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“Yes, I’m sorry to hear about all that. Horrible stuff. I hope you are okay.”
“Yes. In fact, I’m better than okay. I’m expecting a baby!”
“What? That’s fabulous. You must be so excited.”
“Yes. We are both thrilled. It’s going to be incredible.”
“Then I guess you will live in that big old house of King’s now,” he said.
“Big? Hardly. His place is tiny.”
“Where are you used to living, Neverland Ranch? King has one of the biggest homes in Eugene. It sits up on that big hill overlooking the river, not far from where you stayed at Hank Timmons place when you first arrived.”
Jo was dumbfounded. Why would King not have told her about that? Why did he act as if the cabin was his home?
“Jo?”
“Oh, sorry, Saul. I’ve got to run. Catch up later. Okay?”
“Sure. No problem,” he said, his voice trailing off. He was obviously aware he had said something wrong.
Jo considered how to bring this up with King. She didn’t want to have a rift between them, but why was he keeping something so big from her? It wasn’t like she didn’t know he was filthy rich. She didn’t know how, but she knew that he was. She couldn’t imagine why owning a big house on a hill would be any huge problem.
Far beyond holding anything back, she confronted him the moment he returned home. She felt completely dejected by his dishonesty as she asked him about the other house and why he had kept it from her.
“Who told you about that house?” he asked.
“I called Saul to update him on the situation with the house I bought from him and he mentioned it. He was surprised when I said our place was small, because he thought we were living in that big white house that sits up on the hill beyond the lake. You know, I’ve seen that house a hundred times and wondered about it, but just dismissed it. Imagine my surprise to find out you own it.”
“Yes, I do own it. I own it, but I don’t live in it. Okay?”
“Who does?”
“No one.”
“I don’t believe that. It is too well cared for.”
“Yes, because I pay people to tend to it, so there, you caught me in a lie. Someone does live there. The caretakers.”
“Why are you so defensive about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I feel like I’m under attack?”
Jo scowled and stormed off. Perhaps she was overreacting. It was common with her hormones so out of control. Still, he had kept it from her and he was being cagey about it now that she was asking. She sat on the bed, tears streaming down her face. After a while, he came and sat beside her.
“Look, Jo. We’ve never talked about who I am or where I came from, but I grew up in that house. My father was the pack leader here before he died. The truth is, he wasn’t a very nice man. He amassed a fortune by using strong-arm tactics, intimidation and other harsh measures that I would prefer not to discuss.
“You asked if I ever killed anyone and I have, more people than I’d like to admit. I was my father’s right hand growing up. He used me like a mobster using muscle men, to enforce and reinforce, when needed. Someone crossed him, it was me that was sent to do the dirty work. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth. When he died, his Second-in-Command became the leader of the pack because I was still a teenager.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“It is horrible and I have had a lot to prove to a lot of people. I’m not the person my father raised. I never really was. I didn’t like who I was or what I did and a lot of people know that about me. Some don’t and never will. I would have told you eventually, but I just needed to be in the right place for it, was my thinking. I guess I never would have been if I had just kept waiting until it felt right.”
“Why not sell the house then?”
“I don’t know. It’s a reminder of where I used to be, a symbol to remain humble. I don’t need the money and I just rather it sit there and slowly rot.”
“Yet, you have people taking care of it.”
“Yes and no. It’s in a neighborhood where I can’t allow it to get rundown too much. It’s rotting from the inside while looking pristine on the outside.”
“You could tear it down.”
“I could, I’m just not there yet,” he admitted.
Jo nodded and tried to understand. People did weird things sometimes out of regard for sentimentality. She supposed that was what he had done, continued to do. All she could do was try to understand.CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVEThought they never spoke another word about it, Jo realized several weeks later, on a visit out to Hank and Patty’s place, that the large white house on the hill was simply gone. It was odd to see it missing from the landscape, but she never asked or commented on its absence. He would talk about it if he ever felt like it.
