Woman of Grace Read Online Free

hasn’t done anything but help you, Devlin.” Conor grabbed the bale of hay his cousin had just lifted up to him, and shoved it across the wagon bed to pack it in tightly against the others. “Don’t you reckon it’s past time you eased up on the girl?”
    “Eased up!” Devlin bit off an oath. “Conor, none of you knows Hannah like I—” He caught himself. Even Conor, his best friend and closest living relative, didn’t need to know everything.
    “Oh, come on now.” The ranch owner paused in his work, walked to the side of the buckboard where Devlin stood, and squatted in the bed. “Let’s just spit it out once and for all, then be done with it,” he continued, his voice gone low. “None of us knows Hannah like you do because she’s one of the women you called on at Sadie Fleming’s, isn’t she?”
    The blood rushed from Devlin’s face. He should have known he couldn’t keep the full truth from his cousin for long. After a furtive glance around him, he shook his head. “I didn’t say that,” he whispered hoarsely. “All I meant—”
    Conor cut him off. “Ella’s going to find out about Hannah sooner or later. Best you tell her sooner, than she find out from someone else later.”
    Devlin bit his lip and looked away. “She already knows I paid several calls at Sadie’s. She’s forgiven me, and we’ve put it all behind us.” As he met Conor’s piercing gaze, a heavy ache throbbed in the middle of his chest. “And that’s where I want it to stay. How can it, though, if Ella finds out about Hannah and has her nose rubbed in it each time that girl walks by? Blast it, Conor! Haven’t I hurt Ella enough without telling her about Hannah?
    “When will this nightmare be over?” Devlin groaned.
    “I don’t know.” With a sigh, Conor leaned back. “Maybe when it’s all out in the open and there are no more secrets or surprises. Have you talked with Hannah about this?”
    Devlin gave an incredulous laugh. “Talk to Hannah? Why that would be like falling back in with the devil himself! I’d never give a woman like her a chance to use that to her advantage. And she would. That’s all those kind of women know how to do.”
    “I think you’re wrong about her, Devlin. From what Abby tells me, the girl doesn’t sound likely to jeopardize what she’s got here. You aren’t giving either her or Ella a fair shake in this.”
    “Well, I sure in tarnation can’t tell Ella right now.” Devlin spun around, turning back to the next bale of hay. There was work to be done. No purpose was served wallowing in his misery. “News like that, on top of everything else she’s had to endure, might be the death of her.”
    “Then let Hannah be. It wouldn’t hurt to share a little of the forgiveness you’ve received with her. No sense hoarding it all for yourself.”
    “Can’t say as how I’m in the mood right now to think very kindly of Hannah, much less feel forgiving.” The big foreman sighed and shook his head. “Maybe it isn’t very honorable, but I can’t help it.”
    His cousin nodded. “Well, a man’s got to come to forgiveness in his own time. I sure had to. But just remember. Right now Ella needs Hannah to care for the baby, not to mention do the cooking, cleaning, and help little Mary and Devlin Jr. Abby can’t spend every waking moment with Ella and the children anymore. The two hands you sent to fetch Doc Childress that day of the storm have come down with a fever and chills, and Evan told me just this morning he’s not feeling all that well either. I’m thinking it’s the influenza. Talk has it a mess of folks in Grand View are sick with it.”
    Devlin slipped his gloved hands beneath the twine encircling another bale, then heaved it to his shoulder. “Yeah, I heard about the influenza that’s been going around Grand View.” He swung about and tossed the hay into the buckboard. “Talk has it Mary Sue Edgerton nearly died from it, and two of Sadie Fleming’s girls finally