Tasting Fire

by Kelsey Browning

  You will handle this.

  And Cash couldn’t forget that Emmy was a grown woman, well-trained, smart, and levelheaded. Cash followed them, every step a careful placement to avoid making noise and stepping on something that would either bite him or break his leg.

  After a half mile or so, Mrs. Southerland grabbed Emmy by the braid and pulled so hard that her back bowed. “This is far enough.”

  “But…But it’s still a mile to the highway.”

  “Get over there.” She used the gun to gesture toward an ancient refrigerator.

  Emmy walked over and braced her back against the fridge with her feet spread aggressively. “Mrs. Southerland, let’s talk this out.”

  “No. It was your persuasive little mouth—and I guess your golden squeeze box—that caused all this in the first place.”

  Squeeze box?

  Un. Hinged.

  Emmy’s eyes flashed wide and she bit down on her lips as if holding in laughter. How the hell could she find anything about this funny?

  Finally, Emmy let it loose, and thank God her chuckles came across as incredulity instead of mocking. “Are you telling me that you think I have a spellbinding vagina?”

  “Why else would Cash have turned down that football scholarship?”

  “Fine,” Emmy sighed. “You’re right. It’s actually a treasure chest. Studded with diamonds and rubies. Sometimes it even doles out gold coins.”

  When they got out of this, he was going to kill Emmy himself. A madwoman had her on the business end of a revolver. And for that gun to do the damage it had done to the band director, it was filled with hollow-points.

  Maybe Emmy was just trying to kill time, waiting for the SWAT team to show up.

  Cash eyed her closely, looking for signs that she might be going into shock or melting down.

  Hell, the rise and fall of her chest was at the respiration he would expect after a brisk hike through the woods. She planned to get herself out of this somehow.

  “Cash could’ve been somebody,” Mrs. Southerland said, her voice full of venomous hatred.

  “For the record, Cash is somebody. He’s excellent at what he does, he genuinely cares about the people in this community, and he follows through on his promises.”

  Mrs. Southerland snorted. “Everybody shows you what they want you to see. He’s probably just like my husband, rotten to the core. After all, they both chased a piece of ass and ran out on their responsibilities.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought your husband died. You…You had a funeral for him.”

  “A memorial. And a body isn’t required for that. Just plop a cheap vase down on a podium, and people take you at your word for it.”

  This little chat might’ve interrupted Mrs. Southerland’s escape, but it wasn’t doing much to get Emmy out of this dangerous situation. She needed to know she wasn’t alone. Cash swallowed twice because he wouldn’t get a second chance. One more swallow to clear the dread out of his throat. Then he let loose the high clear sound of a whippoorwill.

  To Emmy’s credit, she didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. But she’d heard, he knew it because she shook her head, slowly, but Cash knew it was meant for him. She was waving him and the rest of the team off.

  “This has all been so dramatic today,” she said to Mrs. Southerland. “I honestly didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Are you laughing at me, you little bitch?” Mrs. Southerland leaned in and smashed Emmy on the side of the face with the gun.

  Fuck. That had been hard enough to break her cheekbone.

  Emmy’s head angled down with the blow, but when she raised it again—slowly and carefully—hell was blazing in her eyes. The dual surge of love and fear that shot through Cash almost took his legs out from under him.

  “Get inside that refrigerator.”

  “So I can make it easy on you? I don’t think so,” Emmy darted forward and kicked the other woman in the side of the left knee.

  Mrs. Southerland cried out and teetered off balance. Went down hard on her hip, but her grip on the gun was steady and her aim on Emmy was, too. “Just try to run. I’ve been practicing with this ever since my husband left me. I’ll blow a hole through your back that will leave you without those molehills you call tits.”

  Emmy had to see that he was angling around to approach Mrs. Southerland from the back, but her attention on the woman didn’t falter. “You claim that this is all about Cash and how I supposedly ruined his life. What do you think it’ll do to him when he finds out you were the crazy witch who killed me, the woman he loves? Has always loved.”

