Jerry Rutgers and Carol McKechnie have everything going for them when these two ski experts meet in a Colorado mountain resort that Jerry helps manage. Each has just emerged from a long-term love relationship which ended sadly, so the two talented powderhounds find solace in each other. A storybook romance blooms for them in this picturesque mountain wonderland. But hidden, past pain surfaces and casts a dark, disturbing shadow over their idyll. A worker walkout in peak season cripples Valley Lodge and creates unthinkable pressure on Jerry, whose hidden scars from his background prevent him from being the rescuer that Carol and his ailing mentor, Pop, expect him to be. A shattering betrayal follows and propels Jerry to disappear inexplicably--leaving his and Carol's once-brilliant, shared future in ruins. Jerry hides out in an unlikely spot--a Midwestern ranch for troubled boys, a sharp contrast from the upscale playground that has been his home. As survival needs force him to work with unsociable misfits whose struggle for identity mirrors his own, Jerry finds that only by rigorously probing the depths of his pain and experiencing God's forgiveness can he find resources that offer hope and restoration--and lead him back to Carol in a set of circumstances that only God could design. With characters so appealing and so humanly drawn that one expects them to step off the page at any second, When the Heart Soars Free envelops its readers in a suspense-filled, yet poignant search for healing through the pages of a heart-touching, contemporary romance. Furthermore, through Carol's and Jerry's pilgrimages, readers can find insight and skills to face their own pain that sometimes shackles the heart and keeps one from soaring free.