Scandal (Dirty Laundry Book 2)

by Jackie Paxson

  The man gave her a sideways glance. “Buddy, don’t stare at people, ok.”

  Chrissy smiled. “It’s ok.” She looked at the little boy. “I just came from riding on an airplane.”

  “Oh,” he said then added, “My sister is really sick. Daddy let me buy her a teddy bear. I’m sure it will make her feel better. It’s a magical bear.”

  She looked up at the man. He had a worried look on his face. Looking back to the little boy she said, “It does look quite magical. I wish I’d have gotten one of those. My daddy is sick. I think he needs a little magic, too.” She swallowed the tears she felt gathering. Chrissy returned to looking straight ahead.

  A small tug on her shirt brought her attention back to the little boy. “You can have the bear. Mommy and Daddy say my hugs are magical. I will just hug her a lot.” The little boy held the bear out to her.

  Chrissy squatted down to the little boy. “You know what, how ‘bout you hug her and give her the bear? My daddy says my hugs are magical, too. Thank you so much for sharing, buddy.”

  The elevator dinged, and Chrissy stepped out into the sterile hallway. She looked back at the little boy and his haggard looking father. The little boy waved, and Chrissy gave a small smile and wave.

  She looked at the hallway. If only she’d remembered any of the directions the security officer gave her. With a sigh, she started down the labyrinth of hospital hallways.

  Chapter 39

  Hospitals Suck

  A half an hour. That was exactly how long it took for her to find the waiting room. She’d made more than one incorrect turn. One turn would be burned into her memory. She’d opened a door only to see someone in a gown bent over. A hairier ass had never seen the light of day. The couple moments it was in her view she could have sworn it looked like the hair swooshed over the crack in a combover.

  She shuddered from the memory. The waiting room was pretty empty. Chrissy found a seat and waited. A text to her mama got no response. Her knee bounced with anxiety with each passing minute. When she’d been sitting there for a half an hour, she approached a nearby nurse station.

  “Excuse me,” Chrissy said.

  The young nurse looked up from the files she was reading. “Yes?”

  “Can you give me any information about Christopher Benson?”

  Turning toward the computers, the nurse began typing. She bit her lip as she read the screen. When her brow furrowed, Chrissy’s stomach fell.

  “I’m sorry, miss. It looks like he has been moved to a room up on the fifth floor.”

  Frustration coursed through her. Damn that half hour she wasted finding the damn waiting room.

  With a calming breath she said, “Ok. Do you have a room number?”

  “Room 507,” she said with a smile.

  Surely the girl wouldn’t be smiling if it were bad. Chrissy walked back to her seat and grabbed her suitcase. If she could find her daddy’s room within an hour, she would consider it a win.

  Twenty minutes later, Chrissy stood in front of Room 507. When she heard crying coming from inside the room, she burst in. What she found almost had her dropping to her knees. Her mama was sitting in a chair with her face covered and her daddy lay there with monitors covering him.

  “Mama! What’s going on?” Chrissy said, frantically.

  “Chrissy?” Her mama gave her a confused look.

  “Yes. I jumped on a plane the minute I got your call.”

  Her mama still gave her a weird look. “Did I tell you to come?”

  “Yes! You said you needed me here. You made it seem serious.”

  “Dammit, Sidney. Did you forget to press send again with your text messages?” Her daddy’s voice scared her so much she lost her balance and landed on her butt next to the chair.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hi, sweetheart. I’m sorry you flew all the way over here for a false alarm.”

  “It wasn’t a false alarm, Chris,” her mama defended.

  He waved his hand that had an IV attached to it. “It was just a little heart attack. No big deal.”

  Her mama shook her head while digging through her purse to find her phone. “Oh, shoot a monkey!” That was as close as Chrissy ever got to hearing her mama swear. “You’re right, Chris. I forgot to press send.”

  “Will someone please tell me what in the hell is going on?”

  Chrissy began to feel she was going to need to be admitted to the psychiatric ward if her parents didn’t start spilling the beans. She looked between her parents. They both looked sheepish.

