The Secret Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

older than Shanna, but she was nearly an inch shorter. However, the miniature package housed a brain that bordered on supergenius.
    “You tell your teacher to get you the tapes and set up time with a tutor. We can afford it.”
    “Really?” Gratitude shone from her brown eyes.
    “No problem.” He set her on the ground.
    Without wanting to, he glanced at Elissa. She gave him a brief smile.
    “Despite how it looks, I’m really working,” she said, finishing Tiffany’s braid and securing the end with a rubber band. “Millie asked me to go through all the pictures and pick out the best ones. It’s for the fortieth-anniversary issue of the newsletter. She said you were planning a special bound edition.”
    “That’s right.” They’d discussed it at the last board meeting. The book would be a pictorial history of the orphanage and sold to anyone interested at a small profit.
    Tiffany stood and held out her hands. “Come on, girls. It’s nearly study time. We don’t want to be late. Thanks for doing our hair, Elissa.” She grinned at Cole. “You should grow your hair long.”
    He tugged on her earlobe. “Not in this lifetime.”
    “You wouldn’t look so old.”
    He stepped into the room and jerked his thumb in the direction of the door. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”
    “Yes, sir.” She grabbed each of the other girls and ushered them outside.
    Elissa leaned back against her desk. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m making friends with the children. You said not to tell them about our marriage, but you didn’t say I couldn’t get involved.”
    He shrugged. “Seems like a waste of time to me. You are leaving in a few months.”
    “I have a three-month trial,” she said. “Not a death sentence. If you like my work and I like being here, I might just stay on.”
    He didn’t dare think about that. He couldn’t bear to have Elissa in his life. Not for any length of time. “I’m sure you’ll find our world very boring.”
    “I don’t know. There’s a consistency that provides comfort. I can always count on you to think the worst of me.”
    Her quick response made him raise his eyebrows. He stepped closer, then crouched down beside her. Instead of flinching, she glared defiantly. He reached for the stack of photos on the floor beside her and picked them up.
    “Were these already sorted?” he asked.
    Her gaze narrowed. She seemed to be deciding if she was going to let him change the subject or not. In the end she did, leaning toward him to gaze at the black-and-white photo of twenty children standing in front of the administration building.
    “There are boxes of photos by years,” she said. “That helps. Some of them are identified, but others are blank on the back. We have school photos to cross-reference. I’m going to pick out a couple hundred of what I think are the best. Millie said you would take those to the planning meeting and make the final decision.” She pointed to the boxes spread out around her. “The oldest are by the door, the newest over here.”
    He set down the pile he’d grabbed, then reached for a box by her left foot. After flipping through it, he put it back and took another one a couple of years earlier.
    He settled on the floor and stretched his long legs out in front of him. The pictures were fifteen years old. He looked through them, finding familiar faces, snapshots of himself. But he didn’t pause at any of those. Instead he searched until he found a picture of three girls.
    Silently he handed it to Elissa. She took it and sighed. “Oh, my. Look at that. We’re wearing the identical dresses Kayla and Fallon always hated.”
    She held the photo out so he could see it, too. Three girls, identical triplets of maybe ten or eleven, stood in front of a tree. The girls wore green dresses, with matching ribbons in their long, curly hair. They gazed at the camera solemnly, as if carrying out some sacred duty.
    “We look a little smug,” Elissa admitted. “It