Explosive Engagement

She whispered back, “I’m saving your life.” She turned toward her stunned family and announced, “Logan Payne is my fiancé. We’re getting married.”

Chapter Four

Logan’s heart pounded so hard that it was the only sound in the sudden silence that had fallen after Stacy’s insane announcement. He knew his mother had initially proposed this crazy engagement, but he hadn’t expected that Stacy would ever agree to it. She hated him.

But he hadn’t tasted that hatred on her lips when she’d kissed him so convincingly that even he had forgotten it wasn’t real. He knew that she didn’t really want him; she just didn’t want her brothers going to prison for killing him. She was protecting Milek and Garek—not Logan.

So then she couldn’t be behind the attempts on his life. Or maybe she had been, but his mother’s idea had convinced Stacy to change her plan for revenge to one for marriage. But then marrying him might be more vengeful than killing him.

Not that he was going to fall in with his mother’s crazy plan. He wasn’t about to get coerced into marriage with a woman he couldn’t...

Stand? More like resist. Why had he kissed her back? To punish her for the game she was playing? He’d like to think that but he had enjoyed it too damn much. Her mouth was so sweet and so damn sexy when it moved over his.

“What the hell is going on?” one of her brothers, his face flushed either with alcohol or temper, demanded to know. “Just a couple of hours ago you were mad at him for crashing Dad’s funeral and now you’re engaged?”

Her other brother’s eyes narrowed, he glared at Logan. “He must be threatening her.”

“He saved my life at the cemetery,” she said. “He took a bullet for me.”

He was pretty sure that bullet had been meant for him and that one of her brothers had fired it. And that was the only reason he was refraining from calling her on her lie. As her fake fiancé, he had access to her family—hopefully enough access to gather evidence. Like the damn gun they kept firing at him...

She continued, “It was all very sudden.”

“It’s all B.S.,” he whispered back at her.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Hard. And he was surprised again that she had calluses on her small hands. What did she do for a living or for fun that had produced such calluses?

They were engaged and yet he hardly knew Stacy Kozminski.

“I’m surprised myself at the feelings I have for—” her throat moved, as if she were choking on his name or maybe just on her lie “—Logan.”

Despite that kiss, he doubted her feelings had changed. She still hated him.

One of her brothers—Garek—voiced his sentiment. “You hate his guts, Stace.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true.”

“You’ve said over and over that you hate his guts,” Garek persisted. “Why are you lying about it now? What’s he got on you?”

What did he think Logan could have on her? Proof that she and her brothers were responsible for the shootings? He hoped like hell he had it, then he could call her on her lie and end this nonsense. Then he could call the police...

“My gratitude,” she said. “He saved my life.” She turned toward him and glanced up. Maybe her gaze was supposed to be adoring, but she just looked miserable. “He’s my hero.”

Garek snorted. “And that just erases everything else he’s done to our father?”

Her snotty aunt added, “To our family? You’re betraying your father. Your uncle. Your brothers...”

Ignoring her aunt, she replied to her brother only, “I understand why he’s done what he has.”

“I don’t understand what you think you’re doing,” Logan murmured. Her family was never going to buy that she’d had such a drastic change of heart over him.

“If the situation was reversed,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “we would have done the same. Or more...”

“He killed our father,” Milek said, his words slurred. He had definitely been drinking. “And you’re rewarding him for it.”

“Logan did not kill Dad,” Stacy defended him. “Some gang member did.”

“He wouldn’t have had the chance if your boyfriend—”

“Fiancé,” she corrected her brother. “And stop. Just stop...all of it.” She turned toward Logan. “It’s been a long day. Please, take me home.”

Did she mean his home? He wasn’t about to bring her there. She would probably set it on fire. And he had no idea where she lived. But instead of asking any questions in front of her resentful family, he escorted her out of the pub.

“Have you been drinking with your brother?” he asked as he opened the passenger door for her.

“I’m not drunk,” she said. Her gray eyes were clear as she glared at him.

“Then why on earth—”

“We can’t talk about it here,” she said. “There are cameras in the lot.”

