Chapter Eleven
Derick
Derick sat back in his office chair and stared at the room, not seeing it. The anguish in Rue’s voice hurt as much as the words themselves as they repeated in his head. “Not this time, Dad.” They squeezed his chest at how much Rue believed them.
Recalling vividly his own frustration at Lane breaking his promise of not adopting another lost boy, Derick chuckled at how it fled the second he’d met Rue.
One look into those haunted eyes and Derick’s heart engaged in the same way it had for each of his sons.
Rue was big for his age, so a person could have missed the defenselessness, but Derick had not.
Offering truthfulness as the foundation for their sons' growing up, some had struggled more with this than others. Rue had taken more than a year before deciding to allow the adoption, the longest of all their adopted sons. Derick suspected Rue’s inability to share with them was a part of that.
The youngest of their sons, he hid his vulnerability behind a protective wall built out of what he believed was necessity.
The blood he’d been covered in when rescued might have washed off easily.
But his guilt at not protecting his family, his younger brother, left an indelible mark on his soul.
Rue had never mentioned his brother, not once.
Derick had discovered, after he’d gotten his investigators involved, that the child, no more than five, had been slaughtered with Rue’s parents.
There were photos taken in the aftermath, but Derick had never shown another soul, including his husband.
The brutality of the attack Rue had witnessed firsthand left Derick gutted to his core.
Rue would cringe at Derick defining him as gentle and kind, but despite the trauma he had a capacity to love bigger and bolder than many who hadn’t experienced such loss. He used bluster, indifference and aggression to shield himself.
Rue carried guilt with him. They could tell him a thousand times he wasn’t to blame for what happened to his family. His size did not mean he could have stopped the other crash members, of which there were ten, from brutally murdering his divergent parents and brother.
They’d gotten Rue a therapist, like they had for all their sons when they’d needed them, but he was the only one who hadn’t benefitted from it.
He’d closed himself off from the past and held the guilt like a shield over his heart.
Nothing they had done changed that, and Derick felt this keenly, much like Lane.
They loved him. Cherished him. Was it enough?
Derick wasn’t sure after the call.
Rue was only truly open and honest with him and Lane, yet he held back anything connected to relationships. The one time he’d spoken about someone had been liquor-fueled.
Derick’s love for Lane was something he accepted from the moment he’d figured out his feelings. Rue had strong feelings for Monty, and the liquor freed his tongue. There was no other reason for the guilt he felt after sleeping with him. Not that Derick could find… unless.
The rest of the conversation ran through his mind.
Was it more to do with Rue’s other desires?
Blowing out a breath at what that could mean, his gaze narrowed on the phone.
He wasn’t the matchmaker; his mate was. He hadn’t wanted to interfere, except sending them all to the ranch hadn’t just been for team building for his sons. Close proximity could work wonders.
Had he miscalculated, given how miserable Rue sounded?
Derick was sure that Rue was holding back something vital about last night for him to be this upset.
“Did Rue call?”
Lane’s question made him jerk his gaze to the man who’d somehow come into the room without alerting Derick to his presence. A feat most never achieved, which revealed the level of concern he felt for Rue.
He frowned at his husband's drawn, worried expression and reached to tug Lane onto his lap, inhaling the familiar scent, allowing it to settle him.
Lane rested his head on Derick’s shoulder, slinging one arm around his neck. “That bad?”
“Something is up, and he believes it’s not fixable.”
“Is it to do with Monty?” Lane stroked a hand up his chest, while the other played with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Love, I told you, no interfering in this. I mentioned what happened because—”
“You needed my wisdom.”
Derick kissed the top of Lane’s silvery hair and groaned. “Let’s go with that.” He was defenseless against Lane when he used his wiles to get what he wanted. They both knew it.
Lane moved to meet his gaze. “He’s in love with Monty. You can see it, I can see it. I’m sure Monty can see it, too.”
Derick pinched his husband's chin, shaking his head. “Rue can’t see it, that’s the point here.
” He kissed Lane’s pouty lips, resisting deepening it when he could hear Bessie bustling about in the next room.
Of late, it was impossible to resist him, and Derick couldn’t trust himself not to shock the housekeeper with his antics.
“I think he needs more,” he said instead.
Concern clouded Lane’s gorgeous gray eyes. “What do you mean?”
Derick hesitated; it wasn’t a conversation he’d had with Lane when Rue had been very drunk when he’d confessed about Monty.
Only it wasn’t the only thing he’d confessed that night.
Derick was pretty sure that Rue had no recollection of the latter part of the conversation as he’d continued to down half a bottle of whiskey.
Derick, thinking it unwise to speak about it when Rue was sober, had let it be.
Again, he questioned whether he’d made a mistake.
“You know something. Give it up!”
Derick swallowed the groan at the glint in his husband’s eyes that threatened retribution if he didn’t spill. Torn, he hesitated. He released a resigned sigh when Lane’s hand moved to the buttons on his shirt.
“Rue’s tastes differ from our other sons.
He needs more than one mate,” said Derick.
And if he considered the reason Rue hadn’t come home last evening was because he might have found a third to bridge the gap between him and Monty, in Bayfield, he was keeping that quiet when he needed to do some investigating of his own.
Lane, who had two buttons open, paused, blinking slowly. “Well, I never! Would that be an alpha, beta or omega?”
Trust his husband to get straight to the heart of the matter. “That I can’t say, which means you need to leave this alone, love,” he warned, already seeing it was futile but felt he needed to try for Rue. “I mean it this time.”