Free The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

wasn’t it? Was living together a step toward the future or just a way to continue the present? Did she really need him to propose? She thought about it. Well . . . yes. But not until he was ready. Which led, of course, to questions that had begun to creep into her thoughts whenever they were together: When would he be ready? Would he ever be ready? And, of course, Why wasn’t he ready to marry her?
    Was it wrong to want to get married instead of simply live with him? Lord knows she wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It’s like some people grew up knowing they’d be married by a certain age, and it happened just the way they planned; others knew they wouldn’t for a while and moved in with the ones they loved, and that worked fine, too. Sometimes, she felt she was the only one without a clear plan; for her, marriage had always been a vague idea, something that would just . . . happen. And it would. Right?
    Thinking about this stuff gave her a headache. What she really wanted to do was sit outside on the deck with a glass of wine and forget everything for a while. But Travis Parker was on his back deck, flipping through a magazine, and that just wouldn’t do. So she was stuck inside on a Thursday night again.
    She wished Kevin weren’t working late so they could do something together. He had a late meeting with a dentist who was opening an office and thus needed all sorts of insurance. That wasn’t so bad—she knew he was dedicated to building the business—but he was heading off with his dad to Myrtle Beach for a convention first thing in the morning, and she wouldn’t have a chance to see him until next Wednesday, which meant she’d have to spend even more time cooped up like a chicken. Kevin’s dad had started one of the largest insurance brokerages in eastern North Carolina, and Kevin was taking on more responsibility with every passing year at their office in Morehead City while his dad edged closer to retirement. Sometimes she wondered what that must have been like—having a career path already charted from the time he could walk—but she supposed there were worse things, especially since the business was successful. Despite the whiff of nepotism, it wasn’t as if Kevin didn’t earn his way; his dad spent fewer than twenty hours a week in the office these days, which usually left Kevin working closer to sixty. With almost thirty employees, management problems were endless, but Kevin had a knack for dealing with people. At least, that’s what a few of them had told her at the company Christmas party both times she’d gone.
    Yes, she was proud of him, but it still left her stuck inside on nights like this, which seemed like a waste. Maybe she should just head over to Atlantic Beach, where she could drink a glass of wine and watch the sun go down. For a moment, she considered doing just that. Then she decided against it. It was okay to be alone at home, but the thought of drinking at the beach alone made her feel like a loser. People would think she didn’t have a single friend in the world, which wasn’t true. She had lots of friends. It just happened that none of them was within a hundred miles of here, and the realization didn’t make her feel much better.
    If she brought the dog, though . . . now, that was different. That was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, even healthy. It had taken a few days and most of the painkillers she’d had in her medicine cabinet, but the soreness of the first workout had finally passed. She hadn’t returned to the Body Pump class again—people in there were obviously masochists—but she had started to keep a fairly regular routine at the gym. For the last few days, anyway. She’d gone on both Monday and Wednesday, and she was determined to make time to go tomorrow as well.
    She got up from the couch and turned off the television. Molly wasn’t around, and guessing she was in the garage, she headed that way. The door to the garage was propped open, and when she