Keeping What's His: Tate (Porter Brothers Trilogy Book 1) by Jamie Begley

felt lately.
    Tate loaded Logan’s bike into the bed of the truck and switched out the car seats before he climbed in. Logan fidgeted with excitement on the way to his grandmother’s house.
    “How much longer are we going to have to stay with Mrs. Langley?” Holly asked.
    “Just a few more days.” Tate took his eyes briefly off the road. “I figured you would prefer Mrs. Langley’s house over ours. It’s a hell of a lot bigger.”
    “It’s not home.” Holly glanced away, avoiding his gaze.
    “It won’t be much longer,” Tate promised as he pulled into the driveway.
    Tate climbed out while Holly opened the back door to let Logan out. The anxious boy could hardly wait as Tate pulled his bike out of the truck.
    He stayed and watched him for an hour until Dustin showed. Then Tate left them alone for some private time.
    Logan and Dustin had developed a close relationship, but Tate noticed an expression of sadness appear in his brother’s eyes when he wasn’t aware someone was watching. His young, devil-may-care attitude hid the pain Samantha had left behind. Dustin had loved her. He had never discussed it with him or Greer, but both brothers felt Dustin’s pain.
    Their father had warned them when they each turned sixteen that a Porter loves only once. He had often told them how he managed to catch their mother. He had loved her on first sight. Tate still remembered rolling his eyes when his father regaled them with his past. His mother had been engaged to Cash Adam’s father at the time.
    “I knew she was meant for me the first time I set eyes on her.”
    “She belonged to someone else,” Tate had reminded him.
    His father had shrugged. “I knew Mattie would catch on to him cheating on her. Your momma ain’t nobody’s fool.”
    “She caught him?” Greer had asked.
    Their father had nodded, not trying to hide the triumph in his voice. “Kind of hard not to when he knocked up the town whore. Took me a year to talk her into going out with me, then another six months to get her in my bed.”
    “Ew,” Dustin had groaned, covering his hands with his ears.
    “Son, you won’t be thinking that in a few years when a pretty girl walks by you, sashaying a pretty ass in front of you.”
    Tate and Greer had both laughed as their father had shot them a know-it-all grin.
    “I wouldn’t laugh too hard if I were you two, either. I’m gonna give you the same warning my pa gave me: once a woman catches a Porter man’s heart, she never lets it go. My pa and each man before him only loved one woman.”
    “Not in this day and time,” Tate had snickered.
    He had shaken his head. “Porter men are different.”
    “You really believe that?” Tate had asked in disbelief.
    “I know that,” he had said in conviction. “I wouldn’t want to live without your ma.”
    Tate had a feeling of forboding and quickly changed the subject. “Maybe it will skip our generation.”
    “I hope not. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on what me and your ma have.”
    “Didn’t Cash’s dad try to get her back?”
    A familiar look that had always scared them shitless had come over his face, the same one that had been on his face when he had caught someone snooping around their property.
    “He tried, hard.”
    “What did you do?” Dustin had asked the question they all had wanted answered.
    “I followed the rules my father gave me and the same one I keep telling you. A Porter always stands his ground. Don’t leave an enemy standing, and always keep what’s yours.”
    All of them had stared at their father in awe.
    “Don’t forget them rules,” he had ordered.
    “We won’t.” Each of them had given their promise to their father.
    “When I’m dead and gone, live and breathe them. Mark my words, no man or woman will stand a chance against you.”

 
    Chapter 7
     
    “Dammit.” Sutton stretched her aching back as she carried another box to place with the others the town church was picking up for their store. There