Page 20 of Tasting Fire
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.”
