The Secret Wife

by Susan Mallery

  “Okay.” Millie put her arm around Elissa’s shoulder. “I generally umpire behind home plate. How do you feel about taking first base?”

  Elissa glanced down at her cotton dress. The feminine-style cap sleeves that left her arms bare and a bias-cut skirt that floated around her calves hinted at the curves below. At least she wore flat shoes instead of heels.

  “I’ve never been an umpire,” she said. “But I’m willing to try.”

  “It’s not hard,” Millie said. “Just check to see who makes the base first. The ball or the runner.”

  She called the children over and they quickly chose teams. Cole refused to be a captain. “I’ll umpire if you want to pitch,” he told Millie.

  She shook her head. “I had a manicure yesterday. I’m not going to mess it up. We’re having company for dinner.” She fluttered her fingers at him. “Why don’t you pitch?”

  “Fine.” Cole started for the center of the impromptu bases being set up around the lawn.

  “Are you mad?” Elissa asked, trailing after him.

  “About the donation?” He shook his head. “The kids love it. I wouldn’t have thought about putting sports equipment on our yearly wish list, but it was a great idea.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He swung toward her, his gaze narrowing. “Why? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

  She smiled. “Right. That’s why I’ve been working in a hospital all these years. I have a secret fortune stashed away and finally decided to spend it on the orphanage.”

  Her gaze never wavered. He wanted to accuse her of several things, but none of them had anything to do with the unexpected donation. She was right. If there had been money from the series, the triplets wouldn’t have had to work while attending college.

  “Cole!”

  He turned, and Millie tossed him the ball. He waited for the teams to decide who would be up to bat first.

  “You used to play softball in New York,” Elissa said, studying him. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Just a pickup game on the weekend,” he said. “With some guys from the firm. I played more in college. There were several intramural teams.”

  “I’m sure that was fun. I was never much for sports. I think the hospital has a bowling team and touch football, but I didn’t go.”

  “What about when you returned to college?”

  Her green eyes darkened. “I didn’t.”

  “Play sports?” he asked, even though he knew the real answer to the question.

  “I never went back to school.”

  She made the statement almost defiantly. Cole turned away and watched the children still trying to decide who had to take to the outfield first.

  “I thought you would know that,” she said quietly. “After all, you knew where I worked.”

  “I didn’t keep track of you that closely. I had a general idea about your life. That’s all.”

  “I see.”

  There was a time when he’d known what she was thinking just by the inflection of her tone and the pauses between words. No longer. She’d become a stranger with whom he shared nothing but a past.

  “I’ve been thinking about going back,” she continued. “I would like to get my degree, although I’m not sure I want to stay in the same major.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Myself,” she answered honestly. When he looked at her, she shrugged. “It’s been a few years. I’m not sure my brain remembers how to study. Plus, I would be the oldest student in all my classes. That’s a little daunting. But I’m tossing the idea around.”

  “No one ever complained about having too much education,” he said as an unfamiliar emotion flooded him. It took him a minute to identify it as guilt. Guilt because he’d finished his schooling and she hadn’t.

  “I’m sure I’ll go back eventually. It’s just that with the wisdom of hindsight, I know it would have been easier to keep going than to try to go back.”

  “That’s not my fault,” he said quickly. “I asked you to marry me, not quit college.”

  “I never said you did.” Her quiet tone contrasted with his heated words.

  “There are plenty of universities in New York,” he went on. “You could have transferred. You’re the one who wanted to leave it all behind.”

  “I’m not going to fight with you, Cole. I’m just saying that knowing what I know now, it would have been better to take that advice and transfer. However, at the time, neither of us thought of that. We wanted to be together and you had a job in New York. College wasn’t important to me then.”

  You were.

  She didn’t say the words, but he heard them. Heard the demands of youth. He wanted to blame her for leaving school, but he knew in his heart the fault was his. He wouldn’t have wanted her attending classes in New York. He would have been afraid of her wandering around a strange campus. Which was really stupid when he considered that she’d survived at UC Davis for two years. It wasn’t the campus at all. In his heart he hadn’t wanted her to get out and meet other people. Other men. Funny how he’d always expected her to leave him for someone else and in the end she’d left him for no one at all.

  “I guess there’s a lot we didn’t think about,” he said.

  “We were both young. I loved you and wanted to be with you. That simplified all my decisions.”

  And now?

  But he didn’t ask that, either. Of course she didn’t still love him. He didn’t want her to. He’d already paid the price of her love, and it was too expensive for his tastes.

  But for the first time he realized that she’d paid a price for marrying him. He’d taken her away from all she’d ever known and thrust her into a strange world. If someone had pointed that out to him at the time, he would have assured the person that being together would be enough for her. It hadn’t been. Now, with the same hindsight she’d talked about, he realized it had been wrong to expect it to be. Elissa hadn’t been just his wife. She had been, as she still was, her own person, with needs for a life of her own, separate from his. Just as he wouldn’t have been able to exist just for her.