Her paranoia lifted his brows with surprise. “And you think your brothers would look at the footage?”

“I don’t know about them,” she said. “But I wouldn’t put it past my aunt.” She stepped on the running board of his SUV, but her heel slipped and she fell back against him. His arms closed around her, and he lifted her easily onto the seat. Maybe she was as exhausted as she’d claimed because she didn’t fight him. Or maybe she was just worried about what her aunt might see on the security cameras.

“Okay, I’ll drive you home,” he said.

She waited until he rounded the front bumper and slid behind the wheel before she replied, “It’s the least you can do since I’m saving your life.”

“So you admit my life is in danger because of you?” His suspicions had obviously not been unfounded. He pushed aside the guilt he’d been feeling for interrupting her father’s funeral to confront her. And it wasn’t just his mother who’d made him feel guilty but Stacy had, too—with all the pain he’d seen in her gray eyes.

She was mourning. He understood that; he’d spent the past fifteen years mourning the loss of his father. Hers was to blame for that, but she wasn’t. Maybe for the first time in fifteen years he realized that.

She emitted a soft, shaky sigh. “I’m not admitting anything, Detective Payne.”

“I haven’t been a detective for a few years.” Not since he’d started Payne Protection Agency.

“I think you’ll always be a detective,” she replied.

“If I was, I wouldn’t have to ask where you live,” he pointed out. “I would already know.”

She arched her brows in surprise. She must have assumed he knew. But Logan was just realizing how very little he actually knew about his fake fiancée. He had been so focused on what her father had done that he’d never paid attention to what she had done. Or what she was doing...

What was she doing? And not just with her life but with him? Why was she willing to pretend she was in love with him? What was her real agenda?

“I’ll tell you where I live,” she said. “But we have to stop somewhere else first.”

Maybe her agreeing to his mother’s plan was just a ruse for her to get him alone—somewhere that she would have no witnesses to her killing him.

* * *

WONDERING WHICH ONE would attack first, Stacy studied the two alpha males with which she shared the relatively small confines of the SUV. Cujo sat on the backseat, but the German shepherd’s black-and-tan body was so long that his head reached over the console. She scratched him behind his droopy ear, and he whined and licked her face.

“I missed you, too,” she murmured.

“Why’d you have him at the kennel?” Logan asked. He had obviously been surprised that was the place she’d had him stop before taking her home.

“Because I’ve been staying with a friend since my dad died,” she said.

“And that friend didn’t want Cujo staying, too?” he asked with a derisive snort.

The German shepherd whipped his big head toward Logan and nudged his shoulder with his nose. The SUV swerved a little before Logan gripped the wheel more tightly. “What he’d do that for?”

She chuckled. “That’s his name.”

“Cujo?”

The dog barked and then nudged him again. Logan held his hand between them, letting the canine sniff him before petting his head. If Cujo had been a cat, he might have purred.

“Traitor,” she teased him. The dog had apparently conceded which one of them was the true alpha male. She wasn’t surprised it was Logan. Since he was the boss of the family business, his brothers and sister must have conceded he was the alpha male, too.

“That’s probably what your family is saying about you now,” Logan said. “That you’re the traitor.”

Her stomach churned with nerves. They were the only thing in it. She hadn’t been able to eat since she’d seen her father in the prison infirmary. “Probably.”

“So why did you claim to be my fiancée?” he asked. “Because you know your brothers have been trying to kill me?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know any such thing.”

“Liar,” he softly accused her.

She should have been offended but liar was the least of his insults. He thought she was a killer, too. “You really think I put out a hit on you and hired my brothers to do it?”

“You wouldn’t need to hire them,” he replied. “They’ll do whatever you tell them to.”

That was what she was counting on—to keep them from killing Logan Payne. “If I wanted you dead, why would I tell them that I’m going to marry you?”

“You want to be able to collect my life insurance,” he suggested, “as my widow.”

“Hmm,” she mock-mused, “I hadn’t considered that.” She nodded as if committing to the idea like she was going to try to make everyone believe she was going to commit to him. “At least then I’ll get something out of this marriage.”

