Read To Heal A Heart (Love Inspired) for Free Online

to think the oppression might be guilt. She was absolutely determined to be finished with guilt. Why should she feel guilty just because she’d decided to attend a church other than Mitchell Sayer’s?
    Frankly, it hadn’t been a very uplifting experience, even though the people there had seemed friendly. The music had been familiar, and she couldn’t quibble with the pastor’s sermon or delivery, but she hadn’t felt any “connection.” So what? she asked herself. At least she could scratch that particular church off her figurative list. Besides, she didn’t owe Mitch Sayer anything. As a matter of fact, she didn’t owe anyone anything, not anymore. She was a free agent. Completely free. She didn’t have to go to church at all if she didn’t want to.
    Piper trudged past the stairwell leading to the second floor of the small, recently refurbished apartment house and moved into the open courtyard beyond. She’d rented here because she’d been able to view the apartment over the Internet and because she’d imagined that the waterfall at one end of the swimming pool would provide constant, calming background noise. Not today, however. The soft plinking sounds were more from the gloomy rainfall than the fountain.
    She dashed to her front door, keys in hand, and wrestled with the lock. By the time she got the door open and swept inside, she was thoroughly misted with rain. Closing the door firmly behind her, she put her back to it and let out a deep sigh.
    Silence surrounded her, accenting the emptiness she felt. She shrugged out of her sweater, hung it on the doorknob and plopped down on the rented sofa. Recriminations pummeled her. She should have gone to Mitch’s church. She should have gone where she knew someone, but she hadn’t because he knew who her parents were, and she was so tired of trying to live up to everyone’s ideal of who she should be. Being the brave and saintly Wynnes’ daughter was more than she could manage just now, perhaps more than she could ever manage again. She wished Mitchell Sayer didn’t know, wished she could be just anyone’s daughter and sister. She wished it for her parents’ and brother’s sakes as well as her own.
    It was impossible to change who she was, though, so the best she could do was to change her life. That much she could, would manage. She sat up a little straighter, remembering that one of her neighbors had invited her over for dinner this evening to meet her husband.
    Melissa Ninever was a few years younger than Piper, maybe twenty-three or -four, and newly married—a tall, slender young woman with an engaging smile and streaky, light brown hair in a short, trendy cut. Melissa had gone out of her way to make Piper’s acquaintance. Her husband, Scott, apparently worked a lot of overtime as a shipping scheduler. Melissa herself worked as a clerk at a rental agency just a few miles up the road and seemed to find herself at loose ends quite a lot. She seemed to need a friend as much as Piper did—and she had no idea that Ransome and Charlotte Wynne were revered the world over for their missionary service.
    It was Day Thirteen of her new life, and already Piper had made a friend. That was a good beginning—enough for now. The rest would come, surely. Otherwise, why would she have so easily found a job and an apartment via the Internet even before she had set foot in Dallas? They were confirmation, in her mind, that she had made the right decision. For whatever reason, God wanted her out of Houston. Perhaps if she had listened more closely and been more sensitive to His urgings, she and her family could have been spared the pain of these past weeks and months.
    Perhaps she would not have made such unforgivable mistakes.
    She bowed her head, but confusion swirled through her, blocking any coherent thought that she might have lifted in prayer, so she got up, walked into the small, single bedroom and began changing into casual clothes, pondering how to fill the next