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Sorta. Okay, he was a liar. Just like how he lied every day when he saw his mother hobbling down the staircase from her room to the kitchen, looking weaker and weaker, and he’d give her a bracing smile and tell her that her cheeks were blossoming like her gardens.
Funches squinted through his scope. The old war vet was used to wrestling with bears. “I thought you and Nash came out of the womb glued at the hip.”
Porter took a deep breath at the reminder that his twin was actually gone. He still felt the desertion deeply.
Stupid Nash. Porter hated experiencing things like “feelings,” and now they kept coming to the surface in a flood of misery. This was the worst time to take off for Nashville anyway, and for Nash to go with their older brother, West? Of all people?
Their mother was still waiting on that heart transplant. They’d been waiting for a donor for two months, but it was proving harder to find a match than they’d first thought. Porter, along with his other brothers, wore the leather bracelet with Lily’s name on it. Their neighbors, the Bridges, had made them to show their support. Standing behind their momma wasn’t the hard part. It was the delay that was excruciating.
Nash had been desperate to get away, but who wasn’t? Everyone felt the stress of their mother’s sickness as she grew more unrecognizable, and no matter how strong or how clever any of her five boys were, there was nothing that any of them could do.
The only difference was that Porter stayed, and Nash ran. His brother had even excused abandoning them by saying that he might do the family all a favor by going out there and making loads of money to help them out. Such a stupid cop-out. Porter knew when his twin was parroting West’s lame arguments.
How could Nash listen to West more than his own twin? West couldn’t even keephimselfout of trouble.
Porter shrugged off the sting of the betrayal and joined his gun with Funches as they waited out the bear. “It’s about time Nash made something of himself,” Porter said.
“It’s about timeyoumade something of yourself,” Funches grumbled. “I told you that I have that big chunk of land up for sale.” Since the old farmer’s retirement, he’d been whittling off more and more of his land. Soon, he’d only have the property where his cabin stood. Funches’s wrinkled forehead knit together as he stared over the green pastures. “You should buy it.”
“With what money?” For once, Porter dropped his forced humor and let his more raw emotions show. Funches got to see this side of him more than anyone. “We’re swamped with debt from those hospital bills.”
Funches grunted out in annoyance. “Are you sure that’s the problem? Or are you so caught up in what your twin is doing that you can’t think about anything else?”
How insulting. “No!”
“If you ask me, you need to pay those doctors to surgically remove you from your twin’s hip.”
Funches would say that! The whole county was breathing a sigh of relief that the twins weren’t up to their usual mischief that had somehow quadrupled when they were together. But, theirs was good, clean fun. There was no telling what West was inspiring Nash to do.
Porter smirked to cover his frustration, turning to Funches. “Yeah, well, nobody asked you, old man.”
Funches’s laugh escaped through his white beard in a flutter of blowing hair. The guy always enjoyed it when people stood up to him. He’d been the grumpy, unapproachable man for so long that it was a surprise that things had changed now that the next generation of ranchers were grown. They’d come a long way since the days Funches chased the Slades and Bridges off his land with that same shotgun that he was presently holding.
They’d definitely misunderstood each other. Now the man invited him to weekly NASCAR nights at his place. Funches had a sweet setup with an eighty-two inch TV hanging from the ceiling in the den of his cabin with a hefty supply of Fresca and chips in his prepper’s closet.
“You hear that?” Funches’s fingers tightened on his shotgun. “I think the bear’s sneaking up on us from the other side. The bushes are rattling.”
Porter felt his stomach tighten at the coming action, and he got ready for a fight. Throwing himself into his work was enough to numb his anger at what his twin had done, and bears never went down without trying to grab at a few cattle. They’d try to keep it alive, if they could. Wildlife Services got real touchy in these parts.
Porter’s youngest brother, Cole was busy fixing the fencing between Funches’s territory and theirs. The Slade family had about a thousand acres of land, while Funches had about seven times more than that. They both had a reason to keep bears off their land.
Cole raised his arm in the distance to signal when he had the fencing closed. The fringe of his leather gloves swayed in the wind. Despite the heat, Cole was in a long sleeved Henley and worn jeans to keep safe from the barbs. “We’re good to go!” Cole shouted over to them.
The brothers had always worked as a team, though things had moved much more smoothly when all five Slade men were at home. The oldest, Hudson, was now married and working his own land, the second oldest, West, was a terror, who’d pursued a slimy position in Nashville working PR for men with worse reputations than his, and then, of course, there were the twins, and their baby brother—who never appreciated being called the baby…which is why Porter did it often.
Cole had Hudson’s responsible disposition. It was probably why he was the only one who’d ended up staying behind with Porter when things got dicey at home.
The cattle grazed peacefully over the range, though they wouldn’t when that bear showed up. The sun was setting on this beautiful day like a lid thrown over a blazing hot fire. It was about a week and a half until the Fourth of July, but this scorching heat drying their fields would make their own fireworks if they weren’t careful to keep back all possible fire hazards… like what had happened last year.
That had been their fault.
Nash and Porter had almost set the whole place on fire. Their old man nearly had their heads for that one. Porter bit down the amusement that threatened to tighten his cheek at the thought.
No. He refused to let memories of Nash cheer him up.
Cole let out a shout, waving his arms. “It’s over there!” He pointed at a black blur of fur as a growling bear sliced past him to go at a calf.
One of the mothers let out a shriek. Her baby was the target. The other cows cried out. The Slades had trained their cattle to bunch in together at the sign of danger. Would they do it? If so, less of them would be slaughtered. Porter was too far away to do much good. The bear easily barreled through their ranks.
