One Kiss More by Mandy Baxter Page A

what you think, Emma? That he was coerced ?”
    “I don’t think. I know .”
    “Emma—”
    “You have no idea what it’s like to be alone. Do you, McCabe?”
    It aggravated him to no end that she refused to call him Landon. He craved that small intimacy between them even though he had no right to it. Emma’s voice was soft and sad, slicing through him like a knife, and he stroked the webbing between her thumb and forefinger with his own as if the small gesture could comfort her. “I have a better idea than you think.”
    A curious expression accented her features as she canted her head to one side. Her dark eyes bored through him as though trying to break down the door into his memories. “You think you know me, but you don’t. You only know what the gossip rags tell you or what you saw during your investigation six years ago. We’re not friends, McCabe.”
    “Really? You seemed pretty friendly last night.” The words slipped from his lips before he could think better of it. Now might’ve been a good time to bash his head against the table. How does the sole of your shoe taste, you fucking idiot ?
    She jerked her hand from his grasp, her expression that of utter disbelief. Or was it disgust? It was hard to tell which way her emotional compass was swinging at this point. All Landon knew was that his foolish words had spooked her, and in his experience, that led to all sorts of bad decisions. He couldn’t let her take off before he found out what was going on.
    “You can’t run away and expect it to fix anything.”
    “I’m not running anywhere,” she said, bucking her chin a notch. “I just want to get the hell away from you.”
    Landon got up from his chair and blocked her path to the exit, not giving a single shit who might be witnessing their little drama. “You have to trust me, Emma.”
    “Trust you?” The words tumbled from her lips in an incredulous burst. “You put my father in prison! Why in God’s name would I ever trust you?”
    She had a point. To Emma, he was nothing more than the sanctimonious son of a bitch who took her dad away from her. How could he possibly earn her trust?
    “Emma, I was doing my job.”
    He was answered with a derisive snort as she rolled her eyes to the sky. “Right. Sorry to break it to you, McCabe, but you weren’t doing your job when you arrested my father. And now, because you didn’t do your job right the first time, I’m paying the price. Get out of my way before I sic my very expensive lawyer on you.”
    No matter how badly he wanted to cuff her to him and force every last secret from her, he knew that his only option at this point was to give her a little space. The last thing he needed was for her lawyer to get involved and have the Seattle office coming down on him. And while Landon still believed Emma wasn’t about to bring a lawyer into whatever mess she was in, it was a chance he wasn’t willing to take. Lawyers had a tendency to fuck everything up and bring the pace of an investigation to a standstill. He did not need that kind of headache right now.
    He took a single step to the side, his face devoid of emotion, and Emma brushed past him without another word. The sound effects mimicking camera shutters sounded off around him, and Landon closed his eyes while he expelled a low, slow breath. Fucking smartphones . Christ, smacking his face against the climbing wall had been a cakewalk in comparison to the humiliation he felt right now. Emma would suffer for their argument when photos went live all over the Internet. He probably wouldn’t undergo an ounce of scrutiny—nothing more than a deputy marshal doing his job. She’d look guilty while he played the hero, and that made him a king-sized asshole, didn’t it?
    So before the eager tweeters and Instagramers could work their social networking magic, Landon banked on the fact that most of the patrons in Starbucks this morning would be oblivious to proper procedure. “Deputy U.S. marshal,” he