29
Emmy felt like a certified stalker as she hid beneath the bleachers watching Cash chat with the Steele Ridge High School’s head football coach. Coach Barrows, who had an old football wedged between his arm and rib cage, was a relatively new addition to the coaching staff. The man Cash had played under—Coach Switzer—had moved on years ago to a bigger school in Asheville, but it appeared there wasn’t anyone in town Cash didn’t know and get along with.
Part of her was still a little unsure of what she’d set in motion here. Probably the way Cash felt when he’d put himself on the line for her.
As men tended to do, Cash and the coach stood on the fifty-yard line for what seemed like a century. Pointing toward this goalpost, the field house, and—oh, crap!—the bleachers near where she was skulking.
Didn’t Coach Barrows remember that he was supposed to hand over a clue instead of having a good-ol’-boy BS session?
She’d give anything to hear what they were going on and on about, but the only way that would’ve been possible was to bug Coach Barrows. She’d had a hard enough time convincing him to take time to do this favor for her.
Just hand it over, Coach.
Finally, after they’d either ironed out a plan to eradicate world hunger, cured the common cold, or outlined the team’s offensive strategy for the next decade, the coach casually transferred the old football from under his arm to his palm.
He did that toss-up-and-spin move that men comfortable with a pigskin instinctively fell into, like a woman might sway with a baby.
The move caught Cash’s attention and his head followed the movement up and down. Up and down.
The third toss, Coach Barrows sent it up, but Cash reached forward to intercept as it came back down. He frowned at the slightly deflated ball. Then he scanned the message on it, and his frown turned into a scowl.
Oh, crap. She’d known she should’ve wrapped it in paper instead of taking a Sharpie directly to what had been one of Cash’s prized possessions back in the day. She taken the guarantee of his love too far.
But when a slow smile transformed his face as he rotated the ball, reading her less than lyrical poem, hope bloomed in her chest. Maybe he was just happy to have it returned to him. After all, it had been sitting in a U-Haul box at her mom’s house for years. After they’d broken up, Emmy had been a coward and kept all the treasures he’d given her.
But maybe it hadn’t been cowardice. Maybe it had been foreshadowing.
Cash tucked the ball under his own arm and reached out to shake Coach Barrows’s hand. The other man strode across the grass toward the field house. Cash stood in the center of the field, turning a full circle, as if remembering the glory days of his high-school football career.
And then, as he walked off the field heading for the gate to the parking lot, he shot a wide grin toward the spot where Emmy was hiding.
* * *
In that empty football stadium, Cash had caught a hint of movement under the west-facing bleachers. He’d known it was Emmy. After all, if criminals couldn’t resist visiting the scene of the crime, Emmy wouldn’t be able to resist overseeing her grand plan.
And damn if he wasn’t enjoying this wooing game of hers. When he’d first seen the words written on the football he’d won the final playoff game with his senior year, his heart had taken a hit like a lineman sacking the QB.
But he’d quickly realized he felt a lot like The Rock in The Game Plan. If you loved a person more than you loved a prized football, it didn’t fucking matter if she bedazzled it.
But man, Emmy sucked as a poet.
A man who made the leap
To lifesaver from championship winner
Be sure to check the sweets
During Sunday dinner
When he’d called to invite Emmy to today’s Kingston potluck and offered to pick her up, she’d insisted on meeting him. After an official apology from the ER director and the hospital’s chairman of the board, she’d been reinstated at the hospital. She was working back-to-back shifts, so she’d been crashing at her mom’s place, which was closer to St. Elizabeth’s, for a few days now.
So with the graffitied football in one hand and a new bacon-studded dish in the other, Cash strolled into his parents’ kitchen alone.
Yeah, he was gonna win this family potluck competition just like he’d done with those Brussels sprouts. It took a friggin’ master to come out victorious with a casserole dish of mini-cabbages.
