by Mandy Baxter
Cesar’s bloodthirsty expression wasn’t doing much for Landon. But he’d wanted a distraction and this was it. “You’re goddamned right I do.”
Their armed guards formed a triangle around the two men and the only person to look more shocked at the turn of events than Jeremy was Emma. Luis stood with his arm wrapped tight around her waist—the son of a bitch—and Landon had to avert his gaze from her puffy eyes, tear-streaked face, and slack jaw.
“Landon, are you out of your mind?” Emma finally spluttered. “Stop this!”
He bent at the knees, hunched over and arms out. The guy holding Jeremy shoved him at Landon and he stumbled toward him, his left arm up to defend while his right hung limp at his side. Sousa’s men began to take bets on the victor, with Cesar throwing down a grand on Landon. He ran at Jeremy, shoulder down, and aimed for the softest part of the other man’s gut. He was weak from blood loss, and probably in the beginning stages of shock so it wasn’t too tough to take him down. With their captor’s attention focused on Jeremy, they ridiculed him for his weakness, and Landon hated that this had to go down at Jeremy’s expense.
Reaching across his hip, Landon grabbed the gun from his waistband and swung it around at Goon Number One. He aimed for the chest and squeezed the trigger. The report of the shot echoed all around them as adrenaline pumped through his veins in a mad rush.
“Landon, watch out!” Emma’s terrified shriek drew his attention and he whipped his head around as Cesar squeezed off a couple of wild shots. Bam! Bam!
The scream that followed cleaved right through Landon’s skull as white-hot pain shot through his torso. He felt himself falling before he actually realized that he was going down, and he gritted his teeth against the pain, twisting mid-flight as he aimed for Cesar’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Though it took only a second, time seemed to slow as Cesar’s body jerked from the impact, his head falling back as his arms went wide. Blood welled from the bullet wounds in the center of his chest and he lurched backward, eyes wide and unseeing as he landed with a crunch of dried leaves and twigs.
Two down, one to go.
Luis seemed to be in shock, holding on to Emma, his human shield. Landon’s vision blurred though his pain no longer registered. He was too far gone, too lost to the high to feel anything. He pushed himself up from the ground and leveled the gun at Luis’s face as his breath wheezed through his lungs. “Let her go.”
“Right,” Luis snorted. “You’re dead, cabrón.”
“No, asshole. You’re dead.” Landon pulled the trigger without a second thought. Luis had the nerve to look surprised when the bullet struck him in the center of his forehead. Emma gasped and lunged forward, falling to the ground as Luis landed beside her. Frantic, she clawed through the grass, crawling toward her father, who was already on the ground, tending to Jeremy.
Landon took one stuttering step, and then another. As the adrenaline drained out of his body, it was replaced with a pain so intense that stars twinkled at the periphery of his line of sight. Well, shit. He reached for his side, and his fingers made contact with something warm and sticky. There was too much of the sickening wetness soaking into his shirt for a simple flesh wound.
“I kept my promise,” he said as he went to his knees. “You’re safe. Everything’s going to be okay, Emma.” Black spots swam in his murky vision and he thought he saw her scrambling toward him. I love you. Did he say it out loud? He couldn’t be sure, couldn’t feel his lips—couldn’t feel much of anything, really. Damn it, I love you, Emma. So much.
“Landon?” Her voice came to him as though down the length of a tunnel. A faint echo that he strained to hear. “Landon?” Again, frantic. “Landon? Can you hear me? Stay with me!”
I’m here, Emma. I’m not going anywhere. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? The darkness settled around him, thick and sludgy. It pulled him deeper, farther away until he couldn’t see her anymore. It was okay, though. As long as Emma was safe, nothing else mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Being dead wasn’t supposed to hurt like this.
Son of a bitch.
Landon cracked one lid, and the brightness invading the room drove into his skull like an iron spike. His ribs ached and his torso felt as if someone had thrown him into a meat grinder turned onto high. The silhouetted form of a body sat next to his bed, the dark outline framed in sunlight.
