When The Wind Blew

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝 In which a mysterious disappearance of a girl forces a group of individuals, friends and foes, to come together and untangle her mysterious disappearance.

For our graduation trip, the three of us traveled to Iceland to watch the aurora borealis. During the trek, my best friend Chloe Bennett’s scarf was swept away by the howling wind. Without a second thought, my boyfriend Valen Vance stripped off his own heavy scarf and wrapped her up tight in it. Turning to me, he said, “Hurry up and help Chloe fetch it. You know that’s her favorite scarf.” I braved the biting, freezing wind alone, chasing it for a long time. By the time I finally retrieved the scarf and turned around, the northern lights had already vanished from the sky—and Valen and Chloe were no longer where I left them. My phone buzzed with a text from him: “You were taking too long. Chloe is afraid of the cold, so I brought her back to the hotel first.” Stranded in a foreign country, I stood at the crossroad for six grueling hours, waving down over twenty passing cars. Finally, someone took pity on me and gave me a ride. When I stumbled back into the hotel well past midnight, shivering and entirely frozen to the bone, I found them curled up under a thick blanket, huddled close together as they looked over the photos they had taken that day. They were laughing and chatting about photography and the northern lights—a conversation I was permanently locked out of. Noticing me, Valen merely frowned. “What took you so long? I made a mug of hot tea for you over there. Go warm yourself up.” I wrapped my numb fingers around the mug. The tea inside had gone ice-cold hours ago. At that moment, an overwhelming wave of exhaustion settled deep into my chest. Fine, then. I booked the earliest flight out, canceled the rest of our hotel reservations, and decided right then to leave. The northern lights I spent a lifetime chasing were never meant for me. There was no need to chase them anymore.

Ari expected another quiet summer at her family’s beach house—long days of swimming, lazy nights by the fire, and harmless chaos with her brother. But when the boy's next door returns—steady and guarded, wild and unpredictable—everything shifts. A story of reckless nights, hidden glances, and a love that refuses to stay buried—Where the Summer Wind Blows will sweep you into a summer you won’t forget.

When the hurricane shattered the floor-to-ceiling windows, our five-year-old daughter and the nanny's dog were both swept toward the broken edge, only moments away from plunging to their deaths. There was only one rescue cushion left. The nanny, Wade Jenkins, grabbed my wife Sophie Lynch's hand first, tears streaming down his face. "Sophie, Dobie is my emotional support dog. Without him... I won't survive." Seeing the hesitation in her eyes, I dropped to my knees. "Sophie, please... Save Anna first! She has asthma. She won't last much longer..." For a brief moment, Sophie stood frozen. Then, with chilling indifference, she pried my fingers from her arm. "We can always have another child, but Wade can't live without Dobie. I'm saving the dog first." What she did not know was that there would never be another child. The moment she chose the nanny's dog over our daughter, I chose to walk away from our marriage forever.

Anita," her angelic voice calls to me. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Her soft, delicate hands caressing my face, sparkling green eyes grounding me from the dark past I wish I could forget. "You're safe, it's okay." I bring my hand up, running my finger over the mound of scar tissue. The constant reminder of that night. The raised bump covers the bullet fragment embedded in my sternum. She takes my hands as more thunder rumbles and tears roll down my cheeks. "Breathe Anita," she says in a soothing whisper. My lungs were burning with the need for air and it was then that I realized I'd been holding it. I take in a gasping breath and recall the first time my eyes met her green eyes. My sister had been lifted off me and my eyes opening had startled her. The first time she touched me gave me strength to hold on. I held her hand tight, trying to tell her what happened, but couldn't get enough breath to form words. Sitting in the present going through the same as I had five years ago. "They were all found, Anita. They can't hurt you anymore. It's just a storm. All the doors and windows are locked, the alarm is set. It's just you and me." "Will you keep the light on tonight, please?"

After dinner with my college roommates at a restaurant in the Old Harbor district, the rain came down hard without warning. We huddled under the awning, pulling our coats tight, calling our boyfriends one by one.My friend Maya nudged my shoulder with a grin. "Your guy chased you so hard the entire school knew about it. He'll definitely be the first one here." "Right? Four years of college. Hot coffee delivered to your door on rainy days, your bike path shoveled clean in the snow, and whenever you didn't feel like getting up for class, he'd organize the professor's lecture notes and send them straight to your inbox." "That year you had your senior exhibition and came down with a high fever, he stayed with you in the studio for three days. Made you soup, fixed your models, stayed up so late his eyes were bloodshot. Evelyn, I honestly thought you'd found yourself a fairy-tale prince." They chattered on about my love life. Before long, their boyfriends all showed up with umbrellas. When they glanced my way, their expressions faltered. "How come Noah isn't here yet? Isn't your apartment just across the river?" I smiled and held up my phone. "He said something came up at the office." Maya asked her boyfriend to drop me off first. I sat in the back seat, spotted a familiar figure standing outside the pet grooming salon on the corner. He was cradling a silver-gray longhaired cat in his arms. The cat was wrapped in a soft little wool blanket. He was shielding even its ear tips, terrified of letting a single drop of rain touch it. It was Noah. The cat in his arms belonged to his childhood neighbor, Selena. This wasn't the first time Noah had left me stranded in the rain for that cat.Another message from Noah. "Babe, the rain's too heavy. Wait until it lets up and then call a car home. Don't be stubborn. You won't get wet that way." What he didn't know was that from the day Selena moved to this city last year, I had already been soaked through.