And in the Southernized words of Bachman Turner Overdrive: Y’all ain’t see nothin’ yet.
One glance at him, and Maggie immediately crossed her arms and stared him down like she might the kingpin of a drug cartel. “What do you have in your hand? You know how the potluck competition works. The winner is supposed to sit out for the next round.”
Cash slid his well-covered platter to the kitchen island and grinned at her even as Jay rubbed her shoulders and leaned down to whisper something into her ear. Thank Jesus his big sister had finally found someone who could talk her down off those high horses she liked to ride like a rodeo queen.
“Hey, if you’re worried about losing again, that’s not my—”
“Mom,” Maggie called out, “Cash is breaking the potluck rules.”
Their mom hustled in from the butler’s pantry, her hair so streaked with something that it looked like she’d gone platinum gray overnight. “Maybe it’s time to change the rules.” As she turned away to rummage in the pantry, Cash sent his sister an angelic smile.
“You don’t fool me, Kristofferson,” Maggie muttered. “And I’m gonna kick your cheating ass.”
“But since he’s trying to get away with something—”
“As usual.”
“—then it’s only fair that he sets the table.”
As kids, that had been a chore they’d all wiggled out of any way possible. When you had seven people for every meal, setting the table was like running laps around a track. But Cash was playing the long game here, so he just asked, “How many extra place settings?”
“I don’t think anyone besides you and Maggie is bringing anyone, so nine.”
Good thing they had a table that would seat a village.
Before Cash could tackle the chore, Maggie slapped at the football under his arm. “That thing isn’t even fully inflated. You planning to pull a Tom Brady later?”
“It’s my championship ball.”
His mom spun around, and Maggie’s mouth dropped open wide enough for Jay to shove a carrot stick in it.
“Oh, Cash!” his mom said.
Maggie crunched the carrot and said, “I thought that thing was long lost.”
Yeah, he hadn’t wanted to admit to his family that he hadn’t had the balls to ask Emmy to return several of his prized high-school possessions.
With one quick movement, Maggie divested him of the ball and stared down at it. “Oh my God, someone desecrated it.” She blinked up at Cash. “Who did this? I’m going to arrest the defacer.”
A trio of voices came from the front of the house. Unfortunately, none of them were Emmy’s. But a few seconds later, Riley, Shep, and Way laughed and jostled their way into the room.
The Kingston family was far from perfect—plenty of challenges and conflicting personalities. But this, this bond, wasn’t something you could buy or even build. It came from growing up and living in a home where two people—regardless of gender, earning power, and ambition—loved one another. Loved one another as a verb, one they put to use every day. And one they taught their kids the best they could.
Cash was struck with a feeling so big, so damn deep that the air punched out of his lungs. He knew he wanted a future with Emmy, but he hadn’t completely realized that his parents’ unconventional marriage and life were the models he wanted to follow.
He wrapped Riley in a hug and squeezed until she let out a squeaking laugh. “What is with you?”
“Just want you to know that although you’re a pain in my ass sometimes, I
would’ve never forgiven myself if Donaldson and I hadn’t gotten you out of that fire.”
Riley hugged him back, and they stood there for several minutes. “You’re a hero, Cash. Not just for me, but for a lot of people. An everyday hero who doesn’t need a cape or tights.”
“Thank Jesus,” Way muttered. When Riley released him, Cash reached for his brother and pulled him in for more than the manly shoulder bump.
With Shep, he asked a silent question, and Shep replied with a silent sigh. They did a side-to-side brother hug with Shep patting him hard on the right shoulder. The equivalent of a bear hug from someone else.
“Hey,” Maggie protested. “You greeted me with a smart-ass smile.”
Yeah, sometimes he forgot that big sister wasn’t as much of a hard-ass as she projected to the world. Mags needed affection as much as or more than any of his other siblings. “I was saving the best for last.”
