferred Shiny to another new home.

“I guess Shiny needs an aquarium,” Hudson said as he studied the fish swimming around.

Bethany knew what an aquarium was. Apparently they had a big one at her preschool. She talked endlessly about it and drew pictures of the fish. Hell, maybe he had a budding marine biologist on his hands, and he should encourage her interest in fish. But she didn’t respond to his suggestion with the enthusiasm he’d hoped.

“Amanda’s going to help me make a house for Shiny.”

Hudson hoped Bethany didn’t put too much stock in Amanda’s promises. She seemed to be a nice person, and she’d certainly established a rapport with his daughter. But she was obviously far too devoted to her job to want to cater to the whims of a four-year-old neighbor.

Before seeing about lunch, Hudson went into his bedroom and dug out his blood-pressure cuff. He’d been fishing all morning. Surely all that relaxation would have knocked his blood pressure down a few points. He slid his arm into the cuff and pumped it up, feeling optimistic.

“One-fifty-two over one-ten!” That was ridiculous. His blood pressure was higher than it had been in the doctor’s office. It was just a fluke, he told himself. He would take it again when he wasn’t thinking about Amanda.

HUDSON TOOK HIS blood pressure four times that afternoon. The numbers simply wouldn’t go down. He had to face it, he had high blood pressure. Continued hypertension could lead to all sorts of unpleasant things, including making him a candidate for his own brand of medicine. Well, he wasn’t going to turn into one of those people—overweight, unable to walk a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing. He would get his blood pressure down.

He still had all of June to do it. Although he was going to go crazy if he had to stay in this cabin for a month. There was nothing to do!

A shopping trip was in order, he decided. He would buy some books, some games he and Bethany could play, maybe some crafts. He could take up gardening. That was supposed to be relaxing.

What other advice did he give his heart patients? Meditation. Yoga. He doubted he would find any type of class around here, but maybe he could find a book instructing him on the practices. Healthy meals.

He opened the freezer and pondered the contents. Frozen pizza. Battered fish sticks—better not go there. Bethany still didn’t quite get the concept that much of the food they ate used to be walking around or flying or swimming. TV dinners—all of them loaded with fat grams. Even the lunch meat he’d bought was the bad kind—ham, pepperoni, beefstick. Combine them with cheese and mayonnaise, and you had a heart attack sandwich.

A movement outside caught his eye. A car pulled into Amanda’s driveway, but not Amanda’s silver Lincoln. It was a red compact car, a few years old, with numerous dents and scrapes and one badly crumpled fender. A young man got out—a kid, really. The resemblance between him and Amanda was hard to miss—same white-blond hair, same cheekbones. He wore holey jeans and a tank shirt revealing lots of muscles and a prominent tattoo.

The young man walked around the car and opened the passenger door. A statuesque brunette in miniskirt and halter top unfolded herself and climbed out. The way the two touched each other, it was clear they were lovers. The man let himself in the front door with a key, and the couple disappeared inside.

“Is Amanda home from work?” Bethany asked excitedly, apparently seeing her father staring out the window.

“Haven’t seen her yet. You know, honey, Amanda seems pretty busy. I wouldn’t count on her to just drop everything and help you with a home for your fish.”

“Yes, she will help me,” Bethany said with the utter faith only a child could muster.

“Couldn’t I help you?”

“No. You don’t like Shiny. You wanted to eat him.”

“I wanted to throw him back.” Amanda was the one who’d wanted to eat the fish, but Hudson decided not to point that out. “You know, honey, people do eat fish. When you eat fish sticks? Those are fish that used to swim in the ocean.”

Bethany adopted a mutinous expression. “Nuh-uh. Fish sticks are square and they don’t have eyes.”

“An important distinction,” Hudson agreed, giving up. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go out to dinner?”

“To McDonald’s?” she asked hopefully.

Bethany was addicted to Happy Meals. He really ought to nudge her in a different dietary direction. “Cottonwood doesn’t have a McDonald’s. I thought we could be adventurous. You know, try someplace new.”

“No. I want to stay here and wait for Amanda.”

Hudson was afraid it would be a very long wait.

He made bologna sandwiches for dinner, and they ate them at a picnic table on a small deck in back. Once it had been cleaned, this little cabin really wasn’t so bad, he decided. From here he had a nice view of the woods…and an unobstructed view of Amanda’s house. He saw when her brother—if that’s who it was—left again with the brunette, who looked quite a bit more disheveled than when she’d arrived. He could guess what they’d been up to.

Bethany watched Amanda’s house, too, and the yearning on her face was plain. She was accustomed to female companionship—one or the other of her grandmothers had been in constant attendance since Elaine’s death. Being around her father all the time was a big adjustment. But Hudson was determined that she get used to him—and vice versa.

She resisted going to bed, still wanting to wait for Amanda. “She probably had to work late,” Hudson said, trying to soothe her. “Sometimes grown-ups have to work long hours. She might need the extra money.”

“But you work all the time, and you’re rich.”

