Nights in Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks [39]
Within a few minutes a light rain started, then it began to fall with more intensity. Adrienne moved closer to the house to keep from getting wet, but she found that it didn’t help much in the swirling wind. Paul neither sped up nor slowed down; the rain and wind didn’t seem to affect him at all.
Another window covered, then the next. Sliding in the guards, dropping the hooks, moving the ladder. By the time the windows were done and Paul had started on the braces, there was lightning over the water and the rain was driving hard. And still Paul worked. Each nail was sunk with four blows, coming regularly, as if he’d worked in carpentry for years.
Despite the rain, they talked; Adrienne noticed that he kept the conversation light, far from anything that could be construed the wrong way. He told her about some of the repairs he and his father had done on the farm and that he might be doing a bit of this in Ecuador as well, so that it was good to get the feel of it again.
As Adrienne listened to him talk of this and that, she could tell that Paul was giving her the space he thought she needed, that he thought she wanted. But as she watched him, she suddenly knew that keeping her distance was the furthest thing from her mind.
Everything about him made her long for something she had never known: the way he made what he was doing look easy, the shape of his hips and legs in his jeans as he stood on the ladder above her, those eyes that always reflected what he was thinking and feeling. Standing in the pouring rain, she felt the pull of the person he was, and the person she realized she wanted to be.
By the time he finished, his sweatshirt and jacket were soaked and his face had paled with the cold. After storing the ladder and the tools beneath the house, he joined Adrienne on the porch. She’d run her hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. The soft curls were gone, and so was any evidence of makeup. In their place was a natural beauty, and despite the heavy jacket she was wearing, Paul could sense the warm, feminine body beneath it.
It was then, as they were standing under the overhang, that the storm unleashed its full fury. A long, streaking lightning bolt connected sea to sky, and thunder echoed as if two cars had collided on the highway. The wind gusted, bending the limbs of trees in a single direction. Rain blew sideways, as if trying to defy gravity.
For a moment they simply watched, knowing that another minute in the rain wouldn’t matter. And then, finally giving in to the possibility of what might come next, they turned and headed back into the house without a word.
Twelve
Wet and cold, they each went to their rooms. Paul slipped out of his clothes and turned on the faucet, waiting until the steam was billowing from behind the curtain before he hopped into the shower. It took a few minutes for his body to warm up, and though he lingered far longer than usual and got dressed slowly, Adrienne hadn’t reappeared by the time he went back downstairs.
With the windows covered, the house was dark, and Paul turned on the light in the sitting room before heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The rain beat furiously on the hurricane guards, making the house echo with vibration. Thunder rolled continuously, sounding both close and far away at the same time, like sounds in a busy train station. Paul brought the cup of coffee back to the sitting room. Even with the lamp turned on, the blackened windows made it feel as though evening had settled in, and he moved toward the fireplace.
Paul opened the damper and added three logs, stacking them to allow for airflow, then threw in some kindling. He nosed around for the matches and found them in a wooden box on the mantel. The odor of sulfur hung in the air when he struck the first match.
The kindling was dry and caught quickly; soon he heard a sound like the crinkling of paper as the logs began to catch. Within a few minutes