He glanced at her, his blue gaze hot and intense. “If we were actually going to get married, you’d definitely get something out of it.”

Her heart flipped. “Are you flirting with me, Logan Payne?”

“Isn’t that what a fiancé is supposed to do?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never been engaged.” She didn’t even date that often. That had to be why kissing him had affected her so much.

“Me, neither,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

His mouth curved into a grin. “Do you think I’m way too handsome to still be single?”

Yes. But she would eat Cujo’s kibble before she would ever admit that she found Logan Payne attractive. But she always had. Even during her father’s trial, her brothers had accused her of having a crush on him because she hadn’t been able to stop herself from staring at him.

But she replied with an insult, “I think you’re pretty old to still be single.”

He laughed. “You’re only a few years younger than I am. Starting to feel like an old maid at twenty-nine? Is that why you jumped at my mother’s crazy idea to marry me?”

“Your mother.” Unable to help herself, she smiled with genuine affection for Mrs. Payne. “She’s another reason I’m surprised you’re still single. She’s a wedding planner.”

“And a matchmaker.” He sighed. “She’s the reason my brother just got married.”

“She manipulated him into it?”

He nodded.

“I feel badly for the bride, then.” She could commiserate with that whole manipulation thing.

“Why?” he asked. “You don’t even know my brother Cooper. He enlisted in the marines out of high school and just came home a few days ago.”

“Cooper? He’s the one who was named after your father’s partner?” She shivered at just the thought of implacable Officer Robert Cooper and how his testimony had helped seal her father’s fate.

A muscle twitched along Logan’s jaw and he nodded.

She shouldn’t have brought up his father again. Even fifteen years later, he still felt the loss. So she had no hope of her grief ever lessening. But she would deal with that later—when she wasn’t worried about losing her brothers, too.

“I don’t know your brother,” she agreed. “But I feel sorry for his bride because he doesn’t love her.”

“Oh, he loves her.” Logan chuckled. “He’s been in love with her since they were in high school together.”

“So your mother really didn’t manipulate him into marrying her, then.” Maybe the woman wasn’t some matchmaking mastermind.

“Oh, she did,” he said. “Cooper’s so stubborn he probably would have never admitted to his feelings.”

“Stubborn or cowardly?” she asked.

Logan chuckled. “He’s a highly decorated marine.”

She shrugged. “Even a brave man can be a coward when it comes to love...”

“Sounds like you have a story about that,” he mused. “Is it about your friend?” He’d said “friend” as if it meant something more than friendship and almost as if he was jealous that it might be.

“Why would you ask that?” And why would he sound jealous when he asked?

“I didn’t see any friends at the funeral,” he explained almost nonchalantly, “just your family.”

“That’s why my friend couldn’t come,” she said, “because of my family.”

“He has a problem with your brothers, too?”

She nodded but didn’t bother correcting his misconception about the gender of her friend. Maybe she had only imagined his jealousy, but if he actually was, she liked it—which was odd since she didn’t like him. Sure, she found him attractive—maybe she was even attracted to him—but she still didn’t like him.

“Even if I agreed to it, my mother’s plan would never work,” Logan warned her.

She was afraid of that, too, because she would have to convince her family that she loved a man she really couldn’t stand. And she was no actress—she’d never even been very good at lying.

“And really, all you have to do to stop them from trying to kill me is to tell them to stop,” he said, “because they’ll do what you tell them to.”

If only that were true...then she wouldn’t have to fake an engagement, or heaven forbid, a marriage, if it actually came to that. And it might take marriage to convince her family that she was committed to Logan Payne.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Then even you realize they’re dangerously out of control,” Logan said.

“I never said that!” she exclaimed, horrified that she might have inadvertently implicated her brothers. And, like Logan, she had no proof they were behind the attempts on his life. But thanks to Logan and the threats they’d previously made, she now had doubts.

“They’ve already tried to kill me. More than once,” he insisted. “They need to be brought to justice.”

“You have no evidence,” she reminded him.

“I’ll find it,” he warned her.

