Hudson

by Melody Anne

  “But an agreement is an agreement in this family,” Finn pointed out.

  “I know,” Hudson said as his fingers ran through his hair for the hundredth time in two hours. “And she’s driving me crazy because I can see valid points in her argument, but she’s also driving me crazy because she’s . . . well, she’s . . .” He stopped and groaned. “She’s just driving me crazy,” he finished, not knowing any other way to verbalize what she was.

  “How so?” Joseph asked, his lips turning up.

  “I’m glad to be bringing you pleasure with my misery,” Hudson told his uncle. “I don’t know how to explain it. When I’m with her I truly enjoy myself. But I don’t see how. We’re so different. We have some amazing times, but we also fight and have a lot of misunderstandings. Normally if there was this much tension with a woman I was interested in, I’d be long gone, but I can’t pull away from Daisy.”

  “Our differences can bring us that much closer to one another,” Joseph said. “Katherine and I didn’t always have an easy road, and we still have a lot of differences, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other unconditionally. And to be exactly the same would be boring. What would we have to talk about? What joy would there be in discovering who a person is if they were just the same as us?”

  “We had an amazing time a few days ago. She ran a tractor, helped clear all of the fallen trees off of the land, then we had a picnic in the bucket of the tractor while looking up at the stars.”

  Crew interrupted him when he laughed, making Hudson glare at his brother. He waited for the wisecracks to come.

  “You’re pulling out all of the stops,” Crew said between chuckles.

  “I’m glad I’m bringing you joy as well since you’ve been such an ass lately,” Hudson said, not at all pleased that everyone was finding humor in his misery.

  “Did your night not end as planned?” Finn asked. He, at least, was doing better at hiding his glee at his brother’s misery.

  “I didn’t really have a plan. But we talked about how my love of building began, and then we got on the topic of children. She seriously has some good arguments against procreating . . .” He trailed off when Joseph gasped.

  “There’s zero good arguments against having babies,” Joseph said in a huff that made Hudson, Finn, and Crew laugh.

  “According to you, Uncle Joseph, everyone on this planet should have a dozen kids. If that were the case we’d run out of space and food real quick,” Finn pointed out.

  “I’m just saying if someone is anti-kids there has to be a reason behind it,” Joseph said. “And then that reason can be countered and they can go right back to brining babies into this world.” Joseph was so set on his ways and he wouldn’t be satisfied until everyone in the world was bringing new babies around for him to play with.

  “Well, her parents weren’t around much, and she brought up brattiness, messiness, craziness and more stuff like that,” Hudson said.

  Joseph sighed. “Yeah, her grandfather was disappointed in his daughter. He was proud she was off fighting for good causes, but while she was doing that, she was missing out on the miracle that was her daughter. She missed all of Daisy’s firsts, such as her first steps, her first school pageant, her first sporting event.” He stopped with a sigh. “And then both of Daisy’s parents left her too soon.”

  “That’s what it sounds like. Daisy became this warrior for justice because she wanted to make her parents proud, but now that’s as much a part of her as breathing. She doesn’t say it, but there’s some real resentment there for them leaving her so much when they were alive, and then leaving her for good when they died,” Hudson said.

  “I want to go back to tractor night. How did that end?” Crew prodded.

  Hudson sighed. “It ended with me being very frustrated, and her running away. I don’t know why. We click, I mean really click. And she’ll let down her guard for a little while, but as soon as she realizes she’s done that, the walls come right back up.”

  “Then maybe you have to try harder,” Finn said.

  “I agree. Any woman worth fighting for is worth putting in maximum effort,” Joseph said.

  Hudson wasn’t going to admit everything, but he needed sound advice. He took a breath as he looked at each of his brothers and then his uncle. He hadn’t been willing to tell them he’d met her before, but how was he supposed to get true advice if he only gave half of the story?

  “I met her about two months ago.” The words were spoken quietly.

  The gasp among the men was loud. “Where?” Joseph asked, being the first to recover.

  “On my flight from Australia. I met her in the terminal. We talked. Then we sat together on the flight home.” He stopped himself from saying more. Utter silence greeted those words until laughter rang out. First it was from Finn, and then his other brothers and Joseph joined in.

  “What in the hell is so funny?” he snapped.

  “You moved her up to first class with you, that’s for sure. There’s no way she’d pay for that ticket,” Joseph said. “I’ve known her grandfather for a very long time and he’s told me all about Daisy since she was a very young girl. I’m thinking back to what a bad mood you were in after that trip, and I’m betting your time didn’t end after the plane ride.”

  Hudson shifted in his seat, finding the ground very interesting. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up this part of his connection with Daisy. He might not hear the end of it now.

  “No, it didn’t end on the plane, but it did end with her running off before morning light,” he said. Before they could say anything, he added more. “I told myself that was good, that it wasn’t going anywhere anyway. But I kept thinking about her all of the time. Now here she is. I just don’t know what that means.”

  More silence met his words. Crew was the first to finally speak, shocking every single one of them.

  “Maybe it means it’s too much of a hassle, and you should cut your losses now and walk away,” Crew said.

