by Lisa Childs
He held Stacy close to protect her. But he needed to protect his mother, too—from her own optimism. “Mom, it’s late. You shouldn’t have called this meeting tonight.”
She clapped her hands together, and everyone jumped as if another shot had been fired. “There is no time to waste to plan your wedding.”
Planning a wedding would be a waste—because the wedding would never take place. She knew that, and that was probably why she was pushing him.
“There’s a three-day waiting period for licenses in Michigan,” the wedding planner reminded everyone. “But I know a certain judge who might waive that given the circumstances. He did it for your brother.”
“Because someone was trying to kill him and his bride,” Logan said.
His mother arched a brow. But he didn’t need a reminder. He knew someone was trying to kill him and Stacy, too. He could understand one of them trying to murder him—to avenge Patek Kozminski’s death.
But her…?
Why would anyone want Stacy dead?
She’d been a pain in his ass, but he didn’t want her gone. He just wanted her. Now.
But not as his bride.
“We can’t get a license tonight,” he said. “It’s too late.”
“But the judge would meet us down at the courthouse. All he needs is your birth certificate and social security card.” She held up an envelope. “I brought yours. And Mrs. Kozminski has Stacy’s.”
Maybe that was why she’d come here—for that paperwork. Or maybe she wanted to prove to Logan that none of these people wanted him dead. But with the way all the Kozminskis were looking at him, he was lucky that looks couldn’t kill. The only Kozminski not looking at him had her face in his chest, her body trembling in his arms. Had she really been that worried about him?
Or was she only trying to sell their fake engagement in order to keep her family from committing murder?
“You—you cannot plan a wedding in three days,” Marta Kozminski protested. “That would be impossible.”
“I can do it,” the wedding planner assured her. “In twenty-four hours…if the judge will waive the waiting period.”
“He doesn’t need to do that,” Logan said.
Stacy tensed in his arms. Maybe she worried that he was going to expose her lie. Her brothers shared a significant look, one almost of triumph.
“I knew it!” Garek said. “I knew it was all bull. You two hate each other’s guts. There’s no way that you’re actually engaged!”
“I don’t hate your sister,” Logan said.
“Do you love her?” Milek asked.
“Of course he loves her,” his mother answered for him. “All these attempts on their lives have forced them to confront their feelings for each other—their love for each other.”
Either she was delusional or she really wanted to plan another wedding.
“We realize you’re all shocked,” Logan said. “We’re shocked, too. So we need some time alone to work everything out.” He wanted to get Stacy and his mother out of there, far away from all the possible threats.
“So you’re not engaged?” the aunt asked hopefully.
Stacy looked at him now, tipping her face up to his. He wanted to kiss her. He needed to kiss her. She waited like the others—waited for him to tell the truth and expose their fake engagement.
Chapter Eleven
So Logan lied. “We’re engaged.”
He wasn’t sure it would stop the attempts on their lives, but it would put him in proximity to the suspects to find out which one might be behind the attempts. Of course the Kozminskis hadn’t let him or his mother inside their house yet. But as their niece’s fiancé, they would eventually have to let him into their family circle. More important, the engagement would also put him in proximity to Stacy. Close proximity. To protect her…
“If you’re really engaged, then where’s the ring?” Marta challenged them.
Logan spared his mother a glance. She should have known her plan would never work; these people would not be easily fooled. They were used to running the con, not falling for it.
“I—I will design my own, of course,” Stacy replied.
“So he’s telling the truth?” Marta asked, still skeptical.
Stacy stared at him, surprised that he had actually lied, and nodded.
“Were you?” her aunt asked.
Stacy’s brow furrowed with confusion and she turned back to the older woman. “What?”
“When you told me that you didn’t understand your father’s last words?” she asked. “Were you telling the truth then?”
“Dad’s last words?” Milek repeated. “What’s Aunt Marta talking about?”
Logan was wondering the same. But his mother remained silent, as if she already knew. How close was she to Stacy?
“The warden called her to go to the prison,” Garek answered for her. “Dad was asking for her.” Was that bitterness or resentment in her brother’s voice?
Maybe he and Stacy had been completely wrong about them; maybe they didn’t love her as much as either had thought. Maybe that was why the engagement hadn’t stopped the shooting or the bombs…
“But he must have died before you got there,” Milek said as he reached out to squeeze her shoulder in sympathy. “He was mortally wounded.”
She swayed on her legs and leaned heavily against Logan’s side. This wasn’t easy for her—talking about what must have been a horrific last encounter between her and her dying father. How had Logan not known that she’d been there, that she’d seen the man she’d loved above everyone else die?
“He was alive,” she admitted. “But he was barely lucid.”
“But he said something to you,” Marta Kozminski insisted.
Her brow furrowed again—in irritation as much as confusion. “Whatever my father said to me was between him and me,” she said, her voice sharp with anger. “It had nothing to do with you.”
“It has nothing to do with her,” Garek agreed. “But he was our father, too. If he told you something, Milek and I should know what it was.”
