Crazy Love - Krista & Chase (12 page)

“They moved me into this room for privacy, in case Chase visits.” Excitement bubbled out of Abby’s voice as she spoke.

Krista couldn’t get over how incredible Abby seemed to be doing. She did not look like a woman who had just suffered a stroke. The only sign that she had was some weakness in her facial muscles on the left side of her face, which meant that the stroke had affected the right side of her brain. The mild paralysis was only noticeable when Abby smiled. Luckily her speech seemed fine. She was speaking clearly and not slurring her words. Those were very good signs.

Sitting up even higher in her bed, Abby reached up and smoothed her hair down, asking nervously, “How do I look?”

“Great!” Krista answered both enthusiastically and honestly. She pulled a handheld mirror out of the drawer in the overbed table. Lifting it up, she turned it so that Abby could see her reflection.

Abby’s eyes widened at what she saw staring back at her. “Oh no. Do you have a brush?”

“I think I can scrounge one up.” Krista moved across the room and pulled open several drawers. The hospital kept disposable brushes that had been donated to them in some of the patients’ rooms.

Jackpot
.

Grabbing the last blue brush in the drawer, Krista removed the cellophane wrapper and stepped back to the bed, handing it to Abby.

As she reached out to take it, Krista noticed that her hand was shaking.

“Did you want me to brush it for you?” Krista offered, not knowing if the shaking was occurring due to nervous energy about the possibility of seeing her son or the stroke. Abby’s spirits were high, which was amazing, but she knew that Chase’s mom had to be exhausted. She didn’t want her to exert all of her energy doing something that Krista could easily do for her.

Abby nodded furiously. “Do you mind?”

Krista shook her head. “Not at all.”

Moving closer, Krista supported Abby as she leaned forward. The mattress dipped as Krista sat down beside her and began running the brush through Abby’s hair. Memories came flooding back to Krista of when her mom used to brush her and her sisters’ hair every night after their baths. Jessie and Becca, who were the youngest, hadn’t liked it and would sit still only long enough for their mom to get the knots out. Krista, on the other hand, had loved it. She would always ask to go last. Then she and her mom would talk about their days. Sometimes she would even read a story out loud, sitting on the floor in front of her mom while she took her time separating then brushing out Krista’s long red hair.

With four girls in the house, all born within a five-year span, one-on-one time with their mom had been hard to come by. The situation was made even harder due to the fact that their mom Sandy helped raise Krista’s cousins Seth, Riley, Jason, Alex, and Bobby after their own mother had left them when they were young and then passed away when they were in their early adolescence. Krista didn’t remember a lot about her Aunt Cheryl. Only that she had been beautiful and that when she was fun she was
really
fun and when she was sad she was
really
sad. When Krista was a child, her mom had explained her aunt’s behavior by telling the girls that she was sick. As an adult, Krista now knew that Aunt Cheryl had suffered from bipolar disorder. Nowadays, a lot more is known about the disease, but twenty years ago, that was not the case.

“Do you mind putting it in a braid?” Abby’s voice was riddled with nerves.

“Sure. No problem. By the way, I brought Bear to my house. I can keep him until you are back on your feet.” Krista threaded Abby’s dark hair through her fingers, separating it into three parts and began weaving them in an interlocking braid.

“Thank you so much.” Abby’s voice crackled with emotion. “How is he?”

“He’s good and loving all the attention he’s getting from my sisters. He’s eating it up.”

“So did you guys get a chance to catch up?” Abby asked excitedly.

Krista wasn’t sure how you caught up with a dog, but maybe Abby was confused due to damage caused by the stroke. Not wanting to alarm her, she did her best to answer.

“Umm, well I haven’t been home all that much, but he did sleep with me last night. We had good snuggles.”

Abby’s shoulders shook as she laughed. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days? Snuggles?”

Krista meant to play along and not draw attention to the fact that Abby wasn’t making any sense, but when she opened her mouth, she said, “What?”

“I was talking about Chase, not Bear,” Abby explained as her laughter died down.

“Oh.” Okay, that made sense.

“So did you two get to talk? You and Chase?” Abby sounded like a kid asking about a Christmas present.

Hearing Abby’s voice bursting with so much animation in it made Krista’s heart swell. Normally it was flat with more than a little hint of sadness. A part of her wanted to warn Abby not to get her hopes up about Chase sticking around. But she wasn’t going to be an emotional party pooper raining on Abby’s parade. Plus, it just sounded like Abby was excited to
see
her son again, not that she was having any misgivings about him sticking around. Where was the harm in that?

“Not really. I only saw him briefly.” Krista didn’t feel the need to divulge the fact that her brief encounters were because she was too chicken to have a real conversation with him. That he’d tried to talk to her, even wanted to have dinner with Krista, but she’d hightailed it out of the hospital room and Abby’s house last night before he got any deeper under her skin. Not that it had really done any good. Those two face-to-faces had definitely gotten under her skin, penetrating not only her heart, but her mind as well. Chase was in her head and there was nothing she could do about it.

Since she hadn’t been able to sleep—again—she’d gotten up early and put in a little extra time getting ready this morning. She’d blown out her hair and put on mascara, lipstick, even a little eyeliner. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn eyeliner.

Yesterday, when she’d unexpectedly seen Chase not once, but
twice
, she’d been a hot mess. Exhausted. Bags under her eyes, stains on her scrubs, her hair looking like a beehive resided in it. And she’d been paler than a baby’s butt. Last night had been slightly better, but not by much. At least she’d been wearing cute pajamas and her hair had been down. Still, she knew that her under-eye bags had been in full effect and if her skin hadn’t been pale it was only because it had been flushed with lust.

