Nicholas Sparks This book is dedicated with love to Pat and Billy Mills

Judy played the innocent southern belle to the hilt. �But that would be gossiping, and gossiping�s a sin.�

�I know. But I�m weak.�

Judy winked. �Good. I am, too. We�ll do that. And while we�re at it, I�ll tell you what your mom was like as a little girl.�

An hour after lunch, Carl Huddle met with Denise and finished up the remaining paperwork. Lighthearted and far more alert than the evening before, Denise answered everything in detail. Even then-since the case was more or less officially closed-it didn�t take more than twenty minutes. Kyle was sitting on the floor, playing with an airplane that Denise had fished from her purse. Sergeant Huddle had returned that as well.

When they were finished, Sergeant Huddle folded everything into a manila file, though he didn�t rise right away. Instead he closed his eyes, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

�Excuse me,� he said, trying to shake the drowsiness that had come over him.

�Tired?� she asked sympathetically.

�A little. I had an eventful evening.�

Denise adjusted herself on the bed. �Well, I�m glad you came by. I wanted to thank you for what you did last night. You can�t imagine how much it means to me.�

Sergeant Huddle nodded as if he�d been in similar situations before.

�You�re welcome. That�s my job, though. Besides, I have a little girl of my own, and if it had been her, I would have wanted everyone within a fifty-mile radius to drop what they were doing to help find her. You couldn�t have dragged me away last night.�

From his tone, Denise didn�t doubt him.

�So,� she asked, �you have a little girl?�

�Yeah, I do. Her birthday was last Monday. Just turned five. It�s a good age.�

�They�re all good ages, at least that�s what I�ve learned. What�s her name?�

�Campbell. Like the soup. It�s Kim�s-my wife�s-maiden name.�

�Is she your only child?�

�So far. But in a couple of months she won�t be.�

�Oh, congratulations. Boy or girl?�

�Don�t know yet. We�ll be surprised, just like we were with Campbell.�

She nodded, closing her eyes for a moment. Sergeant Huddle bounced the folder against his leg, then rose to leave.

�Well, I should be going. You probably need some rest.�

Though she suspected he was speaking more for himself, Denise sat up higher in the bed. �Well . . . um . . . before you go-can I ask you a couple of questions about last night? With all the commotion then and everything this morning, I really haven�t learned what went on. At least, not from the horse�s mouth.�

�Sure. Ask away.�

�How were you able to . . . I mean, it was so dark and with the storm . . .� She paused, trying to find the right words.

�You mean, how did we find him?� Sergeant Huddle offered.

She nodded.

He glanced at Kyle, who was still playing with an airplane in the corner.

�Well, I�d like to say it was all skill and training, but it wasn�t. We got lucky. Damn lucky. He could have been out there for days-it�s that dense in the swamp. For a while there, we had no idea which way he�d gone, but Taylor sort of figured that Kyle would follow the wind and keep the lightning behind him. Sure enough, he was right.�

He nodded toward Kyle with a look like that of a father after his son hits the game-winning home run, then went on. �You�ve got one tough boy there, Miss Holton. His being okay had more to do with him than any of us. Most kids-hell, every kid I know-would have been terrified, but your little boy wasn�t. It�s pretty amazing.�

Denise�s brow furrowed as she thought about what he�d just told her.

�Wait-was that Taylor McAden?�

�Yeah, the guy who found you.� He reached up and scratched his jaw. �Actually, he was the one who found both of you, if you want to get right down to it. He found Kyle in a duck blind, and Kyle wouldn�t let go of him until we got him to the hospital. Clamped on to him like a crab claw.�

�Taylor McAden found Kyle? But I thought you did.�

Sergeant Huddle picked up his trooper hat off the end of the bed. �No, it wasn�t me, but you can bet it wasn�t because I wasn�t trying. It�s just that Taylor seemed to have a bead on him all night, don�t ask me how.�

Sergeant Huddle seemed lost in thought. From where she was lying, Denise could see the bags under his eyes. He looked drawn, as if he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed.

