This wasn’t at all what Mia had expected, if one could even have an expectation of what finding a long lost sister was like. The loss she felt over her mother passing away was huge, but now she felt another kind of loss. The possibility of finding and then losing her only known blood relatives was just salt in the still open wound on her heart.

Chapter Five

Kate stared up at the black sky, the moon shining down brightly on the still water in front of her. She took in a long, deep breath - like the one her yoga teacher had taught her - and blew it slowly out of her mouth.

The last twenty-four hours had been a lot to take in. Meeting her sister, finding out she could be part owner in a B&B out in the north Georgia woods, trying to keep her daughter in check. All of it was weighing on her, which was why she was standing outside at two o’clock in the morning staring into the blackness.

She sat down on a bench affixed to a small dock. This was quite possibly the quietest place she’d ever been, with only the sound of crickets to let her know she was still alive and breathing. In any other situation, she would’ve been scared to be outside alone at this hour, especially in the middle of the forest. But, for some odd reason, this place didn’t feel scary to her at all. At the moment, she felt like the only person on the planet.

As far as she knew, Evie was fast asleep right now, after dozing off watching videos on her phone. How she was managing to get a signal out here was beyond Kate. She had enough trouble getting cell service in the city, much less in a place like this. Maybe some kind of mountain magic was involved.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Evie had snuck out and was halfway to Atlanta by now. Her daughter was a bit hard to figure out these days, something that kept her awake most nights. Tonight, it wasn’t Evie that was keeping her up. It was her sister, Mia. Or rather her conflicting feelings about her new sibling.

She’d wanted a sister her whole life, and now that she had one, she couldn’t wait to get away. In her mind, this whole thing was a mistake. Traveling all the way to Georgia to meet a very annoying little Southern belle wasn’t something she’d planned to do. She liked her routine. There was no way she was uprooting her life to live out in the woods and have strangers staying in her home. Nope. Not happening.