  “Your father did have a minor heart attack.” When Chrissy opened her mouth to talk, her mama put up a hand. “However, it was a lucky heart attack. If he hadn’t had that they wouldn’t have caught the blood clot on his lung. He wouldn’t have survived that if it had burst.” Her mama started getting choked up. She watched as her daddy’s hand reach out to clasp her mama’s hand.

  “Ok. So, what are they doing?” Chrissy went into planning mode.

  “Since this was my second heart attack, they want to put a stint in one of my arteries. I’m also on some really tough blood thinners so they can fight the blood clot. I have surgery tomorrow.”

  “Alright.” Chrissy started to feel a bit dizzy. The overload of adrenaline was bottoming out and all her body wanted to do was sleep.

  “Sweetheart? Are you ok?” her mama asked as Chrissy scooted to the wall.

  “I will be fine. I’m just tired.” Chrissy shut her eyes but then remembered something. “Wait. Why were you crying?”

  Her daddy’s deep chuckle echoed through the room. “You mean when you came crashing in here like a Tasmanian Devil?”

  Chrissy nodded.

  Her mama furrowed her brow. “Crying? When was I crying?” Her mama looked at her daddy.

  “Chrissy, your mama wasn’t crying. She was laughing at my impression,” he said.

  “What was so damn funny that anyone walking by would have thought you were crying?”

  “I was doing my impression of the man in the bed next to me in the ER.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Chrissy asked, incredulously.

  “Nope. My impressions are the best. Just ask Mariah.” He tried crossing his arms, but the IV prevented him from having much success.

  “Dad, Mariah laughs at almost anything right now. I wouldn’t go by a six-year-old’s sense of humor to be your gauge whether you are funny or not.”

  Before her dad could answer, the door to the room opened and they heard, “Knock, Knock.” A handsome blonde man walked into the room.

  “Here is the harbinger of doom,” her daddy said.

  “Chris! Stop that! Leave Dr. Black alone,” her mama admonished her father.

  Dr. Black smiled at her dad. “How are you feeling, Chris?” He picked up the chart at the end of the bed.

  “Fit as a fiddle.” Her father began playing an invisible fiddle.

  The doctor laughed placing the chart back where it had been. “Let me check all your vitals.”

  Chrissy watched as the doctor listened to her father’s heart. Dr. Black motioned for her father to sit up and take deep breaths. Sweat began to bead on her father’s forehead. After a few moments, Dr. Black told him to lay back down then he took his pulse. She watched her father. A smile was plastered on his face. However, his eyes gave him away. He was worried and didn’t want to say anything.

  When Dr. Black was finished taking his pulse he smiled at her father. “Everything sounds good, Mr. Benson. We have everything in order for your surgery tomorrow. It is a very simple procedure. However, once it is done, you will need to take it easy for the next few months.”

  “A few months?” everyone said at once.

  “Doc, I can’t be away from the business that long. Can’t we cut it short?” Her dad tried to sit up.

  “Mr. Benson, you are very lucky to be here right now. If your wife hadn’t called when she did, I don’t know if there would have been anything we could have done.”

&
nbsp; Chrissy looked between her parents and the doctor. Her parents had made it seem like it was no big deal. The doctor was spilling the beans and when her parents looked at her, they looked panicked. Chrissy bit her lip to stop herself from spewing some very colorful expletives.

  “I will be back to see you before I leave for the evening.” Dr. Black smiled at them all.

  She glared at her parents then jumped up from her seat on the floor. Following the doctor, she saw him stop to look at his phone. “Dr. Black?”

  He looked up and smiled at her. “Yes, Ms. Benson?”

  She jogged over to him. “Could you please tell me what is really going on? My parents played things down. I have no idea what’s really going on. If I need to be on the lookout for something, then I want to be aware.”

  Dr. Black looked toward her father’s room then back to her. “Ok. Your father came in last night barely able to breath. He was clutching his chest complaining of pain. We did some tests and while we were testing him, he…” The doctor took a deep breath. “He flatlined.”

