Finn stared at her another moment and then opened his phone. “I’ll send you a text.”
“Since I’m not coming back.” She glanced at the front door one last time. “You don’t suppose I could have a tour?”
This time his lips pressed firmly into a frown.
“Got it.” She hopped three steps down to the drive, needing space anyway to think as her idea grew.
Could he really sue her for defamation if she fictionalized a script about Via Belle? If so, maybe she could change the names and write her own story about a novelist who disappeared. One with heart that Sissie would love. Then, she’d write a happy ending.
“Ms. Rayne?” he called.
She turned back. “You have to call me Harper.”
“Why would you want to make a movie about Olivia?”
Wind rustled through the trees, sending a flurry of leaves across her path. “Because even when she wrote about the good and bad in humanity, she always found a way to mend the broken pieces. I think our world today needs to be inspired with that kind of hope.”
“The world needed hope seventy years ago.”
“It’s timeless, I suppose.”
“I hope you find the right story,” he said.
But the story, she thought, had already found her.
22:Olivia
NOVEMBER 1941
“That was the best picture I’ve ever seen,” Simon declared as they stepped out of the Lancaster theater, Olivia’s gloved hand snug in his. The producers had strayed a bit from the script she’d read in Los Angeles, but it was still surreal, wonderful even, to watchSilver Summeron a screen.
The heroine had found love in the end, but the conclusion had been nothing like Olivia imagined when she wrote the story. Instead of retiring to a quiet cottage on the seashore, Elaine spending the rest of her days with the man she loved, the movie ended at a glittering ballroom in San Francisco, no one except the hero recognizing the former maid who’d become his wife. Romantic, she supposed, in its own way, but Elaine seemed much too compliant when Olivia had envisioned her as resilient and tenacious.
She sighed. “They changed so much from the book.”
Simon kissed her hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It feels dishonest, like they deceived the audience.”
“Directors know what their audiences like to watch, just like you know what your readers enjoy. You’ll sell a million more books after people see this film.”
She smiled, glad this man walking alongside her concerned himself with her success and future.Theirfuture.
A snowflake twirled past them like a tiny drum major leading the winter parade. Just maybe, she would spend Christmas with Simon this year.
“The first snow,” she whispered as more flakes followed, tumbling their way from the sky.
They ought to return home quickly lest they get stranded in Lancaster. Mr. Manning spent most of his time sleeping, but Eli and the nurse would fret about the slippery roads. She didn’t want to concern anyone with her whereabouts.
“Let’s not wait another moment, Olivia.”
She glanced at the man beside her as he stopped under a streetlamp. Thought of all the excuses that no longer needed to be excused. Simon could spend most of his winter months in Winfield, and when he wasn’t teaching, even with Eli and his grandfather as guests, there was plenty of room for all of them in Haven House.
She tilted her head. “Wait for what?”
“Please marry me.”
It might be the last time he’d ask, and she couldn’t blame him. He had been a picture of patience this year. Why should they continue to wait?
