Page 73 of Tasting Fire
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After the call about Jesse,Cash had tried to get Emmy to talk, but she’d had an early shift at the hospital and had used that as an excuse to put a little distance between them.
And today, he was on C shift at the station. It was eating him up to be away from Emmy when she was still so torn up about the kid.
Their lovemaking had been passionate and tender in turns, and all he’d wanted was to spend time talking, holding her, and then doing it again. He didn’t like this physical and emotional distance when everything was so fragile between them.
Unfortunately he had another eighteen hours on this unbearably long shift.
Today was the type of day some medics and firefighters loved—full of sports TV and a batch of chili. It made Cash want to pull out his fucking hair. If he had to be at the station instead of with Emmy, then at least the universe could throw him the bone of some decent ambulance runs.
But it seemed like after the chaos of the swatting call-out, everyone had decided to actually be smart and stay out of harm’s way.
“Kingston, if you make one more loop around this living room, I’m gonna put buckshot in your ass,” Stan Jackson said, his surliness clear.
Cash didn’t even look at him. A guy he’d once considered his brother, Jackson was now a douche who didn’t deserve to be a part of the TMT, even if he hadn’t thrown that brick at Emmy’s building.
He was tempted to stalk over to Jackson’s easy chair and dump his ass out of it. The other man was in good shape, had to be to qualify for the tac team, but Cash could take him.
At the thought, Cash’s breath sped up and his hands curled into fists. But before he could do something monumentally stupid, Callahan stuck his head in the living room and said, “Kingston, someone’s here for you.”
That someone just saved your worthless life, Jackson.
“Coming,” he told Callahan.
“In the LT’s office.”
Cash drew up short when he walked in to find his lieutenant, Captain Styles, and Emmy all sitting, their attention glued to the door he’d walked through.
“Uh…hey,” he said like an idiot.
His LT pointed to a chair and Cash dropped into it.
“Kingston, we’ll get right to it,” Captain Styles said. “Dr. McKay is resigning her position—at least temporarily—as the head of the tactical medical team.”
Cash’s gaze shot to Emmy, but she was busy studying the LT’s certificates hanging on the wall. Like a Union Rep of the Year certificate was the most mesmerizing artwork in the world.
Emmy was resigning—what the actual fuck?
“Which means we need someone to step into her spot. She recommended you.”
His hands curled around the chair arms as the shock went through him. It was everything he’d wanted at one time. Now it left him with an empty pit where his stomach had once been. “No.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose. “Does that mean you don’t want it?”
“No. Yes.” Fuck. Maybe Maggie had been right all along. He’d been hungering for a position that was way too big for him to chew, much less swallow. “Was Dr. McKay forced to step down? Because if the brass thinks she screwed up yesterday, I want to go on record that—”
“This is completely voluntary,” Emmy said softly. “It’s best for the team.”
The fuck it was. Emmy had more tactical medical knowledge in the tip of her pinky toe than the rest of them did put together.
“The rest of the team already looks to you as a leader,” she said to him. “They respect you, and they should. I expect the transition to be easy. We can coordinate on training—”
“Could Dr. McKay and I talk privately?” he barked out.
His LT and the captain exchanged quick looks, but they both rose from their chairs. The captain said to Cash, “Come by to see me when you’re off shift tomorrow so we can discuss the particulars. Until then, Kingston, you’re on lead if we have a call-out.”
Once his two superiors walked out of the office, Cash jumped up and closed the door behind them. “Emmy, what the fuck are you—”
