From New York Times best-selling author Mariah Stewart comes a new chapter in her celebrated Chesapeake Diaries series, featuring her signature "rich characterization, charming setting, and a romance you'll never forget" (Robyn Carr, New York Times best-selling author).

Architect Cassidy Logan has sworn off good-looking adventurers. Newly divorced, she's focused on building ecologically friendly, historically accurate homes on the Chesapeake Bay for her father's construction company. Traveling to Cannonball Island - where there has been no new construction in nearly 100 years - Cass is sensitive to the heritage of the island and has come up with plans so perfect she's determined to buy a home for herself. Even the fact that Owen Parker - a local whom she dismisses as a lightweight and a player - seems to be everywhere isn't enough to deter her from building her dream house.

Owen Parker is and always has been sinfully handsome and wickedly clever, a magnet for mischief as well as girls. He's a rolling stone, going and doing whatever appeals to him, from flying a mail plane in Alaska to working on a cattle ranch in Australia and a shrimp boat in Louisiana and surfing and diving in Costa Rica. When an old friend offers him a job salvaging a sunken ship on the Chesapeake Bay, Owen gladly accepts. Something's been telling him it's time to head home to Cannonball Island, and a job is as good an excuse as any. And he's totally smitten by the pretty architect on the scene, but it seems he's finally met a woman who's immune to his charms. Sooner or later Owen will have to face the reason why he always runs, because this time, leaving just might be harder than staying.