She snorted, but wrapped him tight with her arms when he picked her up and waltzed around the kitchen. Before he let her go, he whispered, “I am so damn happy for you, Mags. Jay is good for you.” Even if he didn’t want to remember the way he’d barged into Maggie’s house that time and caught her wearing Jay’s shirt.
Yeah, Jay had likely been very good to Mags not long before that.
Before Cash could get too far into that dark place, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Riley said.
“Mine.” Without an ounce of guilt, Cash elbowed his baby sister out of the way and hurried to the living room. Since the day was nice, his mom had left the front door open, keeping the no-see-ums out with the screen door, but allowing the Carolina breeze inside. And on the other side of that screen stood the woman he wanted so badly to allow him all the way inside her life.
And if he’d felt something huge with his brothers and sisters, it was modest compared to the expansion of his chest now. Emmy McKay was everything he’d ever wanted.
He swung open the door to let her inside. She was holding a round plastic container. “Hey stranger, whatcha got there?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She shimmied her shoulders playfully, and her cheeky grin hit him with a one-two punch—heart and groin. Yeah, he was a goner if Tupperware gave him wood. “It’s a surprise for after lunch.”
He took the container from her and backed her into the corner behind the door so he could kiss her. Her lips were warm and tasted like sweet tea. Tasted like home.
He went in deeper, aligning his body with hers and dismissing the reality that his family was just a room away. But dammit, he needed both his hands to do this right.
He started to release the container and let it fall to the floor, but Emmy pushed him away and gave what could only be called a squawk. “Don’t drop that!”
He brought it back on center, but its horizontal integrity had been compromised while he was busy with her mouth. “You said ‘after lunch.’”
“Yes.”
Sweet! He grinned at her in appreciation. “Does that mean you brought baked goods?”
Emmy slapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh. Oh, no. I didn’t even think about your mom.”
Careful of the valuable container this time, Cash yanked her to him with one hand and gave her a kiss chock-full of tongue and gratitude.
When he finally wound down the kiss, she said, “Whoa…uh…wow.”
“Don’t be surprised if even Maggie kisses you on the lips,” he told her cheerfully and put his arm around her.
Maggie poked her head into the room. “Why am I going to make out with your girlfriend?”
“Because of this.” Cash held up the container as if it were a solid gold trophy.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Just some individual cheesecakes,” Emmy hurried to say. “And I’d like to take all the credit, but—”
Maggie rushed her and did in fact, give her a smack directly on the mouth. “Bless you.”
Apparently Jay had witnessed the whole exchange because he eyed the two women, still in a fierce embrace, and said, “No one told me that family potlucks sometimes featured other entertainment.”
Maggie released Emmy and marched over to slug her boyfriend. “You’re a pig.”
“Good thing you like farm animals.”
“Into the dining room,” their mom called from the kitchen. “Your dad is washing up and everything is hot.”
His arm tight around Emmy, Cash paraded her and her cheesecakes into the room. “Mom, Emmy brought dessert.”
“Oh.” His mom’s expression dimmed and then brightened again immediately. “Great. I’ll just slice up the parsley cake I made and send some home with each of you. It’ll be wonderful for breakfast.”
And at least they’d all be out of sight when that cake went suspiciously missing from each of her kids’ houses.
“Did she say parsley?” Emmy whispered to him.
“Yeah. Don’t try to figure it out. Just nod and smile.”
When they all settled at the big table, the presentations began. Somehow it always worked out that all the food groups were covered. His dad with roasted free-range chicken. Maggie with a knockout pan of four-blend mac and cheese that Cash had a suspicion Jay had cooked along with his cabbage carbonara.
Way presented his charcuterie board, pretty damn elegant, if Cash was being honest. Riley was all about a fresh tropical fruit salad, studded with cardamom and mint.
And Shep pushed forward a basket of flaky rolls. Of them all, he was the one with the most patience for the precision needed for baking. Another mystery as to why his mom, as an engineer, couldn’t seem to crack the baking code.
