Damn, he didn’t want to think about leaving Krista. They had just found each other again. Sure, they’d been having a great time, but Chase had no idea what that meant or if his leaving again so soon might jeopardize that.
Bear barked loudly as a cat ran by, pulling Chase out of his inner reflections. Chase tugged once on his leash to correct him. He and Krista had been watching episodes of a show called The Dog Whisperer all week. Bear was a great dog, but he did need some work on barking and also his aggression towards cats. Luckily, he was great with people and other dogs, so when Alex mentioned that the firehouse dog, Hydrant, was going to be riding along, Chase had asked if it would be okay if Bear did as well. He hated the thought of leaving him alone for that long.
Speaking of leaving Bear, Chase realized that his mom would be coming home the day after tomorrow, so Krista would only have to keep Bear one night.
Shit. Chase had been so worried about leaving Krista that he hadn’t even thought about the fact that his mom was getting out of the hospital and he wouldn’t be here.
There was a huge part of him that just wanted to say screw it, stay in Harper’s Crossing, and default on the contract. He had enough money to last him, and the family he hoped he’d have with Krista, for several lifetimes. But that wasn’t really the point.
Chase realized that a lot of his success was due to sheer luck. There were musicians far more talented than he was who had never hit it big. But his longevity, he believed, was not just his talent or luck, but also his—and his band’s—work ethic. In all the years they’d played together, they’d never once canceled a show. He took his commitments very seriously. He prided himself on being a man of his word. When he was growing up, he remembered The Colonel always saying that all a man had was his word and his handshake. That had stuck with Chase.
Obviously, he didn’t want to be like his own father. He didn’t have any uncles or even great coaches to look up to. So the men he had looked up to were Krista’s dad and The Colonel.
He didn’t think that either of them would back out on a contract, even though technically he hadn’t even been the one to sign it. They would man up, go do their jobs, and not whine about it.
Which was exactly what he planned on doing. He just needed to talk to Krista first.
* * *
“Mmmm,” Krista moaned. “This is sooo good.” Her lips wrapped around the straw as she sucked the cold lemonade into her mouth. Lemonade on a hot day had an almost orgasmic effect on her.
Not that she was having a shortage of those lately. Chase knew exactly what buttons to push in and out of the bedroom (and the kitchen, bathroom, hallway, living room, car, and any other place they got freaky). This past week had been a marathon of lovemaking. Krista was exhausted. Not like she had been the week before. The root of that exhaustion had been no sleep, stress, and panic. The only thing the two exhaustions had in common was the no sleep.
Looking up, Krista felt her heart warm as she saw her mom walking towards the HCWS booth she was currently manning.
“Hey, sweetie. Did you get to say goodbye to your sister this morning?”
“Yeah, I did.” Krista smiled as she stood and her mom wrapped her arms around her, pulling her into a hug that radiated with love.
Sandra Sue Sloan was a saint in Krista’s eyes. Not only because she’d been such an amazing mom to her own four girls and also stepped in and helped raised Krista’s cousins, but also because she was the kindest, sweetest, most selfless person on the planet without being a pushover.
She never complained about anything and would do anything for anyone, but normally when Krista observed those qualities in people, they were also doormats who let everyone walk all over them. That was not the case with Krista’s mom. All you had to do was ask her dad, Pete. He would tell you that she didn’t let him get away with anything, and he loved it.
Her parents’ marriage was what Krista had dreamed she would have someday. They loved each other unconditionally. Truly saw and accepted who the other was. Challenged each other in the best possible way and were best friends.
A few years ago, Krista had asked her dad what he thought the secret was to his and her mom’s successful marriage. He’d smiled and said, “There’s no secret, honey. It takes work, love, and respect.” Krista remembered being surprised that her dad had taken her question seriously. Then he’d added while wagging his eyebrows, “And it doesn’t hurt that she has such a cute rear end.” Krista had swatted her dad on the arm and said something like, “T. M. I.,” or “Gross, Dad!”
Honestly though, Krista didn’t think the fact that her parents couldn’t keep their hands off each other was gross at all. They’d been married for over thirty years, and the fact that they were still wildly attracted to one another was, in her book, ah-may-zing.
“Mmm, is that lemonade?” Krista’s mom asked while fanning herself with an HCWS flyer.
“Yep. You want some?” Krista lifted the cup.
The day had started out a breezy eighty degrees or so, but in the last hour, the clouds in the bright blue sky had parted and the temperature had risen by at least ten degrees.
“Yes, thank you.” Her mom reached for the cup and took a tiny sip.
Krista shook her head. “Mom, you can have more than that.”
Waving her hand dismissively, she said, “No, that’s fine. If I want more, I can get my own. I just needed a little something,” she said as she motioned to her throat. “Jessie said she took a job in the city.”
Krista could hear the excitement in her mom’s voice. “Yeah. Haley wanted to go out to dinner with everybody to celebrate, but Jessie quickly shot that down.”
“I know. I suggested the same thing,” Sandy sighed, but she was still smiling from ear to ear. “So I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time with Chase.”
