Epilogue
Derrick
It had been months, and right up until today, on this gorgeous, golden, late-spring afternoon, Wyatt had still been living at Bobcat Creek Ranch.
No one could understand it, but John Hart hadn’t said anything about it, and it was still his ranch. If Malcolm had had his way, or Derrick, or Craig, or literally anyone else who lived at the ranch, Wyatt would have been gone months ago, but he just stayed in his room. No one had any idea how he was keeping his business in Seattle running, but honestly, Derrick didn’t care much.
He just wanted the man gone. Wyatt hadn’t been all of what had gone badly with Logan, they had done plenty of messing up their relationship themselves, but he definitely hadn’t helped. But this was, after all, not Derrick’s ranch. It was his home, yes, he had come to that conclusion after years of struggling with it, but he didn’t own it. His father did.
Speaking of which.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Derrick asked, and when he looked around the room, he could see the same question written on everyone else’s faces. Everyone was there, from the teenaged Mary Anne to John himself, everyone who lived in the house.
Even Wyatt was there, on one of the rare occasions when he left his bedroom. When he did, it was mostly when no one else was around, to grab food. Doubtless, the man knew that he wasn’t the most welcome person in the world as far as the other inhabitants of the house were concerned.
“I’m giving Wyatt a chance to do what he should have done a long time ago,” John declared, and from the look on Wyatt’s face, he was just as astonished by this extraordinary pronouncement as the rest of them were.
“And what’s that?” Wyatt sneered, his face twisted and contorted unpleasantly.
“Apologize,” John said firmly. “For what you’ve done to this family, for the petty, juvenile bullshit that you’ve been pulling.”
Derrick glanced over at Craig and Malcolm, meeting their eyes and seeing the same surprise in their face. It was easy to forget that John, their father, was still the same man that he had always been. He was sick, yes, and some days, he was too weak to do much other than lie in bed, but he was still the same person, the same strong force, that he had always been for them.
“I’m not apologizing for trying to take care of the family financially,” Wyatt whined, his face screwed up so that he looked like nothing more than a toddler throwing a hissy fit. “Someone has to after you’re dead.”
Derrick’s eyes narrowed, and he watched as Malcolm’s hands clenched into fists at the cruelty of the crude comment. Even Skyler, usually so quiet, gasped, and there wasn’t a single person in the room, other than apparently John, who wasn’t shocked and horrified by Wyatt’s words.
“So I take it you’re not going to say sorry anytime soon,” John commented drily, and Wyatt didn’t even dignify that with a response. He just stood there, his shoulders defiantly back, his chin tilted up, dark eyes fixed on his father. At that moment, he looked like a rebellious teenager, this powerful businessman.
“You take it correctly,” Wyatt said, with exaggerated dignity. “All of you need to think about what you’re going to do, what side you’re going to be on, when this old man finally kicks the bucket. It won’t be long, and …”
Derrick, Malcolm, and Craig all stepped forward at the same time. Derrick didn’t know about his brothers, but his intention was to rip Wyatt’s head from his shoulders. Things got messy for a bit, with all three of the Hart boys reaching for their heartless brother. Logan grabbed Derrick and held him back, and Kyle had his arms around Malcolm’s waist, trying to hold him back physically. Skyler had a slender arm looped through Craig’s and was saying something to him, having to stretch way up onto his tiptoes to do it.
“Enough,” John said. He didn’t even have to speak loudly, his voice cut through all of the noise and made everyone stop to listen. “Enough, all of you. Wyatt, this is still my ranch, and you’re no longer welcome here.”
Derrick paused, forgetting his desperate desire to get to Wyatt in the shock of the moment. He would never have imagined it, even though it had been, as far as he was concerned, a long time coming.
“Dad …” Wyatt said, and for the first time in a long time, Derrick actually found himself feeling sorry for his older brother. It couldn’t be easy for him to be kicked out. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but he had obviously been counting on John’s patience, which was not, apparently, inexhaustible.
“You can come back when you’re ready to be a decent human being. You’re my son, and I love you, but there are limits to what I can allow you to do while you’re around.” John looked at his son, and Derrick could tell that his father did not want to do this. Obviously, he didn’t. But he was doing it anyway, and really, it was for the best.
“Fine. But all of you will regret this,” Wyatt said and stormed off to his room, his face twisted into a petulant scowl.
“He sounds like a James Bond villain or something,” Malcolm noted, and the silence of the room erupted into shared laughter, warm and welcoming. None of them noticed when Wyatt left. He must have snuck out the back door. But he was gone.
* * *
“Do you think he’ll be back?”
Derrick had been lost in a book, already curled up in bed. He and Logan technically had two separate rooms still, but they were always together in one of them. Neither of them had made any sort of big deal about bunking together every night, but it wasn’t a secret, either.
“Wyatt?” Derrick guessed shrewdly, and Logan nodded a little as he stripped off his shirt. Derrick watched him with genuine appreciation, enjoying the eye candy of his gorgeous boyfriend’s incredibly sexy, toned, ripped body being revealed to him.
“Yeah. And stop looking at me like that if you’re not going to do something about it, by the way,” Logan murmured, his blue eyes sending out sparks as he looked back at Derrick. One of the best things about this whole being in a real relationship deal was how very ready Logan was to jump into bed with him at any given time.
Of course, they were probably just making up for lost time.
“I don’t know if he will or not. I hope so, I guess, if he can not be a dick about it,” Derrick murmured thoughtfully in response. He sat up in bed, already naked, and let the sheets pool around his waist as he beckoned Logan over. “It would mean a lot to Dad.”
