Page 42 of The Baxters
Right then?Dayne remembered thinking. In the middle of his history final? But the headmaster wasn’t leaving so Dayne set his pencil down and followed the man. Down the hall and to the office in the next building.
When they were both seated, the man shook his head. “We just received terrible news, Dayne. I’m so sorry.”
Dayne tried to imagine what could possibly have happened, something so bad that the man would interrupt a final exam. He waited.
“There was a plane crash, Dayne. Your parents’ plane.” His eyes welled up. “They were both killed.”
The headmaster rambled on, something about recovering their bodies from the wreckage and next steps. How his parents had life insurance and how Dayne could go to any university he wished. Wherever he wanted to go.
Something like that.
The next few weeks—the deep conversations and important details, the funeral and memorial service—all of it was like a nightmare, one Dayne couldn’t wake up from. He knew from the minute the headmaster gave him a choice, the perfect place where he wanted to go to school.
Exactly what he wanted to do.
He applied to UCLA and a few months later he received his acceptance letter. From his first day on campus he studied acting like it was his lifeblood. Like his next breath depended on being the best actor to ever grace the halls of UCLA.
His first film took the movie world by surprise. The second took the world by storm. Who was this Dayne Matthews? Where had he come from? His face dominated the cover of every gossip rag in the grocery checkout lines.
Dayne Matthews wasn’t only a leading man, the media announced. He was an acclaimed actor. Wildly talented, beyond handsome. The accolades filled the pages of magazines and newspapers.
Everyone loved Dayne Matthews. Every language. Every nation.
But none of his fans really knew him. No one did. The fact was, Dayne had survived the unimaginable. The details he found himself rehashing day after day.
Dayne had been orphaned not once, but twice.
He literally had no one. Not anywhere in all the world.
A quick breath broke the moment and Dayne shook the drops of sweat from his hair. His break was almost up. Time to jump on the motorcycle again and film the getaway scene. The one that came after the kiss. He clenched his jaw and looked long at the hazy sky. He didn’t miss his adoptive parents, really. They were never around, anyway.
Rather he missed the parents he had never met. Whoever they were. The ones who had given him up when he was just days old. They were from the Midwest. That’s all he knew. But sometimes, on days like this, he would be tearing down a street in Morocco on a motorcycle and he wasn’t heading to the end of the scene.
He was racing as fast and hard as he could to find them.
Yes, days like this Dayne was consumed by two questions. Questions that had followed him and haunted him and ripped at his heart the way they had since he was old enough to know he was adopted.
Who were his real parents?
And where in the world were they?
At least he had a lead now. Money wasn’t an issue, so months ago Dayne had hired a private investigator. Andjust yesterday the guy had emailed with one bit of information. One piece of news.
The man had finally linked Dayne to his birth mother.
This bit of truth had consumed Dayne since the message landed in his in-box. “It won’t be long,” the investigator had written to him, “till I find her. Till we can arrange a meeting.”
A chill ran down Dayne’s arms. It wouldn’t be long. Because now Dayne had a name. The name he couldn’t stop thinking about. The name of his birth mother.
Elizabeth Baxter.
13
The rain stopped long enough for them to climb into the limo. Kari’s sisters helped keep her dress from getting wet or muddy and once they were situated inside, Daisy took more photos.
A few seconds later the driver set out. Kari surveyed her family seated around her. Ashley was still holding Cole, who was awake now. Wide-eyed and handsome in his baby tux. Ashley spoke up first. “You look beautiful, Kari. Really.”
“Thanks.” The earlier tension between them was gone now. “You, too. Those dresses are perfect.” She looked at Brooke and Erin and back to Ashley. “Just like I pictured them.”
