Taming the Lone Wolff(70)

                Larkin took her hand. “C’mon. We’re going all the way to the top. Cammie is not allowed up here without her mom or dad.” The final ladder was barely wide enough to accommodate an adult’s hips. And the angle made it an almost vertical climb.

                Winnie’s knees weakened with a tinge of vertigo when she glanced over the side. Here in the leafy canopy, the ground looked very far away. At this final level, the breeze was cool. Not only that, but tucked up against a reassuringly steady rail sat a small settee covered in cheerful chintz.

                Larkin grinned at her. “I suspect that my cousin and his wife use this as a romantic rendezvous from time to time. But who knows.” He leaned back on the tree trunk, smiling as Winnie kicked off her shoes and sat down. “Did you ever have a tree house as a kid?”

                “No. I don’t think my parents were that whimsical.”

                “Too bad.” He fell silent, and she saw a shadow slide over his face. It might have been the wind moving leaves above him, or it might have been a painful recollection.

                It turned out that the latter was true.

                Larkin shoved his hands in his pockets, the set of his mouth grim. “I decided that I owe it to you to explain about my father.”

                “You don’t. Really you don’t.” She had her own guilty secrets, and if Larkin started spilling his, she might face a moral obligation to do the same. That thought petrified her.

                He ignored her assurance, his gaze trained on the forest, seeing things Winnie couldn’t see. Finally, he broke the silence.

                “You asked about my relationship with my dad. It’s complicated. You picked up on that the first night. Devlyn and Annalise and I respect our father, and I guess you could say we love him, but things are strained.”

                She decided to stay silent. Larkin didn’t appear to expect any comment.

                He continued, but perhaps he was not aware of how tightly his hands gripped the railing at his sides. “Before we came to Wolff Mountain, both our families lived in Charlottesville in big, impressive, side-by-side houses. Dad and Uncle Victor were twenty years older than the women they married. I think the wives were friends. I was too young to really evaluate that. But on the day they disappeared, they were out shopping together.”

                “The kidnapping.” She had read most of the details, but it seemed important for Larkin to retell it, so she listened.

                “Despite the fact that my father and uncle paid the ransom, both of the women were shot and killed execution style. Looking at it now, from the perspective of almost thirty years later, I think the authorities must have bungled the case, but the end result was the same. My mother and my aunt were dead. And their killers were never apprehended.”

                “So you all came to the mountain.”

                “Well, not at first. It took nine months to build Wolff Castle. We were shuffled back and forth with private security guards. Victor and Vincent wanted us to get used to the idea of our new home. Which was a good thing, because when we got here we were prisoners, essentially.”

                “Because they were afraid the same thing would happen to you.”

                “Yes.” He glanced at her, his eyes bleak. “The level of collective grief was monumental. It’s amazing we all survived and grew up to be functional adults. My dad and my uncle were in a daze for a couple of years. We had nannies and tutors who kept things going on a daily basis.”