Another prickle of guilt. “People work long hours for other reasons besides money. In my case, I work because my patients need me. They need someone to fix their hearts.”

“But maybe my heart needs fixing.”

“I hope not. Not ever.”

“But it hurts sometimes.”

The backs of Hudson’s eyes burned. “Everyone’s heart hurts sometimes. When you feel like yours is hurting, you just call me and I’ll do my best to fix it.”

“It hurts now.”

“Why does it hurt, sweetie?”

“Because Shiny doesn’t have a good house.” And because Amanda had disappointed her. He might not be too experienced with this daddy business, but he could read between the lines.

He took her hand and led her toward the ladder that went to the loft. “Tomorrow we’re gonna build Shiny the best aquarium in all of Texas.”

“Will Amanda help?”

Hudson tamped down his frustration. Bethany barely knew Amanda. Why this sudden attachment? “We’ll ask her. But if she can’t, then just you and me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said grudgingly.

With a bit more coaxing, he got her into bed. Then he sat on the back deck, smoking his last cigarette and watching for Amanda. It really was his last cigarette, he promised himself. Although he wasn’t exactly a heavy smoker—he’d taken a week to get through this last pack—the blood-pressure thing was scaring him. Smoking was one thing he could control.

Since he had time to kill, and he was already in a bad mood, he checked the messages on his cell. It was pretty much as he’d feared.

“Hudson, this is your mother. Call me immediately. I need some investment advice….”

“Hudson, it’s Janey. I need to know for sure whether you’re going to the fund-raiser Friday. Call me.”

“Hudson, it’s your mother. Just what in heaven’s name does that message on your voice mail mean? Unavailable? How do you expect people to get in touch with you?”

“Hudson, it’s Janey. I’m getting a little miffed over your lack of communication. I have to make some decisions, and I can’t without your input. Honestly…”

“Hudson, this is your mother. If you don’t call me in the next thirty minutes, I’m calling the police. I’m afraid some chainsaw serial killer has found you.”

Reluctantly he called his mother. He nearly jumped for joy when he reached her answering machine. “Mother, it’s Hudson. I’m fine, Bethany’s fine. Our vacation is going well. I’ll speak with you when I get back.” He disconnected as quickly as he could, in case she was home and screening her calls.

Janey wouldn’t be so easy. He called her cell, hoping to get her voice mail. But she answered immediately, though it was after eleven Boston time. “Hudson, thank God. Where are you?”

“I’m on vacation with Bethany. Didn’t I tell you…?”

“You know perfectly well you didn’t tell me. If you’d let me know, I could have cleared my schedule and gone with you. Are you at your mother’s place in Martha’s Vineyard? I could join you there in a couple of days.”

“No!” That was all he needed. He would never relax with Janey around managing his social schedule. “I mean, um, I’m doing a little father-daughter bonding.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet! Where are you?”

“Someplace you’ve never heard of, I guarantee.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t really know. I’ll call back when my plans are firmed up.”

“Hudson, this is so unlike you. You never do anything impulsive. Now, I want you to tell me where you are.”

He didn’t care for her demanding tone. If he married her, he’d probably hear more of it, he realized. “I have to go, um, the stove’s boiling over.”

“The stove? You’ve never been near a stove in your life!”

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said with mock cheerfulness. “Bye!” He hung up on her sputtered objections, then quickly turned off his phone.

Amanda’s car finally pulled into the drive at ten forty-five. No one worked that late, not even Hudson. It occurred to him that she might have a social life. She might have been enjoying dinner with a date, or happy hour with some girlfriends. But if she’d made plans for after work, she should have told Bethany up-front that she couldn’t help with Shiny’s home today. And if the plans had been spur-of-the-moment, then she’d needlessly broken her word to his daughter.

And he wasn’t going to let that pass without comment.

WHEN AMANDA SAW the mess her house was in, her blood flashed through her veins like heat lightning. For heaven’s sake, couldn’t Mick make even the smallest effort to clean up after himself? Dirty dishes from what looked like breakfast and lunch littered the kitchen. The mail had been strewn about the living room, items of interest opened and left where they fell. Cushions had been pulled off the couch in front of the TV. Dirty clothes carpeted the bathroom floor.

How had she let herself become Mick’s maid? When her father had died three years ago, she’d naturally been sad, but she’d also been relieved to be free of the burden of taking care of him. Especially the last few years, he hadn’t been able to drive or cook or do his own laundry, so she’d done those things for him, recycling the empty beer cans without comment. She’d known that by then it was too late to change him. Back then, Mick had lived with their father, and while he hadn’t exactly helped, he’d been in high school, so she’d let him get away with a lot.

Then they’d sold her dad’s house, which the bank was about to foreclose on anyway, and Mick had moved in with her so he could go to college. But in all this time he’d made little progress toward a degree, and he’d become increasingly irresponsible and decadent. She feared his drinking was to blame, though he at least had the consideration not to drink in front of her.

She wished she had the courage to just leave his messes. How would he like it if the house just turned into a pigsty?