Nicholas Sparks - Safe Haven

Katie was speechless. This conversation was so unexpected, so uncomfortable, and Jo’s words had definitely thrown her emotions into turmoil.

If Jo sensed Katie’s discomfort, she pressed on anyway.

“Love doesn’t mean anything if you’re not willing to make a commitment,” she said, “and you have to think not only about what you want, but about what he wants. Not just now, but in the future.” She continued to stare at Katie across the table, her brown eyes unwavering. “Are you ready to be a wife to Alex and a mother to his kids? Because that’s what Alex wants. Maybe not right now, but he will in the future. And if you’re not willing to make a commitment, if you’re only going to toy with his feelings and those of his children, then you’re not the person he needs in his life.”

Before Katie could say anything, Jo got up from the table as she went on. “It might have been wrong of me to say all this, and maybe we won’t be friends any longer, but I wouldn’t feel right about myself if I didn’t speak plainly. As I’ve said from the very beginning, he’s a good man — a rare man. He loves deeply and never stops loving.” She let those words sink in before her expression suddenly softened. “I think you’re the same way, but I wanted to remind you that if you care about him, then you have to be willing to commit to him. No matter what the future might bring. No matter how scared you might be.”

With that, she turned and left the bar, leaving Katie sitting at the table in stunned silence. It was only as she got up to leave that she noticed that Jo hadn’t touched her wine.

Kevin Tierney didn’t go to Provincetown on the weekend he’d told Coffey and Ramirez that he would. Instead, he stayed home with the curtains closed, brooding over how close he’d come to finding her in Philadelphia.

He wouldn’t have succeeded in tracking her that far, except that she’d made a mistake in going to the bus station. He knew it was the only transportation choice she could have made. Tickets were cheap and identification wasn’t necessary, and though he wasn’t sure how much she’d stolen from him, he knew it couldn’t have been much. From the first day they were married, he’d controlled the money. He always made her keep receipts and give him any change, but after she’d run away the second time, he’d also started locking his wallet in the gun box with his guns when he went to sleep. Sometimes, though, he fell asleep on the couch and he imagined her slipping the wallet from his pocket and stealing his money. He imagined the way she silently laughed at him as she did it, and how, in the morning, she would make him breakfast and pretend that she’d done nothing wrong. She would smile and kiss him, but inside she was laughing. Laughing at him . She’d stolen from him and he knew that was wrong because the Bible says Thou shalt not steal .

In the darkness, he chewed his lips, remembering his initial hope that she might come back. It was snowing and she couldn’t get far; the first time she’d run away it had also been on a bitter cold night, and she’d called him within a few hours and asked him to pick her up because she had nowhere else to go. When she got home, she apologized for what she’d done and he made her a cup of hot cocoa as she sat shivering on the couch. He brought her a blanket and watched as she covered herself, trying to get warm. She smiled at him and he smiled at her, but once she stopped shivering, he crossed the room and slapped her until she cried. By the time he rose for work in the morning, she’d cleaned the spilled cocoa from the floor, though there was still a stain on the rug that she couldn’t get out, and sometimes the sight of it made him angry.

On the night he realized she was missing last January, he drank two glasses of vodka while he waited for her to come back, but the phone didn’t ring and the front door stayed closed. He knew she hadn’t been gone long. He’d spoken to her less than an hour before and she’d told him she was making dinner. But there was no dinner on the stove. No sign of her in the house or in the cellar or in the garage. He stood on the porch and looked for footprints in the snow, but it was obvious that she hadn’t left through the front door. But the snow in the backyard was equally pristine, so she hadn’t left that way, either. It was as if she’d floated away or vanished into thin air. Which meant she had to be here… except that she wasn’t.

Two more vodkas later and another half hour passed. By then, he was in a rage and he punched a hole in the bedroom door. He stormed from the house and banged on the neighbors’ doors, asking if they’d noticed her leaving, but none of them could tell him anything. He hopped in his car and drove up and down the streets of the neighborhood, looking for traces of her, trying to figure out how she’d been able to leave the house without leaving any clues behind. By then, he figured she had a two-hour head start, but she was walking, and in this weather she couldn’t have gotten far. Unless someone had come to pick her up. Someone she cared about. A man.

He pounded the wheel, his face contorted in fury. Six blocks away was the commercial district. He went to the businesses there, flashing a wallet-size photograph and asking if anyone had seen her. No one had. He told them she might have been with a man and still they shook their heads. The men he asked were adamant about it: A pretty blond like that? they said. I would have noticed her, especially on a night like tonight.

He drove each and every road within five miles of the house two or three times before finally going back home. It was three a.m. and the house was empty. After another vodka he cried himself to sleep.

In the morning, when he woke, he was enraged again, and with a hammer he smashed the flowerpots she kept in the backyard. Breathing hard, he went to the phone and called in sick, then went to the couch and tried to figure out how she’d gotten away. Someone had to have picked her up; someone must have driven her someplace. Someone she knew. A friend from Atlantic City? Altoona? Possible, he supposed, except that he checked the phone bills every month. She never placed long-distance phone calls. Someone local, then. But who? She never went anywhere, never talked to anyone. He made sure of that.

He went to the kitchen and was pouring himself another drink when he heard the phone ring. He lunged for it, hoping it was Erin. Strangely, however, the phone rang only once, and when he picked up he heard a dial tone. He stared at the receiver, trying to figure it out before hanging up the phone.

How had she gotten away? He was missing something. Even if someone local had picked her up, how had she gotten to the road without leaving footprints? He stared out the window, trying to piece together the sequence of events. Something seemed off, though he couldn’t identify what it was. He turned away from the window and found himself focused on the telephone. It was then that the pieces suddenly came together and he pulled out his cell phone. He dialed his home number and listened as it rang once. The cell phone kept ringing. When he picked up the landline, he heard a dial tone and realized that she’d forwarded the calls to a cell phone. Which meant she hadn’t been here when he’d called her last night. Which also explained the bad reception he’d noticed over the past two days. And, of course, the lack of footprints in the snow. She’d been gone, he now knew, since Tuesday morning.

At the bus station, she made a mistake, even if she couldn’t really help it. She should have purchased her tickets from a woman, since Erin was pretty and men always remembered pretty women. It didn’t matter whether their hair was long and blond or short and dark. Nor did it matter if she’d pretended she was pregnant.