The Bride Who Wouldn't by Carol Marinelli Page A

seemed far too soon.
    “What would you like to do?” Isaak offered.
    “I’m easy.”
    “You are so far from easy,” Isaak teased pulling her down onto the bed.
    “What would you like to do?” Kate smiled.
    “The truth?” Isaak checked, and she nodded. “Top of my list is not doable yet,” he said kissing the top of her head, “but I have high hopes it soon will be. Second on my list, I want to find out more about my babushka ’s lover. Tell me what you know.”
    “Your grandmother had a sister…”
    “She died years ago,” Isaak said.
    “Yes, but she had a niece and Ivor wanted to see if she knew anything, whether or not your great aunt might have known anything and passed it on to her.”
    “And did she?”
    “We tried to trace her but she’d moved a few times. In the end, we found her and Ivor called and asked if he could come and visit.”
    “And did you?”
    “No,” Kate said. “She said there was no need to visit, that she didn’t know anything. Her mother had never spoken about her sister taking a lover. She was very offended.”
    “Why tell me this,” Isaak said, and Kate smiled at his irritation. “Why tell me this if it goes nowhere? For a moment, I thought you had found something out. I don’t need to know what hasn’t worked.”
    “Yes you do,” Kate corrected, “or you’ll end up covering the same ground that I have.” She could feel his impatience. “Isaak, you might never find out. Ivor didn’t.”
    He hated that the most.
    “Imagine dying and not knowing who your father was. I am determined to find out.” He took her hand. “With you working on it full time…”
    “I shan’t be working on it full time,” Kate said. “We agreed that I could keep my job.”
    “But…”
    “But what?” Kate challenged, removing her hand from his. She simply couldn’t do it, could not immerse herself in the Zaretsky family history for a year. Examine their past, live with Isaak, sleep with Isaak, get more and more into Isaak, knowing that in the future, she’d be discharged with a golden handshake.
    “We’ll discuss it later,” Isaak said.
    “There’s nothing to discuss,” Kate said and Isaak, who was far too used to getting his own way, even if he had to pay for it, let out an irritated breath. “If you want a full time genealogist on the case, of course I’ll work with them, but Ivor and I agreed I would help him in my spare time. I’m not giving up my job.”
    Isaak gave a brief nod. He knew she was right, and all that they had agreed to. He tried to concentrate as Kate spoke on.
    “His mother gave him the money and jewellery when he returned from two years serving in the army. He was twenty-two then. We think his real father must have died while Ivor was drafted.”
    “Why?”
    “Because despite a difficult life, she was always cheerful when she wrote to him, and Ivor looked forward to her letters while he served. He remembered there was a long gap between them at one point, and when she did resume writing, they were melancholy.”
    “Perhaps from the beatings,” Isaak suggested, “Or perhaps because she missed her son.”
    “Possibly, but it was the most we had to go on,” Kate said. “We looked through death records around that time for anyone prominent anyone who might have had access to such exquisite jewels.”
    “Any luck?”
    “There were a few names that we were going to chase and some paintings we were going to examine more closely.”
    “Your work really is interesting,” Isaak said. “I can see why you don’t want to give it up.”
    “It’s different when it’s personal though,” Kate said and Isaak nodded.
    “I’ve been having dreams,” he admitted.
    “It happens.”
    “Remember that crib?” he asked. “The one in the elevator?”
    Kate nodded.
    “I feel as if I’ve seen it before.”
    “Could you have?” Kate asked. “You said you’ve stayed here before. Maybe you saw it in an elevator or being moved through the