The Millionaire Next Door

“Piece of cake,” he murmured.

All the while, Bethany watched intently, asking him what he was doing each step of the way. He tried to act as if he knew the drill, but he’d never been fishing in his life except for the time he went deep-sea fishing on a yacht. This was a little different.

“The fish bite onto these hooks?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“Why do they do that? Are they stupid?”

“No. We have to trick them into biting the hook by putting bait on it.”

“What’s bait?”

“It’s something the fish would like to eat.”

“What do fish eat?”

That was a very good question. He rifled through the tackle box, finally coming up with some rather crusty artificial worms. Maybe these would do.

The point wasn’t really to catch anything, right? This was an exercise in boredom.

The sun was just coming up as Hudson and Bethany walked out to the end of the rickety dock. Hudson put a rubbery worm on the end of each hook, then pulled out some extra line so the hook would dangle in the water. He gave one pole to Bethany, cautioning her for about the tenth time about being careful of the hook. Then he sat down beside her and put his own hook in the water.

Nothing happened.

“This is nice,” he said, trying to convince himself. “Just you and me, doing a little father-daughter bonding.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Is anything happening with your line?”

“No.”

“Mine, neither. But I understand you have to be patient to be a fisherman.”

“Fishergirl,” she corrected him.

Oh, Lord. At four years old, Bethany was a budding feminist. Her grandmother would have a fit. Finally, something to make Hudson smile.

“I’m bored,” Bethany said after exactly seven minutes.

“Let’s talk to pass the time.”

“Talk about what?”

He had no idea what. “What do you like to watch on TV?”

“Princess Pony.”

“Tell me about that.”

“There’s a white pony, and she’s a princess, and then there’s a bad Palomino Queen who wants Princess Pony to go into this cave and never come out.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“But now I can’t watch it because we don’t have a TV.”

Originally he’d been pleased the cabin didn’t have a TV. Bethany watched far too much at home, and the point of a vacation like this was to get outdoors, get some exercise, get healthy. Watching TV wasn’t healthy. But it might help Bethany not to die of boredom. Maybe he could compromise, buy a TV and VCR and rent some educational videos or classic children’s movies.

“Is anything happening with your line?”

“No.”

Eleven minutes had passed.

They tried a different color of worm. They tried an orange lizard. They tried a silver metal fish with spinners on it. The fish were about as interested as Hudson would be at a vegetarian buffet.

“Can we go inside now, Daddy?”

“Not until we catch a fish.” He didn’t know what he would do with the fish if he caught it, but he didn’t like to fail at his endeavors.

AMANDA GULPED DOWN the last bit of her coffee, then strode through the living room and beat on the bedroom door. “Mick? Are you up yet?”

No reply.

She cracked the door open. Mick was sprawled on top of the covers, still fully clothed. It was all Amanda could do not to yank him by the ankles and toss him to the floor.

She’d heard him come home last night—at two in the morning. She’d hoped he was at the university library in Tyler, studying. But seeing him now, she knew she’d been naive. Mick had been out drinking—she’d stake her life on it. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t recognize the signs. She was very afraid that Mick was his father’s son.

Resisting the urge to fit her hands around his neck, she instead shook his shoulder. “Mick. Wake up.”

He opened one bleary eye. “Huh?”

“Get your hungover butt out of bed. You have a class this morning.”

“Not till nine.”

“Get up now, or you’ll fall back to sleep.”

“Get off my case.”

“You think this is on your case? Just wait and see what happens if I ever catch you drinking and driving again.”

She left him with that thought. Back in the kitchen, she grabbed her keys and was about to head out the door when she spotted something interesting out the living room window. Hudson and Bethany were sitting on the end of their dock, fishing.

She watched them for a few self-indulgent moments. Her father used to take her fishing when she was a little girl. It was one of her nicest memories of him, nearly obliterated by other, more recent and far less pleasant ones. But now the images came flooding back—baiting hooks with wiggling earthworms, breathlessly watching the float bob up and down as a fish toyed with the bait, feeling the sun beating down on her bare arms.

And listening to her father tell stories. Sometimes he told real stories from his youth. Sometimes he made up fairy tales. And sometimes she couldn’t tell the difference. But she didn’t care. She just loved to hear him talk. He could weave an interesting tale around the most mundane of events and keep her endlessly entertained.

She wondered what Hudson and Bethany were talking about.

As she watched them a bit longer, she realized they weren’t catching anything, not even little perch or sunfish. The longer she watched, the more she realized they hadn’t a clue about what they were doing. They didn’t even know how to cast!