She shook her head. “It was nothing…”
Marta sneered derisively. “Then you would just say what it was.”
Maybe the icy blonde woman was right. If it had been nothing, why wouldn’t Stacy just share it? Was whatever her father had told her the reason she was so convinced that he hadn’t been alone when his father died? That someone else had been involved?
He wanted to know the truth, too, but he didn’t want to press her. She was already trembling with either shock or exhaustion from the eventful day she’d had.
Stacy shook her head. “He was drugged—for the pain. What he said made no sense.”
The aunt nodded, as if in acceptance. But then she sighed. “It is late and my husband and I have no interest in planning a wedding—not so soon after a funeral. It would be in extremely poor taste.” She grabbed her husband’s arm and tugged him back inside the house and closed the door on them all.
Yet slamming the door on family wasn’t poor taste?
Stacy uttered a shaky little sigh of relief. Because they were gone? Or because they’d stopped hounding her about her father’s last words?
Her brothers had fallen silent, too. Logan wasn’t sure if it was because of the engagement or because of the talk of their father’s last moments. The horrific last moments that Stacy alone had witnessed. He tightened his arm around her as her brothers stepped away.
Were they angry with her over the engagement or over her not sharing her father’s last words? Logan suspected she was only protecting them.
“We can go back to the chapel,” his mother suggested. “And continue the planning.”
He shook his head. “We’re exhausted, Mom.”
“Is that all it is?” she asked, her eyes wide and wet with tears. “Are you mad at me?”
He sighed and eased his arm from around Stacy to put it around his mother. Then he guided her toward her car. Fortunately, the gates
were still open; she could drive away. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“But I thought it might help…”
His voice low, he said, “It could have gotten you killed.”
“None of the Kozminskis would hurt me.”
Because they knew she’d already been hurt enough.
“I can’t say the same,” he said. They all wanted to hurt him. He still wasn’t sure that he could trust Stacy. But even if he couldn’t trust her, he had to protect her. He was a bodyguard—it wasn’t just what he did…it was who he was.
She lifted a slightly trembling hand to pat his cheek as she so often did. “You’re my only child that gets mad at me.”
A twinge of guilt struck his heart, but he grinned at her words. “I’m the only one who calls you on your crap.”
She chuckled. “Yes, you are, my eldest.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and whispered in his ear. “You’re going to find out that I’m right about you and Stacy. You’re finally going to be happy. That’s all I’ve wanted for you and your brothers and sister.”
That was how she justified her meddling—with love. But she was wrong if she thought his and Stacy’s engagement had anything to do with love. It had to do with blackmail. Threats. Attraction. Desire…
He closed her door and patted the roof of the car, urging her to start her engine. He held his breath, not releasing it until her car drove through the gates and away from danger. Then he turned back to the remaining Kozminskis. He wasn’t sure who posed the greatest threat to him: the brothers who clearly wanted to kill him or the woman who distracted and attracted him.
Somehow he suspected it was she who would be his downfall.
*
THE SILENCE WAS even more chilling than the cool night breeze. Stacy shivered. But she didn’t break the silence as she and her brothers stared at Logan Payne.
She’d hated him for so long. That hate had kept her strong while she’d worried about her incarcerated dad and her brothers. But the hate was gone now. And she felt weaker and more vulnerable than she’d ever had.
“Tell us the truth,” Garek urged her.
“I told you Dad was out of it,” she replied. “His last words made no sense.” Or so she’d thought at the time. But now she wondered if he might have been right…
“Not about Dad,” Garek clarified. “Tell us the truth about this engagement.”
“It’s not real,” Milek said as if trying to convince himself.
After all those years of her very vocal hatred of Logan Payne, she didn’t blame them for doubting that her feelings could have so drastically changed. But when she’d seen him step out of that SUV, she’d felt more than relief and something very far from hatred.
“It’s real,” Logan answered for her. He wrapped his arm around her, and the warmth of his long, muscular body chased away the chill.
Despite his words, she knew he was lying. It was only real to her. She wasn’t sure what it was to him. A joke? A cover to get him close to her family?
“If it’s real, why didn’t you have your mom rush the marriage license like she wanted?” Milek asked.
“A day or three isn’t going to make a difference,” he said. “Stacy and I will be getting married.”
Garek cursed, making his opinion of their union clear. Then he shook his head. “It ain’t going to happen.”
“Why’s that?” Logan asked. “Don’t think I’ll live to make it to the altar?”
Garek shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’d think that eventually your luck’ll run out, Payne.”
That was Stacy’s fear, too. She’d been so scared that he hadn’t survived the last bomb. “No,” she protested. “It won’t run out. We will be getting married.”
“Well, until you are, you need to stay with us,” Milek said.
Garek nodded in agreement.
She laughed. “When did you two get so old-fashioned?”
“Maybe we’ve always been,” Milek replied. “You just never gave us reason to worry about you before.”
