The tension in Emmy’s hands released and they unfurled along her thighs. The tightness he’d noticed around her eyes and mouth when he picked her up began to smooth.
“Keep breathing. Doesn’t have to be deep breaths. Just natural, easy breaths. Move into them. Ride your breath.”
He talked her through a ten-minute meditation session before saying, “Now, slowly transition your awareness away from your breath and back into the now. Hear the sounds of the birds and the feel of the breeze on your skin. Wiggle your fingers and when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.”
When she finally opened them, she turned toward Cash with a glazed gaze. “Oh my God. That might’ve been better than sex. I feel so relaxed. Like multiple orgasm relaxed.”
Great. He’d just meditated her out of her frisky mood.
“Is that how you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“How you surf through life. How long have you practiced meditation?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Dad discovered that leading Shep through guided meditation helped his anxiety when we were kids. I used to sit with him and do it, too. Convinced him it wasn’t something he should do just because he was different. That it was normal. I dropped away from the practice for several years. And then when I was living out in LA, I got back into it.”
“Can you teach me?”
“It’s really not that complicated…”
“This is part of what I’ve been missing. I have this stupid, short list of fun. But I never slow down long enough to do any of it. Even if I do, I’m all about checking off the damn box. That’s not fun. It’s just another kind of work.”
Why couldn’t she seem to see that being alive was inherently fun?
“I’ll teach you to meditate,” he told her, “if you promise not to enjoy it more than sex.”
Her smile was teasing as she pulled her legs onto the catwalk and straddled his lap. He was careful to pull her close to his chest and away from the railing he’d insisted was safe. “Maybe you should show me how they’re different,” she said, her voice low and sexy.
She closed her eyes and leaned in. Her lips were a whisper on his when both their phones went off with a mood-killing call-out tone.
“So help me God if this is a surprise training exercise and you knew about it…” Cash groped for his phone as Emmy reluctantly dismounted his lap. His very happy lap.
“If this is an exercise, believe me, it’s all on the SWAT captain.”
Cash’s pager said: Hostage situation at Evergreen Apartments. Report of a teenage white male threatening to kill his sister and blow up the building.
“This has to be training,” he said as they made for the stairs. “We never get two SWAT calls this close together. Not in Haywood County.”
“Maybe,” Emmy said. “But the world is changing. Like you said when we were running in the park, even small communities have plenty of problems.”
The scramble for the two of them to get to their vehicles and gear was becoming a habit. Not a good one. They took the stairs down the water tower as quickly as possible and dashed for the truck without closing the gate and draping the chain back through. Damn, he’d have to ’fess up to Maggie. He didn’t want some kids to come out here and take it as an invitation to climb the tower.
In the truck, he and Emmy reported in on the encrypted channel on their separate radios.
“Kingston on SWAT One.”
“McKay on SWAT One.”
He and Emmy made it all the way to Main Street before hitting a red light that would allow him to text his sister about the unlocked gate.
Cash: Water tower lock cut. Can u send someone to fix?
Maggie: How wud u know?
Cash: Rt place at rt time
Her response was an eye roll emoji.
Back in town, Cash stopped in the middle of Main Street and idled while Emmy slid into her SUV and backed out. They both pushed the legal edge of the speed limit on their way to the scene.
Once enough team members arrived outside a mid-priced apartment building, one with brick naked of graffiti and recently painted trim, the captain gave them a quick briefing.
Definitely not a training exercise.
He and Emmy joined the standard stack formation this time, and Cash had to force back his instinct to push her behind him when she took the lead medic position.
At the suspect’s front door, the point operator called out, “Police! Open the door!”
Nothing. No answer. No call for help.
“Open up! Police!”
Not a peep from inside.
“Prepare to breach.”
The apartment door was standard issue flimsy and it didn’t take much to breach the lock, just a twist of the Halligan bar.
“Police!”
“Get your hands up!” The operators poured in, weapons at the ready. One after the other, they broke left and right into the apartment while Emmy and Cash hunkered just outside. From his vantage point, Cash could see the majority of the living room.
“Get down,” an operator yelled at a kid about fifteen years old. “On the ground.”
The teenager put his hands up and slid bonelessly from a computer chair in front of a monitor and onto his back on the floor. The headset he was wearing unplugged from the computer and slipped off one of the kid’s ears.
Noise canceling. Probably the reason he hadn’t heard them call out.
“Turn over. Hands behind your back!”
“Don’t you fucking move.”
The conflicting instructions from two different operators seemed to paralyze the kid.
From his crouched position by the front door, Cash scanned the room for any sign of the threatened sister, but no one else was present.
“He’s reaching for his belt!” Emmy yelled.
McGarvey, the newest SWAT operator, whirled around toward the kid, and the sound of gunshot was muffled inside Cash’s radio headset.
No bean bags this time. The operators were carrying rifles with live ammo.
“Shit.” Cash lunged inside the room and went for the kid’s leg where blood was blooming on his thigh. His right hand was splayed at his side and in it lay a small plastic container filled with green candy.