  “Don’t blame yourself for any of this,” she said. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Good, because it’s not my fault,” he said without thinking.

  There was a combination moan and cheer from home plate. Millie had settled the question of who was batting first with the old game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. The losing team headed for the outfield.

  “You need to stand on the other side of first base,” he told her, pointing to the makeshift base near a large tree.

  She nodded. “It must be great to always be so sure of everything,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Not taking blame. Knowing the failure of our marriage is completely my fault. You name it. You seem to go through life completely confident in your decisions and your frame of reference. I guess you sleep really well at night. Maybe you can teach me that before I leave.”

  She turned and walked toward the base. He stared after her. He supposed he deserved what she’d said, even though she was wrong. He wasn’t sure of anything, especially where she was concerned.

  * * *

  Elissa collected all the paid bills and stacked the envelopes. After sticking on stamps, she got the return address labels from her left-hand drawer and applied them.

  In the past two weeks she’d settled into a routine of sorts. Her life at the orphanage was different from what she was used to, but she liked the changes.

  In the morning she generally helped Millie in the office. The work was pretty basic. Filing, paying bills, setting up maintenance appointments, updating records. In the afternoon she sometimes continued her work in the office. Other days she spent with the children, supervising homework, answering questions, helping with play activities and generally just being around.

  Millie strolled out of her office and stopped next to Elissa’s desk. “You’re looking thoughtf
ul.”

  Elissa smiled. “Not about anything earth-shattering. It’s been two weeks. The time is going quickly. I was thinking about how different this job is from the one I had at the hospital.”

  Millie sat in the visitor chair. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but is ‘different’ better or not?”

  “Much better,” Elissa assured her. “I love all of it. Especially working with the children.”

  “Good. I thought you might.”

  “I find it satisfying, although I’ll confess now that I had my doubts. I think I was afraid that the children might have gotten difficult over the years. These days, there’s so much in the newspapers about problems with facilities like this one.”

  Millie nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve done volunteer work all my life and I’ve found there’s a real difference between orphaned children and those taken out of their homes for other reasons. Many children here had happy lives until their parents were taken from them. They are loving and basically normal. Children growing up in abusive homes or around violence are different. They are in pain and often lashing out. It’s unfortunate.” She crossed her legs, her normally pleasant expression changing to pensive. “Cole and I talked about opening a wing to help those abused children, but they require a level of expertise neither he nor the staff has. We have a child psychologist available, but she’s not really on call except in emergencies. If our kids need to see her, it’s by appointment. Also, the facility is too physically open. We couldn’t keep anyone from running away, nor could we protect children from a battering or stalking parent.”

  “You can’t solve all the world’s problems,” Elissa said. “I think what is being done here is very special.”

  “I agree. Sometimes I lose sight of that, as Jeff—my husband—keeps telling me.”

  Elissa thought about the photo on Millie’s desk. It showed a handsome older man staring dotingly at Millie. Tiffany had mentioned that the photo was taken on their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

  “He’s very good-looking,” Elissa said.

  Millie grinned. “You bet. I was very careful before I got married. I checked out Jeff’s dad and his grandfather. They were both very hot guys, even though I thought they were a little old. I was determined to stay married to the same man for my whole life, and even though love is about a lot more than looks, I figured I would have to wake up next to him for a long time. Why not make that a pleasant experience?” She winked. “About ten years ago Jeff admitted he’d done the same thing. By the time he proposed he had already decided my mom was a babe, for an old broad.”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” Elissa said. “You always talk about Jeff as if he’s your whole world. You don’t care about his looks.”

  Millie laughed. “You’ve caught me. It’s true, I would love Jeff however he looked, but that handsome face, not to mention his body, are a plus.” She fanned herself. “I don’t think we should talk about this much longer. He’s in England for another ten days and with the time difference, not to mention the cost of calling overseas, phone calls only go so far. They’re no substitute for being together.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  Millie sighed. “I miss him so much. Despite what the media has led you to believe, sex is not just for the young. Jeff and I have thirty years together, and we’ve always had a passionate marriage.”

  Elissa wished she could say the same. Maybe if she’d known how to please her husband in the bedroom, he wouldn’t have spent so much time at work.

  “I envy you,” she said, then stared at her desk.

  Millie leaned closer. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I completely understand. I am a meddling old woman. But I’ve been wondering about it since that first day when Cole said the two of you are married. Is that true?”

  “Of course. Did you talk to him about it?”

  “Mr. Iceberg? No way. Cole will do whatever he can to help the kids, even if that means talking about his past and his experiences here. But he doesn’t open up to other people. It’s just not his style. About all he said to me was that he didn’t want word of your marriage getting out, so he would appreciate it if I didn’t tell any of the children or the other staff members.”

  “I figured there was a reason no one knew,” Elissa said. She picked up a pencil and turned it over in her hands. “Yes, it’s true. Cole and I are married, although we haven’t seen each other in nearly five years.”

  “Why?”