“Why are you worried?” she asked. “Because someone’s trying to kill me or because I’m engaged to Logan Payne?”
Garek grunted as if he were in physical pain. “Both reasons.”
“Then you should be glad she’s engaged to me,” Logan said. “I’ll protect her.”
Garek scoffed. “You put her in more danger. She needs to stay far away from you!” He reached out for Stacy’s arm.
Cujo wasn’t with them, but Logan took his place, snarling, “Don’t touch her!”
“She’s my sister,” Garek said with a snarl of his own.
“She’s my fiancée.”
“She has a mind and a mouth of her own,” Stacy interjected.
“Then tell him,” Milek said, “that you’re leaving here with us.”
She shook her head. Earlier she’d wanted to go home—alone. That was what she’d told Logan when he’d brought her to his brother’s house. But after finding that bomb, everything had changed for her.
She was too scared to be alone now. But she wasn’t afraid for herself. She was scared—she was terrified—for Logan. She couldn’t shoot or defuse bombs, but she wanted to protect Logan. And maybe her presence alone would do that…if her brothers were responsible for the attempts on his life. If they believed she really cared about him, and she stayed close to him, they would stop. They wouldn’t risk hurting her.
“I’m leaving here with my fiancé,” she told her brothers.
“And don’t try to follow us this time,” Logan warned them.
“We can’t trust you to protect her,” Milek said. “You’ve nearly gotten her shot and blown up.”
“He did protect me,” Stacy said. “I’m not hurt.” But she worried that she would get hurt. Not physically—because Logan wasn’t just lucky. He was a talented bodyguard. But she worried that she would get hurt emotionally…because she was starting to believe their engagement was real and that Logan Payne might actually care about her. And that belief would only lead to disappointment. She’d stopped hating him, but she wasn’t sure he could stop hating her or her family.
*
AS LOGAN HELPED her into the passenger’s side of his SUV, he glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t believe that her brothers hadn’t tried to stop them again—that they had just let them walk away. But Stacy had made it clear that she was leaving with him.
Why?
He stared into her face and noticed how her gray eyes darkened with fear. She was afraid. “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “I’m taking you to one of the safe houses I use for clients in danger.”
Which was where he should have taken her when he’d first found that bomb in her apartment—instead of to his place and then to Parker’s. But he’d been so certain that her brothers were responsible that he’d been convinced the attempts would stop when she was near him.
Either he was wrong about them or she was. Maybe they didn’t care as much about her as either of them had thought.
She tensed as if something had just occurred to her and asked, “Where’s Cujo? I thought you’d left him in your car. He didn’t get hurt—”
“No,” Logan told her. “I brought him back to the kennel where we picked him up. I thought he’d had enough excitement for one day.”
She nodded. “Of course. But we can pick him up now.”
He wasn’t convinced the excitement was over. “It’s late,” he reminded her. “We’ll have to wait until morning.”
Which was probably only a few hours from now. He closed her door and walked around the front to the driver’s side.
Like thugs on a street corner eyeing a potential victim, her brothers watched him. The weight of the gun in the holster beneath his arm reassured him. But he didn’t want to shoot one of Stacy’s brothers. She would already probably never forgive him for her father dying in prison, but if he had to kill one of her brothers, too…
He had been so positive that they were responsible for the attempts
on his life. But now he hoped they weren’t. He hoped it was anyone else.
But who? And why would that person be after both him and Stacy?
He opened the driver’s door and slid beneath the wheel. The dome light illuminated Stacy’s pale face. The only color to her blanched skin was the dark circles beneath her eyes. She was exhausted. It hadn’t just been one long emotional day but a few days for her.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised in case her brothers had put any doubts in her mind. But then the bomb had probably done that.
“I know.”
Did she really? Did she trust him?
He felt the weight of that trust more heavily than his weapon. He would keep her safe, or he would die trying.
She must have really trusted him because she lay back and closed her eyes. So she didn’t see the lights behind them.
But he saw them and cursed.
Her body tensed, and her eyes opened. She hadn’t been asleep at all. “What?”
“Your brothers must be following us again.” At least this time he’d noticed them. How had he missed their tail before?
“They want to protect me,” she said.
He wasn’t so certain that was their real purpose in following them. But then he didn’t blame them for not trusting him with her safety. But because he suspected them, he sped up to lose them.
“I’ll protect you,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m a bodyguard,” he reminded her. “It’s what I do.” He made a couple quick turns, and the road darkened behind them. He’d lost the tail. That easily?
Too easily…
He pressed harder on the accelerator and squealed around a few more sharp turns.
Stacy braced her hands on the dashboard. “But why protect me?” she asked. “I didn’t hire you.”
“You didn’t need to,” he said. On some level he felt as if he owed her. Keeping her father in prison had been the right thing—the just thing—but it had also hurt her. The road remained dark behind them. At this hour, theirs was the only car on the road.
“Why did you lie to my family about the engagement?” she asked.