Keeping What's His: Tate (Porter Brothers Trilogy 1)

“She swears she isn’t seeing anyone except me,” Greer argued.

“Which doesn’t mean shit and you know it. That lying whore would swear on a stack of bibles she was a virgin if she had a reason. You want to piss the Hayeses off? I heard she’s been fucking around with Asher.”

“There isn’t going to be a fight. He didn’t start a fight when she was hanging around The Last Riders, so why would he give me trouble?”

“Maybe because you don’t have a clubhouse of bikers backing you up,” Tate replied.

“I don’t need those pussies to back me up. I have my rifle, you, and Dustin.” Greer looked at him from the corner of his eye. “Besides, she told me she hasn’t seen him in a couple of months.”

Tate’s mouth tightened into a grim line, knowing Greer would do what he wanted, regardless of the consequences. Greer would never back down from trouble, and sometimes, he deliberately sought it out. This was one of those times.

He sighed. “Try not to shove it in their faces.”

“Why would I do that?” Greer gave him a shit-eating grin.

“Because it’s what you do. This time, I’m telling you to take it easy. If you get us all killed, do you want Holly raising Logan alone?”

Greer lost his grin. “That will never happen. I’ll see to that.”

“Not if your ass is buried six feet under,” Tate said as he carefully maneuvered the truck up the rutted driveway that led to their house.

“Isn’t going to happen. I don’t know why we still need her hanging around, anyway.”

“Because Logan’s attached to her. To him, she’s his mother.”

Tate didn’t harbor any ill-will toward Holly. He had saved all his hate for Samantha Langley, Logan’s biological mother who hadn’t told Dustin he had knocked her up in high school. Her father had taken her to Jamestown where she had the child in secret. Then he had hired Holly to care for the child, leaving her alone to raise Logan, while Samantha returned to Treepoint without anyone in town realizing she had a child. When Samantha died, Holly hadn’t told anyone of Logan’s existence to afraid of losing the child that had become like her own. If not for Diamond, the town lawyer, defending her now husband Knox, Tate doubted they would have ever found him. Holly planned to leave town when she discovered what inherited illness was making Logan so sick. Greer wouldn’t forgive her for her deceit in keeping Logan hidden.

“He’s old enough that we don’t need her anymore.”

“You going to drag your ass out of bed to take him to school in the mornings? Wash his dirty clothes? Fix his dinner? I don’t notice you putting up a fight when Holly washes your dirty clothes, and you sure as fuck don’t have a problem wolfing down those meals she cooks.”

Greer shrugged. “She’s earning her keep.”

Tate snorted. “What keep? That small bedroom she sleeps in, or the house where you refuse to remodel the kitchen? The floorboards are so thin one of us will go through them one day.”

“It’s fine.” Greer crossed his arms against his chest stubbornly.

“It’s a shithole, and you know it, but you’re hoping to run Holly off. I thought you were smarter than that. Holly won’t leave Logan. She’d die for that boy, which is more than I can say about you.”

“What in the fuck does that mean?”

“It means, after we sell the pot, we’re getting a new kitchen,” Tate stated firmly.

“You’ll be using your share, then. I have better uses for my money.”

“What? Drinking or whoring?”

“Both.”

Tate’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, controlling the impulse to punch his brother in the face. Bringing the truck to a stop in front of their house, he turned to stare coldly at Greer.

“We’re getting the fucking kitchen.”

Greer opened his mouth then closed it, smart enough to realize Tate’s mind was made up.

“Fine, but there better not be any fancy shit in it.”

Confused, Tate stared at his brother. “Like what?”

“No dishwasher or any of that frosted glass. If I want anyone to see what’s in my cabinets, I’ll leave the doors open.”

Tate laid his head on the steering wheel instead of banging it against it the way he wanted to. “Do you have to be such a hillbilly?”

Greer got out of the truck without answering the obvious.

Tate climbed out after taking a deep breath. Greer would try the patience of a saint, and he sure as fuck wasn’t one of those. He lowered the tailgate, pulling the box that held the groceries toward him, and then each brother lifted several bags into their arms.

“You think she’ll stay around a while?”

“Holly?”

“No! The woman we saw at the hotel.”

His brother had the attention span of a gnat.

“No. She was probably stopping for the night before heading somewhere else.”

“I hope not. I’d like to get to know the woman with those tits and ass.”