Tasting Fire (Steele Ridge: The Kingstons Book 2)

by Kelsey Browning

  “Remind me to sleep late.” She looked up, her naturally beautiful face just inches from his, and Cash was infinitely aware of the reason she’d sliced him to bits years ago. He’d not only been in love with her, but he’d liked her. She’d been the funniest, smartest, and prettiest girl he’d ever dated. She’d been his future.

  Until she wasn’t.

  Back up before you get burned again.

  “Got an extra blanket, or do I have to sleep on that thing with no protection?” He nodded toward the couch. Grif happened to mention once that he’d found himself saddled with Hattie Martin’s retired sofa. And since the Martins were reputed to be swingers, this thing had seen some action.

  Someone needed to wrap that thing in an upholstery condom.

  “I’ve been afraid to sit on it,” Emmy admitted. “I’ll grab something to cover it.” She disappeared into the apartment’s bedroom and returned with an armful of sheets, blankets, and pillows.

  They worked together to make up the couch. But once every corner was tucked and wrinkle was smoothed, they had nothing left to do but look at one another.

  She wasn’t the same girl he’d once known, and he didn’t trust her. One kiss didn’t open the door to his heart, but for some reason, he couldn’t keep himself from winding a strand of her hair around his finger. “Get some rest. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”

  By this, Cash wasn’t sure if he meant the thrown brick or the feelings he was having a hard time beating back.

  The next morning, Emmy couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had happened last night. Someone wasn’t too happy that she was back. The brick was evidence of that, but what the tosser couldn’t know was that it had brought out the part of Emmy that loved nothing better than to dig in her heels.

  Even though she would’ve been fine alone, she appreciated Cash’s willingness to sleep on the hideous couch. She might even tell him that, but Emmy wouldn’t have admitted to a soul that she sat at the little breakfast bar in the apartment and watched Cash sleep. For a good half hour.

  His dark blond hair stood out in rebellious little tufts, and he’d pushed one of Miss Joan’s old quilts down his torso, baring the golden perfection of his chest. Emmy had never wanted to palpate an abdomen as badly as she wanted to scrutinize Cash’s six-pack. The line of hair trailing from his stomach downward mesmerized her. He’d taken off his shirt. What else had he shucked last night? Pants? Underwear?

  None of your nosy business, Emmy Lou.

  Oh, but she wanted it to be her business.

  Her very up-close-and-personal business.

  Turn away while you still can.

  Yeah, she needed something else to focus on besides the delicious Cash Kingston body buffet. Her elbow grazed the slab of eggplant bread from Cash’s mom. Hmm. Maybe it could be salvaged.

  Emmy hopped up and rummaged around in the tiny kitchen until she found a serrated knife. She unwound the multiple layers of plastic wrap protecting the bread and set to slicing it.

  What she concluded was that it would probably be easier to saw through the human sternum with a grapefruit spoon. Still, she kept at it until half the loaf was sliced and her hand was numb from pressing the knife so hard. She dropped four slices into the toaster and clicked the lever.

  By the time it popped—sluggishly—back up, she had small plates, butter, and muscadine jelly at the ready. She looked over her shoulder, but Cash hadn’t moved other than the arm that had been flung over his head was now angled across his belly, with his other hand burrowed under the covers. Between his legs.

  Oh. She imagined her own hand resting—or working away—in that same spot. Suddenly, the heat she was feeling had nothing to do with the bright red toaster coils.

  She forced herself to turn back to the so-called toast and slapped butter and jelly on the crispy pieces. To choke that down, Cash would need some liquid assistance, so she made two cups of coffee in the single-serve machine Grif had left behind in the apartment, bless him.

  It made her realize she had no idea how Cash took his coffee or if he even drank it. They hadn’t been big coffee consumers when they were teenagers.

  She carried a plate and cup over to the couch and waved the coffee close to Cash’s face. Boom! His eyes opened. Guess that answered the question about his coffee preferences.

