Page 69 of Tasting Fire
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A part of Cash—thepart of him that was still an egotistical arrogant eighteen-year-old—wanted to swagger out of Emmy’s bedroom as if what they’d just done hadn’t stripped him right down to the bone. Because if it mattered, that meant he was wide open.
Defenseless against the pain only Emmy could inflict.
But when she melted against him and rested her head on his shoulder, any thoughts of self-protection evaporated. Instead, he wrapped her up in a gentle embrace.
They were cuddling. Hewasa fucking goner.
“Are you the kind of guy who leaves before morning?” she asked against his neck.
With other women, he had been that guy. Something about actually sleeping with a woman gave her delusions of intimacy that even sex didn’t arouse.
“The last thing I want to do is leave you.” Hell, he didn’t know about honesty always being the best policy, but he’d didn’t have enough brain cells left to formulate a decent fib.
“I needed you to stay tonight.”
“Even though you didn’t want to need me.”
“It wasn’t about you. I handle my life. Me. But today… That’s never happened to me before.”
Whether she meant the shooting or her temporary paralysis, he wasn’t sure. Didn’t really matter. What mattered was the misery of failure woven into Emmy’s words. “None of us do this job perfectly. It’s impossible.”
“People count on us to save their lives.”
He kissed her shoulder and nuzzled her skin, warm and sweet. “You were trying to save the lives of your team.”
“Over a package of TicTacs.”
“Could’ve just as easily been a .380.” Something about her self-torment seemed over the top. Of course, they were all concerned about the kid. His shooting had been a regrettable mistake. But it had been just that.
A completely human mistake.
“Emmy, you never told me why you wanted to become a doctor,” Cash said. “Some docs I know have a skewed sense of being able to play God. Hell, I’ve had it a few times myself. There’s not much in the world that can give you the adrenaline high of stepping in between life and death and telling death to fuck off.”
Against him, she was so still and quiet, she could’ve been asleep. But a single hitch in her breath gave her away. Finally, she said, “To help people.”
His laugh held no humor. Surely she knew he wouldn’t take that for an answer. “I have a feeling that bullshit cliché wouldn’t have flown in your med school entrance interview. And it won’t fly with me now.”
“What about you?”
He sighed. If they had to play tit for tat, so be it. “Like I told you, signing on as a firefighter and an EMT was my best option without a degree. But once I went through the fire academy, I was hooked. The camaraderie at the station. The rush of trauma situations. And yeah, the opportunity to make a difference in a town that I love.”
“I loved biology.”
Yeah, he knew that. After all, she was the one who’d kept him from failing his science classes during high school. Who would’ve ever guessed that he could make his way through the rigors of fire science and one of the best paramedic programs in the country? “Dissecting a frog is a long way from resuscitating a cardiac patient.”
“I always wondered if I would’ve been able to save those frogs if I’d been around when they died. It’s all about the Golden Hour.”
Cash sincerely doubted those frogs had suffered heart attacks, and a feeling of certainty came over him. He and Emmy weren’t actually talking about formaldehyde-filled amphibians. “Who’s the frog, Em?”
“It’s not really a secret.”
“Yet you never shared it with me.”
“Some things are—were—too much for me to talk about back when we were teenagers.”
Maybe. But he had a feelingthe frogwas the reason Emmy had walked away from him without looking back. Instead of tensing up and letting the old resentment wash through him, Cash stayed quiet and stroked Emmy’s hair.