“Something tells me you’re not God,” he said to the shape. “Unless you’re making me pay for asking Jodie Thompson and Beth Farmer to prom my senior year. But in my defense, they got along just fine.”
“You must be feeling all right if you’re capable of being a smart-ass,” Bill Crawford said from his perch. “Though I’ve got to admit, I could’ve lived another day without hearing about your prom threesome.”
“What can I say”—Landon grunted as he tried to sit up—“I was in high demand.”
Crawford chuckled as he pushed himself out of his chair and approached the bed. “You’re a tough son of a bitch, McCabe, I’ll give you that.”
As the room came more into focus, one unmistakable absence made Landon’s heart clench inside of his chest. Panic rose hot and thick in his throat and he lurched forward in the bed, pulling at the wound in his torso. “Mother fuck,” he said through his teeth. “That hurts like a bitch.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t advise any sudden movements for a while.” Crawford’s easygoing tone was doing nothing for Landon’s mood. “Why don’t you settle back and let me bring you up to speed before you pull something.”
“Where’s Emma? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” Crawford said. “Her father was released from the hospital two days ago along with Jeremy Blakely. Everyone is okay, though the football player won’t be on the field for a while. You saved their lives with your stunt, you know.”
Crawford must’ve pieced it together after getting statements from the others. He still regretted having to hurt Emma with his pretense, but given the chance, he’d do it all over again. “What about Damien? Was he able to stop the buy?”
“He was,” Crawford said. “Sousa is in federal custody, and he’s not going anywhere any time soon. I hope you know he was just doing his job, McCabe. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn’t have left you like that.”
“I know,” Landon replied. “It’s all good. We’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do for the job.”
“That we do,” Crawford agreed.
“Can I see Emma?” He had to explain himself in person, apologize for what he’d put her through. He needed to look into those endless brown eyes of hers, touch her petal-soft lips and kiss away all of the hurt he’d caused until she was breathless and had no choice but to forgive him.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to be possible.”
“What? Why the hell not?”
Landon tried to sit up again, fighting against the stabbing pain. Crawford eased him back down on the bed with a palm to his shoulder. “Lie down, you idiot, or I’m going to have your ass sedated. Sousa’s in custody, but you know that’s not the end of it. We’ve got to make sure she’s protected and like you said, we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do for the job.”
Realization was a semi-truck slamming into his chest as the air deflated from Landon’s lungs. “WITSEC?” The word was bitter on his tongue and he pressed his head back into the pillow. “She’s in witness protection, am I right?”
“We’re good at what we do,” Crawford said by way of an answer. “You know that. I have no doubt she’ll be well looked after. Get some rest, Deputy. You earned it.”
Without another word, Crawford turned, and walked out of the room, leaving Landon alone, too damned awake, and his brain way too active. Witness protection. Jesus. The Seattle office—probably Ethan Morgan—would have arranged for a new identity for Emma and her father. She was no doubt already halfway across the country with a bank account full of money and a nice cover story to go with it. Landon’s stomach turned in on itself, the bile rising in his thr
oat.
Gone.
Emma was gone. He loved her more than he loved anything in this godforsaken world and he’d never get to tell her. Never see her beautiful face again or feel the softness of her bare skin against his ever again. Landon reached beside him and jammed his thumb down on the call button repeatedly as he swallowed against the golf-ball-sized lump that formed in his throat. His heart beat out of control and the machines hooked up to his vitals beeped and whirred in time, echoing his distress.
Moments later, a nurse rushed into the room, her expression pinched with concern. “Is everything all right, Deputy McCabe?”
“No,” Landon managed to choke out. “I’m in a lot of pain here. Can you please give me something? Something to knock me the hell out.”
