Red Haught: Haught Brother's Book 4

by Leela Lou Dahlin

  Red Haught

  Haught Brothers - Book # 4

  By

  Leela Lou Dahlin

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Red Haught – Haught Brothers Book #4

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Leela Lou Dahlin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Published by Dahlin Publishing

  Edited by Tee Tate

  Cover Art by Shannon Lumetta

  Publishing History

  First Edition, 2018

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  This is dedicated to anyone who has ever needed a fresh start and has had someone believe in you.

  Acknowledgements

  The woman who support me in this journey come from a wide range of experiences, walks of life and ages. I’m so thankful and grateful for each and every one of you. Some of you I know from face to face interactions and others I’ve never met in person, but my life is richer and more fulfilling because I know you. I am so thankful to have you in my life.

  Angie Davis, Jennifer Ramsey, Jennifer Reilley, Gerri Mccullough, Tanya Wambolt and so many others… I don’t know what to say that I haven’t already. Daily talks, bitch sessions, encouragement, laugh fests, intriguing conversations, plotting assistance…there are too many things to mention and thank you just doesn’t seem like enough. I’m more grateful and appreciative of you than you would want to hear.

  I mentioned before that this list is always woefully incomplete, but know that if you have purchased a copy, read an arc, gave me a shout out, a cheer of encouragement or feedback, then I consider you part of my journey. Consider yourself appreciated and loved from the bottom of my heart.

  Hugs, love and blessings until we meet again.

  Chapter 1 – Draven

  “Draven Haught? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Draven, who up to now had been known as Red, looked around the event room of The Haught Spot Sport’s Bar at the faces that had been welcoming and friendly until now and wondered why he’d ever thought coming here to meet these people was a good idea. He’d lived his whole life knowing he had three half-brothers out here without actually meeting them, Draven should have been content just knowing they were in the world instead of wanting to be involved with them.

  They all looked at him with varying expressions on their faces. There was the oldest brother Alec with the scar that started somewhere his hair covered and stretched through his eye and lip, Beau the one who always smiled and the youngest brother Camden. They had all been celebrating the baptism of Camden and his wife Gemmi’s twins when Alec threw out the fact that he was in love with his fiancé True. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, of course, but when the man had said his father had died of a broken heart after his mother passed away he talked about wanting to be with True anyway. Draven didn’t know if he should blame it on the alcohol or if it was the fact he was a bonified dumb ass. The jury was still out on that one, but what he did have was knowledge. The truth was Draven ‘Red’ Haught was the bastard child of a man he’d never met and gazing into the faces of his legitimate children he saw nothing but contempt, anger and possibly bit of confusion. He knew there were probably a million things he could say right now in response to the questions he was being asked but looking into the faces of all three of his half-brothers that he’d always wanted to be a part of no smart ass comment came to him. “No. I’m not kidding. I’m the son of Zachary Haught.”

  He could hear the sounds of the bar outside of this room, there was happy chatter and boisterous laughing but in this room the vibe was altogether different. Draven could feel the rage surrounding him like a physical force and there was nothing but the seething silence directed at him. In a way more yelling or a fight would have let him release the pent up frustration of being the dirty Haught secret for his entire life, but what would that have done. Nothing. He would slink back into the shadows where he was before. Draven didn’t need these people or their approval.

  It was like he was having an out of body experience. He’d heard people say they were ‘beside themselves’ but he’d never really experienced the sensation. It was almost as if he was watching all this happen as a play. The three men all had grey eyes and they were all staring at him. Alec the oldest and Beau the middle stared at him with anger and confusion but Camden the youngest, looked at him with pity…and confusion. This was so not happening.

  “Look I never meant for any of you to find out who I was. I wanted to meet you without all the heavy that knowing who I am would bring.” Red was finding it hard to look at the men he’d wanted to be accepted by his whole life.

  “So our father was having an affair?” Beau squinted his eyes like he was trying to see the truth in what he was saying.

  “No. Your father met my mother at a grief therapy session after your mother passed away. I’m not thinking it was a grand love match just two grieving people trying to find solace and comfort. I’m just the product of two people who didn’t use contraception.” He looked at the faces and attempted to use humor to diffuse the situation. “Mistakes happen.”

  Alec grunted but Draven knew the man was hard to read normally and that’s when he was using words. The grunting response meant absolutely nothing to him. The humor didn’t work as Alec and Beau stood looking at him as if he was something that needed to be handled. Draven was big, and he was built to fight. Fuck, he’d been fighting all his life but he didn’t know if he wanted to fight his…brothers. He’d wanted to know them for as long as he’d known about them. They were like celebrities and in his fantasies this reunion went a lot better than this. Somehow they’d have found out about him and welcomed him into the fold, but that’s why fantasies were just that.