That was what the kid had been reaching for. Breath mints.
“Teenage male with a gunshot to the left thigh,” Cash spoke into his radio. “Requesting ambulance backup.” He looked over to find Emmy kneeling on the other side of the kid, as frozen as if she’d been dropped into a cryogenic chamber.
“Oh, God,” she said. “It was just candy.”
“Not now,” Cash snapped at her. “This looks like an arterial bleed.”
That was all it took. She went to work applying a tourniquet to the leg while Cash checked the kid’s ABCs.
“Where’s your sister?” one of the SWAT guys asked the kid.
“This isn’t the time,” Emmy told him.
“Who?” the kid asked.
“The sister you threatened to kill.”
“Dude…” The kid’s words were starting to slur and his eyes were going glassy. “I don’t…have a …a…sister.”
Emmy, hands moving quickly but methodically, nodded toward the workstation. “He was playing Call of Duty. They’re probably recording us.”
“Who?” Cash asked.
“Whoever the hell he was playing with. I think we’ve been swatted.”
“Who…did this?” the kid asked, voice shaky with tears.
“What’s your name?” Emmy asked him.
“Jesse…Giddings.”
From the computer speakers came the panicked voices of several other teenagers. “Shit, man. There are cops in Jesse’s house. With guns. I heard a gunshot.”
“Wasn’t…me,” Jesse insisted from his prone position on the floor, becoming more and more lethargic with each word.
“It’s okay,” Emmy soothed. “We’ll get this all straightened out.”
“Wasn’t m…�
�� The kid’s eyes rolled back and he passed out cold.
“We need transport now!” Cash yelled.
“Ambulance is sixty seconds out.”
They had Jesse outside and in the rig as soon as it rolled up.
Once Jesse was on his way to St. Elizabeth’s, Cash slumped against a wall. “So he wasn’t threatening anyone?” he asked one of the SWAT operators.
“The rest of the apartment was totally clear. His buddies were swatting him.”
“Why would someone do that?” Cash asked.
“Maybe he was winning, and his friends were pissed,” Emmy said. “I’ve been on half a dozen of these calls up in Maryland. They think it’s funny.”
How could Emmy be so damn calm when a so-called joke had resulted in a bullet nicking a kid’s femoral artery?
That was when she smoothed her hands over her French braid, and Cash saw that they were shaking as if she were a caffeine addict who’d gone without her four espresso shots. “What did I do?” she asked, more to herself than to him. “I…”
“You didn’t do anything. Jesse didn’t keep his hands visible and you were warning the team.”
“It was just fucking mints.”
“We don’t need to talk about this here,” Cash said in a low voice as he covertly squeezed her arm. “But the fault isn’t yours.” Unfortunately, he didn’t know how that would play out in the debriefing.
According to Captain Styles, debriefing was simply another word for ass chewing. And for those who’d responded to the swatting call, no one’s ass came out unchewed.
Maybe that should’ve made Emmy feel better. But it just made her feel shittier.
Of course, there would be a full investigation into the call-out because McGarvey had fired his gun. Had shot an innocent kid who was—according to Emmy’s communication with St. Elizabeth’s—still in surgery.
When the debriefing ended, Emmy broke for the conference room door before anyone else. She definitely didn’t seek out Cash. Hell, she couldn’t look him in the eye. She’d made a potentially fatal mistake. Then she’d frozen on patient care. And afterward, she’d been so rattled she was surprised her teeth hadn’t chattered.
Not Cash. He’d kept his head, even though he hadn’t known what the hell was going on.
“Emmy, wait up.” Cash jogged up from behind her before she could hit the unlock button for her SUV. When he wrapped a hand around her elbow, she felt as if her body was splintering into a million pieces. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think? The hospital.” Click, click, click. Nothing. Why the hell wasn’t her key fob working?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Cash guided her to the back of her Mercedes, putting the car between them and the sheriff’s department building.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re trying to unlock your car with your grocery store loyalty card.”
Well, that explained it. She dropped the ring of small plastic cards into her bag. “I didn’t ask for your permission.” Trying to skirt around him, she broke to the right, but Cash stepped left as if they were ballroom dancing. “I need to see Jesse.”
“In the debriefing, you told everyone that he was still in the OR and probably would be for some time. There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“I can wait.”
“Which you can also do at home.”
“I need to know.” Guilt and regret were pounding behind her eyes. It was either go check on the boy or let tears fall.
Emmy did not do tears.
“Give me your keys.” Cash held out his hand, making Emmy want to cross her arms and refuse, like a toddler might protect her favorite toy. “Please.”
She just stared at him as if sustained eye contact would somehow make him disappear.
Nodding toward the sheriff’s department, Cash said, “Or do you want everyone inside that building and in this parking lot to see me pick you up and put you in the passenger seat?”
“Do not play caveman with me. It’s not cute, and it’s damn well not funny.”