  “He’ll finally move on with his life. Maybe give me grandchildren.”

  That little nugget stopped both Cash and Emmy—total flash freeze.

  Cash could hear the almost silent approach of the SWAT team and he breathed into his mic, “Hold position. Situation currently unstable.”

  “What?” Emmy finally wheezed out.

  “He would never get serious with any other girls because of you. Not that Chelsea Black was any great prize, but I could have convinced him to dump her. After all, I want my grandbabies to be handsome and smart. That’s why I had some hopes for you years ago.”

  “Are… Are you saying… You think… You do know Cash isn’t your son, don’t you?”

  Cash couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, but if their gleam was anything like the fervor in her voice, they were scary as fuck. She thought he would give her grandkids.

  “He has parents,” Emmy told her. “Always has.”

  “That mother of his didn’t care about her children.”

  “How can you possibly think that? The Kingstons are one of the closest, most loving families I’ve ever met.”

  “Sandy Kingston is a poor excuse for a mother. Running off to work with a bunch of ditchdiggers instead of staying home and taking care of what God had blessed her with. Five. Five of them, and she couldn’t see what she’d been given. Selfish bitch.”

  Emmy’s face tightened and she made a fist.

  Don’t do it, Em. Don’t risk yourself just because this woman has gone mental.

  It didn’t matter what Karen Southerland said about his mom, because Cash knew the truth. Only two people who loved each other the way his parents did could make the amazing life they had.

  Just like he and Emmy were going to do just as soon as they got out of this mess.

  * * *

  A sliver of compassion for Mrs. Southerland made Emmy want to reach out and soothe the woman. But even more than that, she wanted both Cash and herself to make it out of this insanity alive.

  When the woman had spouted her crazy I-should’ve-been-Cash’s-mama bit, he’d stopped his approach, just stood there out in the open like a prey animal that had spotted a crocodile at the water’s edge. And even though Mrs. Southerland loved him—in the only wacked-out way she knew—if she spotted him, Emmy had no doubt she would shoot him.

  So Emmy bent at the waist to meet the woman’s gaze. Use a little of the psych training she’d received as a resident. “I can see why you would feel that way.”

  “Don’t humor me.”

  “I’m not. It must be so painful not to be able to have children of your own.” It was a guess, but one worth throwing out there.

  “You have no idea. In fact, you probably won’t have any trouble even though you’re just as selfish as Sandy Kingston is. People say ‘You can adopt.’ I wanted babies from my own body.”

  Ah. So this wasn’t so much about a magical vagina as it was about a functional pair of ovaries.

  Emmy’s heart twisted. It had to be hard as hell to have something you wanted so badly be permanently out of your reach. To have it color and corrode everything you could’ve found joy in.

  Then again, wasn’t that what she’d done to a similar extent, if not outcome? She’d allowed her father’s death—his murder—to steal her capacity to live an imperfect, joyful life. Had allowed it to cement her belief that if one major thing in life didn’t go
the way she wanted, she had to do everything she could to somehow compensate for that.

  No wonder she hadn’t ever been able to find a balance between her work and her life. She was the one waging the damn war this whole time.

  Realizations later. Action now. She flickered a meaningful look up at Cash. She needed him to disarm Mrs. Southerland. And the best way to give him time to do that was to keep her talking.

  “You probably would’ve been a much better mother than Sandy.”

  Oh, yeah. She’d made the right call. The other woman’s shoulders relaxed.

  “Of course I would have. That’s why none of it makes any sense. That woman. She let her kids do anything they wanted, and she ran all over that nice husband of hers. How he could stand to stay with her and raise her children, I have no idea.”

  Emmy believed the Kingstons had a family and marriage that was slightly before its time and in a very good way. “So you think Ross should’ve been the breadwinner and Sandy should’ve stayed home to raise the kids?”

  “That’s the way God intended it. And she didn’t even recognize when He’d punished her, telling her enough was enough. No, she had to go ahead and have another one.”

