That Summer on Blue Heron Island: A New Adult Gothic Romance Novella

By Dayle A. Dermatis

Thrilling and romantic, That Summer on Blue Heron Island is the perfect summer beach read!

 

Elizabeth Sloan's idyllic annual family summer on private Blue Heron Island gets even better with the arrival of her brother's friend Will Madigan.

 

But handsome, charming, funny Will—who seems as enamored of Elizabeth as Elizabeth is of him—might just be holding on to some secrets.

 

Has he been to Blue Heron Island before? Does he have another, more devious reason to be there now?

 

When sunny days dissolve into a rain-soaked night and a child disappears, Elizabeth must decide whether to trust Will with everything…including her life.

 

Thrilling and romantic, That Summer on Blue Heron Island is the perfect summer beach read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soul's Road Press
• Release date: Jul 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393392057

Dayle A. Dermatis

Dayle A. Dermatis is the author or coauthor of many novels (including snarky urban fantasies Ghosted and the forthcoming Shaded and Spectered) and more than a hundred short stories in multiple genres, appearing in such venues as Fiction River, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and DAW Books.Called the mastermind behind the Uncollected Anthology project, she also guest edits anthologies for Fiction River, and her own short fiction has been lauded in many year's best anthologies in erotica, mystery, and horror.She lives in a book- and cat-filled historic English-style cottage in the wild greenscapes of the Pacific Northwest. In her spare time she follows Styx around the country and travels the world, which inspires her writing.To find out where she’s wandered off to (and to get free fiction!), check out DayleDermatis.com and sign up for her newsletter or support her on Patreon.* * *I value honest feedback, and would love to hear your opinion in a review, if you’re so inclined, on your favorite book retailer’s site.* * *For more information:www.dayledermatis.com

Book preview

That Summer on Blue Heron Island

That Summer on Blue Heron Island

A New Adult Gothic Romance Novella

Dayle A. Dermatis

Soul’s Road Press

Contents

About This Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

What Beck’ning Ghost preview

What Beck’ning Ghost

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Waking the Witch preview

Waking the Witch

Dedication

Chapter 1

Be the First to Know!

Also by Dayle A. Dermatis

About the Author

About This Book

Elizabeth Sloan’s idyllic annual family summer on private Blue Heron Island gets even better with the arrival of her brother’s friend Will Madigan.

But handsome, charming, funny Will—who seems as enamored of Elizabeth as Elizabeth is of him—might just be holding on to some secrets.

Has he been to Blue Heron Island before? Does he have another, more devious reason to be there now?

When sunny days dissolve into a rain-soaked night and a child disappears, Elizabeth must decide whether to trust Will with everything…including her life.

Thrilling and romantic, That Summer on Blue Heron Island is the perfect summer beach read!

Chapter 1

Iwoke to arrhythmic jolting, every shake sending a flare of agony through my head, nauseating me. Rain sheeted against my face. I tried raise my hand to block it, but my body didn’t want to respond.

A flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a long, slow grumble of thunder that seemed to go on forever, illuminated the face above me. Will Madigan, my summer crush.

Wet black hair plastered his skull. His face was pale, his lips parted as he sucked in air. He was carrying me through the dark woods, his feet thudding on the rocky, uneven path as he jogged.

I tried to ask him to stop, to put me down—my head hurt so bad—but all that came out was a low moan.

His voice was rough with emotion. Don’t you die on me, Lizzy Sloane, he said. Don’t you dare die on me.

It’s Elizabeth. Nobody calls me Lizzy anymore, I thought grumpily, and then everything went black again.

Chapter 2

For as long as I can remember—which means about seventeen years, since I'm twenty now—my family has been spending summers on Blue Heron Island in Saranac Lake, New York. I think it was my great-great-grandfather who bought the island (probably bilking some Indian tribe in the process; I’m given to believe previous generations of my family didn’t amass all our wealth by the most ethical of means).

My arm of the family had been the first to arrive this summer, as usual, on the heels of the cook and housekeeper (the gardener/handyman had opened up the buildings and done the grounds work, and would come back every few days as needed).

The next day, Uncle Jeremy (who was my father’s half-brother) and his wife, Delilah, showed up. They have five kids: Cortland, Braeburn (Brae), Paula, McIntosh (Mac), and Fortune, all named after apples because the family had made their money with orchards. When craft brewing started to take off, they created a line of hard ciders, which was doing amazingly well. So well, in fact, that Jeremy and Delilah must have celebrated a lot, because Fortune was a late-in-life baby for Delilah. At eighteen months, Fortune was more than twenty years younger than her oldest bother, Cortland, and the first four kids were clumped together in age.

Cortland and his pregnant wife were here, as well as Mac, but Brae and Paula had skipped this summer. Brae was backpacking through Europe, and Paula… Well, I don’t know.

