Woman of Grace (26 page)

“Well, from the looks of it tonight, I’d say he has most of his congregation still with him.”

“Yes, so it seems.” Hannah took a sip of her punch. “Noah was right when he insisted Grand View’s filled with more good Christians than you might imagine. But then, the longer I know him, the more I realize what an insightful, God-filled man he is.”

The tone of admiring affection in Hannah’s voice whenever she spoke of Noah Starr nowadays was beginning to rankle Devlin. He knew he shouldn’t let it get to him, that he should be happy that she kept making new friends. But it did bother him. Indeed, it made him downright jealous.

Noah Starr was one of the town’s most eligible bachelors. Even if Hannah, with her checkered past, would never be accepted as a serious possibility for the preacher’s wife, Devlin couldn’t help fretting over her unabashed enthusiasm for the handsome, young priest.

Since that mid-January day, now three months ago, he and Hannah hadn’t spoken again of the kiss they had shared. Everything had eventually settled back to its usual routine—he working ten to twelve hours a day, she taking care of his house, children, and meals before retiring to her own little bunkhouse each night. Problem was, that Christmas kiss had reminded Devlin just how desirable Hannah really was.

His growing awareness, however honorable it was this time, didn’t set well with his conscience, or his intention to remain true to Ella’s memory. The resultant jumble of emotions left him frequently drained and angry.

Hannah had never once, in any way, indicated she wished him to kiss her again. Unfortunately, her apparent disinterest in him only unsettled Devlin all the more. It stung his pride, even as he knew he shouldn’t even be wishing she saw him as anything other than her employer. It was torture of the cruelest kind to want a woman who apparently didn’t want him, then feel guilty about it to boot.

“Will you be seeing Noah regularly anymore?” he gritted out the words. “Now that you’re officially accepted into the church and your instructions are finished, I mean?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Besides, it would be inconsiderate to impose on his time. Noah’s a very busy man, what with the responsibility for the entire congregation now on his shoulders.”

“He’s up to the challenge,” Devlin muttered, then grabbed a crème horn and bit into it.

“Oh, I’m sure he is.” Hannah took the other crème horn he offered. “He’s such a wonderful pastor.”

Devlin almost choked on his sweet. “So, how are things between you and Evan now?” he asked, deciding it was time to change the subject. “He doesn’t say much to me, unless he absolutely has to, but we never were much for small talk anyway.”

Her happy expression faded, and Devlin almost regretted asking.

“He doesn’t say much to me anymore either.” Hannah sighed. “But sometimes, when I think he doesn’t realize it, I catch him staring at me with the saddest eyes. I think I’ve hurt him badly, Devlin.”

“The boy needs to let go. It’s not healthy to hang onto a hopeless situation.”

She turned to look more fully at him. “It’s not easy for most people to recover from a loss. And you MacKays, you don’t do anything halfway. Why, I’ve never seen a more passionate, headstrong folk. Problem is, such passion and determination can serve equally to one’s disadvantage as advantage.”

“Well, if those failings of ours don’t run you off sooner or later,” he said with a wry laugh, “nothing will.”

“I think, rather, those passions—good and bad—are what attract me. They’re what I’ve always admired in Conor and Evan, and even in you.” Hannah angled her head and studied him. “I like people who aren’t afraid to live life to the fullest, even if in the doing they risk great pain as well as great joy. I’ve missed so much of that in my past years, that it has made me hungry for everything I can now have.”

Listening to her impassioned words and watching her face come alive with ardent longing, Devlin felt an answering fire spring to life within him. A fire that burned, searing him with the same fierce desires Hannah seemed to feel.

But to what purpose? he asked himself. Hannah wasn’t yet even twenty. Despite her rocky start in life, she still had many good years ahead of her. Despite her lingering self-doubts, she
would
succeed. She was too resilient, too much a fighter, not to do so.

He, on the other hand, was sixteen years her senior. He’d be a fool to pin any hopes on ever having a life with her. Indeed, it would be selfish even to seriously consider it. She deserved better than him.

With a shake of his head, Devlin flung aside the futile thoughts. Hannah had said she was hungry for life. But that life could never include him.

“Then
be
hungry,” Devlin rasped, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. “Be brave and pursue your heart’s desire. This time is yours now, Hannah. Don’t ever let
anyone
try to take it from you. Not ever, ever again.”

The same people who snubbed Hannah’s baptismal social continued to treat her with aloofness and disdain every Sunday thereafter. In time, several families no longer regularly attended Grand View’s Episcopal Church. Hannah had to admit she didn’t particularly miss them, especially the Widow Ashley and the Edgertons. Still, she worried Noah might suffer from the repercussions.

The young priest, however, continued to maintain a resolute front, welcoming Hannah as heartily as he did any other parishioner. His sermons, however, suddenly began to take on a new theme—the problems in the early church.

“He’s trying to make a point, Abby,” Hannah said one hot mid-July day as they sat on the front porch of the main house preparing freshly picked green beans for canning. “I mean, if that reading from chapter fifteen of Acts wasn’t a challenge to all of us, nothing was.”

Her friend glanced up from the bowl of beans she was snapping, and smiled. “And God, which knoweth the hearts,” she quoted, “bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as He did unto us …”

“And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith,” Hannah finished the passage for her. She leaned back in the wicker rocker and heaved a deep, frustrated breath. “I only hope Noah can touch all our hearts with those words about all people being equal in God’s eyes. I know I continue to struggle with my pain and anger when people judge me. I even find myself judging them in return.”

She sighed. “It can be so hard at times, and I fear instead of being seen as a lost lamb who has returned to the fold, in the end I’ll just be remembered for Noah’s ruination.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as all that. It’s not
that
many families, at any rate, who’ve left. Besides, Noah’s an eloquent, passionate preacher. And who can truly fault him? He only speaks the truth.
God’s
truth.”