  Disgust filled Emmy. Was she really insinuating that Shep…

  “He gave her a defective one. That was His sign to stop, but did she heed it? No, she just went ahead and had Riley. Granted, that girl might just be the smartest of them all. But Sandy should’ve known better after the retarded one.”

  Emmy couldn’t chance a glance at Cash’s face, but she knew what was likely there—pure anger and disbelief that anyone would believe Shep Kingston had been some kind of cosmic mistake. And as much as Emmy wanted to come to Shep’s defense, nothing she said would change this woman’s mind.

  So she nodded as if seriously considering the merit of Mrs. Southerland’s opinion.

  From behind Mrs. Southerland, Cash rushed forward and chopped her on the forearm. She cried out, losing her grip on the handgun. Cash caught it, but didn’t grab the woman fast enough.

  Hands curled into claws, she scrambled to her feet and charged toward Emmy. “You tricked me.”

  Cash lunged as if to stop her, but Emmy snarled, “This is mine.”

  She let the woman attack, but used her forward momentum to twist and roll so that Mrs. Southerland was on her back and Emmy was straddling her torso. She grabbed and pinioned the woman’s grasping hands. “If you don’t stop struggling, you’re going to force me to hurt you.”

  By the way her right forearm was swelling, Cash had done some damage there already, so although her professional promise was to do no harm, Emmy shifted her hold and squeezed the swollen flesh.

  Mrs. Southerland screamed and bucked. Flopped and gasped for a pain-free breath.

  While the woman was still squirming and cussing, spewing rambling sentences of nonsense, Emmy forced her onto her stomach. She used her stethoscope to bind the woman’s hands and Cash caught hold of her ankles and secured them with a utility strap.

  Emmy didn’t even have the energy to lift herself off the woman; she just rested there, trying to catch her breath while the SWAT team swarmed around them.

  Strong hands grasped her under the arms and lifted. Although her legs were like rubber urinary catheters, Emmy locked her knees to remain on her feet.

  Where she was lying, Mrs. Southerland whacked her head against the ground with such force that Emmy actually winced. “Maybe we should get her up and—”

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  “What is she doing?” Cash said. “Oh, fuck. She’s laying on an old muffler. She’s trying to hurt herself.” He pushed Emmy out of the way and tried to haul Mrs. Southerland to her feet. But she struggled and eluded his grasp, falling face-first on the rusted auto part.

  Emmy rushed in to help pull her off the hunk of jagged metal. Mrs. Southerland was deadweight in their hands, and something warm gushed onto Emmy’s shoes. “She cut herself.” Somehow, she and Cash flipped the woman onto her back only to discover the sharp metal had obviously made contact with her neck. Blood was pumping out of the slash with every heartbeat. “It hit her carotid.” Immediately applying pressure, Emmy said, “Hang on. Just a few damn minutes.”

  “Let me help,” Cash said.

  “I can’t release pressure. She’ll bleed out.”

  But regardless of Emmy’s efforts, the blood seeped through her fingers, much like it had when David Hernandez was brought into the ER. And in the hands of death, evil blood didn’t differ from innocent.

  It all ran warm, no matter how cold the heart.

  Karen Southerland coughed, causing more blood to escape the wound. “You… don’t deserve to…” The awareness and life in the woman’s eyes drained away before she could finish her sentence.

  Emmy didn’t deserve what? To be a doctor? To love Cash? To have him love her back?

  “I’m sorry, Cash. She’s gone.”

  He yanked Emmy to her feet and wrapped her in his arms like she was the one in danger of bleeding out. “But you’re not, and that’s what matters.”

  * * *

  Unable to believe the woman he’d regarded as a second mom for most of his life had just cut her throat—on purpose?—right in front of him, Cash stared over Emmy’s shoulder at the prone body on the ground. Her neck twisted to one side, blood still oozed from the cut and dripped to the ground.

  “Cash.” From a faraway place, he felt Emmy’s warm hands—wet hands—on his back. “Let me double -check.”

