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.