“I buried my father today,” she said, her voice cracking with the emotion that overwhelmed her. “Isn’t that enough justice for you?”

Cujo whined and nudged her with his head, as if trying to comfort her. Surprisingly, he wasn’t the only one because Logan’s hand covered hers on the dog’s fur.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he said.

But he wasn’t sorry that her father was dead and he was determined to arrest her brothers. He wasn’t sorry about any of that...

She pulled her hand out from beneath his. If she couldn’t stand his touch, how was she going to convince her family that she loved him? But then she’d had no problem with his touch earlier when he’d kissed her. Her lips still tingled from the electricity of that contact with his.

“We’re here,” she said with a sigh of relief as she just realized that he’d stopped the SUV outside her building. The street side of the ground floor held the storefront for her jewelry business, her workshop was in the back, and her apartment was above it. It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood; that was why she needed Cujo. Even now a car alarm blared and police sirens whined in the distance.

Logan peered through the window and murmured, “This is really where you live?”

She’d never taken Logan Payne for a snob. “You mean because I’m the daughter of a jewelry thief and I live above a jewelry store?”

“I’m surprised you admit he was a thief,” he said.

“He was a thief,” she said. He’d always been honest about that. “But he wasn’t a killer...”

Logan rubbed his temple and groaned as if sick of hearing it. But maybe if he heard it enough he would come to believe it. “I was actually referring to the dangerous neighborhood,” he said as he continued to look around like a cop assessing the potential dangers of his beat. “Now I understand why you have the dog.”

“Your mother is actually the one who brought me Cujo,” she said. After the older woman had heard about her store being robbed, she’d talked an old friend of her deceased husband into giving the German shepherd to Stacy. “He was a K-9 cop.”

“He doesn’t look old enough to have been retired,” Logan said as he scratched behind the dog’s ear, which Cujo loved.

“He was shot,” she said. “In the shoulder...” Like Logan had been shot. No wonder the two alpha males had come so quickly to an understanding. They were actually quite alike. Cujo wasn’t always that nice or polite, either. That was why her friend hadn’t wanted the dog staying with her, too—especially since he might have thought her Pomeranian was a squirrel. Cujo really hated squirrels.

Logan leaned his head against the dog and imitated the way Cujo nuzzled the few people he actually liked. “You’re a hero,” he praised the canine cop.

“He saved his partner,” she said.

“That’s what a partner is supposed to do,” Logan murmured.

Somehow she suspected he wasn’t talking about the partnership of their proposed marriage. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“Marry you?” He shook his head. “It’s a bad idea. And as I already pointed out, it would never work.”

He was probably right. But she couldn’t agree with him without a fight. She’d been fighting with Logan Payne too long to concede defeat. “That’s your fault,” she accused him.

His mouth curved into a sexy grin. “Are you saying that kiss wasn’t convincing?”

If she said it wasn’t, he might kiss her again—might try to prove how convincing he could be. She was tempted to lie because she was tempted...to kiss him again. But instead she shook her head and clarified, “It’s your fault for being such a jerk all these years that they would never believe I could actually fall for you.”

“And so they’ll keep trying to kill me.”

“Is that why you didn’t give me up as a liar back at the pub?” she asked. “You were afraid you weren’t going to get out of there alive?”

“I’m not afraid of your brothers,” he said with a snort of disgust.

She was afraid of what they might do, of what they might have already done. They would do anything for her, and even though she hadn’t asked them, she’d given them every reason to think she wanted Logan Payne dead. She needed to give them a reason to leave him alive—like their fake engagement.

She glanced around as Logan had, but she was looking for her brothers. They might have followed them from the pub. “You need to walk me to my door,” she said.

“I thought you had the dog to keep you safe,” he said. “Not that you’re the one in danger...”

“I don’t want you to keep me safe,” she said. She wanted to keep him safe. Actually, she wanted to keep her brothers safe from themselves. “I want my fiancé to walk me to my door.”

He uttered an exasperated-sounding sigh. “Stacy, I’m not playing along with my mother’s plan.”

“Do you want me to tell her—?”