She laid a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “Sure, I can. You hold tight, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Landon squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to block out the world. The nurse returned with a syringe and vial of something guaranteed to end his suffering—temporarily anyway. She dosed the syringe and inserted the needle into his IV tube. “This oughta do it,” she said with a wink. “You’ll be out in no time.”
Thank fucking God. Landon drifted as the drug took effect. The bullet wound in his side was nothing compared to what he felt stabbing through his chest right now. And he knew as blissful unconsciousness overtook him that there wasn’t enough morphine in the world to dull the pain of losing Emma.
“I’m sorry I can’t call you. I feel like I’m leaving you in the lurch.”
“Nah.” Jeremy sat back in his recliner, carefully adjusting a pillow under his injured shoulder. Luckily, the bullet had gone straight through and he hadn’t suffered any permanent damage. He wouldn’t be playing for a while, but there were much worse fates than missing a football game or two. “I’m glad you’re going to be protected. But once all of this is over, you’d better promise that you’ll get your ass back here to hang with me. Got it?”
“Got it,” Emma said with a laugh. “Jeremy, I’m so, so sorry about all of this. I should have called you. I should have told you what was going on and—”
“I told you to quit apologizing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. It wasn’t your fault.”
“You could have been killed, though.”
“But I wasn’t,” Jeremy said. “I might be quick on the field, but I had no idea how to handle that shit. I’m lucky your boy had his shit together. If he hadn’t roughed me up a little, we’d all be dead right now.”
No one could ever accuse Landon of being slow, that was for sure. At the time, his harsh words had broken her heart. It wasn’t until she’d seen the smaller pieces of the puzzle coming together that she’d realized Landon’s plan. And in hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have cursed Damien like she had. He’d done what he could to help as well.
“He really did save the day, didn’t he?”
Emma flinched as the memory of watching Cesar shoot Landon welled up fresh in her mind. Her heart still ached with sorrow when she thought of cradling him in her arms, begging him not to die. Not to leave her all alone. Her father had had the good sense to search Cesar for a cell phone and call an ambulance, but by the time the paramedics and police had shown up, Landon had lost consciousness and his breathing had become so shallow she’d thought for a moment that she’d lost him. She was no stranger to hurt or loss, but in that moment, when she thought Landon had died, Emma had wished for the barest moment that she could die right alongside of him. Because the thought of living one day without Landon McCabe was more than she could bear.
“From what everyone’s been telling me, this witness protection won’t be a permanent thing, but until all of Sousa’s associates are accounted for this is the safest option. I think you got the better end of the deal in this situation.”
Though Jeremy’s involvement was minimal, he’d been assigned a protective detail by the Marshals Service to keep an eye on him. And as a supplement, he’d hired a private security firm for added backup. Apparently, he wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant a new identity, and thank God for it. Emma wouldn’t have been able to handle the burden of guilt if she’d ruined Jeremy’s life—and career—with her foolishness.
“What about your marshal?” A teasing smile lit Jeremy’s face. “You gonna go see him before you blow out of town?”
Deputy Morgan—with Bill Crawford at his side—had made it perfectly clear to Emma that making contact with Landon wasn’t a good idea. That hadn’t stopped her from sitting beside him in that hospital room, though. She’d alternated between his room and her dad’s for two days, checking on both of them until she nearly passed out from exhaustion. She’d refused to sleep until she’d known both of them were going to be okay, and when she’d finally gone down, she’d slept for twelve hours straight.
“My babysitters don’t think that’s a good idea,” Emma replied. “And since we’re leaving this afternoon, I doubt there’s any chance I’ll be able to sneak away. Plus, they’re turning a blind eye to my less-than-legal activities over the past couple of years so I figure that, for now anyway, I’d better not press my luck.”
“For now?” Jeremy arched a curious brow.
“You know me, Jer. I can only go so long without causing a little trouble.”
“That’s for sure,” he said with a chuckle. “Now get over here and give me a hug before you duck out for the duration.”