�Well . . . thank you anyway. Without you, Kyle probably wouldn�t be here.�

�No problem. I love a happy ending, and I�m glad we had one.�

After saying good-bye, Sergeant Huddle slipped out the door. As the door closed behind him, Denise looked upward, toward the ceiling, without really seeing it.

Taylor McAden? Judy McAden?

She couldn�t believe the coincidence, but then again, everything that happened last night had fluke written all over it. The storm, the deer, the seat belt over her lap but not her shoulder (she�d never done that before and wouldn�t do it again, that was for sure), Kyle wandering away while Denise was unconscious and unable to stop him . . . Everything.

Including the McAdens.

One here for support, the other one finding her car. One who knew her mother long ago and one who ended up locating Kyle.

Coincidence? Fate?

Something else?

Later that afternoon, with the help of a nurse and the local telephone directory, Denise wrote out individual thank-you notes to Carl and Judy, as well as a general note (addressed in care of the fire department) to everyone involved in the search.

Last, she wrote out her note to Taylor McAden, and as she did so, she couldn�t help but wonder about him.

Chapter 10

Three days after the accident and successful search for Kyle Holton, Taylor McAden walked beneath the marlstone archway that served as an entrance and made his way to the headstone in Cypress Park Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Edenton. He knew exactly where he was going, and he cut across the lawn, weaving around memorials. Some were so ancient that two centuries of rain had smoothed away nearly all the writing on the stones, and he could remember times he�d stopped to try to decipher them. It was, he soon realized, impossible.

Today, though, Taylor paid them little attention as he moved steadily beneath a cloudy sky, stopping only when he reached the shade of a giant willow tree. Here, on the west side of the cemetery, the marker he�d come to see stood twelve inches high. It was an otherwise nondescript granite block, inscribed simply on the upper face.

Grass had grown tall around the sides but was otherwise well tended. Directly in front of it, in a small tube set into the ground, was a bouquet of dried carnations. He didn�t have to count them to know how many there were, nor did he wonder who had left them.

His mother had left eleven of them, one for every year of their marriage. She left them every May, on their anniversary, as she had for the past twenty-seven years. In all that time she�d never told Taylor about leaving them, and Taylor had never mentioned that he already knew. He was content to let her have her secret, if by doing so he could keep his own.

Unlike his mother, Taylor didn�t visit the grave on his parents� anniversary. That was her day, the day they�d pledged their love in front of family and friends. Instead Taylor visited in June, on the day his father died. That was the day he�d never forget.

As usual, he was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved workshirt. He�d come directly from a project he�d been working on, slipping away during the lunch break, and parts of his shirt were neatly tacked to his chest and back. No one had asked where he was going, and he hadn�t bothered to explain. It was no one�s business but his own.

Taylor bent and started to pull the longer blades of grass along the sides, twisting them around his hand to get a better grip and snapping them off to make them level with the surrounding lawn. He took his time, giving his mind a chance to clear, leveling all four sides. When finished, he ran his finger over the polished granite. The words were simple:

Mason Thomas McAden

Loving father and husband

1936-1972

Year by year, visit by visit, Taylor had grown older; he was now the same age his father was when he�d passed away. He�d changed from a frightened young boy to the man he was today. His memory of his father, however, had ended abruptly on that last dreadful day. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn�t picture what his father would look like if he were still alive. In Taylor�s mind, his father would always be thirty-six. Never younger, never older-selective memory made that clear. And so, of course, did the photo.

Taylor closed his eyes, waiting for the image to come. He didn�t need to carry the photo with him to know exactly how it looked.

It still sat on the fireplace mantel in the living room. He�d seen it every day for the past twenty-seven years.

