Heartland Cheer

They got married in secret then her prison sentence came between them. Can they recapture what they once had?

Braxton Emmerson was born and bred in the heartland. He loves his farm and his family, but he was willing to give it all up for the woman who stole his heart.

But she didn’t want to give up her career and insisted on keeping their romance a secret. But then her business partner doubled crossed her and she ended up with a prison sentence for tax evasion.

Now she’s out and she’s much wiser. Family is more important than her career. Unfortunately, she’d hurt Braxton deeply and the only reason he’s coming to see her is to give their daughter a Christmas with her mom.

Will two weeks and a little Christmas cheer be enough to help them see they’ve always been meant for each other?

Chapter 1

“Do you see Mom?” Arian asked, straining to look through the
group of people who had congregated at the edge of the Niagara River, eager to
see the fascinating and beautiful light display that was put on every night as
the water in the river rushed over the falls, creating one of the most stunning
displays of power and of God’s amazing handiwork on the continent.

It might be the beginning of December, but it was
unseasonably warm, and Braxton Emerson wore a T-shirt and jeans.

It had been all over the local news about the unseasonably
warm fall this area had had.

Being from Iowa, Braxton hadn’t had a clue what the local
weather was doing until he’d arrived earlier this afternoon.

He and Arian had checked into their rented house, then Arian
could barely contain herself, wanting to see the falls for the first time in
her life.

The first time she could remember.

“She might not be here,” he said. “We’re not supposed to
meet until nine o’clock, and that’s at the lobby of the hotel where she’s
staying.”

“She’s going to come to our house?” Arian asked, even though
she’d already asked that question and he’d answered the same way he was going
to answer now.

“I don’t know.”

When she was younger, Arian hadn’t been a big talker, but
over the last year or so, there’d been a lot of changes happening, both in her
body and her personality.

As a single dad, he hadn’t felt prepared to deal with any of
those changes.

Maybe that was part of the reason he’d gone out of his way
to meet his wife.

She wasn’t his ex. He’d never wanted a divorce, and she’d
never asked for one.

No one had known about their marriage anyway.

Tempted to finger the chain around his neck on which his
wedding band hung, he didn’t. It was tucked under his T-shirt, and maybe he was
a sentimental fool, but he never took it off.

“The hydroelectric power plant located just upstream was at
one time the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world.” The tour guide’s voice
of the tour group standing slightly in front of him droned on.

Braxton wasn’t really paying attention, although he did find
the falls fascinating. This wasn’t his first time here, and some of the
happiest, and saddest, moments of his life had been spent here.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever come back.

“At this time of year, the Niagara River is already at its
lowest seasonal level, and about seventy-five percent of the river is diverted
at night to feed the turbines of the power plant.”

After the guide said this, there was murmuring in the group,
as people were astonished that so much of the river was diverted. It didn’t
really take away from the beauty of the falls nor the power that a person felt
as the ground vibrated from the surge beating as the water landed far below.

“How deep is the river now?” one lady asked. Braxton found
himself looking over the railing, wondering that himself.

“It’s approximately two feet deep,” the guide said with
confidence. “In some places, it’s less and others, more. But don’t let the
shallowness fool you. The current is still strong and swift and moving quite
quickly.”

He went on to talk about the speed of the water and the
force of the current, and Braxton quit listening, thinking about his daughter
and wondering if this was the best thing for her.

He was only spending two weeks here, and he’d be back in
Iowa for Christmas. Krista, his wife, had asked for Christmas with her
daughter, and he’d compromised by saying that he would come the whole way to
Niagara Falls, which made her trip from Toronto short and easy, and she would
be able to spend almost all of her break with her daughter.

In return, Christmas would be as it always was for them, at
the big old farmhouse in Iowa, with his brothers and grandmother.

Maybe it was selfish of him to want that tradition to be
unbroken, but he’d spent five years away from home, and he’d sworn when he went
back that he’d never leave it again.

The group moved a little farther away, and the sound of the
pounding water drowned out any more of their conversation. He and Arian needed
to make their way up as well, since the hotel they were meeting Krista at was farther
upriver.

He started to walk, and his daughter fell into step beside
him. They went slowly, both of them fascinated by the water and the power it
represented.

It was hard to imagine a more beautiful night to be out,
although the warmth of the evening probably made it more crowded than it might
normally be.

Nervous anticipation curled in his stomach, and he could
feel adrenaline pushing through his veins, making him want to run. Whether it
would be toward his wife or away from her, he wasn’t sure.

Equal parts of both, probably.

Arian and he had strolled for probably ten minutes, stopping
every once in a while when they came to a spot where the railing was clear to
step closer and stare at the silent but swiftly moving river.

They were stopped at a random spot when a woman ahead of
them caught his eye.

It wasn’t the woman exactly, at first anyway, but it was
more the dog she carried.

It looked familiar, and a memory he hadn’t thought of in a
decade slammed into him so hard he put a hand on the railing.

“Dad?” Arian said, concern darkening her deep brown eyes.

He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said, summoning up just a
bit of a smile. As the oldest of four brothers, he wasn’t used to showing
weakness.

Plus, the one time he allowed his defenses to come down and gave
his heart to someone, she’d broken it, quite brutally, and thrown it back at
him.

No. Weakness wasn’t something he was good at.

The people around them shifted, and he saw the dog again.

The woman holding it was slender and tall, both of which
were emphasized by the long, tailored pants she wore and the stylish and snug-fitting
sweater.

The dog seemed restless, squirming in her arms as the woman
stood at the rail, turned just enough upriver that he couldn’t see the outline
of her features but could watch the wind lifting her hair and blowing it back
away from her face.

The dog wriggled again, seeming to squirm almost to get out
of her arms, and she shifted, as though she were preoccupied.

He supposed it could be Krista, and the thought made him
stop a good hundred feet back.

Surely not.

Back when he knew her, she’d never been early for anything
in her life, and it was at least an hour until they were to meet.

The dog…

It reminded him so much of Cricket, the dog he’d bought her
as a wedding gift.

Maybe it seemed like a strange gift, but they’d been driving
in the Finger Lakes and had stopped at an Amish fruit market to buy some
apples. There had been several Amish children running around the yard playing
with puppies, adorable and sweet, innocent and cute.

Those puppies happened to be for sale.

Krista had been charmed, and he’d been completely and
totally under her spell. He would have said yes to anything, but she hadn’t had
to ask.

They’d just looked at each other and known. And they’d spent
the rest of their honeymoon with the puppy.

Because of Krista’s upbringing, bouncing from one foster
care home to another, she’d fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with the dog.
Even the birth of their daughter a year later hadn’t dethroned Cricket from her
place in Krista’s heart.

It had been one of the things he’d loved about her. Her
capacity to love, deeply and without restraint. Freely and beautifully and
fearlessly.

The opposite of him, really. The opposite in that Krista
loved everything and everyone that way.

Braxton only loved Krista and his family with that kind of
dangerous love.

The crowd shifted again, and this time, he spent such an
obviously long amount of time staring that Arian turned her head and looked as
well.

“That looks like the dog I had when I was little,” she
murmured, possibly putting the idea that that could be her mother together in
her brain.

She didn’t say. She just let the sentence end abruptly.