  “Gimme,” he said, trying to sit up and reach for the cup in one movement. But he stalled out mid-move when he realized one of his hands was tangled under the blanket. A trail of pink inched its way up his throat, and Emmy glanced down at his lap.

  “You might need both your hands for that.” Because it was now clear that he’d woken with a skyscraper of an erection.

  “Shit.” He jerked his hand from under the covers. Not looking Emmy in the face, he reached for the coffee. With the other hand.

  A little surprised at his embarrassment, based on what they both did for a living, she plopped down by his hip, forcing him to angle farther into the couch. She sipped her coffee nonchalantly. “One time, a guy walked into the ER—well, I should say he waddled into the ER—with, as he said, ‘a little something going on down there.’ Turned out he had chronic epididymitis. Let me tell you, everyone on shift wanted to get a look at those baseball-sized testicles.”

  “Poor bastard.” Cash snorted into his cup. “Have you ever wondered if there’s something wrong with us, people who get their jollies from other people’s pain?”

  “Oh, I don’t wonder. I know. But as one of the nurses at BaltGen used to say, ‘You know shit’s gonna go down, so why not wish for it to go down while you’re working?’”

  “Yeah, we are all kinds of wrong.”

  Emmy focused on the plate she’d set on the low coffee table. “Why did you become an EMT, Cash?” After all, he’d never expressed interest in the medical field when they were younger. That had always been her dream. His only passion had been football, and Mrs. Southerland had helped him land a scholarship to NC State.

  “Turns out, it’s one of the professional-type jobs a guy can actually get with a GED.”

  His words hit Emmy and froze her muscles. He hadn’t taken part in their high school graduation ceremony, but she’d never realized he hadn’t actually graduated. She knew she’d gutted him when she rejected his proposal, but even love shouldn’t throw someone for that big of a loop. “You… decided to quit high school six weeks before graduation? How did I not know that?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to.” His smile was nostalgic and a little sad. “Turned out for the best, really. I wasn’t cut out for college.”

  “But you obviously completed EMT and paramedic coursework.” Not to mention firefighting and tactical medicine training.

  “Compressed programs with a fucking point to them. I’m not as patient as you. I couldn’t have done four years, then med school, and all that other bullshit.”

  Yeah, the timetable wasn’t for everyone. She’d worked with a number of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who would’ve made better doctors than the doctors they worked beside. Hell, many of them were better and more knowledgeable than the doctors. But for whatever reason, they’d decided the med school route wasn’t for them.

  “How did your family feel about your decision not to go on to college?”

  “We’re not exactly a homogenous crew, now are we? Maggie’s the high-achieving firstborn. Shep was homeschooled. Riley’s the most educated by far. Way’s…well, Way is Way.”

  She’d missed his offbeat family. Cash’s house had always been a bit chaotic, but that was to be expected in a family with five kids. They’d maintained a loose structure because Shep’s Asperger’s demanded it. But otherwise, they were like a big pile of puppies. Lots of yapping, playing, and rough-housing.

  She’d envied that.

  Lord knows she loved her mom and Kris, but after her dad died when Emmy was in elementary school, it had always been just the three of them, and three girls were only so rough-and-tumble. Her dad’s death
had changed so much in Emmy’s life.

  Kris had recently to come to terms with who and what her real dad was.

  But Emmy was still struggling with her own father and his advice to her. She could still hear the words he always said in his drawling baritone.

  Life is serious, Em. Give it your very best.

  Cash shifted away from her, pulling Emmy out of her thoughts. “You look sad. If you’re feeling sorry for me, don’t.”

  Emmy’s sadness was so deep-seated that it was hard to pick it apart into individual causes. “I’m trying to learn how not to be so serious,” she blurted out.

  “What?”

  Suddenly embarrassed that she’d said that aloud, Emmy reached for Cash’s plate of questionable breakfast and shoved it into his hands. “I toasted this.”

