Also By Ashley Farley Hope Springs Series Dream Big, Stella! Show Me the Way Mistletoe and Wedding Bells Stand Alone Tangled in Ivy Lies that Bind Life on Loan Only One Life Home for Wounded Hearts Nell and Lady Sweet Tea Tuesdays Saving Ben Sweeney Sisters Series Saturdays at Sweeney’s Tangle of Strings Boots and Bedlam Lowcountry Stranger Her Sister’s Shoes Magnolia Series Beyond the Garden Magnolia Nights Scottie’s Adventures Breaking the Story Merry Mary Copyright © 2020 by Ashley Farley All rights reserved. Cover design: damonza.com Editor: Patricia Peters at A Word Affair LLC Leisure Time Books, a division of AHF Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Contents About this Story 1. Presley 2. Everett 3. Presley 4. Stella 5. Everett 6. Presley 7. Everett 8. Presley 9. Everett 10. Presley 11. Everett 12. Presley 13. Stella 14. Presley 15. Everett 16. Presley 17. Presley 18. Stella 19. Everett 20. Presley 21. Presley 22. Everett 23. Presley 24. Presley 25. Everett 26. Presley 27. Everett 28. Presley 29. Stella 30. Presley 31. Everett 32. Stella 33. Presley Other Books in the Series Also By Ashley Farley Acknowledgments About the Author About this Story Two lost souls meet by chance in an explosive tale of romance and suspense. Presley Ingram has often wondered about her birth parents. Yet her 23andMe test kit remains unopened in her bedside table drawer. When she finds an address on a torn envelope in her adoption file upon her adoptive mother’s death, she makes an impulsive decision to travel to the mountains of Virginia in search of answers. In the charming town of Hope Springs, she discovers her dream job as event planner at the prestigious Inn at Hope Springs Farms and the potential for romance with a ruggedly handsome bartender. Presley has an uncanny knack for reading people. While she suspects Everett has a genuine heart, she’s convinced he’s hiding something from his previous life. Everett Baldwin is on the run from his past. He’s hiding out under an assumed name and working as a bartender while his dreams of becoming a country music star slip away. When opportunity knocks, Everett is forced to face his demons in order to move on with his life. Secrets are revealed and chaos ensues. Will Everett be able to salvage his relationship with the woman of his dreams? 1 Presley Presley waits in her parked rental car across from the address she found on the torn envelope in her adoption folder. When she discovered the file in her mother’s desk drawer late yesterday afternoon, she booked the next available flight to Virginia. What is she even doing here? She’s not interested in medical history. A genetic testing website could determine if she possesses the dreaded breast cancer gene or whether she’s at risk for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. But Presley’s test kit, purchased over a year ago from 23andMe, remains unopened in her bedside table drawer back in Nashville. Kids on bikes and young mothers pushing baby strollers pass by, seemingly oblivious to the stranger in their midst. The neighborhood is Norman Rockwell picturesque, like one might expect in a small town called Hope Springs. Maple trees with brilliant orange leaves line the street. Pansies in yellows and purples border sidewalks leading to small front porches bearing displays of pumpkins and gourds and mums. Most of the houses are two-story brick colonials with well-tended lawns. But the whitewashed brick and Wedgewood-blue front door make number 237 stand out from the rest on Hillside Drive. Presley drums her fingers against the steering wheel. She’s been here two hours. Should she leave and come back later? She checks the time on the dash. Five forty-three. She’ll stay until six. What does she want from the people she’s waiting for? Another family? Because her mother . . . her adoptive mother, Renee, died two months ago and left her all alone in the world. That’s not it. Presley isn’t afraid of being alone. She has no siblings. She lost her beloved father to cancer when she was a young child. This inner sense of disconnect has nothing to do with Renee’s death. Presley feels a calling, like there’s someone else in the universe searching for her. She’s not looking to disrupt anyone’s life. She simply wants to know who her people are. To look into the faces of others and see something of herself. All her life, Presley has been a square peg trying to fit into Renee’s round hole. Renee was an overachiever, a producer with one of Nashville’s top country music record labels. Renee prided herself on being a hard-ass and faulted Presley for being soft. Presley prefers to think of herself as easygoing and good-natured. Renee’s death was permission granted for her to find her round hole. When a burgundy minivan rounds the corner at the far end of the street, Presley sits up straight in her seat. She glimpses the attractive middle-aged blonde behind the wheel when the van pulls into the driveway at 237. A pair of teenage girls, dressed in athletic shorts and tank tops with field hockey sticks tucked under their arms and backpacks over their shoulders, emerge from the van. Tall and lean with blonde ponytails, they look enough alike to be twins. Could these girls be her half sisters? Their mother, an older version of her daughters, is slower to get out of the car. She holds a phone to her ear and wears a scowl on her face, either angry or upset with the person on the other end. From a distance, Presley sees no physical resemblance between the three blondes across the street and her own auburn hair and gray eyes. There’s always a chance the torn envelope got stuffed in her adoption folder by accident. But not likely, since her mother’s other files were in meticulous order. According to Zillow, number 237 was last sold seventy years ago. Presley assumes to this woman’s
