Hudson (Anderson Billionaires #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,97

fresh fish tonight.”

“Oh, this is a fighter,” Hudson said, laughter spilling from him as his line went screaming out again before it bounced several times as his fish tried to shake off the hook. He kept the line taut, pulled up, reeled in, then did it again and again.

“I have the net,” Damien said, his own voice excited.

After about twenty minutes, his fish finally made an appearance, a beautiful, shiny, Chinook salmon that wasn’t happy about being caught.

“Don’t you dare lose my fish,” Hudson hollered as Damien stepped into the river with the net, ready to scoop Hudson’s prize up.

“Have some faith,” Damien said as Hudson drew the fish closer. It was a runner; that was for damn sure. He fought it for another couple of minutes before Damien swept the net out, making a perfect scoop. The fish thrashed in the net, and all of the men gathered together and whooped and hollered.

“I haven’t had fresh-caught salmon in way too long,” Joseph said as he clapped in delight.

“This thing has to be a solid forty pounds,” Hudson said in awe as he pulled the fish from the net and held it out.

“Let’s get a picture,” Joseph said. “All of you boys gather together.”

The six brothers came together, arms wrapped around each other, smiles on their faces as Hudson held up his monster fish and Joseph captured the picture.

“This one’s going on the wall,” Joseph said. “I’m so damn proud of you all.”

Hudson’s smile faded as he stared down at his fish. And then he felt a punch to his gut. For the first time in so long he couldn’t remember when, he felt stinging in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Finn asked, no teasing whatsoever in his tone. Everyone stopped and turned. And horror of all horrors, Hudson felt tears fill his eyes. What in the hell was going on?

He turned away and blinked as he stared at the river and memories flooded him. “Please take the fish,” he said to anyone close by. The fish was grabbed from his hand as one of his brothers patted him on the shoulder. The hand rested there, letting him know he was waiting without interrupting.

It took a few minutes for Hudson to gather himself together and then he finally turned, his brothers and Uncle Joseph standing by.

“Do you remember that last time we camped with Mom and our father?” he asked.

Finn got a glint in his eyes. “Yeah, that was the day Neilson backhanded Mom and sent her to the ground, causing a huge bruise on her face.” All of his brothers frowned, including Damien who hadn’t been there.

“That was all I remembered until right now,” he said. “There was so much bad in our past with that man who fathered us, that I’ve pushed it down for a very long time. But what I failed to see through the anger at what that man had done, was the good that came after. It took me catching this fish to bring it back to me.”

Noah smiled as the memory flooded him as well. “You caught a fish that day too,” he said. “I remember it was huge!”

“Yeah, I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but Neilson stormed off after we all yelled at him, and Mom said she wasn’t allowing our trip to be ruined. She took us all down to the water and we fished for hours. She was laughing as we pulled up tiny little trout, and then my pole went down just like it did today,” Hudson said. He was choking up a bit again, but he pushed the emotion down.

“That fish took forever for you to reel in. I remember jumping up and down with excitement,” Noah said. “And Finn kept telling you that you could do it.”

“And then I got it to the bank and the damn thing got off of the hook,” Hudson said, remembering the panic he’d felt so many years earlier as if it had happened yesterday.

“I totally forgot about that part. You dove into the water and tackled the fish, coming up with your arms full of a wiggling, scaly, pissed-off fish,” Noah said, laughing hard as he remembered the look of determination and triumph on Hudson’s face.

“Then Mom taught us how to cut the fish up, and she fried it over the campfire. It was the best damn thing I’ve ever eaten,” Hudson said. He looked at the fish Brandon was now holding. “Let’s cut this up and fry it