“I was sure when you guys were kids that you’d end up together. That you’d get married, have babies,” Abby said with that ever-familiar sadness beginning to bleed into her voice.

“We were young,” Krista answered. Sure, she’d thought the same thing, but why put any energy into talking about it?

“For years after Chase left, I thought that somehow, someway, you two would find your way back to each other.”

You and me both
, Krista thought to herself.

Abby turned so that she looked directly at Krista, hope radiating from her eyes as she said, “Maybe you will. Maybe this happened to me for a reason and you two will get back together. You belong together.”

Krista had remained silent when Abby had been solely excited about her son’s return and the chance to see him again, but she couldn’t stand by and let a woman who was so emotionally fragile begin to believe in something that had absolutely no chance of coming to fruition.

Continuing to braid the thick, dark hair, Krista casually said, “I think that you may have watched one too many soap operas. Chase and I were over a long time ago. He’s here to see you, Abby.” She added that last bit to try to refocus the woman’s excitement.

“Hi, Mom,” Chase’s deep voice sounded from the doorway, startling Krista and causing her to jump, sending the brush that had been lying on her lap crashing to the floor.

“Chase.” Abby whispered. Krista could feel Chase’s mom shaking beside her.

She stood to get out of the way and make a quick exit so that mom and son could have their long overdue reunion privately. Reaching down to retrieve the brush, Krista froze as a large hand encircled hers when Chase also reached for the brush. Shivers of electricity shimmied up her arm from Chase’s heated touch. When she looked up, her eyes locked on his caramel irises. Suddenly everything else in the world disappeared. All that existed was Chase. His eyes. His touch. His heat.

A small voice that must have been put in charge of her self-preservation, screamed in her head,
Get out now!

After pulling her hand away as fast as if she’d been burned by fire—which, in a way, she had!—she straightened and began walking out the door. She needed to get out of there.

“I’ll let you guys catch up. See you later, Abby. Let me know if you need anything.” The words poured out of her like water flowing down the rapids.

“Krista.” Chase’s raspy voice stopped her at the door.

A few more feet and she’d be safe. Staring straight ahead at her exit, her back towards Chase and his mom, she stood frozen aside from the movement of her peach-colored scrubs which covered her rapidly rising and falling chest as she took in choppy breaths.

Get. It. Together,
she sharply admonished herself.

* * *

Chase knew that Krista’s great escape had less to do with giving him and his mom time and more to do with the fact that when they’d touched it had been so powerful it had almost knocked him on his ass. The second he’d touched her always cold hands, he knew that she’d felt it too. He’d seen it in her eyes.

So he waited to see if Krista was going to make a run for it or turn and face the music. He hadn’t seen her in a lot of years, but if she was anything like the Krista he knew and loved, she would turn around. She wouldn’t be happy about, but she would do it. Krista would not let
anything
get the best of her, especially something she would think she should be in control of—like her reaction to the explosive chemistry between them.

Just as he’d predicted, she slowly turned on her heels. With a very contrived casualness, she arched her brow. “Huh?”

Once again, Chase had gotten her undivided attention, and once again, he had no idea what to do with it. This wasn’t the time or the place to have a real talk, which absolutely needed to happen. So once again, he shot out the first thing that came into his mind.

“You look really pretty today.”

He saw her green-blue eyes soften slightly. “Thank you.” Then they narrowed as a small smile tilted her lips.

“What?” He knew something was going on in that beautiful head of hers, but he had no idea what.

She shrugged as if it were insignificant. “Nothing really. Just maybe next time you give a lady a compliment, you shouldn’t qualify it. I think your game may be a little rusty, rock star.” Leaning around him, she waved at his mom. “I’ll come by and check on you after my shift.”

Chase watched as she turned and left the room. Sure, he had a thousand comebacks he could have said. But in a tactical move, he’d decided to remain quiet and let her go. First, it was good to let her feel like she was in control of what was happening between them. He knew the truth—that she had no more control over it than he did—but he was not about to burst her delusional bubble. Second, she had just unwittingly thrown down the gauntlet to him. It might have been said as a smartass comment but Krista had just said that he was off his game. Chase was more than looking forward to proving her wrong.

“She still likes to keep you on your toes,” his mom’s voice sounded behind him.

Right. His mom. Krista had a way of making him forget that anyone other than the two of them existed.

“Yes. She does,” Chase said as he pivoted back around. Leaning down, he wrapped his arms around his mom’s tiny frame. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Now that you’re home.” His mom held him tight.

Chase waited for any of the anger or resentment he’d bottled up and pushed down over his lifetime to spread through him. He braced himself for it. But instead of any negative feeling bubbling to the surface, Chase just felt…happy. Happy to be here. With his mom. Home.

“It’s good to be back.” Chase rubbed his mom’s back and waited for her to release him from her iron grip.

When she did, he pulled up the chair beside her. Looking at her today, light streaming in through the windows, he saw that, although there may be a few more wrinkles gracing her face, she still looked the same. She’d been seventeen when she’d had him, so she was in her early forties but looked about ten years younger than that. When she had been in her early thirties, she’d looked like she was in her twenties.

He watched as her eyes searched his face as if she were trying to commit every line, every inch, to memory. Tears began to brim as she took in a shaky breath.

“I can’t believe you’re really here.”

He nodded as a lump rose in his throat. He’d missed his mom. All the years he’d stayed away, he’d made himself become numb towards her. It was what he’d had to do when his dad had been alive. There was no way he’d been able to come visit her then. Not that he had even after Roger had passed. It had just become habit.