Explosive Engagement

by Lisa Childs

  Just as he’d suspected, Stacy hadn’t listened to him, either. She stood in the living room amid the glass and debris. But at least she’d put on her dress again. Without a word, he passed her and headed toward his bedroom and his clothes.

  He dressed quickly, and the others were already inside when he walked back out. Cujo stood between them and Stacy, the hair raised on his neck as he uttered a warning growl.

  “Good dog,” he praised the canine.

  “You gonna give him a treat if he bites us?” Parker asked.

  “He probably is hungry,” Stacy said. “I haven’t had a chance to feed him since we picked him up from the kennel.”

  “Of course he would be your dog,” Candace remarked.

  His employee’s scornful tone had Logan bristling, too. “My mom gave her the dog.”

  For protection. His mother had thought she needed it. Logan had assumed because of the neighborhood where Stacy lived. But what if his mother had suspected she was in danger for another reason?

  He needed to speak to his mom.

  “I need to talk to you,” Candace said.

  The sirens screeched as the police cars pulled into his driveway. “You’re not the only one…”

  Logan wasn’t thrilled about having to take part in another police report. He hadn’t liked that part of being a lawman, and he hadn’t anticipated taking and giving police reports in his private protection business. And after all the attempts on the lives of his brother Cooper and his bride, Logan had overloaded on police reports.

  But now it had gotten even more personal; now he had become a killer’s target. But he wasn’t the only one.

  “The police are going to want to talk to you both,” Parker said. “I can take Stacy out.” He reached out as if to take her arm, but Cujo growled through bared teeth and Parker jerked his arm back. “Damn dog.” He turned toward Logan. “Does he go after you like this?”

  Logan chuckled. “No.”

  “We’re twins,” Parker said. “You’d think that would fool him.”

  But clearly the dog knew which of them was which, and he only approved of Logan touching his mistress. Logan was going to have to get the former K-9 officer some special treats.

  “I’ll go with you,” Stacy told his brother as she took his arm.

  Logan’s stomach muscles clenched with dread. And, he hated to admit, jealousy…

  His brother was a notorious playboy. Parker never dated a woman for very long before he moved on to the next conquest. And there was always another conquest. Women were never able to resist Parker.

  “I’ll go, too,” Logan said.

  His brother turned back to him, his brows raised in question while his eyes twinkled as if he was fully aware and amused by Logan’s jealousy.

  “They’re going to want to talk to me, too,” he explained.

  But Candace clutched at his arm, which elicited another growl from Cujo and a warning snarl. She didn’t jerk back like Parker had, though.

  And Logan had to put his hand on the dog’s head to settle him down. “It’s okay,” he assured his canine protector. But it wasn’t…not with his employee holding him back as Parker and Stacy walked outside together—Stacy’s small hand on Parker’s strong arm.

  “Why do you have to talk to me so badly?” he asked Candace. “I’m kind of otherwise occupied…”

  “With Stacy Kozminski,” she clarified with a snort of disgust. The female bodyguard obviously didn’t appreciate his fiancée’s attributes as much as Parker did.

  He glanced out the shattered window to where his twin stood close to Stacy, his arm actually around her shoulders as she spoke to the police officers. Maybe he was only offering support. But knowing Parker, Logan doubted it and gritted his teeth so that he didn’t shout out a protest.

  “She’s my fiancée,” he said through those gritted teeth. Parker probably couldn’t hear him, but the words were meant for his twin more than his employee. She shook her head as if in denial of his words.

  “You’re acting like this engagement is real.”

  “Why would you think it isn’t?” he asked.

  “It’s like when Cooper married Tanya the first time, as part of the job,” she replied. “Just to protect you…or her…”

  Cooper had only married Tanya because her real groom had been abducted and she’d needed to marry in order to collect her inheritance. The former marine had said it was for her—for her protection—but he’d also married her because he’d loved her. Always had and always would…

  “Cooper and Tanya are definitely real,” he reminded her.

  She nodded in agreement. “Cooper and Tanya are different. They’re in love.”

  “I’m not talking to you about my love life,” he said, and tugged free of her hold on his arm.

  “I want to talk about your life,” she said. “Being with her is going to put you in danger.”

  “I was already in danger,” he said.

  “And you thought she was behind it,” she said. “That she told her brothers to try to kill you.”

  Hearing Candace say his theory aloud made Logan realize how paranoid he’d sounded when he’d accused Stacy of such a horrendous crime. Pushing aside the last of his little, niggling doubts, he admitted, “I thought wrong…”

  “No,” she said. “You’re right. She’s done it before. They’ve killed for her before.”

  “You don’t know the whole story about that…”

  “Do you?”

  He should have. His mother had tried to tell him, but he’d resented her sympathy for the daughter of his father’s killer and had refused to listen. He shook his head in reply to Candace’s question, but most of all in disgust at his own single-mindedness. He should have listened to his mother.

  He should have learned more about Stacy Kozminski. But he’d hung on so stubbornly to his resentment.

  “I know that one man is dead because of her,” Candace said. “I don’t want you to be the next.” Ignoring Cujo’s warning growl, she stepped closer to Logan. “Let me protect you…”

  Her strange tone and urgency had his skin chilling. He’d already told her he could protect himself. Why was she so insistent?

