The Scars That Make Us (Second Generation Book 3)

Chapter 2

JACE

“So what do you think this super important family meeting is about?” 

I looked down the feed trough to my brother, Deacon, giving a small smile because he said exactly what I was thinking just now. Right as we were leaving from lunch at our grandma’s kitchen, our aunt, Brooke, told us that after the kids got home from the bus we needed to meet up at the big house for a family meeting. For the last two hours, every imaginable situation had been running through my head. 

“I don’t know, Deac. I was just thinking the same thing. I mean, the last time we had a family meeting…”

“Right? That better fucking not be it.”

Deacon was referring to our younger cousin, Clemmy, who was the topic of our last big family meeting at the end of the summer before they all went back to school. Family meetings were not something we normally did because our moms did a really good job of spreading the family gossip, or should I say the news, to everybody that needed to know. That was one of the effects of living on a huge family farm as we did.

Generations ago this land was bought by a member of the Port Family and it was passed down from generation to generation. There was concern that when my Great-Great Grandpa didn’t have any sons that it would be the end of Port Ranch, but my great-grandma wasn’t having that, I never met the lady, but apparently she was a total badass for her time and raised two sons on her own, giving them her last name rather than the name of their dead beat, no good, fathers. So Port Ranch lived on.

The joke wasn’t over there though, my grandparents, Brian and Tracy Port gave birth to their fair share of children, four, but they were all girls. Luckily, they were always pretty open-minded and they gave no thought to anybody that told them they should try for a boy so the ranch name could live on. Maybe they just knew that the future would work for them, and certainly, it did.

My mom, the oldest of the four sisters, fell in love and married my dad, Max, who worked on the ranch from a very young age. He fell in love with the lifestyle and my mother and there was zero doubt in their minds that when the time came for my grandpa to take a step back, that the ranch would be in great hands with my dad and his best friend Granger. Unfortunately, my dad never lived to see that day because he passed away when he was in his thirties. I was just a young kid at the time and even though I have a lot of memories of my dad, the ones that mean the most of me were spent with him on this ranch.

I knew that no matter what happened, Port Ranch would be my future. It was something that I owed to my dad and my grandpa. I figured being the oldest grandkid, the responsibility to keep the ranch alive would fall on me, something I didn’t take lightly. Of course, what I didn’t expect was years after my dad’s death, my mom and Granger would fall in love and Granger would end up staying at the ranch to take on that role that was initially meant for my dad. Not just that, but my Uncle Mitch ended up falling in love with my Aunt Brielle and now Granger and Mitch run the ranch together as if it was always meant to be. Neither of them may be a Port by blood, but one thing you learn real quick-like here is that blood doesn’t make you family. 

After finishing up our work, Deacon and I met up with our older cousin Lyle and walked up to the big house. We call it the big house because it is the first house that you see when you make the long drive down the turn off to Port Ranch. For the longest time, it was exactly that, the big house, but over the years my aunts have started to build their own homes on the property and although it is still the main house, it is no longer the biggest. The house consists of three floors. The first is a giant living and dining area that is a gathering place for the family. It also has a hallway of offices. My uncle, Walker, is the only one that still has an office in the house.