Explosive Engagement (5 page)

“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.

“You should be thanking him for saving my life again!” she shouted at her brother. “If Logan hadn’t stopped that bomb from going off, it would have killed us!”

“Stopped the bomb?” Garek scoffed. “Your damn stairwell has been blown off the building! You could have been killed.”

“The ATF agents set it off when they were moving it,” Logan explained.

“My stairwell is gone?” Stacy glanced back at the building and shuddered. “That could have been us...”

“It was supposed to be you,” Logan said. “The bomb was set inside your apartment.” And it was impossible that the bomb was intended to harm Logan because no one—not even her brothers—could have guessed that he would have driven her home. Stacy hadn’t announced their fake engagement until that afternoon. And even if they’d known he might step foot inside her apartment, he doubted that they would have risked her life even to take his.

So he wasn’t the only one someone was trying to kill. Apparently, someone wanted Stacy Kozminski dead, as well.

* * *

S
TACY
SHIVERED
. S
HE
wasn’t cold even though goose bumps lifted on her arms and the back of her neck beneath the heavy fall of her hair. Her skin was tingling because of Logan Payne’s stare. He stood several feet away, deep in conversation with the ATF agents, but his gaze was on her, as if he was reluctant to let her out of his sight.

She had already spoken with them, answering all their questions the best that she could. Given that she hadn’t been home since her dad died at the prison, she’d had no idea when or how someone had broken into her apartment to set the bomb. And she had absolutely no idea why.

Logan conversed with the agents now. He was probably the one asking the questions instead of answering them. But as he talked, he watched her. While his stare unsettled her, it also—oddly enough—reassured her. He had already saved her life once. Maybe twice if those shots at the cemetery had actually been intended for her.

But why would someone try to shoot at her? Or worse yet, blow her up? Unable to comprehend why anyone would want her dead, she murmured, “Why?”

“That’s a damn good question,” Garek replied as if she’d asked it of him.

Maybe still in shock over nearly being killed, she just shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“Then why would you agree to it?” Garek asked.

Even further confused, she turned toward her brother and asked, “Agree to what?”

“You and Logan Payne,” he said. “Why are you claiming you’re engaged to the guy?”

She glanced to Logan again. At least he was too far away to hear her lie again and contradict it. Yet. He would eventually deny their engagement, but until then she intended to perpetuate the lie. “It’s the truth.”

Garek shook his head. “You hate the guy’s guts.”

“That was once true,” she admitted. Even that morning it had been true. But she didn’t hate Logan anymore—not after he’d saved her. That would have been ungrateful or, at the very least, stupid. She owed him her life. And maybe she could repay him with his. “But my feelings for him have changed.”

Milek snorted. “Yeah, right...”

“Even if your feelings for him have changed,” Garek allowed, “his feelings for you couldn’t have. He’s hated all of us for years because of what our father did to his.”

“Our father didn’t do anything to his,” she insisted. Why was she the only one who believed in his innocence? How could his own sons doubt him?

Garek nodded sharply as if he was only humoring her. “Yeah, right, but Payne doesn’t believe that.”

That was definitely true. “But he doesn’t hold us responsible,” she insisted. Weakly. She really was a lousy liar.

“He always thinks the worst of us,” Milek said. “He actually believes we’ve been shooting at him.”

Despite Mrs. Payne’s warning about hurting their feelings, Stacy had already accused them of shooting. But then they’d been drunk and she’d been angry. So now she kept her voice low and her gaze steady as she asked, “Have you?”

Garek sucked in a breath. “I guess your feelings for him really have changed,” he said, “because you never would have listened to his suspicions before.”

She might have listened, but she would have ignored them—even though she had never been able to ignore him. Even when she’d hated him...

Fully aware that her brother hadn’t actually answered her question, she persisted, “Are they only suspicions?”

“Of course,” Garek replied—as offended as she had been afraid he would be. His mouth pulled into a tight grimace of disgust, and he swallowed hard. “I can’t believe you’d fall for Logan Payne...”

If she had, she would have been as disgusted with herself as her oldest brother was with her. But she couldn’t let him see her true feelings, so she buried them deep and plastered on a dreamy smile.

“Why not?” she asked. “He’s an amazing man.”

“Amazing that he’s still alive...” Milek murmured.

She shivered at her brother’s ominous tone. Maybe he was just still drunk. He couldn’t mean that he actually wanted Logan dead. But then maybe he did...

