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

“I don’t, and the feeling will be mutual” Tate said, looking over at his brother who was dressed in the faded jeans and work boots he preferred.

Everyone in town thought they were hillbilly trash and wanted nothing to do with them unless they were buying their weekly bag of weed, and the woman he had caught a brief glance of had shouted class and money.

“You never know, I could be her type.”

“Not if she has a brain in her head,” Tate retorted good-naturedly then laughed when Greer shoved him away from the steps leading up to the front porch. Tate held back, letting Greer go first into the house.

Inside, Dustin got up from the kitchen table where he was working on his computer to help put the groceries away.

“Why did you buy so many groceries?” Dustin asked, opening a bag of chips.

“I don’t want to go into town for a while until we find out who’s sneaking around at night. If they know we go into town once a week for food, it’ll throw them off if we don’t go for a while.”

“You still think someone’s watching the house?” Dustin asked, taking one of the beers before Greer could slide the twelve-pack into the fridge.

“I know so. I just can’t figure out who.” Tate answered, taking one of the beers for himself.

“Let me get the fucking things cold before you drink them all,” Greer complained.

“Have to enjoy them while we can. Holly and Logan will be back soon.”

“I don’t know why we can’t drink beer as long as we don’t drink it in front of Logan.”

“We all agreed Holly was right, we don’t want to give Logan a bad example to follow,” Dustin stated as he opened his beer.

“If you’re not careful, she’ll raise him to be a pussy,” Greer griped.

“Shut up. She’s right. Ma never let Pa drink in front of us, either.”

“And how well did that turn out? Remember that weekend they came home from church and caught us all shit-faced?”

Tate and Dustin both winced at the memory of the ass-whipping their father had given them. He had told all three of them they weren’t getting the whipping for getting drunk, but because they were caught by their mother, and he had to listen to her complaints about his beer in the refrigerator.

“Next time, buy your own damn beer,” their father had growled before leaving all three of them wailing while he returned to face a furious wife.

“It was worse than the whipping he gave us when he caught us smoking the weed,” Dustin remembered.

“Because we were smoking profit. We never did it after that, because he wouldn’t give us money for a month.” Tate laughed. “Not even lunch money.”

“He was a hard-ass,” Greer agreed.

“He never had to teach us the same lesson twice,” Tate said, lifting the beer to his lips as he looked out the window and saw it was getting dark.

Placing the beer down on the counter, he picked up his shotgun resting near the door. When Logan was home, all the guns were kept in the gun safe except for the one in Tate’s holster,

“I’m going to go check the field before it gets dark. I’ll be back in an hour. Fry some burgers, Greer.”

“Why not Dustin?”

“Because I don’t want it burnt,” Tate answered, going out the door.

He carefully walked toward the spot where the mairjuana was planted, scanning for any sign of any trespassers. Finding no poachers or issues at the field, he was on his way back to the house when he heard the sound of a motor in the distance. Frowning, he tried to pinpoint the direction of the sound. Quickly he turned on his heels to walk in the opposite direction, maneuvering stealthily through the trees for a quarter of a mile until he came to a stop behind a large tree.

It was almost dark as the car stopped in front of the small house that had stood empty for the last five years. Pap Creech had died, and it had remained untouched since the day the ambulance had taken him away after his heart attack.

The woman from town stood on the porch with a flashlight in her hand. She had changed into jeans and a T-shirt and had pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail.

Tate was about to yell out and tell her she was trespassing when she reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulling out a key and inserting it into the lock.

Tate sucked in a startled breath as she lifted the flashlight higher so she could see the lock, the light illuminating her profile.

Sutton Creech had come home.

Chapter 3

Sutton turned the doorknob. The door didn’t want to open, so she braced her shoulder against the door and gave it a hard shove. It still didn’t budge.