“I asked one of the OR nurses to call and let me know when Jesse is out of surgery. And then when he can have visitors. She hasn’t called. Now, let me take you home.”
God, how could she want to hurl Cash across the asphalt and hug him all at the same time? She didn’t want to be taken care of. Somehow that smacked of Oliver’s subtle patronization. At the same time, she knew that wasn’t Cash’s intent. She was unsteady on her feet and he recognized it.
She gave him the keys, but rebuffed him when he tried to walk around and open her door. “I’ve got it.”
When they parked in front of the Murchison building, both floors were dark except for the faint glow of a lamp she’d left on upstairs. Normally, she loved coming home to such a unique location, but tonight it looked empty. Lonely.
A lot like she felt. Maybe that’s what trying to be her serious best got her. Nothing.
“I know you don’t need me to take care of you,” Cash said gently as they both looked at the building instead of one another. “But I’d like to come up and make sure you can get some rest.”
Arguing would just deplete Emmy even more, and the truth was, she didn’t want to be alone, replaying the scenario from earlier. Jesse reaching into his pocket, her shouting a warning, McGarvey shooting…
“My couch is your couch,” she said.
He nodded once, making it clear he understood that everything they’d talked about while climbing the water tower was on indefinite hold.
Because how could she even consider enjoying herself, losing herself in Cash’s body when a boy’s life was at stake?
To his credit, Cash didn’t try to put his arms around her or even talk to her. When she arrowed directly for the bathroom, he turned his attention to making up the couch.
Twenty minutes and gallons of hot water later, Emmy wrung out her hair and caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pale, hollow-eyed. Like an underfed, depressed vampire.
Not exactly the evening she’d imagined when she was riding Cash’s lap on the water tower landing. Instead, she’d pictured skin and bodies and mouths. Sighs and moans and, knowing them, more than a little laughter.
In the past, she’d never resented when a call-out stole time away from her personal life. In truth, she didn’t resent it now. Because Cash understood, craved the same life-and-death experiences she did.
But she was deflated that her day of fun had turned into something resembling a sick and twisted funhouse.
A knock came from the other side of the door. “Em, I made some chamomile tea and put it by your bed. It should help you sleep.”
Where in the world had he gotten chamomile tea? She hadn’t stocked it in the apartment’s small kitchen.
Just one more way that Cash Kingston was a good man.
“If you need anything—more tea, to talk, anything—I’ll be out on the couch.”
Some women would feel abandoned by a man leaving her alone. Not Emmy. It made her realize just how much Cash understood her. Understood that nagging her or forcing her to talk would send her running in the other direction.
Smart, stealthy man.
He was right. The tea did help her drift off, probably because he’d filled half the cup with something decidedly alcoholic. But three hours later, Emmy opened her eyes and patted the bedside table for her phone. She thumbed into her texts and found one from the OR nurse.
Jesse is out of surgery. Resting comfortably. Can have visitors tomorrow.
She could go now, just check on him. Maybe sweet-talk the nurses on call into letting her see his chart.
No. Dr. Patel was a great surgeon. If Jesse was resting, Emmy needed to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully by then, he would be awake and she could apologize.
But God, there were too many hours between now and then.
A chill wove its way through the room. It was that in-between time of the year when the heat didn’t always kick on, but cold seemed to
permeate the brick and seep inside.
Emmy got out of bed and wrapped herself in the comforter. As she walked toward the living room, it trailed behind her like a down-filled wedding train.
Moonlight bled in through the window where she’d reveled in the sunshine less than twenty-four hours ago. Its slant fell on the eyesore of a couch and the eye candy of a man sleeping on it.
“Oh, Cash,” she sighed. He’d blurted out that question about children earlier. Things were all out of order and mixed up between them since she’d come home.
Had she complicated Cash’s life, or were things always this damn messy when true love had been interrupted?
16
Was that all these years had been—an interruption? Had fate always intended that she and Cash would end up right here? Right now?
Just the intricacy of that theory made Emmy’s brain want to reject it. Made her think twice about what she was doing, standing there watching Cash sleep.
She was so used to being strong. Being the one who kept a cool head during a crisis. Today, she’d almost fallen apart. She hated admitting that to herself, but if she wasn’t honest, how could she do better in the future?
Was it so wrong not to be strong all the time? To need someone now and then?
In his sleep, Cash turned on his side, opening a few inches of space on the couch. Rather than stand here and debate herself like a lunatic, Emmy shuffled over and inched her way onto the cushion. Half her butt was hanging off the edge, but if she turned to spoon against him, she was afraid she’d wake him.
So she tried to gently burrow under the sheet and against his chest.
“Mmm,” he rumbled against her. “Em?”
She froze. It was one thing to seek comfort and another thing completely to be caught doing it.
Go back to sleep, Cash.
His arm came around her, and he pulled her close, rolling to his back at the same time. Her comforter swooshed to the floor, and she ended up sprawled on top of him like a human throw just a little too short to cover him completely.
Tasting Fire (Steele Ridge: The Kingstons Book 2) Page 15