It’s none of your business, she reminded herself. Fishing was very personal. Maybe this was the technique that worked for Hudson.

She had to get to work, anyway. She had an appointment in a couple of hours with Clea Marsden about selling her rental property. But she could go over and thank Hudson for leaving her the cash. And she could give him a few pointers on fishing. It had been years since she’d dipped a hook in the water, but she hadn’t forgotten how.

Yes, that was the polite thing to do. She would have to live next to Hudson for a month. Might as well try to be on good terms with him. Besides, what if he really needed the fish to supplement his groceries?

Her mind made up, she marched next door, then tiptoed down the dock. If there were any fish around, she didn’t want to scare them.

“Good morning,” she whispered.

Hudson jumped a good six inches, and Bethany peered over her shoulder. “Why are you whispering?” she asked.

“So I don’t scare the fish,” she explained.

“The fish are underwater,” Bethany said patiently. “They can’t hear us.”

“Oh, but they can,” Amanda assured her. Then she looked at Hudson, who appeared touchably rumpled and unshaven. Normally she didn’t care for that un-shaven look, but on Hudson it worked. He wore a pair of jeans even more faded than the ones he’d had on yesterday, and a Harvard T-shirt.

Harvard? “Your alma mater?” she asked, pointing to the shirt.

He looked down at it. “This? Someone gave it to me.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, I wanted to thank you for making good on the check.”

“I told you I would.”

“I know, but I’ve learned not to trust people when they say things like that. So many don’t live up to their word. I appreciate that you did, and I’m sorry I lost my temper yesterday.”

He smiled. “It’s forgotten.”

“So, you’re fishing, huh?”

“Yup.”

“What are you using for bait?” She didn’t see a bait bucket anywhere.

“Right now? Some little wooden fish we found in the tackle box.”

Ye gods! No wonder they hadn’t caught anything. You couldn’t use plastic worms or plugs or other artificial lures for bobber fishing. And now that she was closer, and Hudson had his hook out of the water, she could see they weren’t using floats or sinkers, either. This was the most pathetic fishing effort she’d ever seen.

“What are you trying to catch?”

Hudson shrugged. “Anything.”

“Would you mind a few pointers? I mean, you aren’t familiar with this lake.” She didn’t want to point out his complete ignorance in front of his daughter.

“I would be grateful for some pointers.”

“Okay. First of all, if you’re just going to hang your hook in the water, you need live bait. Minnows, or at least earthworms.”

“We don’t have any of those things. These fake fish look pretty realistic to me.”

Amanda shook her head. “Yes, but you have to wiggle and move them to make them attractive. They won’t work if they’re just hanging still in the water. Also, most of the fish will already be in deeper water this time of the morning. They come close to shore only at dawn and dusk.”

“I don’t have any worms or minnows.”

“Well…if you’re not too particular about what you catch, raw bacon might work in a pinch. At least it smells good to the fish.”

Hudson shook his head. “I have hot dogs.”

“That might do.”

Hudson sent Bethany back to the house for hot dogs, an errand she gladly performed. “She was getting tired of just sitting here, anyway,” Hudson admitted.

“Well, she won’t be bored when you start catching fish.” Bethany dusted off a spot on the dock and sat down, careful to protect her stockings and her modesty in her short skirt. In a couple of minutes flat she had both poles properly outfitted with sinkers, floats and hooks. Bethany returned shortly with a package of franks. Amanda took a small bit of wiener and worked it onto one of the hooks in a way that would disguise it.

“Now. You need to cast your line out a little ways from the dock, and let the current move it along.” She and Hudson stood, and she demonstrated the correct procedure. As she stretched her arm back preparing for the cast, she got the distinct impression that Hudson wasn’t watching her form—not her fishing form, anyway.

After a few practice casts, Hudson had the technique down pat. He cast Bethany’s line for her, showed her how to slowly crank the reel to take up slack in the line, then threw out his own line.

In less than thirty seconds Bethany’s bobber wiggled, then plummeted below the surface.

“You’ve got a fish!” Amanda exclaimed.

Bethany got so excited she shrieked and almost dropped her pole in the water. But with her father standing behind her helping her reel it in, and with Amanda’s verbal coaching, she managed to pull a little sunfish out of the water.

“I caught a fish! I caught a fish!”

“Yes, you certainly did,” Amanda enthused. “And a magnificent specimen it is, too.” It was about three inches long.

“I’m gonna name him Shiny.”

Hudson and Amanda exchanged a look. “You didn’t tell her what we do with the fish we catch?” Amanda asked.

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