Free Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks Page B

The wine bottle was empty, the tide
     was coming in, and the first images of lightning began to register on the distant horizon, making the world outside flash,
     as if someone were taking photographs in hopes of remembering this night forever.

Eight

    A fter helping her with the dishes, Paul nodded toward the back door.
    “Would you like to join me for a stroll on the beach?” he asked. “It looks like a nice night.”
    “Isn’t it getting cold?”
    “I’m sure it is, but I have the feeling it’ll be the last chance we get for a couple of days.”
    Adrienne glanced out the window. She should stay and finish cleaning up the rest of the kitchen, but that could wait, right?
    “Sure,” she agreed, “just let me get a jacket.”
    Adrienne’s room was located off the kitchen, in a room that Jean had added on a dozen years ago. It was larger than the other
     rooms in the house and had a bathroom that had been designed around a large Jacuzzi bathtub. Jean took baths regularly, and
     whenever Adrienne had called her when her spirits were low, it was always the remedy that Jean recommended to make herself
     feel better. “What you need is a long, hot, relaxing bath,” she’d say, oblivious to the fact that there were three kids in
     the house who monopolized the bathrooms and that Adrienne’s schedule didn’t allow for much free time.
    From the closet, Adrienne retrieved her jacket, then grabbed her scarf. Wrapping it around her neck, she glanced at the clock
     and was amazed at how quickly the hours had seemed to pass. By the time she’d returned to the kitchen, Paul was waiting for
     her with his coat on.
    “You ready?” he asked.
    She folded up the collar on her jacket. “Let’s go. But I have to warn you, I’m not a real big fan of cold weather. My southern
     blood’s a little thin.”
    “We won’t be out long. I promise.”
    He smiled as they stepped outside, and Adrienne flipped the light switch that illuminated the steps. Walking side by side,
     they headed over the low dune, toward the compact sand near the water’s edge.
    There was an exotic beauty to the evening; the air was crisp and fresh, and the flavor of salt hung in the mist. On the horizon,
     lightning was flickering in steady rhythm, making the clouds blink. As she glanced in that direction, she noticed that Paul
     was watching the sky as well. His eyes, she thought, seemed to register everything.
    “Have you ever seen that before? Lightning like that?” he asked.
    “Not in the winter. In the summer, it happens every now and then.”
    “It’s from the fronts coming together. I saw it start up when we were having dinner, and it makes me think this storm is going
     to be bigger than they’re predicting.”
    “I hope you’re wrong.”
    “I might be.”
    “But you doubt it.”
    He shrugged. “Let’s just say had I known it was coming, I would have tried to reschedule.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m not a big fan of storms anymore. Do you remember Hurricane Hazel? In 1954?”
    “Sure, but I was kind of young then. I was more excited than scared when we lost power at the house. And Rocky Mount wasn’t
     hit that hard, or at least our neighborhood wasn’t.”
    “You’re lucky. I was twenty-one at the time and I was at Duke. When we heard it was coming, a few of the guys on the cross-country
     team thought it would be a good bonding experience if we went down to Wrightsville Beach to have a hurricane party. I didn’t
     want to go, but since I was the captain, they sort of guilted me into it.”
    “Isn’t that where it came ashore?”
    “Not exactly, but it was close enough. By the time we got there, most of the people had evacuated the island, but we were
     young and stupid and made our way over anyway. At first, it was kind of fun. We kept taking turns trying to lean into the
     wind and keep our balance, thinking the whole thing was great and wondering why everyone had been making such a big deal about
     it. After a few hours,