Krista laughed at her mom’s abrupt change in subject. “Wow. That wasn’t even kind of a subtle transition.”
Her mom shrugged with an unapologetic look on her face, “I wasn’t shooting for subtle.”
Krista had actually been wanting some time to talk to her mom about all things Chase related. She just wasn’t sure that a crowded fair, where anyone could overhear them, was really the most conducive place to have that happen. The women’s shelter informational booth she was standing behind did not have people loitering around it, but the booths on both sides of her did.
To her left sat the booth for Oasis Day Spa, which all the girls had spent the day at before the engagement party. They were giving out free facials, manicures, and massages. On the right was the Kick It Karate’s booth. They were doing free demonstrations of classes.
The street was packed with people. Every year after the parade ended, the crowd would move to the fair portion of the event. This was the first year since Krista was a child that the festival had been held on Riverwalk East. This part of the city had been in disrepair for years until an investor named Mr. Jones had bought the entire block and done significant restorations to it. Now, it was well on its way to gentrification. Her sister Haley’s lingerie shop Tempting had been one of the first shops to move into the newly restored brick buildings that lined the street.
“How are you two doing?” Krista’s mom asked pointedly, in a tone that clearly communicated that Krista had taken too long to answer her mother.
“Good.” Krista couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face.
“I’m glad, sweetie pie.” Her mom wrapped her in her arms once again in a brief hug. “I’m happy for you two.”
Krista appreciated the support, but she didn’t want her mom to get the wrong idea. “We’ve just been hanging out, Mom. That’s all.” Krista hadn’t meant to sound so defensive. Her mom had just been expressing her happiness over the situation. It was just that she and Chase hadn’t really had “the talk” to define or label what was going on between them.
Her mom ignored Krista’s snippy tone and continued smiling like the Cheshire cat. “I know.”
Just as she was about to clarify the situation and make sure her mom really did know, ear-splitting shrieks rang out a couple of booths down from them. Both Krista and her mom turned to see several young girls losing their shit. They were crying, then screaming, and then crying some more.
Krista lifted up on her toes to see what was causing these three girls’ major malfunctions. Of course. She should have known. All roads led back to Chase.
“Speak of the devil,” Krista’s mom said as Chase gracefully extracted himself from the teeny-bopper meltdown and quickly made his way over to the booth.
“Hi, Mrs. Sloan. It’s good to see you again,” Chase said with genuine affection as he leaned down and hugged Krista’s mom. He’d spent a lot of time at Haley and Eddie’s engagement party catching up with her parents.
“You too, honey. How’s your mom?” Sandy asked as she patted him on the back.
Chase grinned as he straightened. “Stronger than I’ve ever seen her in my life. She’s getting released Monday.”
“That’s great news,” Krista’s mom said. Then, looking between Chase and Krista, she announced, “Well, I better go see if I can find my husband. His cholesterol is in grave danger with all these food stands filled with fried this and that. You know that man has no self-control.” Sandy winked as she walked away.
Krista waved. “Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, Mrs. Sloan,” Chase said then turned his attention to Krista. “Hi, beautiful.”
Every time. Every freakin’ time he said those two words to her, her body tingled with awareness and she had to actively stop herself from swooning. One would think that the magical effect would fizzle out, fade, or diminish at the very least. Nope. Not the case.
“Hi,” Krista managed to respond through her massive tingle-slash-swoon episode.
“How much longer do you have to be here?” he asked, his eyes filled with all kinds of promises of what was in store for her when she was finished with her booth duties.
At his gaze, the tingles that were spreading throughout her body rushed to the apex of her thighs. On the way there, they’d somehow got supercharged into an aching pulse.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Krista said under her breath. The last thing she needed was for Chase to get her all hot and bothered (or more hot and bothered) while she was working the booth for the women’s shelter.
“Looking at you like what?” His caramel-colored eyes widened as if he sincerely had no idea what he was doing.
Against her will, Krista’s lips turned up in amusement. She couldn’t help it. He was so adorably sexy that she couldn’t not smile. And he knew it, which was supremely irritating. Luckily, that irritation enabled her to snap out of the lust spell his sexy superpowers had cast on her. When that happened, she noticed that he was rolling on the solo tip.
“Where’s Bear?”
Krista had almost cried when she’d seen both Bear and Chase on the float with her cousin Alex and the other HC firefighters. The first thought that had crossed her mind was, Awww, look at my boys. Then she’d quickly reminded herself that they weren’t her boys. She was helping Abby out with Bear while she was in the hospital and Chase and she were…well… He wasn’t hers. Not officially anyway.
“It was too hot to have him walking around out here. When we got off the float, I took him home and made sure he had plenty of water. I heard him snoring before I even made it out the front door.” The corners of Chase’s mouth twitched up as he relayed the last sentence, drawing Krista’s attention to his perfect mouth. The mouth that had spent a lot of time exploring every inch of her body. Her already primed body flared with desire at the thought of his lips on her neck, her breasts, her…
“Hey, Miss Double Standard, if I can’t look at you like that, then you can’t look at me like that.”