  Chrissy felt her vision begin to blur. “Flatlined,” she whispered.

  “Yes. In a matter of moments, we were able to revive him. However, due to your father’s previous heart attacks he is at a very high risk to have them again. That is why tomorrow we are putting stints in his heart to make sure his battered heart functions the best it can.”

  Chrissy looked down at the floor. The phone call her mother made could have been very different. She felt the tears slide down her cheeks. Dr. Black handed her a tissue.

  She grabbed the tissue and said, “Thank you.”

  “Thank me tomorrow, Ms. Benson, when I give you back your ornery father.” Dr. Black smiled.

  Chrissy nodded then walked back to her father’s room. With a deep steadying breath, Chrissy marched into her father’s room. Her parent’s conversation halted the moment they saw her.

  With her hands on her hips she said, “You two are busted.”

  Chapter 40

  Time to Test the Parachute

  One month after the heart attack

  “How are you doing, Chrissy?” Mr. Sutter asked.

  “If my stubborn father would listen to reason and rest so he doesn’t have another heart attack then I would be great,” Chrissy said, loud enough for her father who was sitting next to the front desk to hear.

  “I heard that,” he said rustling the newspaper.

  Mr. Sutter laughed. “You can’t get a good man down like your father.”

  Her father looked at her with a look that said, “I told you so.”

  “Did you have a good stay, Mr. Sutter?” Chrissy went on, ignoring her father.

  “You know I always have a good stay, Chrissy. Now, tell me when are you going back to Hollywood to that man of yours? Your mama and daddy told me about him. It sounds like you are both twitterpated with one another.”

  “Twitter…what?” she asked.

  Mr. Sutter shook his head. “You know, taken by one another. Besotted. Enamored.”

  “In love with each other,” her father said behind his paper.

  Chrissy felt her face warm. “Max is busy with the movie right now. They should be finishing up filming soon.”

  “When are you going back out there?” Mr. Sutter wouldn’t quit with the questions. She got the feeling her parents had put him up to it.

  “I don’t know. I’ve actually been thinking I won’t go back out there.”

  Her father stood, abandoning the ruse of relaxation with the newspaper. “Absolutely not, missy. You will go back to your life away from here. This place is a dead-end for you. I will not have you give up you and Mariah’s happiness to stay in this town.”

  Chrissy felt like she’d been slapped. Her daddy never spoke to her that way. She couldn’t even remember a time that he yelled at her.

  “Chris!” Her mama’s voice snapped out.

  Looking over, she saw Mariah standing next to her mama with tears in her eyes. “We aren’t going back to California? We aren’t going to see Max or Tristan again?”

  “Mariah, I—” Mariah ran off up the stairs to their rooms.

  Chrissy looked at Mr. Sutter. “Please, excuse me.” With her head high, she walked out to the porch with the rocking chairs.

  She found the furthest rocking chair and sat in it. Her father’s words played through her head. She stopped rocking and put her head in her hands. They were so anxious for her to go back, but why? They didn’t know that she hadn’t heard from Max since the first week back in Grandin. What did she have to go back to California for? Sure, her friends were there but would she be able to go back and see Max with other women after their time together? Tears spilt over her lashes.

  “Chrissy?” Joshua, Mr. Sutter’s grandson, stood next to her rocking chair holding a chubby baby.

  “Hey, Joshua. Come to collect your grandpa?”

  He sat in the chair next to hers. “Yep. I even brought Donovan for those baby cuddles you wanted the last time we talked.”

  Chrissy smiled and held out her arms. The squirming bundle looked at her as she took him from his father. With a small hand he reached out and touched the tracks where Chrissy’s tears fell. He looked at her as if to question what was wrong. Chrissy felt her eyes begin to well up again. She hadn’t told anyone that her time with Max had made her crave having a little one with him. A little boy with his eyes and her hair. She cuddled little Donovan close to her and he snuggled against her chest.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” Joshua sat back in the chair as he gazed out at the lawn that was being mowed by Rex.