  “So you moving here to be a fill-in doctor at the hospital, you coming in right when Gemmi needed medical attention…hell you walking in here at all. Ws that all a lie? Were you setting us up?” Beau’s face was scrunched up like he was trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and coming up missing pieces.

  “Setting you up for what? Everything I told you about me was true. I’m a doctor covering at the hospital, I walked in just to see you guys in person and Gemmi fainting and me being there to help her was just divine intervention. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I never intended for you to know that I was in anyway related to you.” Draven knew that they probably weren’t even hearing the words coming out of his mouth. Shock does that to a person.

  Beau didn’t look like he believed anything Red was saying but there wasn’t anything that could be done about that at this point.

  Draven looked around the room and took in a deep breath. The aroma of mixed drinks, beer and people combined to make a potent fragrance that was making him slightly nauseated. Glancing at Beau he watched him walk back to the table and roughly pick up his glass before drinking it down. The grimace that crossed his face was bitter, but Draven didn’t know if it was the potency of the drink or the information he’d just received. The man didn’t take his eyes off his newfound brother as he walked out the door like he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him. Karessa was his brother’s girlfriend and Red could tell she was torn between following her man and not coming across as rude. She split the difference by following Beau out the door but not before she threw
an awkward smile and quick wave in Red’s direction.

  Alec seemed like he was debating on what to do next. True his new fiancé who was the woman who always seemed to speak her mind in the group but she was oddly silent. She looped her arm through Alec’s and pulled him back slightly. If there were going to be blood shed it would have been this man who would have initiated it. The man looked as if he wanted to tear him limb from limb. True pulled Alec hard and the man looked down at her. It was like a spell was broken and he let himself be lead away from the room. He left without looking back. It was as if Draven was forgotten as soon as he was out of his sight. He couldn’t help but watch the patriarch of the family walk away from him like he was nothing and in reality to them…he probably was exactly that. The deep breath that left his lungs burned when he released it and his chest burned in almost the same way his eyes did.

  “Well that was intense.”

  Draven let out the air he was holding in his lungs before turning to address who he knew the most accepting Haught would be. The youngest Haught…well, the youngest legitimate Haught, Camden. He and his wife Gemmi had just had twins a few months ago and although he was the brother he’d learned the most about first hand he hadn’t been sure what their relationship would be if his secret was exposed.

  “It was very intense.” Draven walked toward Camden and then picked his drink up from the table only to gulp the strong, scotch and soda down. He let the burn register and took a moment to think of what he wanted to say. “I hope you know that I didn’t mean for this to happen like this. In truth I didn’t want it to happen at all.”

  Camden’s face split in a smile before he pulled Draven into a hard hug. “I always wanted a baby brother.”

  Just that sentence alone had Draven immediately choked up. Blind acceptance. It was something that he’d never gotten before. He’d always had to prove himself whether that was in school or with friends. Even his mother had unwittingly made him feel like he shouldn’t bother people with his existence. His right to just be was questioned at every turn and he can’t even say that he’d come here to fix that. It was his jump in with the right answer bullshit that got him stuck in this muck. He patted the man a few times on the back more of a tapping out than a hug back, but he must have gotten the message and let him go.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Draven questioned the sanity of what he was saying. Acting like this was just a fun day at the bar. He wasn’t ever coming back here and he wasn’t ever going to see these people again.

  Camden opened his mouth to say something but Gemmi put her hand on his arm. “Let him get himself together,” she said quietly.

  Draven didn’t know if that was for him or for Camden but it really didn’t matter. He knew the drill and he was used to being on the outside. They don’t talk about being a red headed step child for nothing. He picked up his jacket and walked to the door trying not to look back at the only man who’d proudly identified him as his brother. An emotional wreck is what he was so of course he’d see the woman who’d given him the hottest, sexiest one night stand he’d ever had standing in the corner looking like a deer in the headlights. He knew she’d seen him in his top form and now she got to witness him at his lowest. Rosy, they’d had history in the form of a one night stand. She left before the morning before he could find out a way to contact her and had popped up with the new friends that were actually family he’d acquired. She acted like she’d never met him before and one day he had planned to figure out why, but things change. They always do. It was just one more question in the book of ‘why did that happen. Not that it mattered, he’d never see her again either.

  Chapter 2 - Rosy

  Rosalyn Brooks, better known as Rosy, was an outsider in almost every aspect of her life. She was a product of addicted to drugs parents and had been left with relatives within the first few years of her life. No one actually wanted her, but her family didn’t want her to fall into the foster system so they passed her around like a joint. Every couple of years she went to stay with someone else. She never knew what day would be her last with each relative, so she kept her bags packed along with any emotions she had about the situation she was in. Even now, because of a tremendously horrible deed that was brought on by jealousy and the desire to hurt the person she was jealous of, she spent her time apologizing. Not with her words but with every chore, every good deed, every moment spent helping Gemmi, or someone around Gemmi, she tried to prove that she was a good person who could be trusted, but what she really wanted and needed no one gave to her.