Emma wrapped her arms around her friend and bestowed a kiss on his cheek. “Not forever,” she reminded him. “Just a while.”
“See you in awhile, then.” Jeremy said, hugging her back.
“See you in a while.”
Outside of Jeremy’s house, Deputy U.S. Marshal Ethan Morgan waited for her in his government-issue, dull-as-a-block-of-wood sedan. She took a deep breath as she settled into the passenger seat and turned to give her dad a smile of reassurance that she didn’t particularly feel.
“Ready?” Deputy Morgan asked as he put the car in gear and headed down the long, winding driveway from Jeremy’s house. “At least you don’t have to worry about a crowded flight,” he said as he drove. “No coach tickets for you two. Our jet is nice and private, not to mention spacious. Plus, you get the added benefit of having three marshals along for the ride. Top-notch security, if you ask me. You’re lucky.”
Lucky. Emma scoffed at the word. Lucky would have been having the good sense not to get in over her head in the first place. Lucky would have been keeping Jeremy out of danger. Lucky would have been guarding her heart and getting through this without falling hopelessly in love with Landon McCabe. And lucky would have been waltzing out of all of this unscathed and living happily ever after with the man of her dreams.
Right now Emma felt far from lucky.
As the car rolled down the freeway, Emma leaned back in her seat and let her eyes drift shut. Sometimes in life, you had to make your own luck and she was going to make sure that she did everything in her power to turn hers around.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One month later
“Your cushy vacation is over, dude. Time to get your lazy ass back to work.”
Landon stared down into his empty glass as though the answers to all of the mysteries of the world were written there. Most nights he would have won a verbal spar with Galen, but tonight—like every night for the past four weeks—he found he simply didn’t have it in him. “If I have to get shot in order to get a vacation, then I’m good with not taking time off ever again.”
Galen raised his bottle of Stella in a toast. “Amen to that.”
It probably wasn’t a great idea to go out drinking the night before he was supposed to go back to work. Galen had been a good boy—one beer, and he’d nursed that. But not Landon. He was on his fourth Jack and Coke and he wasn’t planning on stopping quite yet. “When do you have to pick up Harper?” It was girls’ night or some shit, and for the past half hour Galen had been checking his watch as if counting d
own the minutes until he could go get her. Fucker.
“In a few,” Galen said as though he weren’t busting out of his skin to get out of there and go to her. It wasn’t that Landon was jealous of what he and Harper had . . . oh, who the hell was he kidding? He was absolutely jealous of what Galen and Harper had.
“Go,” Landon grumbled. He needed another drink. “You’re driving me insane with the way you keep checking your damned watch.”
Galen’s pitiful expression only made Landon want to pop his friend right in the gut. He knew he was a fucking train wreck, but did Galen have to look at him like that? “I can stay for a while longer,” he said. “I’m sure Harper won’t be ready to leave—”
“Please,” Landon interrupted. “She’s probably climbing the walls and driving her friends fucking nuts, too. Do me a favor and get out of here. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to pick your ass up and throw you out the door. That sure enough for you?”
Galen gave him a last appraising look before pushing himself from the table. He shrugged into his jacket and braced an arm on the table leaning in toward Landon. “I’m here if you need me. You know that, right?”
The last thing he needed right now was for Galen to get all touchy-feely with him. “I know,” he said on a sigh. “Now get the fuck out of here before you’re tempted to hug it out or some shit.”
Galen chuckled and laid his palm on Landon’s shoulder. “See you in the morning.”
“Later.”
With Galen gone, Landon was allowed to wallow in his misery, undisturbed. A cocktail waitress made her rounds and Landon raised his empty glass. She walked over, a smile plastered on her face. “Another Jack and Coke?”
“Yeah.” He wanted to ask her to hold the Coke and bring the bottle, but that probably wouldn’t paint a very pretty picture. Besides, he did have to go in to the office tomorrow. It would be a good idea not to be too hungover.