If she’d selected the higher road, good for her. Most of the intelligent set in Winfield were snobs anyway, sneering down their long noses at anything that resembled real entertainment.
Before she dropped out of school, Izzy had read that some fancy studio was going to make a movie from one of Via Belle’s books. Silver something. Poetic justice for the woman. None of the professors at Winfield ever had a book turned into a film.
She swept her knobby nails, in desperate need of a file, across the collection of spines to find one for company tonight, finally selectingRaven’s Nest, another book by Via Belle. Professor Farrow wouldn’t care if she borrowed it. In fact, she’d keep borrowing books as long as she and Greta were holed up here. Which wouldn’t be long. Simon had never left her for more than two weeks, and now he’d been traveling almost amonth. Soon, he’d return, and then they’d dine out, no fear of waggling tongues. Together they would celebrate their daughter’s birth.
Tucking the novel under her arm, she retrieved the borrowed food and drink from the counter.
Greta’s sobs were filtering through the walls of their shack as Izzy rushed across the orderly backyard. “I’m coming,” she called as if her baby could understand.
When she reached the kitchenette, she mixed water and a spoonful of Karo with evaporated milk, just like her mom had done for Izzy’s baby brothers. Then she syphoned the mixture into a bottle and fed her in the tiny den. When Greta finally fell back asleep, Izzy knew she should sleep too so she was ready for the next feeding, but even more than rest, she craved a good story.
Curled up in her bed, Izzy was captivated by the heroine on the first pages ofRaven’s Nest. A widow who had a baby girl like Izzy, but no husband, not even one who spent more time in Cleveland than with his wife.
While she’d tried to savor the first three months of her marriage to Simon, even in this heap-of-a-house, Izzy could relate to moments of the character’s loneliness. To her desire to share her life with someone after her husband died.
Izzy was so caught up in the plot that she didn’t hear the Pierce-Arrow pull into the garage. Didn’t even hear the squeak of the cottage door.
“Izzy?” Simon called from the front room, and her heart felt like it might leap out of her chest.
Finally, her husband was home!
Simon walked into the bedroom, and she was ready to welcome him properly, as a wife welcomes her husband. He scanned from her toes up to her neck, similar to what he’d done more than a year ago, not long after they’d met. Back then, he’d made her feel like a woman just by the way he looked at her, but instead of desire in his gaze tonight, she saw something more like disdain. “Why are you lying around?”
She lowered the book. “I’m trapped in here, Simon.”
“No one’s stopping you from taking a walk.”
She closed the cover as a cry, barely audible, drifted from the den.
His frustration turned into surprise. “The baby’s here?”
“She’s been here for almost three weeks.”
He pressed his lips together, calm and cool, before speaking again. “You had a girl?”
“Wehad a daughter. Since you weren’t around, I named her Greta, after Greta Garbo.”
“The baby wasn’t supposed to come until April.”
“She surprised us.” Izzy couldn’t stop the tears from filling her eyes. “And I didn’t know where to find you.”
“I’ve been working in Clev—”
“Cleveland, I know.” She placed the novel on the nightstand. “Come meet her.”
Instead of moving, Simon glanced at the cover ofRaven’s Nest. “Where did you get a Via Belle book?”
“I found it in the house. Your mom must have left—”
He stopped her. “I don’t want to talk about my mother.”
“Well, you asked, and I doubt it’s one of your father’s books.”
“You shouldn’t be reading such drivel.”
“You’re right. I should have someone here to help me with our daughter and a buggy so we can go on a walk. I should have a full cupboard and a dinner planned to meet your friends. And I should be living in that house across the yard instead of in this miserable heap.”
Words rolled out like a tidal wave, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d been cooped up in here too long with a baby when she was supposed to be thriving as Simon’s wife. She couldn’t even think straight.
