Tasting Fire

by Kelsey Browning

  “How about Friday?” she asked, completely ignoring his business policy.

  Although his first inclination was to reach in his pocket and check his Google calendar, he resisted. If he did that, she would continue to go around his scheduling system. Instead, he smiled and dug into his back pocket for a business card with the scheduling URL on it. Handing it to her, he said, “This site will tell you if I’m available.”

  Her bright eyes dimmed and her mouth pulled down in an expression he’d often seen on her face in the months after high school. “Well, if that’s the way you want to be about it.”

  While he and Mrs. Southerland had been talking, Emmy had edged her way over to the pre-chopped vegetables and was tucking a stir fry mix into her basket. If he didn’t get to her soon, she’d be at the register and out the door. And after the way he’d behaved, he needed to talk with her.

  So he told Mrs. Southerland, “You schedule the service through the website, and I’ll till up that little section in your backyard for a garden.”

  “No extra charge?”

  “Nope.” She already got the friends and family discount, which meant Cash didn’t make a dime of profit from the time he spent at her place. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to grab a few things and—”

  Mrs. Southerland gave a huff as she caught him staring across the zucchini at Emmy. “Really, Cash? She’s the reason you never—”

  “—I’ve really gotta run.” And run he would if it kept Mrs. Southerland from marching over territory they’d been through too many times in the past about how Emmy McKay had been his downfall. “See you Friday,” he said, waving and weaving his way across the produce section toward Emmy.

  “Hey,” he said to her.

  Emmy turned her head just enough to look at him. “Please tell me she’s gone.”

  “Heading toward the checkout as we speak.”

  Puffing out a breath, she angled her basket toward the pre-chopped vegetables. “Then I’ll wait a few minutes.”

  “She means well,” he said, following her. “It’s just that—”

  “I ruined your life.”

  That stung. Was that the way Emmy saw him? That he was living some second-rate existence because she’d rejected him?

  “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.” But the way she avoided looking at him and studied packages of chopped carrots and onions instead hinted that she believed there was some truth to it. And that she was embarrassed for him.

  “I think we should talk.” The words were out before Cash had a handle on what he planned to say. “For the sake of the team.”

  “We are talking.”

  “You know what I mean. How about we get a beer at the Triple B and clear the air?”

  “I was planning to go home and—”

  “You staying at your mama’s place?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m upstairs at the Murchison building.”

  “Grif’s apartment.”

  “Such as it is.” She laughed. “It’s an interesting blend of leftover yard sale and LA high-rise.”

  Sounded about like Grif. He’d taken over that space when he returned to Steele Ridge and became city manager. When he and Carlie Beth mended fences, he’d moved into her place. Last Cash heard, they were trying to figure out how to renovate and expand that little frame house to suit them both.

  “Then we’ll swing by there and you can drop off your groceries before we walk down to Triple B.”

  “You’re not frowning at me. Why not?”

  “I’ve had a change of heart.” Cash wanted to wince at his use of a word charged with such meaning, but he soldiered on. “About the TMT.”

  “No,” she said and whacked him in the chest. “You are not about to quit the team. I won’t accept it.”

  That made him smile. Same old Emmy, always going full-on for what she wanted.

  6

  As Emmy stashed milk and her other perishables in the new stainless steel fridge that Grif had delivered the day after she moved in, Cash was wandering around the apartment. He avoided the Rainbow-Brite-exploded-here upholstered couch that was rumored to have been acquired secondhand from the Martins, who were known swingers.

  But he had no such reluctance about touching her things.

  Touching things, Em, not your body. So ix-nay the shivery, shuddery feeling.

  But every time he handled one of her personal items, she reacted.

  A five-by-seven photo of Kris and her at the Homewood House Museum at Johns Hopkins.

  A small trinket box from her mom that played “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

  A shadowbox backed in green velvet that held her dad’s badge.

  Her shelf of medical texts, including Nancy Caroline’s Emergency Care in the Streets.

