Accidental Happiness (39 page)

As the two walked off together, I thought of what would happen as the evening moved on. We’d crowd around with our paper plates while Derek served burgers and Lane organized the side dishes. We’d done this before and we’d do it again, maybe with Reese home next time, and with a shifting cast of characters who would come and go.

And all at once I felt overwhelmed by the pleasure of gathered family—or what felt like a family to me. If accidents could take away the people we loved—the people we needed—then it only seemed right that the opposite could be true as well.

“Let’s get ready to eat, people!” Derek called out as he came out of the cottage, spatula in hand.

I stood up to meet him, ready to help, as everyone came to answer his call.

Also by Jean Reynolds Page

A BLESSED EVENT

Accidental Happiness
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Page, Jean Reynolds.

Accidental happiness / Jean Reynolds Page.— 1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Shooters of firearms—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Accident
victims—Fiction. 4. Gunshot wounds—Fiction. 5. Widows—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3616.A33755A63 2005

813′.6—dc22

2004062000

www.ballantinebooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-48211-2