  Elissa smiled. “Why are we married? Why aren’t we together? Why aren’t we divorced? Why am I here?”

  “Feel free to answer any of those questions, in no particular order.” Millie scooted her chair closer to the desk, placed her right elbow on the flat surface, leaned forward and put her chin in her hand. “I’m all ears.”

  Elissa wasn’t sure what to say. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

  Millie sighed. “Okay, I confess, I’m incredibly nosy. We’ll still be friends, even if you don’t answer any of the questions. Although if you don’t, I’ll probably die of curiosity and then you’ll have that on your conscience.”

  The older woman meant well. She might claim to be nosy, but she was also kind, and for some reason, Elissa thought she might turn out to be an ally. While she wasn’t ready to share all the deep, dark secrets of her soul, there were a few things she didn’t mind the other woman knowing.

  “Cole and I are still married because neither of us has asked the other for a divorce. We were together about six months, then I left him.”

  Millie straightened. “You left him?” She flushed slightly. “Oops. I didn’t mean that exactly as it came out. It’s just he’s so…” Her voice trailed off.

  “So Cole-like?” Elissa asked wryly.

  “Exactly. We’re talking major hunk, as my oldest granddaughter would say. I’ve worked with him for a couple of years, so I know he’s a nice guy, too.”

  “Agreed,” Elissa said. She wasn’t offended by Millie’s reaction. Elissa would have felt the same way if she hadn’t known the whole story. “He’s all that and more. But we were both very young. He expected a Stepford wife and I expected a knight in shining armor. Instead, we each got a flawed person, and love just wasn’t enough.”

  “And now?”

  Good question. “And now, who knows? I’m here because it’s been a long time and Cole and I need to figure out what we want. We can’t continue this limbo forever.”

  Millie nodded. “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me that. I won’t share what you’ve told me. Despite my big mouth, I’m pretty good with secrets. I wish I had a few to share, but my life is boring.”

  “I doubt that. I’ve heard that you travel a lot.”

  “Jeff and I used to. At first it was very exciting. Then when we started having children, we thought it would be good for them to see the world. I’m one of those people who needs to keep busy. Jeff has always insisted on a housekeeper, and even with four children I had way too much time on my hands. I was tired of volunteering all the time, so about ten years ago I opened a boutique. It’s in Ojai. Seven years later I got tired of all the long hours. My oldest daughter runs it now. I decided I missed the volunteering, but I wanted to commit myself to one project and not just give a few hours here and a few hours there. So I came to work for the Grace Orphanage. Jeff had been on the board of directors for years. Actually, working here was his suggestion. For a while we thought the place wasn’t going to make it, then Cole applied to be the director and the rest is history.”

  “I’m impressed,” Elissa said, wondering how on earth someone could raise four children and claim to have too much free time. Cole was right; Millie was a force of nature.

  Millie smiled. “We’ve bonded. I’m so pleased. I knew the moment we met that we were going to be friends.” There was a squeal of laughter from outside. She glanced in that direction. “The children are really enjoying all that sports equipment.”

  “I know. The jungle gym is great.”


  Millie made a great show of glancing at her perfectly groomed nails. “It was a lovely donation. Practical in a fun way. Not just anyone would have thought of it.” She looked at Elissa. “Well done.”

  Elissa froze. Should she deny the truth? She’d never been a very good liar and wasn’t positive she could bluff her way out of the situation. “I— When—?” She shook her head.

  “It’s interesting that the donor didn’t want to be recognized. I wonder why that is.”

  “Some people prefer to give without all the fanfare.”

  “Maybe,” Millie said. “Or maybe the person is afraid. Not of the giving, but of what the money represents.”

  “Some people don’t like money,” Elissa said, not sure what game she and Millie were playing.

  “Do people who are afraid give it all away foolishly?”

  “No. But it’s nice to make a difference in people’s lives.”

  “Is that why you’re doing it?” Millie asked.

  “Partly,” Elissa admitted, realizing whatever the game, she wasn’t going to win. “How did you guess?”

  “It was easy. While our list of donors is long, only a few give in large amounts. I know most of them, so it was simple to eliminate names. The donor obviously had a connection with the children, which usually means they visit often or have lived here previously. I kept coming up blank. Then I remembered you and your television show. You didn’t grow up with money—Cole told me that. Yet I’m not unfamiliar with the industry. There was money to be made. Is it in a trust?”

  “Yes. It was released on our twenty-fifth birthday. This past July.”

  “Cole doesn’t know.”

  It wasn’t a question. “No, and I don’t want him to. He’s always had a chip on his shoulder about certain things, and that’s one of them. Inheritances, I mean. I don’t want to make him angrier,” Elissa said, raising her hands and turning them palm up. “I just want to help.”

  Millie smiled. “Good for you.” She made an X over her heart. “I promise I won’t be the one to tell your secret, although I think you’re wrong about Cole and the chip on his shoulder. Oh, he has one, but it’s not about money. I think if you told him the truth, he wouldn’t mind at all.”