“You can save the charm, rock star.”
“Krista…” His body moved without permission from his brain. He stepped towards her, reaching out his hand, but she took a step back just as the door opened.
Chase turned his head, looking over his shoulder to see a brunette nurse coming in through the doorway, backlit by the bright fluorescent lighting in the hallway.
“Oh, good. You’re up. I was just making sure.”
The young nurse smiled sweetly at Krista. Her eyes traveled up to his as she turned to leave, but then she didn’t just do a double take, but a triple take. Chase saw the moment that she recognized him. It was something he was used to by now. Sometimes he even counted it down in his head. Five, four, three, two, and there it is… They know.
Luckily, this nurse did not make a big deal about it and was actually already headed back out the door when Krista stopped her by making introductions.
“Jamie, this is Abby’s son.” Then, turning to Chase, Krista said, “This is Alex’s wife Jamie.”
A smile instantly spread across Chase’s face. Alex Sloan had been the closest thing Chase had ever had to a best friend. Chase reached out his hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, Jamie. I’m Chase.”
She shook his hand as she tilted her head with a knowing expression. “Yeah, I knew that.”
Chase had only just met this girl, but he liked her. Over the years, after meeting thousands of people, Chase considered himself a fairly good judge of character. Not only was this girl beautiful, but she didn’t play games. Alex was a lucky man, and he was happy that his friend had found someone like Jamie.
Releasing her hand, Chase realized he had already been here for a few minutes but had been so sidetracked by seeing Krista, he hadn’t even asked how his mom was doing. He’d merely glanced in her direction when he’d first entered the room.
“How is she?” Chase asked quietly, turning to look at his mom.
As he took his first real look at her, he immediately noted that she looked frail, fragile. His mom had always had a slender frame. Whenever she had been under the weather or ‘not feeling well’—usually at the hand of his father—her fair skin and dark hair had always magnified her pale appearance. This time was no different.
“She is doing much better. She woke up around five thirty and was asking for pudding. Let me go check and see if I can grab a doctor to give you an update.” Jamie opened the door but then pivoted back and lifted her hand in a wave. “It was nice meeting you, Chase.”
“You too. Tell Alex I’d love to grab a beer with him while I’m in town.”
“I will.” With that, Jamie was out the door, closing it quietly behind her. Chase turned back to Krista.
When he did, she asked in complete monotone, “How long are you planning on being in town?”
It might very well have been over a decade since he’d laid eyes on Krista, but Chase knew her. He knew her tells. He knew her tricks. He knew when she was trying to hide the way she really felt, and he knew when she was being totally honest and raw.
Right now, she was trying desperately to camouflage her reaction to him. His first instinct was to call her on it. That was what they did. They called each other on their bullshit. But things were different now. They weren’t an ‘us.’ They were just Krista and Chase. Separate people leading separate lives.
“I don’t know. I haven’t really made any plans yet. After I got your messages last night, I drove straight here.”
Krista’s left eyebrow rose in challenge. “You drove straight here.”
Okay, so maybe they did still call each other out after all. “Chip drove the bus here,” Chase clarified, and he saw Krista’s lips tug at the corners of her mouth.
She’d always loved to be right. It was probably her favorite thing, next to winning.
“So you did get my messages? Good to know.” Krista pursed her lips as she began to move around him.
On instinct, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around her delicate wrist. The moment his skin touched hers, heat unlike he’d felt in years spread through his body. He’d had every intention of speaking before his hand had made contact with her, but now he was having a hard time remembering his name.
He froze, overwhelmed by the sensations crashing over him like waves. His breathing became choppy as his eyes lifted to meet hers. He saw it there in her green-blue eyes—she felt it too. Her eyes widened and the dark circles of her pupils grew larger.
“Damn,” he whispered reverently.
That’s how it had always been between him and Krista. Their insane chemistry had been combustible. As a teen, it had scared the crap out of Chase. He’d wanted her so bad it had felt like he would die without her. Now, as an adult, he knew that he could survive without her touch, without her smile, without her laugh, but it wasn’t really living.
Loud voices from the hall burst the bubble that had formed around them and Krista pulled out of his grasp. Tucking a stray strand of her golden-red hair behind her ear, she said in a raspy tone, “I have to get back to work.”
She moved with lightning-fast quickness to the door.
“Krista.” His voice was thick with raw emotion as he spoke her name.
Pausing as her hand still held the doorknob, she stood perfectly still, her back facing him.
He knew he had a matter of seconds before she was out that door. He needed to say something, anything. For years, he’d thought about what he would say to Krista when he saw her again. He’d thought of a thousand different poetic things he could tell her. Asking her if she was okay and telling her that she looked tired had not ever been in the running as possibilities.
Now that they were actually in the same room, none of the things he’d wanted to tell her were in his mind. He opened his mouth and, as it was apparently becoming a habit, spoke before he knew what he was going to say.
“It was good seeing you again.”
He saw her shoulders pull and her back straighten as her body stiffened. Without saying a word, she opened the door, and just like that, she was gone. After several moments of staring at the space she’d just occupied, Chase moved to sit in the chair beside his mom’s bed. The material squeaked as he sat.
