Page 39 of Tasting Fire
“Emmy, don’t tell him a damn thing,” Cash warned.
“If you leave right now, I’ll call you later,” she said.
Amory looked Cash up and down with a superior sneer. “I’ll leave if the medic does.”
“When pigs grow wings,” Cash shot back.
“Cash, just go,” Emmy said in a low voice. “I’ll settle this later.”
“I don’t want to leave you with—”
“I’m fine.” She jerked away from the asshole’s grip. Cash would be checking her for bruises later. “Now go. Both of you.”
Cash waited until Amory walked through the ER waiting room door. Then he shot Emmy a hard look and stalked out the ambulance bay.
After his shift ended the next morning, he stopped by the Murchison building, but the front door was locked and Emmy didn’t answer the buzzer Grif installed to ring directly to the apartment.
So Cash stood out front and called her on the number he’d been given on the tac team roster. No answer.
An uneasy feeling swamped him. “Dammit, Emmy. Pick up.”
Instead, she texted him.
I’m fine. I met Oliver at Triple B and persuaded him to leave town.
He sent back a quick message:We will talk about this.
Nothing to discuss.
Damn her. If he didn’t have a lawn to mow and manicure, he would climb up the side of this building and through her window.
Cash sighed at his own idiotic thought. Barging in on Emmy when she obviously didn’t want his company would make him just as much of an asshole as Amory.
So he picked up his lawn equipment at home and drove to Mrs. Southerland’s house. He backed his zero turn mower off the trailer and went after her front yard with a vengeance. With all the frustration he’d been feeling since Emmy had shooed him out of the ER last night.
There was something off about Amory. More than just the asshole factor. He’d acted as if Emmy was something he owned, not a woman he’d been involved with.
How could she have ever been with a guy like that?
Cash was just finishing the last turn on the yard when he caught sight of Mrs. Southerland waving from the front porch. With a raised hand, he acknowledged her and mowed the final strip of grass before powering down.
“I made iced tea,” she called to him, a hopeful smile on her face. When she was home, she always did this, invited him in to keep her company for a few minutes after he was finished. But he didn’t mind. She had to be a little lonely since her husband passed away, so Cash always scheduled an extra half hour at her house.
He pulled off his baseball cap and swiped an arm across his face. It was only March, but the temps in Steele Ridge had temporarily climbed into the eighties.
“Let me put the mower back on the trailer right quick.”
Once he had it secured, he strolled up the brick walkway and onto the porch where Mrs. Southerland had a tray filled with a pitcher of sweet tea, two glasses, and a plate piled with cookies. And unlike his mom’s eggplant bread, these were homemade perfection. Tea cakes, gingersnaps, and chocolate crinkles.
She always made his favorites.
He settled into a wooden rocker and she handed him a check. It was made out for more than he usually charged her. “I can’t accept this.”
She smiled and simply said, “I know you give me the family discount, just like a good son would. Take the money. I want you to have it.” Then she filled a plate with half a dozen cookies and passed it to him.
He folded the check and slid it in his back pocket, making a mental note to come by one day while she was at work to weed and mulch her flowerbeds. He bit into a gingersnap and groaned. “I didn’t expect you to be home at this time of the day, much less with fresh-baked cookies.”
“Spring break.” She toed off the pink shoes she was wearing and kicked her feet up on the railing. “Ah. I do love spring break.” She placed a measly single tea cake on her own plate. “So tell me how things are going with the medical team thing. Obviously, I knew Emmy McKay was back in Steele Ridge, but I had no idea Maggie gave her a job that should’ve been yours. Your own sister!”
