Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult Read Free Book Online Page B

much. It wasn't that Paige stood rooted before him, her lips
parted, as if she hadn't heard correctly. It was that when she
turned, Nicholas did not see disappointment or betrayal. Instead, he
realized she was looking at him, still, as if he were mythic. "What
did you come here for?" she asked.
    Nicholas
cleared his throat, and Rachel kicked him under the table. "Rachel
heard about the pictures and would like to have one done."
    Paige
nodded and left to get a pad. She sat at the front of the booth on a
little stool, holding the pad tilted up the way she always did so the
picture would be a surprise when she was finished. She drew clean,
quick strokes and blended with her thumb, and as she drew, other
diners peeked over her shoulder and laughed and whispered. When
she finished, she threw the pad in front of Nicholas and walked into
the kitchen. Rachel turned it over. There was her hair, her
glittering eyes, and even the gist of her lovely features, but quite
clearly the picture was that of a lizard.

    Although
he was scheduled to be on call that night at the hospital,
Nicholas did something he had never done before: he phoned in sick.
Then he grabbed a bite at McDonald's and walked through Harvard
Square after the sun went down. He sat on a brick wall on the corner
of Brattle and watched a juggler with flaming torches, wondering if
the guy worried about what might happen. Nicholas put a faded dollar
bill in the case of a jazz guitarist, and he stood at the window of a
toy store, where stuffed alligators wearing rain slickers
tumbled in tinfoil puddles. When it was five to eleven, he walked to
Mercy, wondering what he would do if Doris or Marvela or anyone other
than Paige was locking up that night. He realized that he would just
keep walking, then, until he found her.
    Paige
was emptying the ketchup bottles when he came in. Over her head,
taped to the wall, was the picture of Rachel as a lizard. "I
like it," he said, making her jump.
    In
spite of herself, Paige smiled a little. "I'm sure I've lost us one customer,"
she said.
    "So
what," Nicholas said. "You made me come
back." "And just what do I get?" Paige said. Nicholas
smiled. "Whatever you want."
    Many
years later, when Nicholas thought of that exchange, he realized he
shouldn't have made promises he couldn't have kept. But he did
believe that no matter what Paige wanted, he could be it. He had a
feeling about this, a feeling that all Paige really needed was him,
not his trappings and not his success, and that was so new to Nicholas
that he felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his
shoulders. He pulled Paige closer and saw her stiffen and then relax.
He kissed her ear, her temple, the corner of her mouth. In her hair
he smelled bacon and waffles, but also sunshine and September,
and he wondered how he could be thinking the things he was.
    When
she put her arms around him, as if she was testing the water, he put
his hands on her waist and felt the hint of her hips below. "Is
Lionel still here?" he whispered, and when she shook her head he
took the keys from her pocket and locked the front door, turned off
the light. He sat on one of the counter stools and pulled Paige to
stand between his legs, and he kissed her, letting his hands run from
her neck to her breasts to her belly. Softly he kissed her, this
child-woman, and when he stroked her thighs and she tensed, he had to
smile. She
must be a virgin, he
realized, and he was overwhelmed by a sudden thought: I want
to be her first. I want to be the only one. "Marry
me," he said, as surprised as she was by the words. He wondered
if this was the way his luck would run out; if his career would start
its disintegration, if this would be the first downslide to the
avalanche. But he held Paige and decided that the hollow in his heart
was just the fanning of love. Nicholas marveled at the luck of
finding someone who so needed his security, never considering that
although the dangers could be different, maybe he