  “Wow,” he said. “I didn’t think it could get any darker.”

  “I put butter and jelly on it.”

  Cash grunted and broke off a corner of the bread. It looked like a poop-colored cinderblock.

  “Think of it this way,” she told him, “if you take a bite, then you can tell your mom you ate it and you won’t be fibbing.”

  “I’m only risking it because I know you’re familiar with the Heimlich.” He put the piece in his mouth and chewed. And chewed. And chewed. With a hand, he made a frantic rolling motion toward his coffee.

  Emmy traded the cup for his plate, and Cash gulped down the coffee like he’d been marching through the desert for a week. When he came up for air, he said, “Your turn.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. How did it taste?”

  He considered, two slow blinks of his beautiful brown eyes that made his golden eyelashes reflect the morning sunlight. “Like a cross between a petrified fruitcake and a charred mudpie.”

  He slid the plate back onto the coffee table and sat forward until he and Emmy were mere inches apart. “What did you mean about being too serious?”

  Stupid, Emmy. When you keep your mouth shut, people don’t ask questions. She fiddled with her cup, twisting it this way and that. “Everyone wants to be happier.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that.”

  It was, but she wasn’t certain he was the right person to share her plan with. He was naturally happy—always had a quick smile, a teasing joke, a kind word. Cash Kingston was the definition of fun. He didn’t understand what it was like to have a linear, objective-driven personality like hers.

  And if she told him what she wanted, he’d laugh right in her face. “It was just an offhand thought.”

  “Emmy McKay, nothing with you is just an offhand thought.”

  Which was exactly the reason she’d developed the plan o’ fun. She didn’t know how to play, how to be lighthearted and carefree. Didn’t know how to be something other than the serious Emerson McKay with other people.

  Without overthinking it, she jumped to her feet and grabbed her purse from a hook near the door.

  She couldn’t look at Cash and talk about this at the same time, so she pulled out a small spiral notebook and walked over to peer out the window overlooking Main Street. With her thumb, she riffled the pages. Zip. Zip. “Other people naturally know how to have fun. Me? Not so much.”

  “Aw, Em…”

  She held up a hand. If he started throwing her a pity party, she’d have to RSVP with her regrets. “Don’t get me wrong, being the knuckle-down brainy girl has earned me a lot. Good grades, good college, great career.”

  But only a so-so life.

  She hadn’t heard Cash move, but her skin rippled and his heat blanketed her back. Please put your arms around me.

  Please don’t put your arms around me because I might shatter.

  Just like the window last night.

  He skimmed her forearm and eased the notebook from her hand. Emmy knew by heart what he’d find on page one printed in handwriting that was much too neat to be a doctor’s.

  Emerson McKay’s Strategic Plan for Fun Development.

  Pa. The. Tic.

  What normal human needed a Roman numeral-ed outline for enjoying life?

  Obviously, she wasn’t normal.

  “You…um…only have five things on this list.”

  Even more pathetic. She had way more Roman numerals than she did fun ideas.

  She whirled around and snatched the notebook from his hand. Maybe she’d contracted caffeine poisoning. Only explanation for losing her mind and showing this to Cash.

  “Hey,” he protested. “I wasn’t done with that.”

  “As you so kindly pointed out, it wasn’t exactly a tome. More like a short story.” With a quick sidestep, she tried to duck around him, but he held out his arms to stop her.

  Somehow those strong arms found their way around her and pulled her into his chest. Fine, she could bury her face here as well as anywhere else. And the scent of rosemary and woodsmoke that clung to his skin cruised through her body like heroin.

  “Why are you like catnip?” And if he was catnip, she was a Siamese with a drug problem. Line him up, baby, and she would snort him.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” she mumbled against him, taking perverse enjoyment in feeling his pectorals against her moving lips. It felt good—so good—to lean against someone who didn’t expect her to perform either a medical miracle or hostess duties.

