Take Two Read Online Free Page B

hadn’t blown up across the front pages. The media
     never made much of the fact that Jay was Ben Adams’ son-in-law, and since the accident wasn’t only Jay’s fault, the media
     lost interest. The same couldn’t be said for the lawyers in the case.
    The parents of the dead pregnant model hired a team of attorneys days after her funeral. The victim had been the single mother
     of two little girls — neither fathered by Jay. But since the drunk driver had no insurance, and since Jay was cited with reckless
     driving for speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour, the lawyers came after Kendall’s father — the registered owner of the
     BMW.
    In court the truth about the woman came out. She had been a terrible mother, rarely visiting her children and leaving her
     own mother to raise them. At the time of the accident, the model hadn’t spoken with her mother or her daughters for more than
     a year. Still, her mother contended that she could continue to raise her granddaughters, but she would need a great deal of
     money to pull it off. By the time the haggling and courtroom drama ended, the settlement for the woman’s daughters had cost
     Kendall’s father just under a million dollars.
    The accident cost Kendall a lot more than that.
    She talked to Jay just once afterwards, late at night during an unannounced visit to the hospital. She found him hooked to
     an IV, his legs in a pair of casts, bandages around his head. Even with that, he was watching TV as if he hadn’t just been
     party to a fatal accident, as if his whole world hadn’t fallen apart. She stood in the hospital doorway staring at him, seeing
     him the way he’d looked five years earlier, the night they met.
    He must’ve heard her, because he turned his head, and when he saw her, his face fell. For a long while he held her gaze, then
     he turned off the TV and looked away. “I’m surprised you came.”
    “Me too.” She moved slowly into his room, clutching her purse in front of her, as if keeping something between them might
     protect her heart from further damage. She reached the side of his bed and waited. Just waited, because she figured it wasn’t
     her job to do the talking.
    The silence quickly became unbearable and he rattled loose a long sigh. His eyes found hers again. “I was going to tell you.”
     He brought his hand slowly to his face and pressed his fingers against his brow. “I just … I hadn’t figured out how.”
    Kendall could voice just one question. “Did you … love her?” He closed his eyes for a long time. When he opened them again
     he said something that had stayed with her ever since. “Everybody loves everybody in this business.” His lips were dry and
     cracked. He ran his tongue over them, buying time. “It was my fault. I let it get out of hand.”
    “Out of hand?” She wanted to scream at him. His girlfriend had been about to deliver his baby. The baby Kendall hadn’t been
     able to give him. “Were you planning to marry her?”
    Again he hesitated. Then, “It doesn’t matter.”
    Kendall thought of a dozen more questions, a hundred things she might say. But in the end she said nothing. The silence between
     them deafened her, the whir of machines and the sickly, antiseptic hospital smell filling her senses.
    Finally he spoke. “My attorney is drawing up the papers. The divorce will be final before summer’s over.”
    And like that, five years were finished.
    The trouble was Kendall hadn’t seen it coming. In the days since the accident she had relived every wonderful day of their
     relationship a thousand times. In all her life she’d never met anyone like Jay Randolph. He had a faith that made him larger
     than life, and a charisma that made him the center of attention wherever he went. Her father introduced them at an Academy
     Awards after-party. Kendall liked to say he swept her off her feet and stole her heart all in a single conversation.
    Kendall credited the Lord with a pair of miracles