Suddenly, there on Moon Lake, the image returned for a second time. There at the pier was the empty boat and the dog looking down into the water. Emma caught her breath and began to run to the water's edge. The image faded and disappeared before she was half way there―shimmering away into nothing―like a mirage on a hot road in summer.
She stood on the pier long enough to allow the image to sink in. Had it been her mind playing tricks, or something outside of herself?
" What are you trying to tell me Ethan?" she whispered.
Emma has returned home to Texas from Boston. She has come to face the blocked memory of her high school sweetheart's drowning seventeen years earlier. Just when she thought she had let go of the past and established herself as a commercial artist, she becomes obsessed with the return to Cobblers Cove. There on that horrific day in 1996, she had found Ethan's body floating face down in the water. She can no longer block that memory, as their favorite song plays repeatedly on the radio. She can no longer ignore the eerie image of the teenage Ethan appearing at the shoreline.
Emma has come to find the truth at the cost of her career and her own safety. Only then can she return to Benjamin who waits in Boston.To complicate matters further, an old hometown friend resurfaces to make her feel the kind of love she had buried with Ethan so long ago.