“You can tell her—”

“—that her son is not enough of a gentleman to walk a lady to her door,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted her.

He groaned. But he opened his door and walked around to open hers.

Cujo jumped down with her and led the way to the back stairwell. She fumbled in her purse before unlocking the door. Cujo’s ears perked up, and a low growl emanated from his throat.

“He smells something,” Logan said, and he was already pulling his gun from beneath his jacket, wincing only slightly at the strain on his wound. “Someone may have broken into your place.”

“And locked the door behind himself?” she scoffed. “I doubt that.”

The dog hurried ahead—with Logan in hot pursuit. “Stay outside,” he ordered her.

But she didn’t take orders from Logan Payne. He wasn’t her boss. He had even refused to be her fake fiancé. So she followed. And then saw what Cujo had found: a pipe bomb sat on her kitchen table, red numbers blinking as the timer quickly counted down.

Chapter Five

The bomb went off with such force that it blew the lid off the bomb unit’s transfer container. The stairwell rattled, boards giving away beneath the weight of the ATF agents and that container. The agents tumbled down to the concrete alley.

Logan’s hand shook in reaction. He’d touched that damn thing. He’d defused it or at least he’d stopped the clock—a clock that hadn’t begun its countdown until they’d stepped inside the apartment and activated it. After stopping the timer, he’d called ATF to dispose of the device since explosives often went off when moved. At least it hadn’t blown up him and Stacy and her dog. The two of them crouched behind his SUV with him. Her arms wrapped tightly around the dog, Stacy held Cujo either to protect the canine or to thank him for protecting her.

He reached out and petted the dog’s head. “You’re a hero again, buddy.”

“Are they all right?” Stacy asked after the welfare of the ATF agents.

He glanced back to where the agents scrambled to their feet. “Looks like nobody got hurt.” Thank goodness for their protective gear and that container that had absorbed most of the explosion.

“What about my place?”

He hesitated until she grasped his arm. A twinge of pain shot through his wounded shoulder. He then realized maybe the bullet hadn’t been intended for him at all. Maybe he hadn’t been the intended target at the cemetery—just like he hadn’t been the intended target of the bomb, either.

She jerked her hand away and said, “I’m sorry. I forgot you were hurt.”

So had he.

She shuddered. “You could have been hurt so much worse,” she said. “I can’t believe you touched the bomb...”

He suppressed a shudder of his own revulsion. “Me, neither.”

“It’s a miracle you didn’t get killed.”

Especially given how easily the bomb had gone off in transport. “When my brother Cooper first got back home, I picked his brain for everything he’d learned in the service.” Of course Cooper had thought that Logan was stalling giving him a real assignment or interviewing him to see if he was ready to take one. Cooper had already proven he was ready. And he’d even saved Logan’s life after he’d left for his honeymoon. “He showed me and Parker how to defuse an improvised explosive device.”

“He thought that was something you’d need to know?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Actually Logan had thought that. “Payne Protection Agency promises to protect our clients from all dangers—even bombs.”

“You protected me,” she said, “and I’m not even your client.”

“Maybe you should be,” he said, “because someone just tried to blow you up. Who would do that and why?”

Her lips parted, and a ragged breath slipped out, but no words. And before she could form any, they were interrupted.

“Stacy!” a deep voice shouted as her brother Garek pushed through the police barricade set up around the perimeter of her building. An officer attempted to stop him, but he—with the help of Milek—pushed past him.

Logan held up a hand to the officer, verifying that it was okay to let them through. Okay for Stacy, anyway. He doubted that her brothers would ever hurt her. They loved her so much that they were distraught, their eyes wild with worry over finding the police barricade around her place. Maybe they’d heard the explosion, too.

“Are you all right?” Garek asked as he dragged her into his arms.

She clung to him, trembling. “Yes. Yes.”

“This is your fault!” Milek told Logan. “This is your danger you’ve dragged her into with you!”

Logan shook his head, but before he could defend himself, Stacy pulled free of Garek and whirled toward Milek, who must have sobered up, because his eyes were clear now and his face pale. She poked his chest with a finger.