  She’d watched the man she’d known up to this point as Red walk past her with a look of aloofness on his face but she’d recognized the feelings of defiance and rejection by the way he walked. Rosy had done the proud walk of ‘you can’t hurt me’ several times and it looked good but she knew how the feelings turned ugly when the show was over and you were all alone. There was a lot of things that man didn’t know about her and apparently there were a lot of things she hadn’t know about him either. Rosy had Red’s phone number and address although she’d never used it until now. She could imagine the man was hearing ‘Get the fuck out’ even if those weren’t the words used it was the ones she’d heard. It accompanied that walk. Each and every time she was thrown out…errr…taken to live with another family it had been exactly the same. Which was why she’d followed after Red soon after he’d left and was on her way to his house.Driving to his house she tried to rationalize what she was doing. She’d spent the last two years living safe, not taking chances and not coming across too bold. Rosy had wanted to be a better person and do nicer things. This wasn’t fitting into her modus operandi but she just couldn’t let the look on Draven…ummm…Red’s face go. It had moved her to give him what she had in spades…comfort. Pulling up to his large two story colonial she remembered that this man was a doctor who was living comfortably. Maybe she was being foolish to believe she could make him feel better. In for a penny…in for a pound. That’s the thought that crossed Rosy’s mind as she sat in her car working on her courage to put on her big girl panties and do what she came to do. Taking a deep breath she got out of the car and walked to the door quickly so she wouldn’t change her mind.

  “Whew.” Rosy blew out a breath and knocked on the door of the large colonial stone house and wondered why she was even doing this. He was a Haught now and things could be construed as something that it wasn’t. She was here because she’d always hoped someone would follow her, comfort her when she’d been made to feel rejected but no one had shown up. That didn’t mean the people around her would believe that is what this was…she’d had a past and karma was far from done with her. Rosy had walked into the Haught Spot and the family atmosphere was something she wanted more than the flashy, fancy drinks. Rosy thought she could be a part of the Haught family through a relationship with the youngest brother Camden, the one who had a soft spot for women with a sad story. She’d done a lot of things and had hurt a lot of people…namely her cousin Gemmi. Had she thought she was in love with Camden? No but she thought they could have a good time together, he had a steady, positive family and he was an attractive man. She honestly thought that Red looked a little like the Haughts when she’d met him and it had made her think twice about having a bit of fun with the sexiest red head she’d ever seen in her life. That was saying a lot because she wasn’t a big fan of gingers.

  The door opened and Red’s eyebrows shot up like he was genuinely surprised at his guest. He cleared his throat and cocked his head to the right. For a moment she didn’t think he was going to say anything but he took a deep breath and shook his head slightly. “So you’re done acting like we’ve never met?”

  Rosy cleared her throat and thought about how she should answer. There were so many things that she wanted to say but all of them required more explanation than she wanted to give at this point. Clear and concise. That’s what she needed right now. She opened her mouth to give the man at least a little of what he deserved.

  “Come
on in,” he said walking away from the door. “Or don’t. Your choice.”

  She blinked a few times before wondering again if this was a good idea, but happy she wasn’t going to have to talk her way into the house since that function seemed to be broken. Rosy had ignored the man and what he did to her so well she thought maybe he’d forgotten their one deliciously sexy night three months ago. A man who looked like him would surely have lots of admirers, she’d seen how many women tried to pick him up at The Haught Spot. It didn’t matter that he didn’t appear to leave with any of them, not that she would admit she noticed that. She may have had a touch of the emotion that had gotten her into so much trouble, jealousy, before but she contained it by acting like she didn’t remember their night together it appeared he didn’t remember it either.

  Walking into his home slowly she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to say or why she was really here. All she knew is that when she had been booted she wished someone would have acknowledged how fucked up she’d felt. That’s really all she wanted to do for him. She walked slowly following the path the man had taken and she tried to cover how slow she was going by really taking in the décor of the house. This man was a collector. His home was filled with treasures that she’d bet had meaning to him. There were large art pieces that appeared to be the night sky, and paintings on the wall of galaxies far, far away. There was also a statue of a woman carrying a bowl on her head. It caught her attention because of how large the sculpture was and how odd it was to see it there. It looked like it should have been in a museum or something. The air conditioner’s light hum mixed with the soft jazz that she could hear from the hallway and cool breeze blew across her skin causing goosebumps. She thought about walking faster to warm up a bit but thought better of it knowing she’d have to have her thoughts and words together by the time she got into the room she was following him into.