  All of them turned toward Crew who wasn’t looking at them.

  “Seriously, Crew, what in the world is going on with you?” Hudson asked. He was forgetting all about his own problems and focusing on his brother’s instead. That actually helped him out a whole lot.

  Crew looked up for a moment, pain in his eyes. But he quickly masked it with a smile. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just not into the love thing.”

  “I’ve been a firm believer in avoiding the marriage flu, so I understand what you’re saying. But you’ve always been the reasonable one of our group. And the last few months you’ve been doing some things that are completely against your personality.”

  “Like what?” Crew pushed.

  “Oh, I don’t know, like buying a farm, giving crappy romance advice, and being short fused,” Finn said.

  “We all have our off days. Just because I’m a psychologist doesn’t mean I’m not human,” Crew said with some bitterness.

  “That’s true, but we’ve always been close. You know if you’re going through some crap, we can keep the sarcastic comments to ourselves and be there for you,” Hudson said.

  Crew sighed. “Believe me, I know that. Just give me a while to work through things in my own head. I’m just not there yet to talk about anything.”

  His words worried all of them. “Are we going to regret it if we don’t push you now?” Finn asked.

  Crew gave him a crooked smile. “I promise you won’t. It’s not as if it’s life or death.”

  They stared Crew down for several tense seconds before Finn nodded. Hudson was more reluctant to let his brother off the hook. Hudson might be having woman trouble, but it seemed as if his brother, Crew, was having a lot deeper issues than that. He didn’t want to forget about it, then find out it was too late to help him because he’d waited too long.

  “We’ll only give you so much time before we hog tie you to a chair and beat the truth out of you,” Hudson warned.

  “I might know some people who can
help out with that,” Joseph said with a gleam in his eyes.

  Crew ignored Joseph’s words, having no doubt that was true. He looked at Hudson instead. “Right back at you, brother,” he said. “I think for now you need to be worried about your own woman trouble. What comes next with the two of you?”

  “She has an activity planned for tomorrow, but I don’t know what it is,” Hudson said. “I’m taking her to dinner afterward. I need to show her what community is all about so the dinner is on a nice golf course. It’s about more than just fancy living, it’s about having a great place to live for people who want to feel safe and find a little paradise in a city setting.”

  “I like that idea,” Finn said.

  Then Hudson smiled as he looked at Crew.

  “I don’t like that look,” Crew said.

  Hudson shrugged. “You’ve always read me well,” Hudson told him. “On Saturday, I’m taking her to your farm.”

  Crew looked confused. “What? Why?”

  “She wants to see the chicken coop I made Mom, so it’s time for you to host a family event.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a party,” Crew said.

  “Too bad. Saturday, be prepared for an invasion. Let me know if I need to bring food, or if you’ll have it there. You don’t want a bunch of hungry people invading your house,” Hudson warned. “It’s better to feed the beasts than have a riot.”

  Crew sighed. “Fine. But only because I want to see you get bested by a woman,” Crew said. The thought of that seemed to cheer him.

  “Sounds good,” Hudson said.

  “I could use a big gathering,” Finn said. Then he turned to Joseph. “Go ahead and invite the cousins.”

  Joseph smiled. A party was right up his alley. And it got his mind off his troubles. He nodded as he picked up his phone, getting ready to send out a group message.

  “Crap. You’d better call the caterer,” Crew said. He had no doubt this little get-together was about to get massive.

  Hudson was going to find out exactly what Daisy was made of. Because there was nothing like an Anderson get-together. It would either make you or break you. He’d find out in just a few days. He couldn’t wait.

  Was Daisy the type of woman a man kept forever? Was he willing to take the risk and find out if she was? Would he be willing to let her go if she was that woman? He didn’t have any of the answers he needed. He had a feeling he would soon enough . . .

  Chapter Twenty

  Daisy was a bit too excited as she watched Hudson’s truck pull up in her driveway. This was the man she was supposed to convince to sell her land back to her. Instead, he was the one convincing her she was fighting for something without quite realizing what she was fighting for. She tried to harden her resolve, but she couldn’t quite do it.

  He knocked on her door and she forced herself to count to ten . . . slowly . . . before she pulled it open. The sight of him in a nice dinner jacket with a blue golf shirt beneath and tan pants was enough to cause her breath to hitch. Instead of his appeal dimming over time, it was only growing stronger. He was damn good-looking.

  For you,” he said as he held out even more beautiful flowers than the last bunch he’d given her.

  “You really shouldn’t get me flowers,” she said as she took them. But she did love the beautiful colors and scents. She’d never received flowers from a man before, and it sent an odd thrill through her.

  “My mother would scalp me if she were alive and I showed up to take a woman out without bringing flowers.”

  “I would’ve really liked your mother. She sounds a lot like my grandfather,” Daisy said.

  “She most certainly was one-of-a-kind,” he said. Daisy stepped aside and let him slip into her modest home as she went to the kitchen and found a vase, placing her bouquet inside it. They smelled heavenly.