  “Nothing.”

  “Girl, who do you think you are fooling? You were crying when I walked up here with Donovan. Tell me. It will make you feel better and more than likely I will forget all about it thanks to that little guy taking up all my working brain cells.”

  Chrissy sighed while Donovan garbled something in baby language. “My parents are ready for me to go back to California. I don’t know if there’s even a reason for me to go back to California.”

  “What do you mean? I thought I’d heard something about you being with some actor. Is he no longer in the picture?”

  A sad laugh escaped. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. He hasn’t texted or called since I’ve been back in Grandin. Well, he did the first week Dad was in the hospital, but I haven’t heard from him since. I know he’s busy with filming, but I can’t help but think he’s replaced me. That our time together meant a lot more to me than to him.”

  Joshua turned toward her. “Why does it sound like you’re giving up? Have you talked to Talia? Maybe she knows something.”

  Chrissy shook her head. “She’s so focused on being pregnant right now. I don’t want to ruin that for her.”

  “Ok. So, what would happen if you just went back there and enjoyed life? From the sounds of things, you only had a small time with Max.”

  She dropped her head and whispered, “I was an idiot and fell in love with him. It would kill me to see him with anyone else. He is Zeke’s best friend and best man. We would see each other all the time.”

  Joshua nodded. “So, you’re fucked.”

  A laugh escaped her, startling Donovan whose fingers were now entangled in Chrissy’s hair. When she rocked the chair back her head was pulled forward. “Ow!”

  “Shit! I’m sorry, we don’t normally have this problem. Let go, Donny.” Joshua tried to extract his fingers from her hair.

  With every yank, Chrissy felt pieces of hair being pulled from her head. What the hell did that kid have on his hand? A mix between superglue and cookie crumbs?

  “What is going on?” Rex’s deep voice floated over to them.

  Chrissy looked at him through her curtain of hair. “What do you think is going on, Rex?” she sniped.

  “I don’t know. Some baby game?” He wiped his face off with the shirt he was no longer wearing.

  She noticed how built Rex was. Talia always suspected her brother secre
tly worked out and after getting a glimpse of his fantastic body she could attest to that being true. But, the half-naked man in front of her did nothing for her. He didn’t have two sleeves of tattoos and a gorgeous tattoo on his chest. Why couldn’t she make things easy and just fall for him?

  “Well, if you stay here you could always marry that one?” Joshua whispered.

  She and Rex both scoffed.

  Chrissy and Joshua both looked at Rex. He said, “What? You weren’t exactly quiet, Joshua.”

  Donovan finally relinquished his hand from her hair and snuggled against her chest.

  “Whew! Who knew babies were so much work?” Joshua said.

  Chrissy raised her hand. “I did. I totally did.”

  Joshua stuck his tongue out at her and went back to rocking.

  “What were you two talking about?” Rex asked, leaning against the railing in front of them.

  Chrissy forced her mouth closed. She looked at Joshua hoping he would see her face and keep his trap shut. Joshua either didn’t look at her close enough or he was just a dick and decided to tell Rex all about Max’s abandonment.

  Rex furrowed his brow. “What do you mean you haven’t heard from him? Talia told me today that Max had been home from Costa Rica for a few days. Apparently, there was a big blow up on the set of the movie and they sent everyone home. Don’t ask me why my sister decided I needed to know all that.”

  “He’s been home,” Chrissy said blankly.

  “Now’s your chance. Make a grand gesture. Fly out there on a whim. Surprise him. I am betting that he will be over the moon seeing you on his doorstep,” Joshua said.

  “I don’t think that is wise,” she said.

  “I know my dream has always been to find a woman on my doorstep.” Joshua and Chrissy looked at Rex. “What? I just always imagined they wore an overcoat, heels and nothing else.”

  “Men,” Chrissy and Joshua said together then laughed.

  “Look, just do it. Be impulsive. If you don’t jump out of a plane once in a while you won’t ever know if your parachute works,” Joshua said with a shrug.