The photo had been taken a week before the accident, on a warm June morning right outside their home. In the picture his father was stepping off the back porch, fishing pole in hand, on his way to the Chowan River. Though he wasn�t visible, Taylor remembered that he had been trailing behind his father, still in the house collecting his lures, scrambling to find everything he needed. His mother had been hiding behind the truck, and when she had called his father�s name, Mason had turned and she�d unexpectedly snapped the picture. The film had been sent away to be developed, and because of that, it hadn�t been destroyed with the other photos. Judy didn�t pick it up until after the funeral and had cried while looking at it, then slipped it into her purse. To others it wasn�t anything special-his father walking in midstride, hair uncombed, a stain on the buttoned shirt he was wearing-but to Taylor it had captured the very essence of his father. It was there, that irrepressible spirit that defined the man he was, and that was the reason it had affected his mother so. It was in his expression, the gleam of his eye, the jaunty yet keenly alert pose.

A month after his father had died, Taylor had sneaked it out of her purse and fallen asleep while holding it. His mother had come in, found the photo pressed into his small hands, his fingers curled tightly around it. The photo itself was smudged with tears. The following day she�d taken the negative in to have a copy made, and Taylor glued four Popsicle sticks to a discarded piece of glass and mounted the photo. In all these years he�d never considered changing the frame.

Thirty-six.

His father seemed so young in the picture. His face was lean and youthful, his eyes and forehead showing only the faintest outlines of wrinkles that would never have the chance to deepen. Why, then, did his father seem so much older than Taylor felt right now? His father had seemed so . . . wise, so sure of himself, so brave. In the eyes of his nine-year-old son, he was a man of mythic proportion, a man who understood life and could explain nearly everything. Was it because he�d lived more deeply? Had his life been defined by broader, more exceptional experiences? Or was his impression simply the product of a young boy�s feelings for his father, including the last moment they�d been together?

Taylor didn�t know, but then he never would. The answers had been buried with his father a long time ago.

He could barely remember the weeks immediately after his father died. That time had blurred strangely into a series of fragmented memories: the funeral, staying with his grandparents in their home on the other side of town, suffocating nightmares when he tried to sleep. It was summer-school was out-and Taylor spent most of his time outside, trying to blot out what had happened. His mother wore black for two months, mourning the loss. Then, finally, the black was put away. They found a new place to live, something smaller, and even though nine-year-olds have little comprehension of death and how to deal with it, Taylor knew exactly what his mother was trying to tell him.

It�s just the two of us now. We�ve got to go on.

After that fateful summer Taylor had drifted through school, earning decent but unspectacular grades, progressing steadily from one grade to the next. He was remarkably resilient, others would say, and in some ways they were right. With his mother�s care and fortitude, his adolescent years were like those of most others who lived in this part of the country. He went camping and boating whenever he could; he played football, basketball, and baseball throughout his high school years. Yet in many ways he was considered a loner. Mitch was, and always had been, his only real friend, and in the summers they�d go hunting and fishing, just the two of them. They would vanish for a week at a time, sometimes traveling as far away as Georgia. Though Mitch was married now, they still did it whenever they could.

Once he graduated, Taylor bypassed college in favor of work, hanging drywall and learning the carpentry business. He apprenticed with a man who was an alcoholic, a bitter man whose wife had left him, who cared more about the money he�d make than the quality of the work. After a violent confrontation that nearly came to blows, Taylor quit working for him and started taking classes to earn his contractor�s license.

He supported himself by working in the gypsum mine near Little Washington, a job that left him coughing almost every night, but by twenty-four he�d saved enough to start his own business. No project was too small, and he often underbid to build up his business and reputation. By twenty-eight he�d nearly gone bankrupt twice, but he stubbornly kept on going, eventually making it work. Over the past eight years he�d nurtured the business to the point where he made a decent living. Not anything grand-his house was small and his truck was six years old-but it was enough for him to lead the simple life he desired.

A life that included volunteering for the fire department.

His mother had tried strenuously to talk him out of it. It was the only instance in which he�d deliberately gone against her wishes.

