Page 1 of When Summer Returns

CHAPTERONE

The island had a pulse.Luke Mallory felt it beneath his feet as he made his way up the sandy path, the beam of his flashlight carving through darkness thick as molasses. At dawn, in that suspended moment before the sun claimed the sky, Seeker’s Island belonged to ghosts and fools.

Today, he was firmly in the latter category.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, adjusting his grip on the flashlight. Palm fronds swayed overhead, casting serpentine shadows across the trail. Somewhere in the underbrush, night creatures scurried away from his intrusion, their rustling a counterpoint to the steady rhythm of the nearby ocean.

Perspiration slicked his skin despite the early hour, dampening his T-shirt and curling the overlong strands of hair at his temples and neck. A haircut hovered near the bottom of his priority list, somewhere above taking a vacation but well below maintaining his sanity—which explained his current expedition.

Only a desperate man believed in magic springs and island legends.

The Florida heat pressed against him like a living thing as he climbed the hill that led to Seeker’s Spring. The humid air grew thicker with each step, as if the path to salvation required passing through purgatory first. The distant burble of the waterfall grew louder, competing with the crash of waves from the opposite direction.

He was seventh-generation island stock. The Mallorys were as much a part of Seeker’s Island as the limestone beneath its sandy shores. He loved everything about this place—from the brutal summers to the spectacular thunderstorms to the cemetery where his ancestors’ graves tilted at odd angles after every significant rainfall. This was home, with all its peculiarities and imperfections.

When he reached the summit, Luke dropped the flashlight onto a smooth rock so its beam illuminated the scene. The hot spring stretched before him, its surface midnight black and mirror still except where the waterfall disturbed it, sending ripples across its face. Steam rose in ghostly tendrils where cool air met heated water.

“Complete insanity,” he said to the darkness, rolling his shoulders to release the tension that had settled there like an unwelcome guest.

His grandmother’s voice seemed to echo across the years: “The Lady of the Spring appears to those who need her most, Lucas. Not everyone sees her, but those who do are standing at life’s crossroads whether they know it or not.”

As a child, he’d been enthralled by Martha Mallory’s stories of the silver-haired woman with sea-glass eyes who had guided islanders through difficult choices for generations. His grandmother claimed the Lady had appeared to her the night before she decided to marry his grandfather instead of moving to the mainland with another suitor. “She told me my heart already knew where I belonged,” Martha had said. “The head just takes longer to accept what the heart understands immediately.”

Luke had dismissed those tales as the romantic fancies of an older generation, just as he now questioned his own presence at the spring. And yet here he was, seeking answers from ancient waters just as islanders had done for centuries.

“At least I have privacy for my moment of madness,” he said.

The springs wouldn’t officially open for hours, though that hardly mattered. His best friend happened to be Sheriff Reece Wells, who might find amusement in Luke’s desperation but wouldn’t actually arrest him for trespassing.

Before rational thought could override impulse, Luke pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it onto a nearby boulder. His cargo shorts and boxer briefs followed. He hadn’t gone swimming at the springs since he was eighteen and equally desperate. Both occasions involved the same woman—Jessie James—though his wish hadn’t been granted the first time around.

Perhaps he simply hadn’t known how to ask for what he truly needed. Fate had specific requirements that way.

Jessie James had occupied his thoughts for most of his thirty-three years. First as his dearest childhood friend, then as the girl who taught him what love felt like, and finally as the woman whose absence had left a void nothing else could fill.

They’d known each other since elementary school, though in retrospect, he realized Jessie had always kept parts of herself hidden. Her emerald eyes held shadows he hadn’t understood back then—shadows that made perfect sense now, considering the harsh upbringing she’d endured with old Jesse James. The senior James had been cruel in ways Luke hadn’t comprehended until too late, keeping Jessie confined to their run-down house far more often than letting her enjoy the freedom of island living.

They’d loved each other as friends should, even when she couldn’t bring herself to share her deepest secrets. Then adolescence transformed them both, and their innocent childhood connection evolved into something more profound. At sixteen, they’d fumbled their way toward intimacy, discovering each other with the kind of reverence only first love inspires—without reservation or the cynicism experience eventually teaches.

Or so he’d believed at the time. Looking back now, Luke wondered if he’d simply been a refuge from whatever darkness plagued her at home. He’d never fully earned her trust, which meant perhaps he’d never truly had her heart either. Because during their senior year, Jessie vanished without warning. Luke had arrived at the ferry to find her missing, and when he’d confronted her father that afternoon, old Jesse had informed him with chilling indifference that his daughter had packed her things and disappeared with their boat during the night.

She never returned. Not once. Though Luke had waited, had searched for her while her own father made no effort to find his only child. Eventually, Luke had tried to move forward while somehow keeping that Jessie-shaped wound open in his heart, a reminder that the only person you could truly rely on was yourself.

Luke eased himself over the moss-slick boulders and sat at the edge of the spring, dipping his feet into the water. He hissed as the heat touched his skin, sweat immediately beading across his forehead and trailing down his neck. He knew it would be cooler by the waterfall, where the flow originated from a different spring.

The dual nature of Seeker’s Spring made it unusual—magical, according to local legend. Tourists traveled from around the world to experience it, overrunning the island with garish hats and rented golf carts, purchasing plastic bottles of spring water as if they could capture wishes to take home.

Whatever your heart desires…

A marketing scheme created by someone who valued commerce over the island’s natural serenity. Yet here he was, behaving like a tourist himself, driven by a desperation he could barely acknowledge.

Luke waded through the shallows until he reached the drop-off at the center of the pool, where the depth suddenly increased. No one knew exactly what lay at the bottom, though several island residents claimed to have explored its depths in search of the spring’s true power.

He swam to the waterfall, where cold spray splashed against his face. He carefully navigated around the jagged rocks at its base—rocks sharp enough to slice through skin without warning. The sky had begun to lighten to a hazy gray, but dark storm clouds rolling in from the distance promised to keep any early rising tourists away from witnessing his foolishness.

Luke had spent years listening to those who claimed Seeker’s Spring had granted their heart’s desire. He still considered it nonsense, but if even a sliver of possibility existed, he couldn’t ignore it. The stakes had risen too high.

He knew what he’d done wrong during his previous attempt years ago. Back then, he’d swum to the deepest part of the pool, his chest tight with panic and anger as tears he couldn’t control had tracked down his face. He’d begged for Jessie’s return until his voice gave out. He’d maintained hope for weeks until old Jesse delivered the crushing news that his daughter had sent a letter saying she was staying with relatives up north to finish school and wanted no contact with anyone from Seeker’s Island—especially Luke.

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