Emersyn Collins is coming home. It's been four years since 19-year-old Emersyn has been back to her hometown of Coupeville, Washington. Four years since her grandma got sick, and she was forced to move in with her estranged mother in the city. Four years since she's seen her best friends. Four years since she's shared a meal with her Uncle Kiel. Armed with nothing but a bag brimming with clothes, art supplies, and a heartfelt letter from her grandmother bequeathing her the house she grew up in, Emersyn finds herself at a crossroads, uncertain about her future as she returns to her past. But everything changes when she crosses paths with Zeke Thatcher, an enigmatic stranger with his own quest on the island: to locate his father's grave and uncover a hidden connection to a family he never knew. For reasons Emersyn can't quite understand herself, she feels the need to help him. Before long, her days are spent obsessing over the charismatically distant stranger who seems to be struggling not to fall in love with her. And her nights are devoted to the images of gravestones as she tries to translate her new obsession onto blank canvases with the strokes of acrylic paints. But unbeknownst to Emersyn, Zeke is on a deadline to find that familial link. The clock is ticking, and if they can't uncover it before time slips away, they risk losing much more than a summer romance.