Free Woman of Grace by Kathleen Morgan

scent of roasting chicken reached Hannah. She rose, walked to the cookstove, and opened the oven door to check on the bird. It was beginning to cook nicely. She took a moment to baste it before closing the oven and returning to the table. “The chicken should be ready in an hour. Guess I’d better get the water on to boil some potatoes.”
    Abby drained the last of her tea. “Yes, and I’d better get to icing the spice cake.” She paused. “Devlin’s really a good man at heart, Hannah. I hope you’ll see that in time.”
    “Maybe I will,” Hannah grudgingly agreed as she filled the pot from the pitcher pump. “All I know is he still blames me for cheating on Ella, and it colors everything he says and does.” She carried the pot to the stove and placed it on a back burner. “You had guessed by now, hadn’t you, that I was one of the girls he visited there?”
    “Yes, I had.”
    “A lot of married men came to me like that, full of excuses why they couldn’t help themselves, why it was someone else’s fault they were there.” Angry now, Hannah turned to Abby. “But that’s all their stories ever were to me. Excuses. They took vows to love and honor their wives until death. Yet they were also the same men who sat in church each Sunday with their families, piously praying and singing hymns. A bunch of bald-faced hypocrites is what I call them.” She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “I’m sorry if this makes me sound mean, but I’m tired of always having to carry all the blame.”
    Abby’s mouth quirked in sympathy. “You’ve a right to feel hurt and angry, Hannah. But you also have to someday move past them to forgiveness or you’ll never be healed. Just remember. We all have our weaknesses, our personal demons. Thank heavens God loves us in spite of them.”
    “Well, maybe God can see past Devlin’s weaknesses,” Hannah muttered, “but it’s not that easy for me.”
    “All I can say in Devlin’s defense is that he made a mistake, and he regrets it to this day.”
    At the thought, Hannah shivered in revulsion. “Men and their lusts! I’m so sick of how totally it controls them, and of the terrible destruction it wreaks on innocent women.”
    “It’s not all disgusting or destructive, Hannah,” Abby said. “When a man and woman come together in a loving, holy union, it can be so very, very beautiful. As are its fruits—the children they conceive.”
    Hannah closed her eyes, unwilling to accept such a consideration. How could she? Until Hannah had come to Culdee Creek, all she had ever known was shame, selfish manipulation and, sometimes, even pain at the hands of men. She had been forced to hide her true feelings and needs and subject herself to depraved desires, pawing hands, and sweating, heaving bodies. Few men had seen her as anything other than an object of pleasure meant to serve them. She had hated them all—even Devlin MacKay.
    It was that hatred—and shame—that had pushed her to run away from Sadie Fleming’s that night, climbing onto the roof outside her window and scrambling down the rose trellis beside the front porch. The vicious thorns had pricked her skin, leaving deep scratches that oozed and bled, but it didn’t matter. Heedless, she had run off into the darkness, bringing nothing with her but the clothes on her back. She had run all night until a passing freight wagon bound for the Springs had stopped, and the grizzled old driver had taken pity on her.
    Six weeks later, the two bodyguards Sadie sent out after her found her and dragged her back. Six weeks … long enough for Hannah to discover she was pregnant.
    She could never be certain whose child she carried, but it didn’t matter. She clutched the secret to her like a priceless jewel, managing to hide her advancing girth far past the time any unscrupulous doctor would’ve dared take the baby from her. She had needed to—she had seen what Sadie had done to other girls who had revealed their pregnancies too