Free The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

it.”
    She stood in place, debating, still trying to figure out how he knew, before finally following him up the path.
    He climbed the porch steps in a single fluid motion, stopping at the door. Amanda fished a key from her purse, brushing against him as she slipped it into the lock. The door swung open with a squeak.
    It was mercifully cool inside, and Dawson’s first thought was that the interior was an extension of the forest itself: all wood and earth and natural stains. The plank walls and pine flooring had dulled and cracked over the years, and the brown curtains did little to hide the leaks beneath the windows. The armrests and cushions on the plaid sofa were almost completely worn through. The mortar on the fireplace had begun to crack, and the bricks around the opening were black, charcoaled remnants of a thousand roaring fires. Near the door was a small table bearing a stack of photo albums, a record player that was probably older than Dawson, and a rickety steel fan. The air smelled of stale cigarettes, and after opening one of the windows, Dawson switched on the fan, listening as it began to rattle. The base wobbled slightly.
    By then, Amanda was standing near the fireplace, staring at the photograph sitting on the mantel. Tuck and Clara, taken on their twenty-fifth anniversary.
    He walked toward Amanda, stopping when he was beside her. “I remember the first time I saw that picture,” he offered. “I’d been here for about a month before Tuck let me inside the house, and I remember asking who she was. I didn’t even know he’d been married.”
    She could feel the heat radiating from him and tried to ignore it. “How could you not know that?”
    “Because I didn’t know him. Until I showed up at his place that night, I’d never talked to Tuck before.”
    “Why did you come here, then?”
    “I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t know why he let me stay.”
    “Because he wanted you here.”
    “Did he tell you that?”
    “Not in so many words. But Clara hadn’t been gone that long when you came along, and I think you were just what he needed.”
    “And here I used to think it was just because he was drinking that night. Most nights, for that matter.”
    She searched her memory. “Tuck wasn’t a drinker, was he?”
    He touched the photo in its plain wooden frame, as if still trying to comprehend a world without Tuck in it. “It was before you knew him. He had a liking for Jim Beam back then, and sometimes he’d stagger out to the garage still holding the half-empty bottle. He’d wipe his face with his bandanna and tell me that it would be better if I found someplace else to stay. He must have said that every night for the first six months I was sleeping out there. And I’d lie there all night, hoping that by the next morning he would have forgotten what he’d told me. And then, one day, he just stopped drinking, and he never said it again.” He turned toward her, his face only inches from hers. “He was a good man,” he said.
    “I know,” she said. He was close enough that she could smell him; soap and musk, mingling together. Too close. “I miss him, too.”
    She stepped away, reaching over to fiddle with one of the threadbare pillows on the sofa, creating distance again. Outside, the sun was dropping behind the trees, making the small room even darker. She heard Dawson clear his throat.
    “Let’s get that drink. I’m sure that Tuck has some sweet tea in the refrigerator.”
    “Tuck doesn’t drink sweet tea. He’s probably got some Pepsi, though.”
    “Let’s check,” he said, making for the kitchen.
    He moved with the grace of an athlete, and she shook her head slightly, trying to force away the thought. “Are you sure we should be doing this?”
    “I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what Tuck wanted.”
    Like the living room, the kitchen might have been stored in a time capsule, with appliances straight from a 1940s Sears, Roebuck catalog, a