Last night, he hadn’t slept at all on the drive to Illinois. He’d tried, but there was just too much running through his mind. A lot of the things he’d feared-slash-expected to feel coming back here, he actually wasn’t feeling. In fact, the moment he’d stepped off the bus in the hospital parking lot, he’d felt an odd sense of peace. Like this was exactly where he was supposed to be. Home.
Chapter Four
Pull yourself together.
Krista’s jaw tightened as she watched her trembling hand press the clear button on the elevator panel with the number two on it. She couldn’t believe that what had just happened had really happened. Krista knew that she must have continued breathing while she’d been in the small hospital room with Chase, but she honestly could not remember taking a single breath of air while she had been in his presence in the confined space. Her chest was tight and achy. Even now, she was having a difficult time moving oxygen down into her lungs.
Over the years, whenever she’d thought about seeing Chase again, she’d imagined three distinct scenarios. She would either A. give him a piece of her mind, B. totally ignore him, or C. congratulate him on his success, wish him the best, and then casually catch up as though he hadn’t ripped her heart out and stomped on it.
Even though the past few minutes were a blur, she really did not believe that she’d managed to pull off any of her three pre-planned responses. When she’d seen him, she’d been so floored by the fact that his sex appeal had been magnified by about a thousand percent. And that was saying something because he’d always been sexy.
Even in elementary school, Krista had gotten butterflies whenever she’d seen him in the hallways. When he’d performed in the musical Grease with her sister Haley, Krista had gone to every rehearsal after school and sat in the fr
ont row. If she closed her eyes, she could still see him up on that stage with his black leather jacket. She had only been a third grader at the time, but Krista had fallen in love somewhere during those months of rehearsals.
Krista felt a buzzing on her hip. Checking her pager, she saw that her next patient was waiting for her. Okay, she had to clear her mind and focus on work. She could not allow the fact that Chase Malone was in the building to throw her off her game.
Work. That was what she needed to focus on. Not the fact that Chase was filling out the black t-shirt in all the right places. Or the fact that, when their had eyes met, it was as if the energy between them had defied space and time, feeling like no time at all had passed since they’d seen each other last. And she definitely did not need to be focusing on the fact that the moment Chase had touched her, her body had filled with a volcano-like eruption of sensation—tingles, desire, need—all flowing through her in a heated rush.
Chase had always had that effect on Krista. Her body had always responded to his like he was electrically charged. The heat they’d shared was more than just attraction. It couldn’t be explained by pheromones. It was different. Deeper. Krista had never been able to put it into words or explain it. It was soulful. Visceral. Primal.
When she was younger, she’d loved it. It had been hot. But what she hadn’t fully understood then was that when you played with fire, nine times out of ten, you got burned, and those scars did not heal easily. That was a lesson she’d learned only after Chase had left. After it was too late—after she’d been burned.
The elevator doors opened and Krista moved across the hallway. She scanned her employee ID and the double doors leading to the wing she worked in opened.
“Krista.”
She heard her name from behind her and turned to see Chelle, who was married to her cousin Riley, rushing down the hall. Her pretty brown eyes were wide with concern as she said, “I just heard. How are you?”
Chelle was a labor and delivery nurse here at the hospital, and unlike her other cousin-in-law Jamie, Chelle had grown up in Harper’s Crossing and knew Chase and Krista’s past.
“Word sure spreads fast.” Krista figured that by the end of the day the entire hospital would be buzzing about the fact that Chase Malone was here. She just hadn’t thought it would happen less than ten minutes after she’d left him.
“Yeah, well, a few nurses saw him in with Abby and went all groupie-slash-fangirl on him. Jamie had to threaten to call security if they didn’t leave Abby’s room.”
Any energy Krista had drained completely from her body. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that now that Chase was here she would have to see his love life in 3D. It wouldn’t be on impersonal television screens or a flat piece of paper. It would be playing out live in Technicolor.
Chelle reached out and touched Krista’s arm. “Do you need to sit down?”
Her legs did feel like all the muscles in them had unionized and collectively decided to stop supporting her body, but she feared that if she sat down she might not be able to get back up.
“No, I have a patient waiting.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Chelle started walking with Krista towards the PT room. “I didn’t want to keep you. I just thought I should come over and see how you were.”
Krista looked at Chelle and shook her head slowly. “I honestly don’t know how I am.”
Chelle’s lips pursed, and she threw her arms around Krista and hugged her tight. “I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” Krista nodded against her shoulder.
Pulling back, Chelle squeezed Krista’s forearms before heading back down the hall.
Taking a deep breath, Krista pushed open the door and saw that her patient was already lying on the traction bed. “Good morning, Mr. Yates.”
“It’s good now, beautiful,” he said happily as he winked at her.
“You’re such a flirt,” Krista smiled, shaking her head as she moved across the room to the sink.
Mr. Yates wagged his bushy brows and his wrinkled face turned up into a smile.
