Crazy Love - Krista & Chase (21 page)

“Good boy!” Chase praised Bear, who happily followed him out into the darkened space.

He flipped on the light and was tempted ask the dog where the WD-40 was, but he thought that might be pushing his luck. Thankfully, he spied it on the corner of the shelving unit that sat against the far wall. Grabbing the can and a rag that was folded beside it, he headed back in the house, Bear following at his heels.

After wiping the residue that had built up in both the top and bottom tracks, Chase positioned the small yellow tube and sprayed several times along both then tried the door again. This time it opened and shut with ease.

“Success,” he said to Bear, who had sat faithfully beside of him and witnessed the entire thing.

Then, just for good measure, he opened and shut it again. For some reason, Chase got an overinflated sense of pride welling in his chest for his accomplishment. He’d been feeling it a lot lately. The first time was after he’d cleaned his mom’s house on the night he’d arrived back in Harper’s Crossing. Then, over the past few days, he’d started making simple repairs around the house—fixing a broken light fixture, putting new batteries in the smoke alarms, cleaning out the garage. Each time he’d completed one of these tasks, that now familiar feeling had come over him.

“Oh my gosh!” Krista’s voice was full of awe as she spoke.

When he turned, the expression on her face looked like she’d just witnessed a miracle.

“It’s fixed,” he said, wanting to puff out his chest and pound on it like a caveman. He knew that he was being ridiculous, but damn it felt good to be useful…and needed.

Placing the large pizza box down on the table without taking her eyes off the now easily sliding door, she stepped up, wrapped her delicate fingers around the silver handle, and slid it open and shut several times. Her face was full of joy like a kid with a brand-new toy. “Thank you!” she exclaimed as she turned and threw her arms around him.

Chase instinctively wrapped his around her small frame and held in a groan at how good her soft curves felt against his body. Everything about this felt right. Being home, having Krista in his arms, doing random handyman tasks for her.

Chase could feel the moment that Krista’s energy shifted from gratitude to sensual awareness. Her breathing became heavy and he heard an audible swallow. He continued rubbing his hands up and down her back, feeling the ridges of her tank top beneath his touch.

One moment she was in his arms, melting closer to him with each passing second, and the next she was gone. Standing a few feet away from him, she blew out a breath as she shook out her hands. He smiled at her attempt to “shake off” the arousal he knew was coursing through her veins the same as his. She was so damn cute.

Knowing that the best thing to do would be to help divert her attention away from their powerful chemistry, he asked, “What are you listening to?” as he motioned to the earphone dangling in front of her perfect breasts.

“Nothing.” She furrowed her brow and pulled her iPod out of her pocket before tapping on the front screen.

He was almost certain he’d heard “Saving Me” playing from the tiny speaker as he’d held her tight in his arms just a moment ago. Before she knew what was happening, he grabbed the tiny electronic device from her hand, unplugged the earphones, and pressed play.

Just as he’d suspected, his voice filled the room. He’d always hoped that his music had found her. When he sang, he sang for her. Over the years they’d been apart, he’d always believed that the music he sang was a tie that still connected their souls. Sure, she could have just downloaded it since his return last week, but somehow he doubted it.

“It’s on shuffle,” she said flatly as she snatched the iPod out of his hand.

He stared at her, clearly conveying that he wasn’t buying what she was selling by lifting his brow in question.

Right. “So if I scrolled through it, there wouldn’t, oh I don’t know, be a playlist with my songs on them?” he asked faux innocently.

A spark lit her eye as she shoved the device back in her pocket. Then she slyly smiled as she shrugged her shoulders. “Guess you’ll never know.”

“You think putting it in there”—he nodded towards her sweats, goading her purposefully—“is going to stop me from getting it? I’ve never had a problem getting in your pants, beautiful.”

Her eyes widened slightly before a small smile appeared on her lips, and she tilted her head, saying with a sassy tone, “You may not find it as easy now as you once did.”

“Is that a challenge?” If that was the case, he was more than up for it. Literally.

Before she had a chance to answer, Bear began barking excitedly as the front door opened. Sounds of female voices filled the space. He recognized the voices. They were Jessie’s and Becca’s.

Jessie called out loudly, “Whose bike is that?”

“Mine,” Chase answered as the two girls walked through the doorway that led to the kitchen.

“Oh.” Jessie and Becca froze in place, their eyes bouncing between him and Krista.

“You rode your bike here?” Krista asked as if the idea were totally insane.

Chase nodded. He hadn’t wanted to bug Chip on his day off. His mom’s car hadn’t started, which was now another thing on his list to fix while he was here, so he’d hopped on his bike and ridden over.

Krista was still staring at him like he’d grown two heads when Becca sighed and put her hands over her heart. “Aww, it’s just like old times.”

“Look, there’s even pizza,” Jessie added and opened the box. “It
is
like old times.”

All the girls grabbed slices, and Krista handed one to him. He gladly took it. Of course he would prefer pizza night to be just the two of them, but it did kind of feel like old times with Becca and Jessie here…and that wasn’t such a bad thing.

“I
told you, Mom. It wasn’t like that. Jessie
and
Becca were there. We
all
ate pizza and watched a movie. It wasn’t a date.”

