Forever

  “I have that meeting.” She pretended to look upset as if she’d let something slip that never should’ve slipped with paparazzi listening.

  The photographers jumped on the moment.

  “What meeting?”

  “Are you seeing someone else already?”

  “Is it the film’s director?”

  “Does your husband know?”

  Randi held up her hand and gave a look of mock frustration. Then she turned to Dayne. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Bye.” He kept himself from laughing. No wonder she’d won an Oscar. Her acting was beyond believable. He slipped into his SUV and only then did he allow himself a slight smile. Randi understood how badly he wanted to keep his trips to Bloomington a secret. And she’d been a friend to him, giving the press a reason to think she was up to no good.

  He started his engine and reached the driveway just before her. His cell phone rang before he could make his left turn back onto Pacific Coast Highway. “Hello?”

  “How was that?”

  “Every one of them bought it.” He chuckled. “You’re good, Randi. If I didn’t know better, I’d follow you myself. Just to see what was going on.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She laughed. “Let’s give ’em a run for their money. And, Dayne . . .”

  “Yes?” He checked the traffic and pulled out.

  “Thanks for being my friend.”

  “Thanks for being mine. I think I have a shot at getting to the airport without leading a parade.”

  “Well, you better focus on the road. We’ve got lots of company for now.”

  They ended their call. Randi stayed behind Dayne, and by the time they hit their cruising speed, twelve paparazzi cars were clustered behind them. There was no point trying to lose them yet. His Escalade had tinted windows, but they knew it belonged to him, same as they knew the red BMW convertible belonged to Randi. But if Randi’s ploy worked, sometime before the stretch of homes on Malibu Beach, she’d turn and the paparazzi would follow.

  Dayne checked his rearview mirror again. One of these days the photographers were going to cause a wreck, and then what? Would the craziness finally come to an end, or would it only make them more anxious, rabidly excited about being first at the scene?

  Randi took the lead, grinning in Dayne’s direction as she passed him.

  Eleven paparazzi cars sped by him and tried to squeeze in on either side of Randi. Dayne understood what they were doing. Randi was blonde and pretty, and with her BMW top down and her designer sunglasses, a shot of her driving along PCH was bound to bring good money.

  Still, the move was dangerous, and he watched her react to the nearness of them. At first she jerked her car to the right and then to the left. He could see her grab the wheel with both hands, trying to maintain control.

  Alarm coursed through Dayne’s body. If she swerves . . . help her, God. Please!

  He sped up, trying to intimidate them, but still they hounded her. And now another photographer zipped around him and into the lane of oncoming traffic. Only a sports car was coming straight for the guy. The photographer snuck back into traffic at the last second but not before the sports car swerved hard to his right.

  At the same time, a delivery truck in that lane swerved out of the way, lost control, and shot across both lanes and straight for . . .

  Dayne had no time to analyze the situation, no time to imagine the ramifications of the scene playing out in slow motion before his eyes. No time to brake or turn the wheel. The truck flew at him like a runaway train, and in an instant he realized that this was how it happened. Every day in every city in the country someone stumbled into a moment like this, and that was all there was. Living life one minute and carried off in a body bag the next.

  A hundred questions screamed at him. What about the wedding? What about the plans he had for later today and tomorrow and Thanksgiving? He hadn’t had time to talk to Ross about Jesus, no perfect time to talk to Luke and Erin, the brother and sister he’d been meaning to call since the revelation that he was related to them. No time to call Katy and tell her good-bye.

  He slammed on his brakes, but the steering wheel locked and there was nowhere for him to go. In the final split second before the truck slammed into the driver’s side of his Escalade, he had just enough time to grieve everything he was about to lose. His place in the Baxter family, his years in the house on the lake, his life with Katy. But only her face filled his heart and mind and soul as the truck slammed into his SUV, as glass exploded and the sound of screaming, twisting metal filled his ears.

  Something sharp and burning tore through his body, his head, as everything was going black, and his final thought was the saddest of all. The face in his mind was one he might never see again this side of heaven.

