At the age of twenty-nine, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. In her grief she left behind her settled life, and has now come to tutor the teenage daughter of the well-to-do Edwards family as they spend a sultry summer in their beachfront New England cottage. But when the Edwards's two grown sons, Miles and Jeff, show up at the beach house, it becomes clear that the placid, anonymous existence Sydney had hoped for is not to be. Instead, tensions mount between the brothers as they compete for the love of a woman who has vowed never to risk her heart again.