Her eyes darted up to his. He looked pretty proud of himself for being able to use her own words against her. It wasn’t often that she left herself open for that kind of thing.
“Fine. Then you need to move along so I can do my job.” The chances of her keeping her looks and her thoughts PG while Chase was in her presence were slimmer than her winning the lottery, which she didn’t even play.
“When are you done here?”
“I have a break in an hour, but it’s only for thirty minutes. Marla twisted her ankle this morning during the parade so I told Betty I’d cover her shift.”
“You want to take a walk down by the river on your break?”
The tone in Chase’s voice made Krista feel a little uneasy. He sounded serious. Too serious.
Before she could ask what was wrong, a woman approached the booth asking about information to volunteer. Krista nodded her head in agreement, telling him that she would meet him by the bridge in an hour as he stepped away from the booth.
She watched him leave as she answered the woman’s questions and tried desperately to silence the alarm bells that were going off in her head. It was probably nothing. She hoped.
Chapter Twenty
Those annoying alarm bells were ringing louder and louder in her head as she walked through the crowds of people on her way to meet Chase. She knew that, no matter how many times she told herself that she was making too much out of this and that everything was fine, she wouldn’t actually feel better until she talked to Chase. Not because she truly believed that everything was actually fine, but because she knew in her heart of hearts something was up and at least after she spoke to Chase she would know what she was dealing with.
A lot of times, it felt like their souls were tuned into a radio frequency that no one else could hear. Sometimes, that was amazing. Sometimes, not so much. This was one of those not-so-much times. Any other guy she’d dated could have said the same thing to Krista, the exact same way Chase had, and she wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Even though if someone asked her why, she would be hard-pressed to explain how she knew that everything was not copasetic. But that didn’t change the fact that she knew that it wasn’t.
Finally, after being stopped what felt like several hundred times by friends and family, she made it past the swarms of people. She was just about to turn the corner to the bridge when a deep male voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Long time no see, stranger.”
Turning around slowly, she saw Chris standing in front of her. He reached down and pulled her into his arms. Feeling awkward but not knowing what else to do, she went up on her tiptoes and hugged him back.
“Hey,” she greeted him lamely.
He held her longer and tighter than would be appropriate for a friendly hug, which she could understand since up until ten days ago, they’d been seeing each other on a pretty regular basis.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” he said.
“I’ve been busy,” she said as she removed her arms from around his neck and lowered her feet down on the ground.
“Yeah. I know,” Chris said with a little sadness hinting in his voice. “I saw you at Eddie and Haley’s party with Chase.”
Krista just nodded. She liked Chris and didn’t want to lead him on, but she also didn’t really want to discuss her and Chase, mainly because she had no idea what to say.
“Are you guys back together?”
“No,” she automatically replied then immediately took it back. “I mean…I don’t know. We’re hanging out.”
Chris looked down at her with a pained look in his eyes. “Like we were hanging out?”
Krista was at a loss. The truth was that, as much as she liked Chris, she knew there would never be a future for them. A small twinge of guilt grabbed in her chest, but she quickly reminded herself that she and Chris were not a couple. They really had just been hanging out. Sure, she had only been seeing him for that time, but they’d never had a talk about things being monogamous. For all she knew, he’d gone home with a different bar bunny every week.
“Look, I really like you, Krista. A lot. And I’ve missed you. I know you have some stuff to work
out with Chase, but when he leaves, I’ll be here. We are good together.” Then he leaned down and kissed her.
She wasn’t sure if the kiss was his way of trying to illustrate his point, but if that was the case, it was a poor illustration. Perhaps sensing her resistance, he slowly pulled away. As she looked up into his eyes, she wanted to tell him that he was a great guy, good-looking, funny, smart, and any girl would be lucky to have him. She kept her mouth shut though, because after growing up around her five cousins, she knew enough about the opposite sex to know that it would not make him feel any better.
After several moments, without saying another word, Chris turned and walked away.
Well, that wasn’t so bad. It could have gone worse.
“Krista,” Chase’s voice sounded behind her.
Oops. She might have spoken too soon.
* * *
Chase had been down by the bridge waiting for Krista to arrive. When it was ten minutes past the time she’d said she’d be there, he’d headed back up the path to find her. Just before he turned the corner, he’d heard Krista’s voice greeting someone awkwardly.
In a split-second decision, he’d decided to stay where he was. Was he proud of himself for eavesdropping? No. Was he happy with what he’d overheard? Hell no. Did he have any right to be mad? No.
Chris and Chase had always gotten along. He was a good guy, and from what it sounded like, he and Krista had some unfinished business of the very recent variety.
Jealousy was not an emotion Chase was familiar with. At least not on the experiencing-it side of things. Krista had always gotten jealous. Now they knew it had been with the assistance of others. But it had always seemed like a useless emotion. In fact, he’d never even truly understood why people let themselves get jealous. But now he knew that it wasn’t something you let yourself feel. It was something that crashed into you like a bus going seventy miles an hour, and he’d just been hit by it. Hard.
Crazy Love - Krista & Chase Page 19