Explosive Engagement. Lisa Childs

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