Page 9 of Tasting Fire
Another guy, this one with the sweet face and freckles of a ten-year-old said, “You might be able to catch him in the parking lot.”
“Thank you.”
Although her heart was thumping against her rib cage, she was careful to keep her strides even and slow as she made her way through the door to the parking lot. Cash was shoving a duffel and what looked like a weed whacker into the rear seat of a black Dodge Ram 3500 with matte-painted running boards and grille protector. Cash’s normally blond hair was streaked with greasy soot and the downward slope of his broad shoulders inside his navy blue uniform hinted at exhaustion and disappointment.
She’d bet anything she was the source of one, if not both.
“Cash,” she called out, “can we talk?”
His shoulders went rigid, and his duffel slid off the backseat and onto the pavement. He bent to retrieve it without looking her way. Once he stuffed it back inside the cab, he slowly turned to face her. “I guess I should say welcome home.”
“I didn’t know that you wanted the TMT lead position. If I had, I would’ve never taken it.”
“The captain must’ve done some fancy talking to convince you to leave Baltimore. Or maybe it was Maggie and Jonah.”
She shouldn’t be surprised he’d figured it out. After all, even she knew that Jonah Steele influenced much of what happened in this part of the state.
“They were just trying to—”
“Do what they thought was best.” Cash’s hand tightened around the door frame, making the muscles in his forearm bunch.
Just like everyone else, he had extensor muscles under his skin, but his made her short of breath. And if she was more turned on by Cash Kingston’s extensor digiti minimi and extensor carpi ulnaris than she’d been by anything on Oliver’s body, there was a reason she’d said no to his proposal.
To the ring she’d found out later the jackass hadn’t even picked out himself. Apparently, one of the admin staff had.
With a jerk, Cash slammed the truck door. “Somebody needs to tell Jonah Steele that he is not, in fact, the king of Carolina.”
“From what I hear, he’s done a lot of good for Canyon… I mean Steele Ridge. Even with a new name, it’s good to be home.”
“Whydidyou come back, Emmy?”
She glanced around, relieved to find the parking lot deserted except for her and Cash. “I have my reasons.”
“You also had reasons for leaving.”
What went unsaid was that when she had, she’d left him behind as well, something that had hurt them both at the time. And with the way her chest felt right now, the hurt clearly hadn’t been eased.
But how was she to know that a first love might stand the test of time? That leaving Cash behind would create a hole inside her that she hadn’t been able to fill with anyone or anything else.
She couldn’t tell him that right now because he’d believe she was trying to manipulate him. He would never believe that one reason she’d returned to Steele Ridge was to win him back.
“The most important thing is that I’m here. I can mold this TMT into the best in the state, if not the country. But you have to believe I never would’ve accepted this position if I’d known it was what you wanted.”
“Hey, let’s just look at it likeDynastyorWill and Grace. Some idiot obviously decided it was a good idea to bring back old TV shows.” In a flash, Cash’s scowl turned to the charming grin he’d always been so famous for, and it hit Emmy like a blast of warm wind—robbing her of breath and making her eyes water. “Because surelyeveryonewants one more episode of Emmy McKay publicly humiliates Cash Kingston.”
He’d tried to stay cool while Emmy had been apologizing to him earlier. Maybe she hadn’t known how badly he’d wanted that position or that he’d wanted it at all, but his sister sure as hell had. And maybe Maggie hadn’t been the one to make the final decision, but Captain Styles respected the hell out of her professional opinion. Maggie had a hand in this.
When he strolled into the sheriff’s office, Shari, Maggie’s assistant, gave him a quick look-see of approval. Good. That meant she couldn’t see the oily fire of resentment burning under his freshly showered and cleanly shaved skin.
Then her welcoming smile melted into a glower, and she shook her head. “I heard about what happened this morning. That high-and-mighty Emmy McKay. I swear we should run her fancy doctor pants straight back outta town.”
With a nonchalance he wasn’t feeling, Cash leaned a hip against Shari’s desk. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“The TMT lead. Everyone knows you were supposed to run that team.”
“Oh, that. It’s no big thing.”
“But…but everyone thought it was yours. Not just the other firefighters and medics, but people here in town.”