Paula and Mac were a year apart, and she and I were the same age. She’d been my closest friend and confidante in the extended family for years, but in the last year or so, she’d basically ghosted me. Stopped answering my texts. Ignoring my calls. In fact, I hadn’t seen her in a about a year; Delilah and Jeremy hadn’t come to the island last summer, and I’d had several migraines during this past Christmas holiday, which meant I’d missed some of the family get-togethers.

It hurt, but I’d mostly shoved it aside. I’d ask Aunt Delilah when I had the chance, but I wasn’t going to let Paula, or her absence, ruin my summer on the island.

That still meant there would be a bazillion people coming and going. My two aunts on my mother’s side had eight kids between them, and dad’s other four siblings had…this was where I had to start counting on my fingers, because I have a lot of cousins. Some of them might be my oldest cousins’ children. If I sat down and charted it out, I’d know how everyone was related, but who wants to spend their summer vacation doing that?

Not everybody stayed all summer. Some came only for long weekends, or for a couple weeks in the middle. My older sister had just started her first year as a law clerk, so she was going to be scarce; my younger sister and brother were still in high school, so they were here but grumpy at the lack of cell service and Internet. You wanted to make a call, you went to the main lodge or the guest house and used one of the phones there.

Anyway, this year, Mac had brought his friend Will.

I was sunbathing on the beach when they arrived, lying on a towel on the sun-warmed rock, a cooler of ice and diet Coke next to me. Extra-coverage sunglasses kept the worst of the glare away from my eyes; really bright lights could trigger my migraines, but this was my favorite place in the world, and I’d learned to adapt. I didn’t have my headphones on; instead, I listened to the breeze whisper through the pines and the occasional, ethereal call of a loon echoing off the water.

Perfection.

I heard the pontoon boat well before it came around the jut of land into the cove. I stood and tugged on my khaki shorts, and met them at the dock.

They’d sent ahead the bulk of their luggage, so I helped offload duffels and laptop bags and Fortune’s diaper bag, hugging each family member in turn and answering the same questions every few people (when had we arrived, who else was here, how was I doing, didn’t I look good?). We were loud enough that a couple of crows startled out of the trees, cawing their annoyance at the interruption to their serenity.

Mac caught me up in one of his big bear hugs. He looked as though he’d been here all summer already, with his hair a sun-bleached blond and eyebrows to match, and smelling of sunscreen. He let me go, thumped me on the back, and said Elizabeth, this is my friend Will. Will, this is my cousin Elizabeth.

I turned with a friendly smile, and then my tongue glued itself to the top of my mouth.

Thank you, Mac, for bringing the most gorgeous friend you could find.

Thick black hair waved to his shoulders, brushed back from a high forehead and strong brow. Dark eyelashes framed intense, denim-blue eyes. Something about him looked vaguely familiar, but if I’d known someone this gorgeous in the past, I’d remember, right? Maybe he reminded me of some actor.

He grinned, a motion that lit up his face, and I found myself obsessed with his mouth. I wanted to kiss it.

I also wanted to say something witty and profound, and stop looking like an idiot.

Hi, I said.

Damn. Not quite the pithy response I was going for.

Nice to meet you, he said.

Crap, my sunglasses are still in the boat, Delilah said. Can someone grab Fortune?

I’ve got her, Mrs. Sloane, Will said, reaching out and pulling the redheaded toddler into his arms. Fortune had been fussing, but she quieted down, stuck three fingers in her mouth, and stared around, wide-eyed.

Warning: there are going to be a lot of Mrs. Sloanes here, I said. You might want to start calling her Aunt Delilah.

His eyebrows went up. As long as Mac doesn’t mind me joining the family.

You’re here, I said. You don’t get invited to Blue Heron Island without passing a few tests you didn’t know you were taking.

I leaned my face close into Fortune’s. But you, my wittle adorable gooshy-cheeked chipmunk, you belong right here. I booped my nose against hers, and she laughed.

Will hefted Fortune more firmly in his arms and headed up the path, behind most of the rest of the group. I slung the diaper bag over my shoulder, grabbed a soft-sided cooler, and followed.

He had a great butt in a pair of tight, faded jeans. I could follow him anywhere. It was all I could do not to fan myself. My freshman boyfriend had been nothing to write home about in the end, and I’d been too busy with school to date seriously for the past two years. The summer was definitely looking up—and it had been pretty darn good to start with. Blue Heron was my happy place.

We came out of the trees and hiked up the broad steps cut into one side of the long, sloping lawn, formed by turf and old railroad ties. We piled the luggage on the flagstone patio, and Delilah took back Fortune, and the family went in to say hi to my parents and siblings.

Will stayed behind. At first this delighted me, but then I couldn’t read the expression on his face as he surveyed his surroundings.

I saw the enormous but yet somehow cozy log lodge, the vast lawn that held the ghosts of a thousand games of tag, the shushing pines that surrounded us.

I was starting to worry that he, however, was scanning for