Hudson (Anderson Billionaires #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,71

disagree with you,” she said. “We learn manners at a very young age. Those manners should be enforced. Gramps had a gentle hand, and he spoiled me. I think families were closer fifty years ago because kids got the crap beat out of them if they were disrespectful. Nowadays everyone wants their kids to have a voice. I agree with that as a strong woman, but having a voice and being a total jerk are two different things entirely.”

“So, you think your grandfather should’ve been harder on you?” he asked with another chuckle.

“For sure!” she said, emphatically nodding her head.

“I can honestly say I’ve never heard a person complain before that their parents or grandparents weren’t hard enough on them as a kid.”

“Yep, gramps has said the same thing to me when I’ve told him he should’ve spanked me more often,” she said as she grabbed a piece of apple and cheese and popped the combo in her mouth.

“You surprise me, Daisy. You’re such a proponent for those in bad situations, but you believe in an iron fist,” he pointed out.

“No, I believe in discipline. Those are two different things. I can’t stand abuse. But in my opinion, to let a kid run around wild, acting like an idiot, is child abuse just as much as punching them. A hit certainly hurts them in the moment and can have lasting repercussions throughout their lives if it’s done too often. But letting them turn into a criminal will also impact them for the rest of their lives.”

“So all it takes is a good spanking once in a while, and the world is a better place?” he asked.

“That’s not all it takes, but that’s a start,” she said, refusing to budge from her position.

“I like it,” he told her. “You do have solid points. I certainly don’t want to come up against you in court.”

“Nope, you don’t want that to happen. You’d most certainly lose,” she said with a wide smile.

He filled their glasses again and then snapped his fingers, making her jump. The stars were beginning to spread across the sky and she was pretty sure she could stay right where they were for the rest of the night. It wouldn’t be a bad place to wake up — especially if she was in this man’s arms.

“I do have one thing I made when I was nine,” he told her.

It took a couple of seconds for her to switch back to talking about the beginning of his love of building.

“What do you have?”

“I was nine and the neighbor had chickens that my mother always talked about. She said it would be great to have our own chickens, so we’d have fresh eggs year round. So I went to the library with Noah and found a book on chicken coops. He designed one with my input, then I spent the next couple of months gathering materials.” He paused as he took a drink of wine, looking as if he was a bit lost in the past. She waited.

“For Mother’s Day that year I built her the luxury version of a chicken coup. My brothers and I had all saved every dime we could, and that morning when she got up she went outside and found a beautiful coup with ten chickens inside. She cried as she hugged each one of us. The first time we gathered eggs from there, and she cooked them for us; I swear was a magical experience. They were the best eggs I’ve ever eaten, even to this day.”

Daisy felt tears sting her eyes as she watched the wonder in his gaze, and heard the awe in his tone.

“Your mother sounds like an amazing person,” Daisy told him.

“She was the best. We had a horrible father, and she made up for that in spades. She was certainly tough on us, but she loved us unconditionally. I wouldn’t ask for any different life than what I grew up with.”

“I don’t think I would either. There were times I was really upset with my parents. When they were alive, I didn’t see them a heck of a lot, and then they were gone before I got a real chance to know them. I missed the version of them I’d created in my own head. But no matter what, the one consistency I had was gramps. He was always there for me and I like how things have turned out.”

“I like how you turned out too,” he said, his voice dropping