The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

sauce, then returned to the stove.
    Noah opened the beer and poured it in the water, then added the hot sauce and some other seasoning as well. After stirring the water to make sure the powders were dissolved, he went to the back door to get the crabs.
    He paused for a moment before going back inside and stared at Allie, watching her cut the carrots. As he did that, he wondered again why she had come, especially now that she was engaged. None of this seemed to make much sense to him.
    But then, Allie had always been surprising.
    He smiled to himself, remembering back to the way she had been. Fiery, spontaneous, passionate—as he imagined most artists to be. And she was definitely that. Artistic talent like hers was a gift. He remembered seeing some paintings in the museums in New York and thinking that her work was just as good as what he had seen there.
    She had given him a painting before she’d left that summer. It hung above the fireplace in the living room. She’d called it a picture of her dreams, and to him it had seemed extremely sensual. When he looked at it, and he often did late in the evening, he could see desire in the colors and the lines, and if he focused carefully, he could imagine what she had been thinking with every stroke.
    A dog barked in the distance, and Noah realized he had been standing with the door open a long time. He quickly closed it, turning back to the kitchen. And as he walked, he wondered if she had noticed how long he’d been gone.
    “How’s it going?” he asked, seeing she was almost finished.
    “Good. I’m almost done here. Anything else for dinner?”
    “I have some homemade bread that I was planning on.”
    “Homemade?”
    “From a neighbor,” he said as he put the pail in the sink. He started the faucet and began to rinse the crabs, holding them under the water, then letting them scurry around the sink while he rinsed the next one. Allie picked up her cup and came over to watch him.
    “Aren’t you afraid they’ll pinch you when you grab them?”
    “No. Just grab ’em like this,” he said, demonstrating, and she smiled.
    “I forget you’ve done this your whole life.” “New Bern’s small, but it does teach you how to do the things that matter.”
    She leaned against the counter, standing close to him, and emptied her cup. When the crabs were ready he put them in the pot on the stove. He washed his hands, turning to speak to her as he did so.
    “You want to sit on the porch for a few minutes? I’d like to let ’em soak for a half hour.”
    “Sure,” she said.
    He wiped his hands, and together they went to the back porch. Noah flipped on the light as they went outside, and he sat in the older rocker, offering the newer one to her. When he saw her cup was empty, he went inside for a moment and emerged with another cup of tea and a beer for himself. He held out the cup and she took it, sipping again before she set it on the table beside the chairs.
    “You were sitting out here when I came, weren’t you?”
    He answered as he made himself comfortable. “Yeah. I sit out here every night. It’s a habit now.”
    “I can see why,” she said as she looked around. “So, what is it you do these days?”
    “Actually, I don’t do anything but work on the house right now. It satisfies my creative urges.”
    “How can you ...I mean . . .”
    “Morris Goldman.”
    “Excuse me?”
    He smiled. “My old boss from up north. His name was Morris Goldman. He offered me a part of the business just as I enlisted and died before I got home. When I got back to the States, his lawyers gave me a check big enough to buy this place and fix it up.”
    She laughed under her breath. “You always told me you’d find a way to do it.”
    They both sat quietly for a moment, thinking back again. Allie took another sip of tea.
    “Do you remember sneaking over here the night you first told me about this place?”
    He nodded, and she went on:
    “I got home a little late that evening,