“Have you been doing the exercises I showed you?” she asked as she turned the hot water knob to the left.
“Yep. I sure have.”
Krista would believe that after she saw what his range of mobility was. Mr. Yates was a retired car salesman, and she’d quickly found out that he liked to tell people what they wanted to hear with little regard for the actual truth.
After scrubbing her hands, she reached for the paper towel dispenser and caught her reflection in the mirror. She gasped at what she saw staring back at her. Not only was her hair haphazardly placed in a loose bun on top of her head with stray hairs flying every which way, but she had dark circles under her eyes, and since she wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, there was nothing to conceal them. Her skin was pale and her lips looked chapped.
Oh. My. God.
This was what she’d looked like the first time she’d seen Chase in ten years?! No wonder he’d asked if she was okay and said that she looked tired. Sure, it had pissed her off at the time because everyone knew that it was just a nice way of saying that you looked like crap but now—now—she wasn’t mad at him at all.
Embarrassed? Yes. Mad? No.
“Everything all right over there?” Mr. Yates’s voice cut through her inner panic.
“Yep,” she said as she pulled her hair out of the bun and wrapped it in a tidier ponytail. At least her hair looked somewhat presentable.
Running her hands down the sides of her scrubs, she closed her eyes for a brief moment attempting to rein in all of the emotions zipping around inside of her like a game of pinball.
She could have her much-deserved nervous breakdown when she was off the clock. Right now, she needed to focus on work, not on Chase—or the fact that she had looked like a zombie for their reunion. Anyways, she was seeing someone, and if Us Weekly was correct, so was Chase, so it didn’t matter what he’d seen her looking like. Yeah, she believed that as much as she believed Mr. Yates had actually done his prescribed exercises.
This was turning out to be a very long day.
* * *
“So as far as her recovery goes, what are we looking at?” Chase asked Dr. Corbin, who he remembered from when he’d been in the hospital when his appendix had burst at the age of fifteen. Dr. Corbin had been a good doctor then and someone Chase felt comfortable with overseeing his mom’s care now.
“It really depends. Every patient is different. Things are looking good, but your mom will, in all likelihood, need physical therapy a few times a week even after she is released from the hospital, depending on her mobility. We should know more in a few days.”
Chase nodded. He knew that Krista was a physical therapist here at the hospital. Not only had his mom told him in voicemail messages, but he had a fake Facebook account he’d friend requested her on and she’d accepted. He did feel a little creepy about it, but he couldn’t have an account in his real name. And he got to keep up on what was going on in her life. Plus, it wasn’t like anyone had forced her to accept the friend request from Donald Smith (his FB alias). She’d done that all on her own. Still, he had to admit that his actions had landed him smack dab in the middle of stalker territory.
“It’s a good thing that Krista found her when she did. The longer a patient is unconscious, the less chance there is for a full recovery.” Dr. Corbin set down his mom’s chart and turned towards the door.
“Wait. Krista found her?” Chase asked. He thought about what Krista’s message had said. “Your mom is headed to the hospital. I am going to take care of Bear and then be right behind her.” He guessed he should have figured that out from the message, but he hadn’t put two and two together.
“Yes, she did. She is quite a young lady, that Krista Sloan,” Dr. Corbin said in a fatherly tone that reminded Chase of the dad on My Three Sons.
When Chase was growing up, his mom had loved that show, and whenever reruns had come on, she’d wat
ch them and laugh. He remembered it so well because laughter in the Malone house was a rarity.
Chase nodded in agreement with Dr. Corbin’s assessment. “Yes she is.”
As the doctor made his way out of the room, Tully rushed in. Chase knew what Tully was going to say before he even had a chance to get the words out.
“We have a situation,” Tully said, his voice strained.
“People know I’m here,” Chase sighed.
Tully nodded.
“How many?” Chase knew that this was the price of fame. He hated it when other stars whined about things like privacy. But at times like these, it was difficult not to feel a little frustrated.
“A few hundred. The hospital is keeping them out, but they are gathered around the main and emergency room entrances. Chip pulled the bus around to the doctor’s parking lot, which you can’t enter without an ID card, but I don’t know how much time that will buy us.”
Chase had wanted to stay until his mom woke up, but Dr. Corbin had just assured him that it could be hours before that happened. He should probably head out of here before he caused more of a commotion.
“Let’s go,” he said, tilting his head towards the door. As he stood to leave, he paused at his mom’s bedside. Leaning down, he quietly spoke to her, “I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow.”
He didn’t know if he was just imagining it, but he swore he saw her eyelids flutter at his words.
As they stepped out into the hall, Tully said, “I’ve already been in contact with hospital administration. They’ve apologized profusely for the behavior of the two nurses earlier and said that they should have a system in place to assure not only your privacy but your mother’s as well by tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Chase followed Tully to what looked to be a service elevator.
They moved inside and Tully reached up and tugged on the leather strap, pulling down the door. “I knew I should have contacted them last night. If I had, then the incident with those nurses would never have happened.”
Crazy Love - Krista & Chase Page 4