  The face of his forever love, Katy Hart.

  Randi Wells watched the whole thing happen in her rearview mirror. One minute she was being squeezed by the paparazzi, fighting to keep control in her own lane, and the next there was a series of swerves and screeching tires and suddenly a truck was flying across traffic and smashing into the door of Dayne’s Escalade.

  Randi slammed on her brakes and jerked the gear into park. She was out of the car before the traffic around her had come to a complete stop. “Dayne!” she shouted, her body numb from the shock. “No . . . not Dayne!”

  Around her, the paparazzi were stepping out onto the pavement. As she hurried around a few of their cars, she heard the click of cameras. Her entire body shook, and she turned on them, screaming like a madwoman. “Are you kidding me? You caused this, you vultures.” She raised her fist and brought it down hard on the hood of the car that had pressed in on her left side. “Stop!” She hit the hood again and again; then she faced the photographer who had caused the accident.

  “This isn’t my fault,” he sneered.

  “It is too.” She reeled back and pushed the guy to the ground. Then, only dimly aware of the other paparazzi still snapping pictures, she grabbed his camera and threw it, smashing it into a dozen broken parts. “There. You’ll go to jail for this, mister. Look what you did to my—” She gasped. “Dayne! Someone call 911!” She turned and saw the truck driver trying to get free of his vehicle. But what about Dayne?

  “Dayne . . . hold on!” She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel her feet. But somehow she made it to the side of his Escalade. Dayne was unconscious, pinned against the driver’s seat, and bleeding from his mouth and ear. Randi clawed at the broken pieces of glass, desperate for an opening. She reached in and touched the tips of her fingers to his shoulder. “Talk to me, Dayne. Come on. Say something.”

  In the distance she heard a siren. Come on. Get here. Get him out.

  Randi was shaking harder now, so hard she couldn’t talk. Dayne was okay, right? Just knocked out? She tried again to reach him, to touch his face and tell him everything was going to be fine. But the twisted metal wouldn’t let her any closer. She searched the other side of the SUV. Yes, maybe that was the way in. The other side.

  She ran around the back of his smashed vehicle to the passenger door, half expecting it to be locked or too badly damaged to open. Please let me inside! She lifted the handle and pulled with all her might. To her shock, it opened. She squeezed her eyes shut. Please talk to me, Dayne. Randi opened her eyes again and lifted herself onto the passenger seat. Shattered glass was everywhere, and the engine was still running. She turned off the ignition and put her hand on Dayne’s leg. “Dayne, wake up. Talk to me.”

  He was breathing. Not much and not very hard, but his chest was moving. Randi felt a wave of relief and realized that until that moment she hadn’t been sure if he was even still alive. She tried to listen to his lungs above the pounding of her own heart. There was a rattling sound in his chest, and his head was hurt too. Badly. And the bleeding near his mouth meant internal injuries, right? Wasn’t that what she’d learned on some film set five years ago?

  What about the air bags? She peered around Dayne, but the
SUV door was too damaged to see more than a small bit of plastic. She realized the impact was so sure and so fast that the air bag had deployed, but then it had been crushed by the twisting metal around it.

  Even so, the initial deployment had probably saved Dayne’s life.

  Only then, as she surveyed the rest of his body, did Randi notice his leg. A long piece of metal, probably from the mangled driver’s door, had pierced all the way through his upper thigh. Her eyes widened, and she felt overpowering nausea well within her. Around the place where the metal had entered him, Dayne’s leg was spurting blood, though she guessed the piece might also be stanching some of the blood loss.

  She spotted Dayne’s cell phone on the floor of the passenger side and picked it up. He had a flight to catch, right? Who would notify the woman in Indiana that Dayne had been in a terrible car accident? She slipped Dayne’s phone into her shorts pocket just as the paramedics rushed up to the SUV.

  “We’ve got it, miss,” one of the paramedics said.

  “No. I have to stay with him.” She turned and shook her head, begging the paramedic with her eyes.

  “You’re . . . you’re Randi Wells.” The man hesitated. “Ma’am, I need you to step aside so we can work on him.”