“You might as well uncover it,” Maggie said, staring bullet holes into Cash’s foil-wrapped platter.
He did, revealing more foil-wrapped items.
Maggie grinned. “It’s just corn. Early in the season, but still. That’s not cheating. It’s…it’s underwhelming, honestly.” Then she grabbed one and put it on her plate. And when she parted the foil, she contemplated what was inside. “You made bacon-wrapped grilled sweet corn.”
“And you can thank me later.” And she would, because he’d sampled one earlier, and that corn was pretty freaking awesome.
Dishes were passed and plates were filled. But rather than a massive chow-down, they ate slowly. Cash liked to approach the meal the way Shep had eaten his food as a kid, one dish, one flavor at a time.
The salty tang of prosciutto. The parmesan and gouda in the mac. The tender crunch of cabbage under a carbonara sauce. As always, everything was topnotch.
“Mr. Kingston,” Emmy said from beside Cash, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hankered for your homegrown tomatoes over the years.”
“I think you should probably call me Ross now.” His dad laughed. “And you probably shouldn’t have admitted that about the tomatoes.”
“They’ll be on your doorstep all summer,” Cash whispered to Emmy. “But way better than anything my mom might send.”
“What did you say?” his mom asked from the other end of the table.
“Just told her between you and dad, she might never have to cook for herself again.”
By the look of sharp suspicion in his mother’s eyes, she hadn’t bought a word of his bullshit.
When everyone had a chance at a taste test for all of the offerings, the debate about a winner started. Riley’s fruit salad was delicious, but had it needed a little something to up its oomph factor? Based on Way’s cooking abilities, his charcuterie tray had been a slight copout.
“Cash shouldn’t even be in the running,” Maggie pointed out.
“And we haven’t eaten Emmy’s cheesecakes yet,” Shep said.
“Oh, I didn’t come to compete.”
“If you eat, you compete,” Maggie told her. “Which means it’s time to break out the cheesecakes!”
His mom hopped up and got them from the kitchen. She pulled off the top with a flair as if she was presenting her own cooking
and then she blinked at the array of mini cheesecakes—each one different, with swirls of frosting, candied fruit, and even one with carrot shavings on top. “Wow. I didn’t realize you were such a talented baker, Emmy.”
“Oh…well…I’m…they…” Emmy blew out a breath. “My mom and Kris helped. A lot.”
“Still. Maybe we could get together and you could teach me to make something like this.”
If Emmy hadn’t tasted failure before now, she was about to get a whole mouthful of it.
“Any time. But before anyone—”
“Shhhtht,” Way mouthed around something. That’s what grabbing for the rainbow sprinkled cheesecake and digging in would get a guy.
“—takes a bite,” Emmy continued, “I need to warn you there’s something in the center of each. You might want to eat around it.”
“Like a King Cake,” Riley said and reached for one with a dollop of chocolate on top.
“The one in the middle is for Cash.”
Aw, she’d baked a special cheesecake just for him. Maybe he could save it and they’d allocate that creamy topping for a more personal potluck. His expression must’ve given him away because Emmy elbowed him.
“Stop whatever you’re thinking. Your family is in the room.”
He kissed her on the neck and whispered, “Pretty sure my family is aware that you strip me naked and do kinky things to me.”
“I don’t even know what to do with you.” She shook her head.
“That, Emmy McKay, is a lie. You know all kinds of things to do with me.”
By this time, Way had dislodged the intruding item from his mouth and was staring at it as if he might use one of his custom-made firearms to take it out. “Is this what I think it is?”
Maggie considered the pint-sized troll doll Way was still glaring at and asked, “Why didn’t the hair melt in the oven?”
Emmy covered her eyes with her fingertips and confessed, “They’re no-bake cheesecakes.”
One by one, everyone at the table discovered a small trinket in their dessert.
A green spider ring.
A frog you could make jump by flicking its butt.
Tasting Fire Page 26