“I know. But it’s so hard to forgive, especially where sins of the flesh are concerned.”

Abby nodded. “And especially when those sins frequently strike so close to home.”

“Yes, indeed,” Hannah agreed. “Funny, though, how the wives find it so much easier to blame the prostitutes, than the husbands who sought them out.” She straightened in her rocker. “I don’t blame the women for feeling hurt and angry at me, though. I just want them, in the name of Christ’s love, to forgive me.”

Abby finished filling one bowl of beans, leaned down, placed it on the floor beside her, and took up another empty one. “That may well come, in God’s own time. Meanwhile,
you
must forgive them, and pray for them.”

“I’m trying, Abby. Truly I am.” Once more Hannah reached into her own bowl of green beans and, with a little paring knife, began to slice off the ends.

“I can see that. And you’ve had such a wonderful influence on Devlin’s children. They all adore you. Why, I’m certain our young Bonnie even thinks you’re her mother.”

At the mention of the auburn-haired toddler, Hannah’s lips curved with pride. Now fifteen months old, the toddler was already moving about the house with great alacrity, and constantly getting into everything. She was also, Hannah thought, becoming quite attached to her own two-year-old son, Jackson.

“There are times,” she admitted, “when I do almost feel like the mother of my own little family of four. Devlin’s been very tolerant of his children’s attachment to me. Even those times when they turn to me for advice, with him sitting right there at the table with them.”

“How does he treat Jackson?”

Hannah shrugged. “Pretty much like one of his own. Why?”

Abby set aside her bowl and rose. “Give me a moment. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

She walked into the house. Through the porch window, its lace curtains swaying in the gentle breeze, Hannah could hear her opening a drawer in the parlor’s large, oak cupboard. A few minutes later her friend returned, handing her a faded old daguerreotype.

It was an image of two young boys who appeared to be very close to Jackson’s age. One, the taller and apparently older of the two, stood beside a wooden wagon holding the younger boy. They both, Hannah realized the longer she studied the daguerreotype, resembled her son in many ways—the dark wavy hair, deep, piercing eyes, stubborn set of their chins, and small, curved mouths. If Hannah hadn’t known better, she would’ve sworn they were all brothers.

“Who are these two boys?” she asked quietly, even as unease curled within her.

“I think you know.”

Her friend’s blunt statement confirmed her growing fears. “Conor and Devlin?”

“Yes.”

Struggling to contain the sudden swell of hope that she might have found her son’s father, Hannah handed the daguerreotype back to Abby. “I’ve always wondered if Devlin might have been Jackson’s father, but considering all the men I’d been with … Well, it seemed fruitless to dwell on it, and was nothing I would’ve ever confronted Devlin about at any rate.” She gave a short, disparaging laugh. “It would only have caused more problems between us.”

“But now, now that you’ve seen this”—Abby held up the daguerreotype—“what will you do? It wasn’t I who first noticed the startling similarity. Conor did, when he asked me to help him sort through some family belongings the other day.”

For a long moment, Hannah considered her options. Then she sighed and shook her head. “I’m not going to do anything. Devlin has his hands full as it is with three children. He doesn’t need to know he might have to take on responsibility for yet another.”

“But is that fair, Hannah? To deny him his right to know, to make his own decision about his son … and you?”

“And me?” She stared at her friend, puzzled. “How do I enter into this?”

“If Jackson’s his son, the decent thing for Devlin to do would be to marry his son’s mother.”

Hannah stared at Abby, too shocked to reply. Could Abby be serious? Use Jackson to manipulate Devlin into marrying her?

She shook her head firmly. “No. I’d never do that to Devlin. Never. It would destroy everything we’ve managed to build between us so far. And it would bring us full circle back to where we began. This time, though, instead of taking his money in payment for my body, I’d be asking to take his name.”

“I never meant it like that,” Abby protested. “I just thought the possibility of Jackson being Devlin’s son might, in time, lead you two to face other things, like your true feelings for each other.”

Hannah blushed and averted her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you, Hannah? I saw the effect that Christmas kiss had on the both of you. And I’ve been watching you two ever since.” She reached over and touched Hannah’s hand. “I saw the way Devlin looked at you at your baptism. I’ve never seen a man so full of yearning in my whole life. I can tell how deeply you care for him, too, from just the little things you say and do for him each day.”

“I don’t love him, if that’s what you’re implying.” In spite of her efforts to control it, her voice quavered. “I don’t know how to love. Evan would vouch for that.”

“Just because you weren’t in love with Evan is no reason to decide you’re incapable of love.” Abby rose, walked to her, and knelt before her. “There couldn’t be anything further from the truth than that.” She placed her hands on Hannah’s knees. “Since you first came to Culdee Creek, you’ve never shown anyone anything less than love. Even Devlin, when he treated you so abysmally, received only kindness and compassion in return.”

“That wasn’t due to any love for him, though.” Hannah couldn’t meet her friend’s gaze. “I don’t know if I can ever truly love a man, or be the kind of wife he’d expect of me. Not after … after what I’ve suffered at the hands of men.”

“You lost respect for men. You found you couldn’t trust them anymore. And without respect and trust, there can never be love. But you
are
coming to respect and trust Devlin, aren’t you, Hannah?”

“I also respect and trust Evan,” Hannah countered, “but I don’t love him enough to marry him.”

“No, you don’t,” her friend agreed. “But it’s different with Devlin, isn’t it? Still, I get the feeling it’s something more than a fear of that love that’s holding you back.”

Hannah buried her face in her hands. The floodgates holding back her deepest, secret fear broke open, and all the pain spilled out. “I don’t know if I can ever,
ever
find pleasure in that act, no matter how much I love a man,” she wept.