CHAPTER FOUR
With her heart still aching from her meeting with her former fiancé, Ashley steered her sedan onto the hard-packed dirt driveway leading to her father’s house in Laurel County. Hearing Brett’s voice again, gazing into his eyes, breathing in his cologne, and seeing him standing beneath the glow of the streetlamp, watching her as she drove away, had stirred up a host of feelings she’d tried hard to bury. Now, a sense of sorrow had settled into her soul, as deep and dark as the mountain night.
The sedan wobbled as the tires hit the wooden bridge that stretched across the creek on the one-hundred-fifty-acre property, passed down in the Hope family for generations. After her breakup with Brett, Ashley had moved into a small trailer located on the back corner of her father’s land.
