The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews
Fiction

Dempsey Killebrew is a young lobbyist working in Washington D.C.  She accompanies her boss and a congressman on an ill fated trip to the Cayman Islands, and soon finds herself fired without much explanation.  Dempsey soon learns that her boss is being accused of bribing the congressman, and he in turn is accusing Dempsey of all wrongdoing.  Dempsey finds herself escaping to Guthrie, Georgia to avoid the press and fix up an old plantation house.  Upon finding “Birdsong”, Dempsey discovers that there is a distant relative living in the house with no intentions of moving and the FBI has managed to find her and ask for her help in exchange for not sending her to jail.  She also meets Carter Berryhill and his young attractive son Tee, who becomes an important source of help to Dempsey as she tries to clear her name and reclaim her life.