Jim Aiken is a history professor and the scion of one of Charleston's wealthiest families. In the spring of 1994 he is still grieving over the death of his wife two years earlier. He plans to spend another summer in the seclusion of his beach house. But those plans change when he meets Joyce Brandeis and her teenage son, Nick. Over the course of the summer, largely through Nick's persistence, Jim comes out of his grief and learns to love again. But when an evil from his past returns, the new life that seems to be unfolding for him is suddenly shattered as the lives of his loved ones are placed in peril.