Читать книгу: «Explosive Engagement»
GETTING MARRIED MAY BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN COMPLETING HIS MISSION.
Nothing has fazed Logan Payne in his entire career as a bodyguard. That is, until he’s tasked with protecting his biggest enemy. Stacy Kozminski isn’t too thrilled about having to work with Logan either, but when attempts are made on her life, she knows he is her only hope if she wants to survive.
Soon, a target is placed on both their backs, and they have no choice but to stage an engagement to protect one another. Logan won’t let Stacy out of his sight. But is it because he doesn’t want to fail his assignment…or because he’s come to care for the gutsy and gorgeous woman—the only woman who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him?
Noise erupted in the room.
Gasps. Shouts. Even a scream. But she could barely hear them for the blood rushing through her head, roaring in her ears. Her pulse pounded madly with adrenaline and attraction. Had it been so long since she’d been kissed that any man could affect her like this? It couldn’t be just because it was Logan. She couldn’t want a man that she hated as much as this one.
No man had ever kissed her the way he was kissing her—with so much passion and desire that her knees weakened and her head swam and she completely forgot why she’d kissed him in the first place.
When he pulled back, she was panting for breath, and her heart was beating so quickly that it pounded against her breasts. Against her lips, he murmured, “What the hell are you up to?”
For a moment she couldn’t remember. Then it came back to her: the plan—his mother’s outrageous plan.
She whispered back, “I’m saving your life.” Then she turned toward her stunned family and announced, “Logan Payne is my fiancé. We’re getting married.”
For my family—with great appreciation for all your love and support. Love you all!
Explosive Engagement
Lisa Childs
Bestselling, award-winning author LISA CHILDS writes para-normal and contemporary romance for Mills & Boon. She lives on thirty acres in Michigan with her two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Logan Payne—The former detective and CEO of Payne Protection needs a bodyguard himself after attempts on his life. Instead he winds up with a fiancée.
Stacy Kozminski—She has hated Logan Payne for keeping her father in prison, so he’s the last man she would marry—until murder attempts leave her no other option but to propose.
Patek Kozminski—The former jewel thief took his secrets to his grave, but someone thinks he may have shared them with his daughter—which puts her in danger.
Garek Kozminski—Stacy’s brother has done prison time, and he’s not above breaking the law again...this time for revenge.
Milek Kozminski—Stacy’s other brother has also had scrapes with the law. Like Garek, he’ll do anything to protect their sister—even kill....
Iwan Kozminski—Uncle Iwan was Patek’s partner in the jewel thefts, but he never went to prison...and he’ll do anything to make sure he never does.
Marta Kozminski—She enjoys the lifestyle her husband Iwan provides, and she’s not going to let his brother’s children and Logan Payne mess that up.
Candace Baker—The bodyguard is so in love with her boss that she would give her life for his. She might also take a life—that of his fiancée.
Robert Cooper—The retired police officer was Logan’s dad’s partner and the key witness in Patek Kozminski’s trial, which puts him in danger too.
Parker Payne—Being Logan’s twin has already put him in danger, but he would gladly take a bullet for his brother.
Nikki Payne—The baby and only Payne sister, Nikki is determined to prove she’s just as tough as her brothers.
Penny Payne—The Payne family matriarch is not part of her children’s security business. As a wedding planner, she believes in another kind of security—happily ever after—and she’s not above taking advantage of a situation to ensure her kids are happy.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Extract
Prologue
The bomb was set, so he carefully closed the door. When it opened again, the timer would activate—giving the victim mere minutes before the explosion. He exited the back door and breathed a sigh of relief that he was out of danger.
No. He wasn’t out of danger yet—not until the bomb claimed its intended victim. He didn’t enjoy killing, but he’d done it—more than once—out of necessity. He’d had to do it to protect himself.
That was all he was doing now—making sure that no one was left alive to link him to his crimes. Then, after all these years, he might finally have peace.
Chapter One
The sun shone brightly, setting the white bricks of the church aglow. It was a great day for a wedding. But Logan Payne couldn’t forget that a funeral was also taking place today. He’d thought it might finally bring him some peace that his father’s killer was dead. But it seemed more like an injustice that the man had lived for only fifteen years of his already too short sentence.