The first question his mom had asked when he’d walked in this morning was if Chase had met Bear. He should have just said, “Yes,” and left it at that. Instead, he’d mistakenly told her that he’d not only met Bear but hung out with him for a while. That admission had led to not-so-subtle hopeful questions of “Why?” and “What were you doing there?”

“Dinner and a movie sounds like a date to me,” Chase’s mom stated, not allowing the hope bubble she remained happily floating in to be burst with silly things like semantics.

He shook his head as he let out a sigh. As much as Chase truly believed that he and Krista were making small steps towards…something, he still wasn’t clear what that something was. She had unquestionably seemed more relaxed around him over the weekend—Saturday night when they’d been dancing and then yesterday with her sisters. But there was still something holding her back from him. Her guard was still up.

Chase hadn’t expected Krista to run to him, fall into his arms, and declare her undying love for him. Sure, he’d hoped it, but he hadn’t really expected it. Still, he had been home for five days and they hadn’t had a real conversation.

He still felt like the connection was there. Physically, there was so much heat between the two of them he was surprised they didn’t set off fire alarms. They had fallen back into their same combative-slash-flirtatious banter. There was a shorthand between them that he’d now lived long enough to know didn’t just happen. The kind of bond they shared was because of not only their history, but also the fact that even after all of the years they’d been apart, they still
knew
each other.

“I wish I could have spent more time with her when you two were kids. Seen you together more.” Sadness laced his mom’s tone.

Chase felt his defenses immediately erect. “I didn’t like to bring her around.”

Feeling his jaw tense, he looked down, not wanting his mom to see his expression. So far, he and his mom had been doing great. A large part of that, Chase was sure, was due to the fact that they hadn’t discussed a certain subject. His dad.

Chase felt his mom’s slim-boned hand cover his own. He looked up and saw tears forming in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice was strained, and it sounded like she was speaking over a great lump.

“It’s fine,” Chase assured her.

Nothing she could say would change the past, and she needed to conserve her strength. There was no reason for her to expend even one ounce of energy on Chase’s asshole of a father.

“No it’s not.” She shook her head emphatically. “It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have let—”

Chase could hear the raw emotion in his mom’s voice. “Mom, don’t. It’s okay.”

She sat up straighter, her long, dark hair falling around her shoulders. After she took a deep breath, her voice cracked as she continued. “I’m so sorry. I should have—”

“Okay, beautiful. Your ride is here,” Vickey interrupted as she backed through the door with a wheelchair.

Part of Chase was relieved for the interruption. His mom was getting worked up, and that couldn’t be good for her recovery. But a small part, a part that was buried deep in his soul, wanted to hear what she had to say. As a child, he’d just accepted his home environment, not knowing any better. Once he’d begun going over to friends’ houses and seen that not all dads were like his, he hadn’t understood why his mom had stayed. Why she’d subjected herself and her son to that man.

“Are you comin’ with?” Vickey asked him as his mom settled into the wheelchair.

“Aren’t you taking her for tests?” Chase asked.

Several times nurses had come and taken his mom down for tests, and every time, they’d said he could stay there and wait. He had been fine with that. The less he was out and about, the less chance of any incidents. So far, using the back entrance and having the private room right off the service elevator had kept the paparazzi at bay. But if he wasn’t mistaken, he’d spotted a few when Chip had picked him up this morning to come to the hospital.

“Nope. We are headed to PT with the hospital’s best physical therapist.” Vickey winked at him as she pushed his mom, who was smiling from ear to ear, out through the doorway.

Chase was up and out of the chair before they’d even made it out of the room.

* * *

“Mr. Yates, you
have
to do the stretches I showed you. Every. Day.” Krista knew that she was wasting her breath, but she also knew that if she didn’t remind him
firmly
, then there wasn’t even the tiniest sliver of hope that he would start to follow her directions.

“Oh now, don’t you worry your pretty little head.” Mr. Yates wagged his bushy brows as he sat upright on the traction table. “I’m doing just fine.”

“You could be doing a lot better,” Krista pointed out as she typed notes into his file.

His mobility was still extremely limited and he had started complaining of numbness in his right leg. His circulatory system needed some help, and the exercises she’d shown him would give him that help.

“So I hear that sister of yours is marrying the Thomas boy,” Mr. Yates said as she handed him his shoes.

It was funny to hear Eddie referred to as a boy. He was six two and all muscle. “Yep. She sure is.”

Krista was happy for Haley. After Haley had spent years pining away for the reformed wild-boy Eddie Thomas and helping care for Emily, his daughter who he had sole custody of (which had even included babysitting Em while Eddie had gone out on dates!), he’d finally removed his head from his ass and realized that he hadn’t seen what was right in front of him. Haley.

When he’d proposed a couple of weeks ago, he’d invited their entire family to the occasion. Which was a lot, considering that all of her cousins were now married and a couple of them had kids. The Sloan clan had always rolled deep, but over the last couple of years, they’d almost doubled in size. It had been a ridiculously romantic proposal, and Krista had even caught her show-no-emotion sister Jessie tearing up.

“I wasn’t so sure about that boy for a minute there, but he sure has done a great job with that little girl. Emily is smart as a whip,” Mr. Yates observed as he slowly stepped down from the table and Krista handed him his cane.