  *

  LOGAN’S EMPLOYEE WAS in love with her boss. It was obvious to Stacy. It was obvious to Parker, who watched as Logan and Candace walked out of the shot-up house to talk to the police officers. Logan’s twin stared at the female bodyguard with pity. The officers were done questioning Stacy now, but she loathed stepping back inside that house…for all the things that had nearly happened inside it.

  They had nearly been shot. And they had nearly made love. Stacy wasn’t sure which would have wound up hurting her more.

  “How long has she been in love with him?” she asked his twin.

  Parker shrugged. “She left the police department to work for him.”

  “A long time…” She’d even tagged along to those last two parole hearings. Stacy shivered now as she remembered the woman glaring at her—probably because of the things Stacy had said to Logan. Some not so very pleasant things.

  “Yes.” Parker sighed now with that pity. “He doesn’t know, though.”

  “What would he do if he knew?” Stacy wondered aloud. Would he act on the woman’s feelings? Would he return them?

  “He would probably fire her,” Parker said. “Which is why none of us has pointed it out to him. She’s a damn good bodyguard, and her firing would be a huge loss to Payne Protection.”

  She nodded in understanding. Parker didn’t want her to tell Logan, either. “Why would he fire her, then?”

  “Because he would worry that she might lose her perspective.” Parker’s mouth curved into a slight grin. “He’s always adamant about never letting emotions interfere with an assignment.”

  She laughed.

  “Seriously,” Parker said. “Logan is a very unemotional guy. Keeps everything inside—never shows his thoughts or feelings.”

  “Logan?” she repeate
d, totally shocked at his twin’s assessment of the hotheaded, openly judgmental man she knew. “Do you have a triplet? Because you haven’t described the man I know.”

  “You bring out another side of him,” Parker said. “You bring out his emotions.” He chuckled now. “That’s probably why he’s always…” He trailed off, his face flushing with embarrassment over what he’d nearly revealed.

  But she knew. “Hated me? Resented me?”

  Parker shrugged but didn’t deny her comments. “I always thought that it was just about your dad…”

  So had she.

  “But obviously it was more personal than that. Now I know why he stared at you all the time—he was attracted to you. That probably made him resent you even more.” Parker grinned. “I’m glad he finally stopped fighting his feelings.”

  Hers was the family they needed to fool. Not his. So she opened her mouth to set Parker straight. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “It’s really not…” Real.

  But before she could finish her confession, a strong arm slid around her shoulders, and Logan pulled her tight against his side. “It’s really not what?” he asked. His blue eyes held a warning for her to not admit the truth.

  And with the Amazon bodyguard standing behind him, Stacy had no intention of doing any such thing…but sliding her arm around his waist. She felt a twinge of regret that he’d replaced the towel with jeans and a cotton shirt. “Sweetheart,” she asked, “are the police done with their report?”

  Candace snorted derisively. Over the endearment? Had Logan told her the truth? Stacy doubted that or he wouldn’t have stopped her from telling his brother. “It’ll take the crime scene techs a while to finish processing…”

  She would know since she had once been a cop like Parker and Logan. Before Parker’s admission, Stacy had assumed she might have been ex-military like Cooper Payne. She certainly looked the part of a G.I. Jane.

  “And it’s gonna take a contractor even longer to repair the damage,” Parker added. “You’re going to need someplace else to stay.”

  “Maybe the ATF is done with my place,” she said. She would like to go home. Alone. But she doubted that Logan was about to leave her side until they figured out who was trying to kill them—since that was the only reason he’d agreed to their fake engagement.

  Logan’s hand skimmed down her arm to her hip, and he suggestively offered, “We can check into a hotel…”

  She shivered in anticipation of what they could do in that hotel. Bad things…

  To each other. But mostly bad things for her.

  “A hotel won’t take Cujo,” she reminded him.

  As if he’d heard them discussing him, the German shepherd leaped through the opening of the shattered window. They could probably bring him back to the kennel. He would be safer there. But before she could suggest it, the dog rushed to Logan’s side.

  He patted his head. “Hey, old boy, you’ve saved our lives a couple of times already. We need him.”

  “You have other protection,” Candace said.

  “He’d go crazy in the kennel now,” Logan said. “Because he knows we’re in danger.”

  “He’s a dog,” she murmured disparagingly.

  “He’s a cop,” Logan said in the dog’s defense. “He was K-9 before he got shot.”

  The woman turned toward the dog with new respect. “You’re a good boy…”

  Her praise didn’t woo Cujo any more than it must have Logan. Neither of them paid her any attention as a jangle of metal had them turning to Parker.

  He held up a ring of keys. “My place has a fenced yard. The dog would love it.”

  Logan grabbed the proffered keys and asked, “Where are you going to stay?”

  Parker’s mouth curved into another grin. “I’m not welcome in my own house?”

  “The dog is all I need for backup…”

  “The dog can’t shoot a gun,” Candace said. Obviously she could. She had one holstered beneath her arm like the guys. Could she set a bomb?