  “This is a classic.” Cash carefully tipped the book away from the others and opened it. “Whoa, it’s signed.”

  “A gift from last year’s graduating paramedic class at University of Maryland. I taught med math.”

  The open expression on his face closed—just a little, but she caught it. “They must’ve thought a lot of you,” he said.

  Emmy carefully folded the paper sacks, running her hands over the creases to control their tendency to flip up and fly open. When she let go, they unfolded like unruly origami animals. If she couldn’t control her grocery bags, how did she expect to manage her feelings? Feelings that seemed to be bouncing between desire to impress the people who’d hired her to hopefulness about being back in her hometown to uncertainty about how to act around Cash.

  She slid the sacks into a cabinet and closed the door so she didn’t have to see them. But that meant she ended up looking at Cash—appreciating the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his back under the soft fabric of his shirt, the gentle grip of his hands on her book.

  The possibility of rekindling the past had been on Emmy’s mind before she left Baltimore, but she hadn’t expected to react to Cash’s physical presence so quickly. So acutely.

  In the past, she’d had reasons for not allowing desire and longing to overcome her. But wasn’t she here to help change the pulse of her life?

  Yes, but this is too soon. For both of us.

  When he slid the book back onto the shelf and traced a finger down the spine, it felt as if he was touching the same place on Emmy’s body. A ripple worked its way down her back, waking the needs hovering just below her skin. She shuddered against the sensation, but it didn’t go away. It simply settled in her breasts, making them tight and achy.

  She suddenly blurted out, “I know you wanted to lead the TMT, but you shouldn’t quit the team.”

  “Who said I was quitting?”

  “You… You said you had a change of heart and wanted to talk about it over drinks.”

  He turned toward her, a smile hovering on his lips. Finally, finally the delicious dimple in his cheek made an appearance.

  Having a drink with Cash at the Triple B was a dangerous idea.

  Having Cash in her apartment was even more dangerous.

  “I’m suddenly starving. How about you?” Emmy grabbed her purse and clutched it to her chest, hoping to hide that her body reacted to Cash fondling a book in a way it never had when Oliver had fondled her.

  Cash said nothing, just looked at her, his gaze touching her hair, her face, her throat, and lower where she was using a leather bag to keep her secrets. “Em, tell me the truth about something. Do you miss him?”

  Her awareness transformed from physical to emotional. She didn’t need to seek out the shadowbox on the wall to answer Cash’s question. “Every single day.”

  * * *

  Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to. Cash couldn’t have heard his brother Way’s voice more clearly if he’d been striding down the sidewalk between Emmy and him. His brother always said that if a guy couldn’t handle the brutal truth, he had no business using a question mark.

  Fuck you, Way.

  But he had asked a question he didn�
�t really want the answer to, and now he knew Emmy was totally committed to the doctor in Baltimore. The reality of it made Cash feel like a gutted largemouth bass.

  If she loved the guy, what in holy hell was she doing in North Carolina? Here in Steele Ridge, strolling down Main Street with him as if everything was all good. Smiling at the storefronts and parking meters as if they made her happy in some elemental way.

  “A little different from Baltimore, huh?”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Once. For a training academy.” She could’ve held him over a five-alarm fire before he admitted that he’d poked around online to find her address and had driven by. Five times. Once each day he was there. “It’s no Steele Ridge.”

  “Steele Ridge.” She smiled around the words. “Does it still sound weird to you or are you used to it?”

  After Jonah had changed the town’s name, some people had balked. Cash didn’t really give a crap. Regardless of his earlier comments to Emmy about his cousin’s high-handedness, Cash mainly cared about the lives he could save, no matter what the local government’s letterhead looked like or who signed his paycheck. “I poke at him sometimes, but he and the family have made some damn good changes around here.”

  Emmy nodded. “The storefronts are filling in.”

  “Grif is big on economic development. Between that, Jonah’s infusion of cash, the Steele Ridge Training Academy, and the Steele-Shepherd Wildlife Research Center, things are changing around here. In a good way.”

