When Cole McGinnis turns five, he meets and falls in love with three day old Jerica - the girl next door. Two years later, her family moves, taking away the best birthday present Cole had ever received. Now, twenty-two years later, Cole walks into his mother's kitchen and finds a young woman standing at the sink. It is Jerica. She has returned to Mystic, returned to him. He is instantly drawn to her, and despite her involvement with another man, Cole falls in love. Will he have the confidence to let her know how he feels? And, if he does, will Jerica feel the same about him?

At twenty-eight, Catherine has just learned about a younger half-sister. Determined to connect with this girl she didn't know existed, Catherine is drawn to a small cottage community in Rhode Island where her search begins. There she finds solace in the sea and in the man who she shares coffee with as they feed the gulls and wonder where these birds sleep at night. This question haunts Catherine as she also wonders where Trini sleeps and if she will ever find the sister she longs to know.

College textbook editor Breeda Flynn inherited an inactive bed and breakfast on Martha's Vineyard. She enjoys the solitude, her only company the cat who had belonged to her deceased aunt. Along with the house and feline, Breeda's world is filled with memories of events which happened sixteen years earlier, including the disappearance of her first love and the brutal death of his mother. When TV producer Joe Pederson asks to stay for a brief time at her home while researching and writing a book about those incidents, Bree is not happy about the intrusion. Reluctantly, she agrees to the stay.