“Milek!” she admonished him. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

He shrugged. “All I meant was that if someone has tried to kill him as many times as he claims, then it’s amazing that they haven’t succeeded.”

Garek nodded. “It is amazing. But then we actually only have his word that these attempts were made on
his
life.”

“I was there when he was shot at in the cemetery,” she reminded them. And she had been so furious over it that she’d already accused them of being involved. They’d been drinking then and confused, so they probably hadn’t realized that she’d already had her own suspicions.

“But was it really him they were shooting at?” Garek voiced her earlier fear. “Or was it you?”

She shrugged now. “I don’t know about that, but I do know that Logan wasn’t the one shooting at me. He saved me at the cemetery like he saved me just now when we discovered the bomb in my apartment.”

Her legs began to shake as she remembered that mess of wires and pipes sitting in the middle of her kitchen table where usually she displayed a crystal bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers.

“Has it occurred to you that he was able to stop it from going off so easily because he’d concocted the damn thing?” Garek voiced his own suspicions.

“He was able to dismantle it because his brother—the former marine—had shown him how to disarm improvised explosive devices.”

“If his brother Cooper knows how to take the bombs apart, he must know how to put them together,” Garek said.

“And Parker could have been the one shooting at the cemetery,” Milek added.

Maybe her brothers hadn’t sobered up yet. “Why?” she asked. “Why would they try to kill their own brother and risking hurting their mother, too?” The Payne family had already suffered too much loss, and that loss had brought them closer together, had made them more protective of each other. Not murderous.

“I can think of quite a few reasons,” Milek murmured with a resentful glare in Logan’s direction.

“They weren’t trying to kill him,” Garek explained to her. “They were trying to kill
you.
”

“Why?” she asked.

“Maybe they actually think your crazy engagement story is the truth and they’re trying to stop the wedding,” Garek said.

Even though it had been Mrs. Payne’s idea, nobody in Logan’s family knew about their fake engagement. And given Logan’s opposition to it, they probably never would.

Garek continued, “But seriously, the Payne family would only act on the boss’s orders.”

“And Logan Payne is the boss,” Milek added.

Maybe he was boss of Payne Protection, but Penny Payne was the boss of her family. And she would never allow any of her kids to hurt her. She knew how much Stacy had already been hurt. And so did her brothers.

They were only trying to protect her. And maybe they had reason to.

She really only had Logan’s word that there had been other attempts on his life—attempts that hadn’t involved her nearly getting shot or blown up, as well. She turned toward where he’d been standing with the ATF agents, but he was no longer there.

Then a strong arm curled around her shoulders and pulled her tight to his side. She didn’t mistake him for one of her brothers this time. She recognized his touch now. Her body recognized it as her pulse quickened. But that might not have been with attraction; that might have only been with fear. She couldn’t, and shouldn’t, trust him. Because, as her brothers had pointed out, his feelings for her couldn’t have changed. He still hated her.

But then why did he hold her so closely, nearly molding her body against his? Just to mess with her? Did he realize how much his nearness affected her?

“Payne, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Garek asked as he glared at Logan with hatred darkening his gray eyes.

She couldn’t trust her brothers, either—because Logan might be telling the truth about the attempts on his life and he might be right about who was behind them.

Instead of ignoring Garek’s impudent question, Logan—equally as impudent—replied, “I’m taking my fiancée home.”

She barely managed to contain her shock. He’d been adamant that his mother’s plan would never work, so why was he playing along now? Or was he only playing—just amusing himself by aggravating her brothers?

Garek tensed and bristled like Cujo when he saw a cat or a small dog or a squirrel. His upper lip curled, he barked back, “She is home.”

With the stairwell blown off the side of the building, it didn’t look much like home. But she could still access her second-story apartment through the inside stairwell.

“The ATF agents haven’t cleared the building yet,” Logan said. “Nobody’s going to be allowed inside until they make sure it’s safe.”

“I—I should stay,” she said, hoping to defuse the tense situation between Logan and her brothers, “while they do that.”

“But even if the ATF agents declare your place safe,” Logan said, “
you’re
not.”

She shivered.

“You would know,” Milek bitterly muttered.

Logan nodded as if in agreement with her brother. Apparently, he hadn’t picked up on the deeper meaning. “Neither of us is safe until we catch the person trying to kill us.”

Was that why he was acting like her fiancé? Had he decided to use their fake engagement to try to find their would-be killers?