  A pair of workers had started using machinery to separate the two vehicles. One of them exchanged a look with the paramedic near Randi. “Is this guy who I think he is?”

  “It’s Dayne Matthews.” Randi inched her way out of the Escalade. She was shaking so much that her words were nearly unintelligible. “Get him out! He needs a hospital!” Her screaming had dimmed to a faint cry. She finally did as the paramedic asked and stood a few feet away. “Please hurry.”

  The paramedics worked as fast as they could, and their conversation was hard to understand. Randi’s head was spinning. When an officer asked if he could move her car into a nearby parking lot, she nodded absently. Her car? Did she drive here? Wasn’t she with Dayne?

  When the man returned and handed her the keys, she said, “I . . . I have to stay with Dayne.”

  “That’s fine.” The officer put his arm around her shoulders. “You can come with me. We’ll follow right behind the ambulance.”

  At that moment, she had a sudden burst of sanity. She stared at the chaotic scene around her and pointed to the photographer she’d pushed a few minutes earlier. “Him.” She pointed at another photographer and another. “They did this . . . they were ch-ch-chasing us.”

  The officer seemed to understand for the first time. “The paparazzi? They caused this?”

  Randi hugged herself. Her teeth were chattering. “Y-y-yes.” She whirled around, back to the place where paramedics almost had Dayne freed from the wreckage. “He’s okay, right? He’ll be okay?”

  “Hold on.” The officer held a radio to his mouth and said something about arresting anyone on the scene with a camera. Then he put his arm around her again and led her to the passenger seat of his squad car. “Stay here.”

  She started to sit, but then she jumped back to her feet. “What about Dayne? . . . He’s okay, r-r-right?”

  “They’re taking him to UCLA Medical Center. He’ll be in good hands there.”

  There was a commotion near the wreckage as four men lifted Dayne onto a stretcher and into the waiting ambulance.

  Randi slid into the squad car and buckled her seat belt. Yes, Dayne would be okay, because now he was in an ambulance. And that meant he was on his way to the hospital, where they’d fix him up good as new.

  The officer got in beside her and drove skillfully through the stopped and slowing traffic. When he was behind the ambulance, he turned on his siren.

  “Dayne . . . he has a plane to catch. He’ll be late.”

  The officer didn’t say anything, and Randi silently screamed at herself. Of course he would be late. It would take most of the day to stitch up his leg and make sure his head was okay.

  She berated herself. What was she thinking? Dayne wouldn’t be out of the hospital later today. He might not even live that long. He had been pinned to his SUV, his leg nearly severed, with very serious head wounds.

  The officer was speeding south on Pacific Coast Highway, staying right behind the ambulance just like he’d promised. “The paparazzi will be charged for sure.”

  Randi wanted to say good. Good that they’d be charged. Only nothing was good at all, because charging them with a crime wouldn’t undo the damage, wouldn’t give Dayne a clear shot toward the airport and his waiting plane and the woman he loved in Indiana. She felt tears in her eyes, the first since the accident.

  Finally they reached Wilshire Boulevard, turned left, and drove a few more blocks. Randi stared at the hospital. If anyone could help Dayne, the doctors at the UCLA Medical Center could. When they pulled into the driveway marked for emergencies, only eight minutes had gone by, and Randi silently celebrated. They’d made excellent time! Maybe they could still save him.

  She jumped out of the car and ran behind the stretcher. She felt faint and dizzy. But sheer willpower kept her on her feet. The paramedics hadn’t removed the piece of metal piercing Dayne’s leg. It stuck out on either side of the gurney in a macabre way. She hurried after the stretcher, silently screaming, Dayne . . . wake up! You have to be okay! Please be okay!

  When they were inside the emergency room, a nurse ushered her into a private room. “Ms. Wells, you can wait here. Mr. Matthews will be in surgery.” The woman patted her shoulder. “We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”

  Strange how wherever they went—even here in a hospital room, the great equalizer—people knew who they were. Randi Wells and Dayne Matthews. But that’s where celebrity treatment stopped. Death and destruction were no respecters of persons. Disaster could lay claim to a movie star as quickly and certainly as it laid claim to anyone else.

