Standing His Ground: Greer (Porter Brothers Trilogy 2)

Sharpshooter: Get your mind out of the gutter.

Kentuckygirl: Sorry. Does size matter to you?

Sharpshooter: No … unless you do change your mind and want to have sex over the Internet, then I have a ten-inch dick.

Kentuckygirl: Whose mind is in the gutter now?

Sharpshooter: Trying to make you more comfortable. So, what size are you?

Kentuckygirl: I don’t measure myself, but I wear a large and an x-large if I want to be comfortable.

Sharpshooter: I want you to be comfortable when I’m fucking you so …

Chatroom closed

Sharpshooter: Woman, I know you know I was joking with you.

Kentuckygirl: Ha, ha.

Chatroom closed.

Sharpshooter: Be that way. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Kentuckygirl: Bye

Chatroom closed.

“Is that it? You didn’t leave anything behind, did you?” Greer dropped a large box on the bed in the room that Dustin had said Mrs. Langley had given her. “I don’t want you making excuses to come out to the house. I don’t want you showing up when I’m entertaining.”

Holly pulled out two pictures of Logan, setting them on the dresser facing the bed. “Make sure you wash your sheets before inviting Diane over to spend the night. I won’t be there to change them for you.” She flipped over the top of the box so she could pull out the clothes that hadn’t fit into her suitcase.

She had expected Dustin to drop her off and leave her in a dark house. Instead, Dustin, Logan, and Greer had driven her, while Logan had excitably told her he was staying with her and she would be taking him to school in the morning.

Nothing had gone the way she had expected it to. When the Porters had come home from the fishing trip, she’d had her things ready. They had sat and talked to Logan, telling him that Holly wanted to live in his grandmother’s house until it sold, because she didn’t want it to sit empty.

Yeah, she had volunteered to leave; that much was true, Holly thought caustically.

Logan came running into the bedroom, leaping onto the bed. “Can I sleep with you?”

“Boy, you can sleep in the same room you always slept in when you visited your grandmother.”

Logan’s face drooped.

“Do you ever get tired of being a party pooper?” Holly wanted to stick her tongue out at Greer, yet she didn’t want to set a bad example for Logan.

Winking at him, she helped Logan off the bed.

“It’s getting late, and your dad is waiting to give you a bath. When you get your pajamas on, I’ll read you a story.”

He ran off before Greer put a damper on her suggestion.

“That boy doesn’t need to be running in the house.”

Holly rolled her eyes. There were several things she wouldn’t be missing living with Greer.

“Do you remember what I said about Logan not wanting to visit you when you’re old?”

“Yeah?”

“Did it go in one ear and out the other?” Holly gave him a droll look.

“Boys need discipline. My pa—”

“How close were you to your father?”

Greer’s mouth closed in a tight line.

She raised her eyebrow at him. “I rest my case.”

“How do you think Tate, Rachel, Dustin, and I turned out?”

Holly thought about the Porters and how much they loved each other. They might not have many friends, but they had always been fair to her. Despite Greer’s complaints about her living in his home, he had never made her feel uncomfortable by leering at her the way most men did. When he went to the grocery store, he would even buy items that he had noticed she liked. During certain times of the month, she would find her candy bar stash replenished. He had even noticed when Dustin had bought her the wrong brand of shampoo and had come home from work to find it replaced with the one she used. He was also the one who took Logan out to shop for her, for her birthday and Christmas.

None of the Porters knew how to back down from a fight. When a friend of Sutton’s had wanted to leave town, Tate, Greer, Rachel, and Dustin raked together what cash that could spare, giving it to Sutton to give to Cheryl to start over in another city.

The townspeople might not like the Porters, but they could also name someone in their family whom the Porters had helped without expecting anything in turn. Shade had bought Greer a new truck after he had watched out for Bliss, one of the female members who had a former boyfriend who wanted her back. Holly was sure Greer would have done it for free just for the excitement.

“You don’t have to raise Logan as hard as you all were raised. He may have taught you right from wrong, but did it give you the affection you needed as a child?”

“That’s what our ma was for. If you want to know if I wish my pa hadn’t been hard on me, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ll raise my kids the same way I was raised. The same his pa raised him.”