Page 41 of When Summer Returns

She turned back to him, vulnerability momentarily visible beneath her careful composure. “I’ve spent fifteen years building a life that made sense without you in it. Without any of this.” She gestured toward the ocean, the island, everything that had once defined her. “I’m not sure I know how to reconcile who I was then with who I am now.”

“Maybe you don’t have to reconcile them,” Luke suggested. “Maybe it’s about finding out who you want to be going forward.”

A flicker of something—hope, perhaps—crossed her face before uncertainty shadowed it again. “And if I don’t know the answer to that either?”

“Then we figure it out together,” he said simply. “Day by day.”

The breeze freshened suddenly, carrying the scent of rain and that particular electric quality that spoke of distant weather systems. Luke glanced toward the horizon, where clouds had begun to gather in black masses, obscuring the stars.

“Those outer bands from the tropical depression might be reaching us sooner than predicted,” he observed, eyes scanning the darkening horizon with practiced assessment. “The barometric pressure’s dropping faster than the weather service anticipated.”

They turned toward Seeker’s Paradise, quickening their pace as the first cool droplets of rain began to fall. The wind picked up, bending the palms that lined the beach and sending sand swirling in miniature tornados around their feet.

“I remember this feeling,” Jessie said, her hair whipping around her face as the rain intensified. “The air gets heavier, almost like you can taste the storm coming days before it arrives.”

“Island instinct,” Luke agreed. “Everyone here can feel it. The animals know it first, then the old-timers start complaining about their joints, and finally the rest of us catch on.” He glanced out toward the ocean again. “This system’s building faster than they projected. We might need those hurricane shutters sooner rather than later.”

The rain came harder now, fat drops soaking through their clothes and plastering fabric to skin. Lightning flashed far offshore, followed seconds later by a low rumble of thunder.

“This way,” Luke called over the rising wind, grasping Jessie’s hand and leading her toward a weathered wooden structure nestled among the dunes. “Beach storage shed. Closer than the bar.”

They sprinted the remaining distance, rain lashing their backs as lightning flickered more frequently, illuminating the beach in stark white flashes. Luke wrenched open the shed door, ushering Jessie inside before following and pushing it closed against the wind’s insistent fingers.

The interior was dim but not completely dark, thin strips of light penetrating through gaps in the aging wooden slats. The small space smelled of salt and old rope, fishing gear and sunscreen—the particular potpourri of island recreation stored and forgotten. A narrow window high on one wall revealed the storm’s fury, lightning momentarily brightening the cramped interior before plunging it back into shadow.

“Well,” Jessie said, pushing wet hair from her face, “this is familiar.”

Luke stilled, memories flooding back with such force they nearly stole his breath. This same shed, from their teenage years. A rainstorm not unlike this one. Two teenagers seeking shelter, finding much more than they’d bargained for.

“You remember,” he said, not a question but a confirmation.

“Of course I remember.” Her voice was quiet, almost drowned by the drumming of rain on the roof. “It was the first time you told me you loved me.”

The memory hung between them, vibrant and immediate despite the years. They’d been seventeen, caught in a sudden storm while walking the beach after a bonfire celebration. This shed—smaller than Luke remembered—had provided convenient shelter. What had begun as practical necessity had transformed into something else entirely as they’d found themselves alone in the darkness, water dripping from their clothes, hearts pounding with proximity and awareness.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating Jessie’s face—older now, more defined by time and experience, but her eyes unchanged, still that impossible shade of green that had haunted his dreams for fifteen years.

“We should probably wring out some of this water,” she said, her voice carefully neutral as she twisted her soaked hair, releasing a stream onto the plank floor.

Luke nodded, removing his equally soaked shirt and wringing it out. The practical action did nothing to dispel the charged atmosphere between them, the weight of memory and present awareness creating a tension that had nothing to do with the storm raging outside.

Jessie’s thin blouse clung to her like a second skin, revealing the delicate shoulders and graceful collarbones that his fingers remembered too well. She caught him looking and her expression changed, vulnerability and desire mingling with uncertainty.

“Luke,” she began, though she seemed uncertain how to continue.

He stepped closer, drawn by forces older and more powerful than reason or caution. “Tell me to stop,” he said quietly. “Tell me this isn’t what you want, and I’ll step back.”

Her breath caught, her gaze moving over his face as if searching for something vitally important. “I can’t,” she whispered finally. “I can’t tell you to stop.”

It was all the permission he needed. His hands came up to frame her face, just as they had when they were teenagers in this same shed, with rain drumming overhead and their hearts keeping time with the thunder. Her skin was cool and damp beneath his fingers, but her eyes burned with heat that matched his own.

Their lips met in a kiss that began gently—a question, an exploration, a rediscovery of familiar territory now altered by time and experience. But gentleness quickly gave way to hunger as years of absence and longing combusted in a single moment of connection.

Jessie’s arms wound around his neck, her body pressing against his with the same perfect fit it had always had. Luke’s hands slid into her wet hair, cradling her head as he deepened the kiss, tasting rain and salt and something uniquely Jessie that no amount of time could erase from his memory.

The small space filled with the sound of ragged breathing and summer rain, the occasional rumble of thunder punctuating moments of desperate connection. Luke’s hands moved from her hair to her shoulders, down the slender curve of her spine, memorizing through touch what his heart had never forgotten.

When his palm curved over her rib cage, Jessie went rigid in his arms, a small sound—not quite a gasp, more like a suppressed whimper—escaping before she could contain it. She pulled back abruptly, breaking the kiss and stepping away with such sudden alarm that Luke was momentarily disoriented.

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