  A few people still grumbled and bitched about those Steele boys. But Cash loved this town and anyone who could make it a better place was welcome in his eyes.

  Was Emmy one of those people?

  Triple B’s parking lot was jam-packed with everything from hulking four-by-fours to a couple of electric cars.

  “Looks like we’ll be waiting for a table,” Emmy commented.

  Cash just smiled. After a kitchen fire scare a while back, Randi always made certain the firefighters could squeeze their way in, no matter how hopping the place was. Inside, it was busy, with waitstaff weaving through the full tables and a band Cash recognized from Asheville tuning up in the corner. When he spotted Randi, he lifted his hand, and she waved him back to a table tucked near the calm end of the bar.

  “You have the best luck,” she said, pressing a kiss to Cash’s cheek. “This is the last open spot in the house.” She grabbed menus from the bar and slid them onto the table.

  “Randi, this is—”

  “Emmy McKay. I know exactly who she is. Sorry I wasn’t here the other day when Kris brought you in.” Randi took Emmy’s hand and gave her a friendly smile. “Welcome home, Emmy. If you’re half as dedicated and smart as Kris says you are, then Jonah was even smarter for luring you back.”

  Emmy blinked a few times, but a smile broke through her obvious surprise. “Thank you. For the most part, it feels good. Really good.”

  Yeah, a few people around here had been less than welcoming. And he’d been at the front of that line.

  He should probably be ashamed of that, but he was just confused by her.

  Maybe other folks had gotten the same mixed signals he had, with Emmy saying she missed the guy up in Baltimore with one breath and then claiming she was happy to be here. Both with equal conviction. Didn’t make sense.

  Randi tapped a menu. “Special tonight is a pretzel-crusted pork chop with roasted fingerlings and beer-braised red cabbage. I’ve gotta run, but Grady”—she lifted her chin toward the man behind the bar who resembled Mr. Clean—“will take good care of you. On the house.”

  Cash protested, “Randi, this free food thing has to stop.”

  She patted his face and kissed him right on the lips. Only pride kept him from looking around to see if Britt was in the vicinity and would tear his head from his shoulders for lip-locking his girlfriend. “It’ll stop about the time you stop being a hero, Cash Kingston.”

  His skin flashed warm at the exaggeration, but he just smiled.

  Randi said to Emmy, “Have him tell you about how sweet he was to Mr. Felder a couple of days ago.”

  Randi hurried away, and Cash pulled out a chair for Emmy. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Does she stock Highland Brewing beers?”

  “You better believe it.”

  At the bar, Cash reached across and shook the bartender’s hand. The big ex-Marine had a grip like the jaws of life. “How’s it going?”

  Grady used his elbow to point at the nearby glass pitcher filled with green bills. And not just ones. Fives, tens, even twenties. “Pretty damn good.”

  Cash chuckled. “Maybe we need to set out one of those at the station.”

  “Tips have been way up lately. It’s what happens when people stop being so damn scared about surviving. They open back up—their wallets, their minds, their hearts.”

  “Bartender philosopher. No wonder the tips are pouring in.”

  “It’s a gift.” Grady chuckled. “Now what can I get you?”

  Cash leaned against the bar and gave him the drink order.

  In less than a minute, Grady had the beers and two frosted glasses lined up perfectly on the wooden surface. He shook his head when Cash reached for his wallet. “You know Randi will have my hide if I let you pay for those.”

  With a nod, Cash pulled out a twenty and dropped it into the pitcher. “But she’d never take away your tips.”

  “You’re a sneaky bastard, Kingston.”

  Cash scooped up the drinks and glasses. “Appreciate it, Grady.”

  “Just holler when you decide on food.”

  He turned toward the table where Emmy was scanning everything going on inside the Triple B. She looked up when he lifted a beer and glass, asking a silent question.

  “I’ll take it in the bottle.”

  A woman after his own heart.

  No, not his heart or anything else. She’d crushed it once, and once was more than enough.

