Nights in Rodanthe - By Nicholas Sparks

Acknowledgments

Nights in Rodanthe, as with all my novels, couldn’t have been written without the patience, love, and support of my wife, Cathy. She only gets more beautiful every year.

Since the dedication is to my other three children, I have to acknowledge both Miles and Ryan (who got a dedication in Message in a Bottle). I love you guys!

I’d also like to thank Theresa Park and Jamie Raab, my agent and editor respectively. Not only do they both have wonderful instincts, but they never let me slide when it comes to my writing. Though I sometimes grumble about the challenges this presents, the final product is what it is because of those two. If they like the story, odds are that you will, too.

Larry Kirshbaum and Maureen Egen at Warner Books also deserve my thanks. When I go to New York, spending time with them is like visiting with my family. They’ve made Warner Books a wonderful home for me.

Denise Di Novi, the producer of both Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember, is not only skilled at what she does, but someone I trust and respect. She’s a good friend, and she deserves my thanks for all she has done—and still does—for me.

Richard Green and Howie Sanders, my agents in Hollywood, are great friends, great people, and great at what they do. Thanks, guys.

Scott Schwimer, my attorney and friend, always watches out for me. Thank you.

In publicity, I have to thank Jennifer Romanello, Emi Battaglia, and Edna Farley; Flag and the rest of the cover design people; Courtenay Valenti and Lorenzo De Bonaventura of Warner Bros.; Hunt Lowry and Ed Gaylord II, of Gaylord Films; Mark Johnson and Lynn Harris of New Line Cinema; they have all been great to work with. Thanks, everyone.

Mandy Moore and Shane West were both wonderful in A Walk to Remember, and I appreciate their enthusiasm for the project.

Then there is family (who might get a kick out of seeing their names here): Micah, Christine, Alli, and Peyton; Bob, Debbie, Cody, and Cole; Mike and Parnell; Henrietta, Charles, and Glenara; Duke and Marge; Dianne and John; Monte and Gail; Dan and Sandy; Jack, Carlin, Joe, Elaine, and Mark; Michelle and Lemont; Paul, John, and Caroline; Tim, Joannie, and Papa Paul.

And, of course, how can I forget Paul and Adrienne?

One

Three years earlier, on a warm November morning in 1999, Adrienne Willis had returned to the Inn and at first glance had thought it unchanged, as if the small Inn were impervious to sun and sand and salted mist. The porch had been freshly painted, and shiny black shutters sandwiched rectangular white-curtained windows on both floors like offset piano keys. The cedar siding was the color of dusty snow. On either side of the building, sea oats waved a greeting, and sand formed a curving dune that changed imperceptibly with each passing day as individual grains shifted from one spot to the next.

With the sun hovering among the clouds, the air had a luminescent quality, as though particles of light were suspended in the haze, and for a moment Adrienne felt she’d traveled back in time. But looking closer, she gradually began to notice changes that cosmetic work couldn’t hide: decay at the corners of the windows, lines of rust along the roof, water stains near the gutters. The Inn seemed to be winding down, and though she knew there was nothing she could do to change it, Adrienne remembered closing her eyes, as if to magically blink it back to what it had once been.

Now, standing in the kitchen of her own home a few months into her sixtieth year, Adrienne hung up the phone after speaking with her daughter. She sat at the table, reflecting on that last visit to the Inn, remembering the long weekend she’d once spent there. Despite all that had happened in the years that had passed since then, Adrienne still held tight to the belief that love was the essence of a full and wonderful life.

Outside, rain was falling. Listening to the gentle tapping against the glass, she was thankful for its steady sense of familiarity. Remembering those days always aroused a mixture of emotions in her—something akin to, but not quite, nostalgia. Nostalgia was often romanticized; with these memories, there was no reason to make them any more romantic than they already were. Nor did she share these memories with others. They were hers, and over the years, she’d come to view them as a sort of museum