  Before the nurse shut the door, Randi blurted out the only question that mattered: “Is . . . is he going to live?”

  The nurse hesitated, and in that instant Randi knew just how bad things were, because if Dayne were only mildly injured, her answer would’ve been immediate. Instead the nurse paused just long enough so her words didn’t come as a surprise. “He’s fighting for his life.” She looked pale, as if she herself was taking the news hard. And she probably was. The whole country felt as if they knew Dayne, after all. “Is there someone you can call? next of kin? They should have the chance to be here in case . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence. “If there’s someone we can call, please let us know.”

  Randi felt her shorts pocket. Dayne’s cell phone; it was still there. “No.” She pulled the phone out and ran her thumb over the top. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “We’re fielding calls from the media, Ms. Wells. We won’t tell them a word about the accident until you and the doctors decide.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was robotic sounding, numb and lifeless. She felt sick again, and she almost asked for a bathroom. But before she could, the woman was gone and Randi was alone in the small room. Just her and God, if the God Dayne believed in really existed. She sat down, leaned over her legs, and dug her elbows into her knees. This couldn’t be happening. God, if You’re there . . . let him live. Please.

  Randi opened the phone and saw that her hands were shaking again. She scrolled through Dayne’s numbers, surprised at how few there were. But then, Randi hadn’t heard about Dayne hitting the party scene since meeting the woman in Indiana. So she would be her first call.

  Randi concentrated, tried to block out the images of a broken, battered Dayne Matthews and focus instead on the conversations they’d had about his love life. Katy, right? Wasn’t that her name?

  Randi ran down the list until she hit the Ks, and there it was: Katy Hart. Yes, that was it. The director had talked about her at one of their meetings. She was a talented actress, apparently. Someone who had chosen to walk away from the part in Dayne’s movie with Kelly Parker. Randi hit the OK button and then just as quickly hit Send.

  T
he phone connected, but after four rings it went to Katy’s voice mail.

  After the beep, Randi forced herself to speak. “This message is for Katy Hart. This is Randi Wells. I’m an actress on the picture Dayne’s working on.” She paused. “There’s been an accident. Please call me immediately so I can give you the details.” She left her cell number and clicked the End button.

  Who else? She stood and paced from one side of the room to the other. Any family or relatives? Dayne’s parents had died when he was young, so who else could there be? She scrolled through the names, looking for a sign. As well as she thought she’d known Dayne, she really didn’t know him at all. Didn’t know who cared for him or who would want a call in a terrible situation like this one. She worked her way down the list, and partway through it she saw something that stopped her cold.

  Under the Ds was the name Dad. She checked the number, and the area code was the same as Katy Hart’s in Indiana. In the notes section for the listing was something else. The name John Baxter, which meant the man probably wasn’t Katy Hart’s father. Randi stared at it for a moment before making the decision to call the man. This must be something Dayne was hiding. There could be no other explanation.

  Because the world thought Dayne parentless.

  Katy had no choice but to be understanding.

  Dayne had promised he’d attend the show, but his schedule didn’t allow him the freedom to always make his own choices. It was that simple. Showtime was in fifteen minutes, and only Bailey and Connor knew that Dayne was supposed to be here. Bailey came running up to her while she was giving final instructions to a crew of kids near the wings backstage.

  Katy dismissed the other teens. As Bailey approached Katy caught her breath, almost as if she were seeing the girl in a different light for the first time. Every morning they shared breakfast and every evening they told each other good night, but somehow Katy had missed the obvious. Bailey was growing up. She had never looked more adorable, her hair in pigtails and big, colorful, eighties-style jewelry finishing off her look. The kids had been told to bring black clothes for the show and accessories to dress up their outfits. Over her black tights and long-sleeve black T-shirt, Bailey wore a short, bright pink skirt and a pink, form-fitting jacket. The picture of The Wiz’s offbeat version of Dorothy.