Page 66 of When Summer Returns

“Something happened here,” she said, not quite a question but an opening.

“At the spring?” His brow furrowed slightly. “Like what?”

“When I arrived, there was an old woman. Someone I’ve never seen before.” Jessie glanced around, still half expecting to see the silver-haired figure perched on a nearby rock. “We talked, and then she just…vanished.”

Luke’s expression shifted from confusion to something more complicated. “What did she look like? This woman.”

“Older—maybe in her eighties. Long silver braid with shells woven into it. She wore a blue dress, simple but not exactly modern. And her eyes—” Jessie hesitated, aware of how fanciful her description must sound. “They were the most unusual green with gold flecks. Almost like?—”

“Like sea glass caught in sunlight,” Luke finished, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.

The hair on Jessie’s arms rose. “You’ve seen her too.”

“No.” Luke’s gaze swept across the spring as if searching for the apparition she’d described. “But I remember my grandmother telling those stories about the Lady of the Spring. The same ones she used to tell us when we were kids.”

“Your grandmother Martha,” Jessie said, the memories flowing back easily. The kind-eyed woman who’d always had cookies cooling on the rack and Band-Aids for skinned knees. “She believed in the legend more than anyone.”

“She didn’t just believe it. She claimed the Lady appeared to her the day she had to decide whether to marry my grandfather or move to the mainland with another man.” A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Remember how she’d tell us that the Lady told her sometimes what seems like the most practical choice is actually the most foolish? That the heart recognizes home long before the head catches up?”

The parallel to Jessie’s own situation was so direct that she nearly lost her balance in the shallow water. “I’d forgotten that part of the story. Your grandmother was so sure about that choice—even when island life got difficult.”

“She never regretted it,” Luke confirmed, his eyes holding hers steadily. “Even when the hurricanes came or when money was tight. She always said once you find where you truly belong, everything else is just geography.”

“She was the real deal,” Jessie agreed, smiling at the memories. “Island to her core.”

“She always had a soft spot for you,” Luke added, his expression warming with shared remembrance. “Said you had grit beneath all that quiet. Looks like she was right—coming back here at all took courage, facing your father’s ghost, his house. And then jumping headfirst into hurricane preparation on top of it all.”

“A moment of temporary insanity,” Jessie said, though her smile took any sting from the words. “Though I’m beginning to think that moment might be stretching into something more permanent.”

Luke’s eyes sharpened, focusing on her face with sudden intensity. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I made some decisions.” She drew a deep breath, the scent of the spring filling her lungs. “Or maybe the decisions made themselves. I just finally listened.”

“The job offer?” he asked, his voice careful, neutral in a way that told her he was preparing himself for disappointment.

“I called Winston earlier. Told him I won’t be coming back. At least not to stay.” She watched Luke’s expression shift, cautious hope replacing careful neutrality. “They’ll need me for a transition period, but that can be done remotely. After that…I’m free.”

“Free,” he echoed, the word carrying complex layers. “And what does freedom look like to you, Jessie James?”

“It looks like this.” She gestured to the spring, to the island, to the space between them. “It looks like home.”

The simple word seemed to hover in the air between them, weightier than any elaborate declaration. Home—not a physical structure but a place of belonging, of rightness, of return.

“What about the bar?” Luke asked, his practical nature asserting itself even in this moment of revelation. “Your father’s share?—”

“I’m keeping it,” she interrupted firmly. “If you’ll have me as a partner. A real one.”

“The island bar business isn’t exactly the fast track to fortune,” he warned, though his eyes had begun to crinkle at the corners with the smile he was trying to contain. “Especially after hurricane season. The repairs alone?—”

“Luke Mallory,” she cut him off, swimming closer until their bodies brushed against each other, their legs already tangling beneath the surface. “I spent fifteen years chasing the fast track. What I found at the end was an empty apartment, colleagues instead of friends, and a corner office with a view of someone else’s idea of paradise.” Her arms looped around his neck naturally, as if they’d never forgotten the way they fit together, her fingers threading through the damp hair at his nape. “I’d rather build something real, even if it takes the rest of my life.”

“The rest of your life?” he repeated, his voice hushed. “That’s a long time to commit to an island that gets pummeled by hurricanes every few years.”

“I’m not committing to the island,” she clarified, her gaze steadily meeting his. “I’m committing to you. The island just happens to be part of the package.”

He laughed, then pulled her into his arms, his mouth finding hers with the urgency of fifteen years of separation and a promise that needed no words. Jessie melted against him, the spring’s water swirling around them, bearing witness to negotiations far more important than business percentages.

Something shifted in Luke’s expression—the last walls of caution and self-protection crumbling away. One corner of his mouth quirked up, that half smile she’d always found irresistible.

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