Of course, she wanted to be a grandmother as well, and she�d let that slip out every now and then. Taylor usually made light of the comment and tried to change the subject. He hadn�t come close to marriage and doubted whether he ever would. It wasn�t something he imagined himself doing, though in the past he�d dated two women fairly seriously. The first time was in his early twenties, when he�d started seeing Valerie. She was coming off a disastrous relationship when they�d met-her boyfriend had gotten another woman pregnant, and Taylor was the one she�d turned to in her time of need. She was two years older, smart, and they had gotten along well for a time. But Valerie wanted something more serious; Taylor had told her honestly that he might never be ready. It was a source of tension without easy answers. In time they simply drifted apart; eventually she moved away. The last he�d heard, she was married to a lawyer and living in Charlotte.

Then there was Lori. Unlike Valerie, she was younger than Taylor and had moved to Edenton to work for the bank. She was a loan officer and worked long hours; she hadn�t had the chance to make any friends when Taylor walked into the bank to apply for a mortgage. Taylor offered to introduce her around; she took him up on it. Soon they were dating. She had a childlike innocence that both charmed Taylor and aroused his protective interests, but eventually, she too wanted more than Taylor was willing to commit to. They broke up soon afterward. Now she was married to the mayor�s son; she had three children and drove a minivan. He hadn�t exchanged more than pleasantries with her since her engagement.

By the time he was thirty, he�d dated most of the single women in Edenton; by the time he was thirty-six, there weren�t that many left. Mitch�s wife, Melissa, had tried to set him up on various dates, but those had fizzled as well. But then again, he hadn�t really been looking, had he? Both Valerie and Lori claimed that there was something inside of him they were unable to reach, something about the way he viewed himself that neither of them could really understand. And though he knew they meant well, their attempts to talk to him about this distance of his didn�t-or couldn�t-change anything.

When he was finished he stood, his knees cracking slightly and aching from the position he�d been kneeling in. Before he left he said a short prayer in memory of his father, and afterward he bent over to touch the headstone one more time.

�I�m sorry, Dad,� he whispered, �I�m so, so sorry.�

Mitch Johnson was leaning against Taylor�s truck when he saw Taylor leaving the cemetery. In his hand he held two cans of beer secured by the plastic rings-the remains of the six-pack he�d started the night before-and he pulled one free and tossed it as Taylor drew near. Taylor caught it in midstride, surprised to see his friend, his thoughts still deep in the past.

�I thought you were out of town for the wedding,� Taylor said.

�I was, but we got back last night.�

�What are you doing here?�

�I sort of figured that you�d need a beer about now,� Mitch answered simply.

Taller and thinner than Taylor, he was six two and weighed about 160 pounds. Most of his hair was gone-he�d started losing it in his early twenties-and he wore wire-rimmed glasses, giving him the appearance of an accountant or engineer. He actually worked at his father�s hardware store and was regarded around town as a mechanical genius. He could repair everything from lawn mowers to bulldozers, and his fingers were permanently stained with grease. Unlike Taylor, he�d gone to college at East Carolina University, majored in business, and had met a psychology major from Rocky Mount named Melissa Kindle before moving back to Edenton. They�d been married twelve years and had four children, all boys. Taylor had been best man at the wedding and was godfather to their oldest son. Sometimes, from the way he talked about his family, Taylor suspected that Mitch loved Melissa more now than he had when they�d walked down the aisle.

Mitch, like Taylor, was also a volunteer with the Edenton Fire Department. At Taylor�s urging, the two of them had gone through the necessary training together and had joined at the same time. Though Mitch considered it more a duty than a calling, he was someone Taylor always wanted along when the call came in. Where Taylor tempted danger, Mitch exercised caution, and the two of them balanced each other out in difficult situations.

�Am I that predictable?�

�Hell, Taylor, I know you better than I know my own wife.�

Taylor rolled his eyes as he leaned against the truck. �How�s Melissa doing?�

�She�s good. Her sister drove her crazy at the wedding, but she�s back to normal now that she�s home. Now it�s just me and the kids who are driving her crazy.� Mitch�s tone softened imperceptibly. �So, how you holding up?�

Taylor shrugged without meeting Mitch�s eyes. �I�m all right.�

Mitch didn�t press it, knowing that Taylor wouldn�t say anything more. His father was one of the few things they never talked about. He cracked open his beer, and Taylor did the same before leaning against the truck next to him. Mitch pulled a bandanna from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

�I hear you had yourself a big night in the swamp while I was gone.�

�Yeah, we did.�

�Wish I could�ve been there.�

�We could have used you, that�s for sure. It was one hell of a storm.�

�Yeah, but if I would have been there, there wouldn�t have been all that drama. I would have headed straight to those duck blinds, right off the bat. I couldn�t believe it took you guys hours to figure that out.�

Taylor laughed under his breath before taking a drink of his beer and glancing over at Mitch.