  “I got it.” Reluctant to let Emmy go, he forced himself to hunker down and check Mrs. Southerland’s pulse. He came away with two fingers smeared with blood and nothing else.

  Jackson immediately arrowed in on Cash and Emmy. Pointing to a bench seat that had been parted from its car many years ago, he said, “Sit down so I can check you both out.” As he looked them over, he faced Emmy. “Dr. McKay, I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole to you. I just… My wife walked out on me not long ago and I… I’ve been taking it out on any woman around me.”

  “Thanks for the apology, Jackson,” she said. “Let’s see if we can’t get past this, okay?”

  Trying to spare Jackson, Cash asked, “How is the kid in 165?”

  “Got him loaded up and to the hospital. I think he’s gonna be okay. As shitty as this whole thing was, it was a miracle she only killed one person.”

  “She was here, in this school, with those kids, this whole time. And she was fucking nuts,” Cash said, miserable that he’d played any part in it. “And it was because of me.”

  “You know that’s a crock of bullshit.” Emmy grabbed his hand and tugged, forcing him to look at her. Realizing she still had blood on her hands, she tried to release him, but Cash hung on. He needed her. Needed to know she was alive. “She was trying to put the blame on you and on me—hell, on your mother—for life circumstances she couldn’t handle. That’s not your fault in any way.”

  “But something inside her broke when I didn’t—”

  “She was like a bridge without all its supports. At some point, it was going to collapse. But there wasn’t any rhyme or reason as to which car was going to be the one that made it cave.”

  “I was one of her favorites.”

  “That doesn’t make you responsible for what happened to her or what she did,” Emmy said.

  Maggie and two of her deputies strode toward them. She looked from Mrs. Southerland’s body to Emmy and then to Cash. “Thank God you two are okay. What a nightmare. A school staffer turning on the students…”

  “Based on a few things she said to me,” Emmy said quietly, “I think she might’ve planned this as the knockout punch in a bigger boxing match.”

  “What?”

  “She didn’t actually admit to it, but I think she might’ve been behind everything from the brick throwing to… maybe even to Jesse’s death.”

  “Koncerned Sitizen,” Cash said. “Karen Southerland. Goddammit, she’s the one who wrote that op-ed piece.”<
br />
  “She might’ve even been responsible for the rumors about David Hernandez’s death.”

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed in thought. “That definitely shines a different light on the incidents these past few weeks. After we clear up this mess, I’ll do some digging and get back with you.”

  When Maggie turned to consult with Captain Styles, Cash wrapped an arm around Emmy’s shoulders and pulled her close, savoring the feel of her warm—and very alive—body next to his. “I think it’s time for me to officially hand the TMT back to you.”

  “Cash, I—”

  “The way you handled yourself today, I would follow you into anything. Anywhere. Anytime. You’re a pro, Em. Saving lives with your medical expertise is one thing, but with your fast thinking and negotiation skills, you averted what could’ve been a complete bloodbath in that school. You, Emmy McKay, are a badass. My badass.”

  33

  After Karen Southerland stunned the entire community with school violence and killed herself, the North Carolina mountains seemed to mourn for days. The clouds moved in low and hung over Steele Ridge as if they’d never allow the sunshine through again.

  Cash’s mood had been much the same, even though he’d talked Emmy into coming home with him and they’d taken refuge in his bed. They’d both been required to take a week off from the station and hospital. But any time Emmy wanted to talk about what had happened, he’d either kissed her or ignored her.

  Not exactly the kind of attitude that showed a woman he cared.

  His family had paraded in and out of his house at will, bringing hugs, comforting words, and in his mom’s case, a batch of gingerbread and dried kiwi cookies. It spoke to his state of mind that he’d eaten them all.

  This morning, when he’d woken, the sun was a fireball in the sky and Emmy was gone. She’d probably had about all of his brooding ass that she could stand.

  Totally understandable.

  Cash happened to catch a quick peek at himself as he was hauling himself into the shower, and hell, he definitely understood why Emmy’d made a break for it. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she fled the state.