  Like Logan, she’d thought Stacy was behind the attempts on his life, so she may have decided to get rid of any threat to the man she loved. And if Nikki and Parker were right and Logan had looked at her the way they claimed, maybe the woman had decided to remove the threat to his heart, as well.

  Not that Stacy believed she could ever really claim Logan’s heart. He would never get over his resentment of her.

  “Logan wants to be alone with his fiancée,” Parker said, which probably added unnecessary fuel to the woman’s already burning resentment. As he had earlier, he hooked his arm around Candace’s shoulders and led her toward their vehicles. But then he turned back and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay with Mom.”

  “Sure you wanna risk it?” Logan teased. “Mom’s on a roll right now…”

  Parker’s laugh rang out as he walked away. He stopped at the woman’s vehicle first and opened her door for her. The woman didn’t appear to appreciate his gentlemanly gesture. She glared at him before sliding beneath the wheel. He slammed the door shut and patted it as if it were a horse he was urging to giddy up. After a few tense moments of staring back at Logan, the woman finally started the engine.

  “What is he risking?” Stacy asked. She felt as if she were the one risking everything—alienating her family, making an enemy in the woman who had a crush on Logan and falling for her fake fiancé herself. If it were up to her, she would have preferred to stay with Mrs. Payne than alone with her oldest son.

  “He’s risking his playboy status.” Logan waved at his brother’s SUV as the man drove away. Then he pressed his hand to the small of Stacy’s back and guided her toward his own vehicle. As his brother had for the bodyguard, Logan opened the door for Stacy.

  She climbed into the passenger’s seat and asked, “Do you think your mom will talk Parker into a fake engagement, too?”

  Logan laughed now. “I don’t think even Mom could ever maneuver Parker to the altar.” He closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side.

  Stacy felt as if she was the one who’d been maneuvered…into once again being alone with Logan Payne. After he and Cujo jumped inside the SUV, she remarked, “We could have stayed with her.”

  His handsome face pulled into a tight mask of disapproval. “And put her in the cross fire—again—of whoever’s shooting at us?”

  “No. Of course not,” she said. “I would never want her getting hurt because of me. But you probably think that I have already hurt her…”

  He tensed with obvious concern for his mother’s safety. “How?”

  Stacy paused, surprised that he hadn’t immediately agreed with her. “Because of what you think my dad did.”

  “I know that your dad did it,” he said, his tension easing only slightly. He turned the key in the ignition, starting up the SUV. “You didn’t do it. I don’t blame you.”

  Maybe she hadn’t heard him correctly over the rumble of the engine. “Yeah, right. You have definitely blamed me and my brothers.”

  He groaned. “I haven’t blamed you for what your dad did. I’ve blamed you for refusing to admit what he did.”

  She still refused. “That’s because he didn’t do it,” she insisted. “He never would have pulled the trigger.”

  “They struggled over the gun.”

  “He wouldn’t have reached for it,” she insisted. “My father hates—” a twinge of pain struck her heart as she realized she had to correct herself and use past tense “—hated guns. He never would have touched it.”

  “It was just the two of them in that room,” Logan said. “What do you think happened? How did my father wind up dead and yours not?”

  She pointed out what had always been so obvious to her. “There was someone else in that room.”

  “Officer Cooper didn’t see anyone else leaving it,” Logan said.

  “He wasn’t there yet,” she said. She had memorized the officer’s testimony, and despite fifteen years having passed since the trial,
she hadn’t forgotten a word. “Your father got to the room first. His partner was slower—too slow to see who really shot your father.”

  A muscle twitched in Logan’s cheek as he turned away from her, his focus on his driving as he steered around the crime scene and police vehicles parked in his driveway. “Your father never said that there was someone else in the room.”

  Her father had never said anything about what had happened that horrible night. He had chosen to not even testify at his own trial. “I know he wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Then why not tell the police who did?” Logan asked. “He had to have witnessed it.”

  “I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell…” Tension throbbed behind her eyes, so she squeezed them shut to relieve some pressure of trying to convince Logan her father was innocent. Why was she even wasting her time? She’d had fifteen years to convince him and had failed. She knew she would never really get through to him. “I don’t know…”

  Instead of laughing at her or calling her naive as she’d suspected he would, Logan offered an explanation. “Maybe he was protecting someone.”

  Hope rushed through her, and she opened her eyes to stare at him in shock. “You believe me? You believe my father was innocent?”

  He shook his head and dashed her hopes.

  If he kept blaming her dad for his father’s death, there was no future for them. That anger and resentment would always remain between them.

  Her breath caught with more shock that she had actually hoped there might be a future for them. Had she become such a good actress that she’d convinced herself their engagement could be real?

  “I don’t know what to believe,” he admitted.

  “About my father?” He had given her doubts about her brothers; it was only fair that she gave him doubts, too.

  “About you,” he said. “I thought you were responsible for the attempts on my life, that you’d put your brothers up to it…”

  His suspicions chilling her, she shivered. She had been a fool to think there would ever be a future between them. He didn’t think the worst of just her family; he thought it of her, too. He always had and that hadn’t changed.