  Cash sat and elbowed the glasses to the side. “Randi’s built something special here—a bar, but also a place where families can come to eat, people can dance and even borrow a book.” A Little Free Library was tucked into a corner and did a brisk business. In fact, Cash had picked up a copy of Sandra Brown’s Tailspin just last week and dropped off the latest Harlan Coben. Both authors had a way of writing a story that he couldn’t put down.

  “It’s so good to see.”

  Cash sat back and studied Emmy. “Almost like a real town, huh?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s no Baltimore. Which is why I don’t understand why the ambitious Emmy McKay came back.”

  Emmy’s eyes went hot, and she clinked the bottom of her beer bottle hard against the top of his. Foam rose up and spilled over to run down the side of the bottle. Cash grabbed it and put his lips around it to stop the lava-like flow. His mouth filled up with bubbles and he had to swallow several times before his beer settled back down.

  She eyed his half empty bottle. “You deserved that.”

  “Yeah, I probably did.”

  “For more than just a few snarky comments today,” she said evenly. “Why did you undermine me after the training exercise?”

  “It wasn’t personal—”

  “No, it wasn’t. TMT business is professional, and this team won’t gel if the team member they respect the most is acting like a sulky schoolboy.”

  Direct hit.

  Man up. The best way out is through. It was a mantra that had helped him get through the hellacious stress of paramedic school.

  “You’re right. I was a dick. I brought my personal…” Don’t use the word feelings. “…issues into it, and doing that in emergency situations is unprofessional and dangerous.” He looked away and blew out a breath, but before he could turn back to Emmy, something warm and heavy plopped into his lap.

  Someone who smelled like cranberries and triple sec.

  Chelsea Black. Who loved nothing better than a well-made cosmo
politan.

  Talk about bad timing.

  She leaned in and gave him a kiss that Maggie would’ve been justified in making an arrest for. Cash tried to disengage, but a boa constrictor could learn a thing or two from Chelsea.

  She must’ve caught on that he wasn’t participating in her game because she let him out of the grasping embrace. “Where in the world have you been lately? I haven’t seen you out and about the last week or so. And I know you don’t go much longer than that without a little fun.”

  The way she said the word fun made it clear to anyone within hearing distance that she meant it as a placeholder for a different three-letter word. And it was true that Cash dearly loved that word, but right now the thought of three-lettering with Chelsea made him cold.

  Cash shifted back as far as he could without dumping Chelsea onto the floor. Her blond hair was loose and skimmed the top of her breasts, revealed by the low neck of her shirt. As usual, her doll face was made up—eye shadow, thick mascara, and dark plum lipstick that had one of two effects on a man. Lust or fear.

  She’d inspired the former with him a few times when they were both looking for something fun and easy.

  But that had been before Emmy returned to Steele Ridge.

  Way’s imaginary voice came back into Cash’s head. Don’t let her mess you up again, dickhead.

  Go away, Way.

  But his brother was right. Cash cleared his throat and gently pushed at Chelsea’s hips, relocating her into the chair to his right. Unfortunately, that also cleared his sightline to Emmy’s speculative expression across the table.

  “Chelsea,” he croaked. “I’d like to introduce you to Emmy McKay. She’s the new tactical medical team lead and a doctor in St. Elizabeth’s emergency room.”

  The two women shook hands and Chelsea did a once-over that even Cash could tell was some type of female territorial appraisal. Then again, he and Chelsea had never been exclusive, and she was known to enjoy the company of both men and women. So maybe she was sizing Emmy up for other reasons.

  They all chatted for a few minutes, making the awkward small talk people engaged in when they found themselves in a position like this. Once they exhausted comments about the band now playing the latest Luke Bryan release, Chelsea aimed a bright smile at Cash and eased out of her seat, putting her ogle-worthy chest even with his eyes. “Well, my date is probably wondering where I am, so I’d better get back to our table.” Then she leaned down and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, touching the tip of her tongue to his skin before straightening. “Don’t be a stranger, ya hear?”