  “I’m ready,” she said after a minute. “What’s the plan today?” She wasn’t expecting an answer.

  “Lunch and golf,” he told her.

  That stopped her in her tracks. First, he was telling her what they were doing, and second . . . golf?

  “I don’t play golf,” she said. “And what in the world does that have to do with anything?”

  He escorted her from the house, straight to his truck, then helped her inside. He climbed in, started the vehicle, and began driving before she got an answer.

  “My dream is to open a golfing community so it’s very relevant.”

  “Do you honestly think taking me to a place where the rich and snooty hang out is going to change my mind?” The look on her face told him the opposite effect would happen.

  He smiled. “Golfing is about so much more than playing a game or rubbing elbows,” he told her. “It’s about spending time together and having a place to gather. Sure, there are snobby people who play, and those who do it just for the business deals, but I’d say the majority of people who enjoy golf do it because it gives them a sense of freedom out in an open field, a challenge for a game that might look easy, but is anything but that, and it can be played by both the young and the old.”

  “I guess I haven’t thought about it in those terms,” she reluctantly admitted. “But you do have a valid point.”

  “I know,” he said as he sent her a wink.

  “Do you ever admit to being wrong?” she asked.

  “Not very often,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I can’t remember the last time I was wrong.”

  She laughed at that as they made their way down the road. They continued to chat until he turned, taking his truck through a gated private drive. She looked at him with her brows raised.

  “I think my point is proven more than yours,” she told him as they pulled up to a beautiful clubhouse. “This is about as exclusive as it gets.”

  “Give it some time,” he said.

  He parked the truck and jumped out, quickly coming around and opening her door. She took his hand as she climbed down and continued holding it as they walked inside the beautiful building. She couldn’t help but admire the architecture.

  “It’s not what I was expecting,” she admitted as they made their way down a hallway, Hudson nodding at several people and saying hello as they kept walking. They turned a corner and went through a set of open double doors, where a large reception counter was set up with two women behind it. The women looked up and smiled.

  “Hello, Mr. Anderson, your table is ready,” the woman — Miranda, according to her nametag — said as she stepped from behind the counter.

  “Thank you, Miranda,” Hudson said. He was still holding Daisy’s hand . . . and she liked it.

  They were taken through a full dining room where conversations were animated, guests were smiling, and several people waived at Hudson as they passed. They were shown to a window table in the back corner of the room where Hudson held out her chair.

  Once they were seated and their drink orders complete, Daisy looked outside at the beautiful view of the golf course. Several people were out playing, with golf carts in various locations, and there were numerous works of art in view. A large pond with a fountain in the middle appeared to be the centerpiece of the course.

  “At dusk the lights come on and the fountain glows. On Friday nights they have a firework show over the pond, much to the delight of the diners. It’s like being at Disneyland in Washington,” Hudson told her.

  “I’ve always loved fireworks, and I really want to go to Disneyland,” Daisy admitted.

  “You haven’t ever been?” Hudson asked. “I think that’s a crime.”

  Daisy laughed. “Gramps took me to a lot of things, but facing the crowds at an amusement park wasn’t his idea of a very good time. And besides that, I don’t like how dirty the rides are,” she finished.

  “I remember you saying you didn’t like amusement parks,” he said.

  “Disneyland just seems different. I don’t want to get on all the rides, but I wouldn’t mind the magic of the place,” she said.

  “I think you’d cha
nge your mind about the rides once you were there. It really is the happiest place on earth,” he said. “And besides, though I don’t think any parent really thinks trying to keep track of their kids in a crowded park is an ideal time, I will still definitely take my kids to many, many parks when they’re old enough.”

  “How many kids do you plan on having?” Daisy asked. She felt her stomach tighten a bit. She was trying to remind herself this wasn’t a date, but if it had been, this issue would keep them apart. She didn’t want to have kids. What shocked her was that the thought wasn’t quite so strong as she sat there with Hudson. She could almost picture a miniature Hudson running around. It was an appealing thought. She shook her head to get that sort of idea right out of her mind. She’d heard of women changing to please a man, she wasn’t going to be one of them.

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe two. I think one makes the child too spoiled and makes a parent run like crazy trying to entertain them. I think three is an odd number, and four just seems like too much to handle. Two seems like a solid number. Maybe one boy and one girl.”

  Daisy found herself laughing again. “You do realize you don’t get to pick the sex,” she told him.

  “I’m used to getting my way. I think I’ll have a boy first, and then a little girl,” he decided.

  The waiter took their orders and disappeared again.

  “I might be too full to golf after all of this food,” she said as she sat back in anticipation of their food coming out.

  “Nah, it’s good to move after a meal. There’s no way you’re getting out of this. You have to experience the full day or this doesn’t count and I get another chance to win you over,” he insisted.

  She groaned as bread and salads were set down. She thought about using the restroom and setting off the fire alarm. She’d played golf once and had about fallen asleep. It had been the most boring time of her life.

  Before she could say something more, a well-dressed man stepped up to their table. “Hello, Hudson, I had to come say hello. It’s been a while since you’ve stopped in. I won’t keep you long.”