The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks

The Rescue

The Rescue consists of three main characters, Denise, Kyle, and Taylor. Denise is Kyle’s mother and Kyle is a four-year old boy who has severe learning handicaps, and Taylor is a local fire fighter. They get tangled into a mess and feelings eventually get involved. Denise is a very worry-some girl and doesn’t get attached too much because Kyle takes up most of her time. She loves Kyle with all of her heart no doubt and some times she blames herself for Kyle’s handicap. Kyle is an extremely energetic kid who loves his mother and struggles yes, but tries very hard to overcome his loss for words even though he does get frustrated at times. Now Taylor McAden comes off shy but he is very heroic and that is shown even within the few first chapters, and not just heroic such as a knight on a white horse but heroic when it come to love he will learn to sweep Denise right off her feet and she won’t even know it.

The book starts off with a raging record-breaking storm that hit town. Young mother Denise Holton and her four-year-old son Kyle were driving through the storm when all of a sudden her car skid off the road. Denise is unconscious when someone awakes her and is helping her, the first thing she does is check in the back seat for Kyle, and he wasn’t there, he was gone. She started to shout for him, and then asking everyone as she struggled to get out of the car, “Have you seen my son?” No one had seen Kyle and no one knew where the little boy was. Police, Firefighters and volunteers were all called to help look for Kyle all including Taylor McAden, and it was Taylor who found Kyle’s blanket in a swamp about 50 yards from the site of the crash. Kyle had been missing nearly 6 hours now, Taylor had a hunch and his officer disagreed with him but he went alone anyways, and after a while a searching there he was a little boy. Taylor brought Kyle to the hospital where his mom was, because she was still not well, and she was extremely relieved that Kyle was found, that was the first time Taylor McAden and Denise Holton met.

Although it was not an immediate connection between Denise and Taylor, they both had other things on their minds and hardly had time to notice each other. Taylor had the anniversary of his father’s death on his mind. Even though Taylor’s friend Mitch had been trying to set him up for awhile because he knew what a great guy Taylor really was.

Denise and Taylor met again at a super market where Kyle spotted Taylor and there was nervousness in the air when they spoke. Denise and Kyle had rode their bikes to the store and when they were all saying goodbye at the last minute Taylor offered to help bring to groceries home in his truck. She finally convinced herself to agree and there is when it started.

That night Taylor went to his friend Mitch and Melissa’s house where he had told them the story of why he was late and they teased him and soon badgered him asking,

“Oh, so you like her?” hoping he would say yes, because he hasn’t liked a girl in so long.

Soon after that Denise and Kyle were running into Taylor all over the place being such a small town as it is and feelings started to grow for each other. Then Finally Taylor’s friends and even his mother convinced him to ask her AND Kyle out. Even though he convinced himself it wasn’t a real date. He invited her to a county fair where he would be playing baseball on the firefighters team where his friend Mitch was also on his team. He was so excited when she showed up, with Kyle of course.

“So that’s her huh?” Mitch asked Taylor when they were in the dugout between innings.

“Who?”

“Denise, she’s the one sitting with your mother”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t notice” Taylor tried hard to answer hoping Mitch would believe it, he didn’t.

“You were right” Mitch slyly said.

“About what?”

“She is pretty.”

“I didn’t say that, Melissa