Thadeus pushed open the screen door of his home and breathed in the heavy musky air of Pleasant Valley.  The smell if sycamores and crops were on the air.  He felt the pleasant warmness of the climate on his skin.  He could never understand them northerners, with their snow and ice; it was just damned unpleasant.  He moved to the porch swing, sipping his tumbler of brandy, savoring the slow burn as it made its way to his stomach.  Then sat.  He watched a rusty of ford pickup turn onto his drive, it was a distant shape at first but he thought that he could make out the dark red rusty patches on the pale powdery blue body.  It would be the Marvins' boy coming to do chores.  He paid the lad to walk the horse pastures looking for gopher holes, feed the animals, and give each of his two dozen horses grooming on a set schedule.  Tad often did the grooming himself, but the rest he didn't care for.  Confirming his suspicion, the truck turned off the drive onto the track that led to the far pastures.  If would be a long shot if William came up to the house if he was doing the far pasture today, so Tad decided to reenter the house and prepare for an outing.<br/><br/>Thirty minutes later found him driving into town in his own beat up F-150.  He had sports cars, too, but he found driving around town in his father's old truck satisfying somehow.  He pulled into a parking space across Main Street from the town bar and exited the cab.  He spotted Natalie, a fantastic looking woman he got nowhere with, standing behind her counter, and considered going in and getting nowhere again..  He didn't even try to get somewhere anymore, just enjoying the flirting for what it was.  No one fought with words like a fine southern filly.  Northern girls just had nothing on them.<br/><br/>Finally, he decided that it might just be the thing before he headed to the bar..