Free One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) by Marjorie Pinkerton Miller Page A

neighborhoods were succumbing to the bulldozers and backhoes that cleared the way for mini-mansions. Shady yards and grapefruit trees were displaced by Mid-Century Modern knock-offs that spread from property line to property line, ensuring their owners there would be plenty of room for exercise equipment, sixty-inch TVs, and gourmet kitchens with islands and prep sinks that would rarely be put to use.
    At the edges of the neighborhood, some small inns and hotels lay decaying, some still attracting enough less-rich and less-famous tourists to stay alive until some over-financed investor came along to buy them out of their misery and start the gentrification. Inside those edges, Rick saw opportunity. Some small, decaying houses sat on land zoned for small inns and hotels, and their owners didn’t know it. In many cases, the houses were empty—the Midwestern owners who bought them in the sixties and early seventies had died, and their heirs hadn’t caught onto the trendiness of their parents’ old winter playground. They simply held onto them, in spite of the burden they carried in property tax payments.
    Rick braked to a stop five or six times, pulling the little notepad out of the back pocket of his shorts and jotting down an address. Like Max, the real estate agents he had hired for this kind of prospecting were too lazy to get out of the office and canvass. They preferred to peruse other real estate agents’ listings from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices to actually walking or riding the streets. Once a property was listed on the MLS, anyone could bid on it, and that meant the asking price would climb into the stratosphere in a matter of minutes, if it hadn’t already started there.
    Rick finished canvassing the Movie Colony, and decided to glide through some neighborhoods and down the main street before returning to work. Fall had the effect on him that spring had on residents of other parts of the country. After the stifling heat of summer, October was finally nice enough to escape outside and get some fresh air. He stuck to the right edge of the three-lane, weaving out of the way of the cars behind him whenever an empty parking spot gave him enough room to let them by.
    He pulled up at the side of the street to watch a couple of bulldozers and an earth mover that were reshaping a large lot on the north edge of the main business district.
    “Hey, Rick!” A large man with a clipboard, dressed in dust-covered work clothes, waved and strode over toward him. “How’s it going? You want to jump in and help us?”
    “Hi, Carl,” Rick stuck out his hand. “No. I passed up my chance at this kind of business, but I still like to watch these big machines work.”
    “Yeah, it’s like being a kid in a sandbox. A very big sandbox.” Carl waved his arm over the large dirt plot. “And how’s your mom doing?”
    “Good, I think,” Rick said. “You know we don’t talk much about business.”
    “Yeah, I never understood that, Rick. You would have been great at this. But you like that hotel business?”
    “Yes, I do,” Rick said. “The projects are smaller, they get done faster. I like the variety. You must be at this one project, what? Two years?”
    “Yes, it takes patience, that’s for sure. I know it’s none of your business, but back to your mom.”
    “You are right, it is none of my business.”
    “But I’m wondering if she’d be interested in selling out. I need a bigger crew, more equipment. I think we could both benefit. And she must be ready to retire. What is she, fifty?”
    “Fifty-five.”
    “Wow. She doesn’t look it.”
    Rick grimaced. People were always telling him how great his mother looked, and he didn’t really want to hear it.
    “Why don’t you call her?” Rick asked.
    “Could you warm her up for me? See if she’s interested?”
    “Sorry, Carl,” Rick shook his head. “It would do more harm than good. I’m afraid you’ll have to approach her yourself. I really