The Notebook - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,30

sure he hadn’t missed anything, then slid the canoe to the water.

“Can I do anything?”

“No, just get in.”

After she climbed in, he pushed the canoe farther into the water, close to the dock. Then he gracefully stepped off the dock into the canoe, placing his feet carefully to prevent the canoe from capsizing. Allie was impressed by his agility, knowing that what he had done so quickly and easily was harder than it looked.

Allie sat at the front of the canoe, facing backward. He had said something about missing the view when he started to paddle, but she’d shaken her head, saying she was fine the way she was.

And it was true.

She could see everything she really wanted to see if she turned her head, but most of all she wanted to watch Noah. It was him she’d come to see, not the creek. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and she could see his chest muscles flex with every stroke. His sleeves were rolled up, too, and she could see the muscles in his arms bulging slightly. His muscles were well developed there from paddling every morning.

Artistic, she thought. There’s something almost artistic about him when he does this. Something natural, as if being on the water were beyond his control, part of a gene passed on to him from some obscure hereditary pool. When she watched him, she was reminded of how the early explorers must have looked when they’d first discovered this area.

She couldn’t think of anyone else who remotely resembled him. He was complicated, almost contradictory in so many ways, yet simple, a strangely erotic combination. On the surface he was a country boy, home from war, and he probably saw himself in those terms. Yet there was so much more to him. Perhaps it was the poetry that made him different, or perhaps it was the values his father had instilled in him, growing up. Either way, he seemed to savor life more fully than others appeared to, and that was what had first attracted her to him.

“What are you thinking?”

She felt her insides jump just a bit as Noah’s voice brought her back to the present. She realized she hadn’t said much since they’d started, and she appreciated the silence he had allowed her. He’d always been considerate like that.

“Good things,” she answered quietly, and she saw in his eyes that he knew she was thinking about him. She liked the fact that he knew it, and she hoped he had been thinking about her as well.

She understood then that something was stirring within her, as it had so many years ago. Watching him, watching his body move, made her feel it. And as their eyes lingered for a second, she felt the heat in her neck and breasts, and she flushed, turning away before he noticed.

“How much farther?” she asked.

“Another half mile or so. Not any more than that.”

A pause. Then, she said: “It’s pretty out here. So clean. So quiet. It’s almost like going back in time.”

“In a way it is, I think. The creek flows from the forest. There’s not a single farm between here and where it starts, and the water is pure as rain. It’s probably as pure as it’s ever been.”

She leaned toward him. “Tell me, Noah, what do you remember most from the summer we spent together?”

“All of it.”

“Anything in particular?”

“No,” he said.

“You don’t remember?”

He answered after a moment, quietly, seriously. “No, it’s not that. It’s not what you’re thinking. I was serious when I said ‘all of it.’ I can remember every moment we were together, and in each of them there was something wonderful. I can’t really pick any one time that meant more than any other. The entire summer was perfect, the kind of summer everyone should have. How could I pick one moment over another?

“Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can’t control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That’s what it was like for me. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that’s why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I’ll never forget a