Independence Trail (Trails of the Heart)

To escape an arranged marriage to benefit her father’s business, Heidi Schultz runs to the ranch owned by her sister, Lily, and brother-in-law, Toby. No one will ever run or ruin her life again. She’ll find a job in nearby San Antonio and fulfill her dream of living on her own. She’ll never surrender her independence to anyone, especially not to a man. But when her father finds her, Heidi agrees to Toby’s idea to postpone her plans for a new life and stay at the ranch a while longer just to be safe.

Jethro Bannister likes his life as foreman for Toby Grimes. Memories of the way his Georgia family turned on him don’t plague him while living on a secluded Texas ranch. With God’s help, he’s made peace with his painful past. Until Heidi interrupts his carefully arranged, placid world of quiet. The too talkative woman could worry the horns off an entire herd of longhorns. Plus her family problems remind him too much of what he left behind.

Watching Lily and Toby love and depend on each other chisels away at the wall of independence Heidi has built to protect herself from being betrayed again. Despite their misgivings, Heidi and Jethro form a tenuous friendship based on their common wish to be left alone. They understand each other better than anyone else around them does. Confiding in one another deepens their friendship more than either intends. Will Heidi and Jethro’s past wounds bond them together in an unexpected love or push them apart?