  “So you want to have more fun, huh?”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. Damn the man. He was laughing just as she’d been afraid he would. Her head snapped up, but instead of finding amusement in his expression, she discovered he was gazing at her with a straight face. “Why aren’t you laughing?”

  “Because this is serious stuff right here. Having fun is the most serious occupation in the world.”

  Emmy snorted. “You’re so full of it.”

  He stepped back and his mouth turned down at the corners. Sharply. “Which is the reason I have to tell you that I’m disappointed in you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You used to be a more diligent student.” Next came the disapproving head shake that made Emmy feel as if she was back in elementary school. “This outline is painfully incomplete. In fact, if I were grading it right now, you wouldn’t get a passing mark.”

  “But—”

  “I mean, there’s a reason these notebooks have fifty pages in them. The outline should fill up the whole thing.”

  “That’s a lot of fun.”

  “And that,” he said, “is absolutely the point.”

  10

  Emmy couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t even snickered. Cash had seen her pitiful list of fun things she wanted to do and hadn’t fallen to the floor and convulsed with laughter. In fact, he’d been straight-faced when he assigned her homework, telling her he expected her to have another five pages filled out by the end of the day.

  Didn’t he understand that it had taken her a month just to come up with the first one?

  Before they left her apartment earlier, they’d put in a call to Maggie to see if Stan had been smart enough to give her the same story. According to her, Stan Jackson denied any involvement with the brick flinging, and his alibi had been the game. He’d given her a play-by-play.

  He could’ve DVRed it.

  Maggie said the incident would stay on her radar, but with no evidence against Stan—no fingerprints on the note—and with tons of Ford trucks in Haywood County alone…

  Yeah, Emmy got the picture. If Stan had thrown that brick, it couldn’t be proven.

  For now, she put aside the possibility of overt TMT hostility and stopped by St. Elizabeth’s ER desk to grab the details on her next patient.

  “Uh, Dr. McKay?” One of the nurses pointed to her cheek. “You’ve got a little green stuff…”

  Thank God a tissue box was never far away. Emmy grabbed a handful and scrubbed at her skin. “Room six.”

  “I figured.”

  Emmy actually liked treating kids, but even she had her limits. The eight-year-old with a sever
e sinus infection had sneezed right in her face and given her a good slime.

  And now she was heading toward exam room two where another little boy had allegedly inserted a raisin into his left nostril.

  “So Braden,” she said cheerfully as she walked into the room. “What brings you to see me today?”

  In his preschool wisdom, he explained that the ant on the log had gone exploring.

  Reminder to self: Never feed children celery topped with peanut butter and raisins.

  She looked up his nose and sure enough, one nostril was clogged with dried fruit. “What do you do for fun?”

  “What do you mean?” His little head, covered with white-blond hair, tilted. Would Cash’s kids have hair this color? The thought made her ovaries—with their closing-in-on-middle-aged eggs—sit up and pay attention.

  “You know, stuff you like to do.”

  “You mean like playing with my trucks?”

  “Yep.”

  His adorable face took on a contemplative cast. “Chasing my dog Beau. Playing catch with my mom. Jumping in the pool. Watching cat…cater…caterpillows. Eating candy. Eating cake. Eating more candy.”

  Proof that her life was a sad state of affairs. In less than thirty seconds, Braden had come up with more fun stuff than she had in a month.

  “Sounds like you’re a pro at having fun.” She put a gloved finger on his right nostril and pressed it closed. “Now I need you to act like you’re blowing your nose. Not too hard, just enough to—”

  Boing! The raisin flew from Braden’s nose and landed on the lapel of Emmy’s lab coat. A quick glance down told her the piece of dried fruit had cleared out a little nasal congestion.

  It was official. She was a booger magnet.

  She told the boy’s mother the nurse would be by with release paperwork soon. As cute as he’d been, this was an issue that could’ve been solved by the triage nurse. Should Emmy mention that to the ER director?

  Might be a little too soon in her tenure here to provide constructive criticism.