She ran from Charleston. Charleston never let her go. After seven years of chasing stories around the globe, travel writer Emery Westbrook returns to the one place she swore she'd never set foot in again-her family's crumbling Charleston estate. Emery wants nothing more than to see her dying father one last time and escape back to her wandering life. Now she's back in Charleston, and nothing is what she believed. Hidden letters reveal the truth about her mother's death. Her sister Laura knows more than she ever admitted. And there's a man whose patient hands have been rebuilding her family estate and seems to have been waiting for her return. Xander Langley-the man she left behind-is living in the caretaker's cottage, painstakingly restoring every broken piece of her childhood home. To heal her family's wounds, Emery must stop running and face the lies that drove her away. How much truth can a family survive? Some secrets are buried beneath generations of Southern silence. Others are carved into porch swings and whispered through marsh grass. The most dangerous ones? They're the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Some second chances don't come twice. Will Emery finally find the courage to stay and rebuild what was broken? Or will the weight of the past send her running one final time-this time, forever?