The Bride Backfire by Kelly Eileen Hake

Oh, she’d been on their homestead before for harvesting, threshing, work bees, and the like to exchange a helping hand.
    She stilled at the thought. Threshing. If I hadn’t been here for Larry’s accident, I wouldn’t have fetched the ice. He wouldn’t have thought I harbored secret feelings for him and skulked on our land to act on the supposed attraction. Her stomach heaved as she followed the progression. If he hadn’t crossed the boundary, Pa and my brothers wouldn’t have been so up in arms when Adam came looking for his milk cow. If I’d never stepped foot on Grogan land ... If I...
    She stopped cold, bringing Adam up short. Oh Lord. I thought I was saving Adam. But really, this entire mess is my fault!
    She lurched away from him for a few steps, turning her back to lose the contents of her stomach in a patch of wild grass. Opal gagged on her realizations until she had nothing left but the hollowness of despair.
    â€œHere.” A man’s kerchief appeared before her, a warm hand patting her back as though to comfort her. Adam had stayed. His kindness proved the breaking point.
    Despite her resolve not to let the Grogans see her cry, Opal felt tears pour free. She stayed bent over for an extra moment, mopping her face clean, trying to gather her composure.
    â€œWell, Larry, I guess now we know Adam’s not been hoodwinked. The gal’s pregnant, all right.” Diggory’s laughter stiffened her spine, giving her the strength nothing else could have. If he weren’t such an abysmal, callous excuse for a man, she would almost have been grateful.
    As it was, Opal straightened up, tucked the soiled kerchief in her apron pocket, and summoned a sickly smile. They’d never know she grinned at the irony of how her sickness over the deception was interpreted as proof of its veracity.
    â€œWe’ve put your things in Willa’s room,” Adam told her just outside the house, after everyone else had gone inside.
    â€œWilla’s room?” She looked up in consternation. How am I to make an annulment impossible if we sleep separately?
    â€œWilla’s room,” he repeated the words with a determined gleam, and Opal knew he’d meant what he said earlier. “Until I can build us a home of our own, I’ll stay with Larry in the barn. It’s for the best.”
    â€œDon’t leave me.” She hated to beg. Hated that she needed him for more than fulfilling her plans. But the thought of being alone in the Grogan household turned her stomach afresh. If nothing else, she counted Adam as her ally.
    â€œWhen the time is right, we’ll have a house.” His gaze held a deeper meaning than the words he spoke so lightly. “A real marriage.”
    â€œWhen the time is right...” She tested the words, certain he meant when-you-tell-me-the-name- of-the- father-whose-child-you-carry.
    â€œI’m glad we understand each other.”
    â€œOh, I understand.” She had a husband. Now, what she needed was a plan.
    ***
    Think, Midge. Think! She rolled over, snuggled into her quilt, and waited for inspiration to strike. A deep breath to calm her racing thoughts didn’t do much. Stretching and wriggling her toes, her never-fail plotting method left her without any brilliant insights either.
    This is one of those times when everybody else I know would pray. Maybe I should give it a try?
    She wiggled her toes some more.
    Maybe not.
    After all, praying hadn’t helped her parents make it past their bouts with influenza when she was little. Praying hadn’t helped her sister survive....
    No. Not going to think about that.
    Midge stopped wiggling her toes. The point was God either hadn’t heard or hadn’t cared, because prayer hadn’t helped her when she needed it most.
    Saul had.
    Which was the only idea for helping Opal that she kept coming back to—telling Saul and Clara. Oh, Midge knew Opal’s reputation was