�Does Melissa still want you to give it up?�

Mitch put the bandanna back in his pocket and nodded. �You know how it is with the kids and all. She just doesn�t want anything to happen to me.�

�How do you feel about it?�

It took a moment for him to answer. �I used to think that I�d do this forever, but I�m not so sure anymore.�

�So you�re considering it?� Taylor asked.

Mitch took a long pull from his beer before answering. �Yeah, I guess I am.�

�We need you,� Taylor said seriously.

Mitch laughed aloud. �You sound like an army recruiter when you say that.�

�It�s true, though.�

Mitch shook his head. �No, it�s not. We�ve got plenty of volunteers now, and there�s a list of people who can replace me at a moment�s notice.�

�They won�t know what�s going on.�

�Neither did we in the beginning.� He paused, his fingers pressing against the can, thinking. �You know, it�s not just Melissa-it�s me, too. I�ve been at it for a long time, and I guess it just doesn�t mean what it used to. I�m not like you-I don�t feel the need to do it anymore. I sort of like being able to spend some time with the kids without having to go out at a moment�s notice. I�d like to be able to have dinner with my wife knowing that I�m done for the day.�

�You sound like your mind�s already made up.�

Mitch could hear the disappointment in Taylor�s tone, and he took a second before nodding.

�Well, actually, it is. I mean, I�ll finish out the year, but that�ll be it for me. I just wanted you to be the first to know.�

Taylor didn�t respond. After a moment Mitch cocked his head, looking sheepishly at his friend. �But that�s not why I came out here today. I came out to lend you some support, not to talk about that stuff.�

Taylor seemed lost in thought. �Like I said, I�m doing all right.�

�Do you wanna head somewhere and have a few beers?�

�No. I gotta get back to work. We�re finishing up at Skip Hudson�s place.�

�You sure?�

�Yeah.�

�Well, how �bout dinner, then, next week? After we�re back in the swing of things?�

�Steaks on the grill?�

�Of course,� Mitch answered as if he�d never considered another option.

�That I could do.� Taylor eyed Mitch suspiciously. �Melissa�s not bringing a friend again, is she?�

Mitch laughed. �No. But I can tell her to rustle someone up if you want her to.�

�No thanks. After Claire, I don�t think I trust her judgment anymore.�

�Aw, c�mon, Claire wasn�t that bad.�

�You didn�t spend all night listening to her jabber on and on. She was like one of those Energizer bunnies-she just couldn�t sit quietly, even for a minute.�

�She was nervous.�

�She was a pain.�

�I�ll tell Melissa you said that.�

�No, don�t-�

�I�m just kidding-you know I wouldn�t do that. But how about Wednesday? You want to stop over then?�

�That�d be great.�

�All right, then.� Mitch nodded and pushed away from the truck as he fished the keys from his pocket. After crumpling his can, he tossed it into the back of Taylor�s truck with a clank.

�Thanks,� Taylor said.

�You�re welcome.�

�I mean about you coming by today.�

�I knew what you were talking about.�

Chapter 11

Sitting in the kitchen, Denise Holton decided that life was like manure.

When used in a garden, manure was fertilizer. Effective and inexpensive, it provided nourishment to the soil and helped the garden become as beautiful as it could be. But outside of the garden-in a pasture, for instance-when stepped in inadvertently, manure was nothing more than crap.

A week ago, once she and Kyle were reunited in the hospital, she definitely felt as if the manure were being used in her garden. In that moment nothing else but Kyle mattered, and when she saw that he was okay, everything was right in the world. Her life, so to speak, had been fertilized.