Maybe it was that sense of injustice that had made Logan uneasy. Or maybe it was the recent attempts on his life.
But he pushed aside that uneasiness and focused instead on the bride and groom. He lifted his hand, with birdseed stuck to his palm, and waved off his younger brother and his new bride. Nobody deserved happiness more than the two of them—especially after the hell they had endured to be together.
His sister, Nikki, glanced up at him through the tears glistening in her warm brown eyes. “Getting emotional, big bro?” she teased. Their family relentlessly teased each other.
The tears were all hers, but he played along. “Birdseed got in my eye,” he said with an exaggerated blink. But then he squinted at a random glare and glanced toward the street where his brother’s decorated SUV sat on the curb. Nikki had written Just Married across the back window and tied strings of pop cans to the rear bumper. A car slowly passed it, and as it did, a barrel protruded out of the dark tinted driver’s window.
The SUV shielded the bride and groom, but Logan and his sister and his twin were exposed on the steps of the church. As the shots rang out, he knocked Nikki down and lunged at Parker, knocking him over the railing.
The shots weren’t meant for any of his siblings. He knew that. But he had been standing too close to Nikki. And his twin was identical—same black hair, same blue eyes, same features. Today they were even both wearing black tuxedos. Logan covered Nikki’s petite frame, shielding her with his body. And he tensed, waiting for the bullets to find their target in his flesh.
Tires squealed as the car rounded the corner and drove off. After a glance over his shoulder to make certain the shooter was gone, Logan helped his sister to her feet. She trembled with fear in his arms, but she was unhurt. Miraculously, Logan hadn’t been hit, either.
The bride, Tanya, turned away from the SUV and ran back to the church. The groom, Cooper, was right beside her, yelling the name of his missing brother. “Parker!”
A hand rose above the shrubs on the side of the church’s wide front steps. Cooper clasped it and pulled Parker from the branches and foliage.
“You okay?” Cooper asked him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Parker replied as he brushed off his tux. “Logan knocked me over and pushed down Nikki.” He waited—probably for Logan to make some smart-aleck comeback. That was the way the Paynes handled stuff—emotional stuff, dangerous stuff...with gallows humor.
But Logan couldn’t find any humor in this situation. The grudge he’d been carrying, and how he’d acted on that grudge, was what had nearly killed his family. And these weren’t the first attempts made on his life and Parker’s, who must have been mistaken for him then, too.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
His new sister-in-law’s voice trembled with concern as she said, “I thought it was over. Mr. Gregory is dead.”
Logan had been the one who’d taken the shot that had ended the life of her grandfather’s lawyer. The man had been trying to kill her so that no one would discover that he’d embezzled her inheritance.
“This isn’t about you,” Logan assured the beautiful blonde bride. Guilt twisted his guts into knots. He hated that this shooting—that his problem—had marred what had finally been the perfect wedding for Tanya and Cooper. “This is about me. And revenge...”
Cooper’s eyes, which were the same blue as his and Parker’s, narrowed with suspicion, and he accused him, “You know who it is.”
Anger, more intense and overwhelming than his guilt, surged through Logan. He knew who was behind all these cowardly shootings. He knew and he was damn well going to put a stop to it.
* * *
FOR THE FIRST time in fifteen years, Stacy Kozminski didn’t have to go through prison security to see her father. All she had to do was walk up the aisle of the dimly lit church to where he lay in a casket before the altar. But that walk was the most difficult she had ever taken. Her knees trembled with each step she took, shaking more the closer she got to the altar.
To the casket...
The lid was open, but she needed to take a few more steps to see past the flower arrangements. Her knees shook even harder, threatening to give out beneath her. Maybe she would have crumpled right there, but a strong arm wrapped around her waist in support.
She uttered a sigh of relief that at least one of her brothers had showed up...because she had been the first and only family member to arrive at the church. With a smile on her lips, she turned her head, but the smile froze when her gaze collided with Logan Payne’s.
His blue eyes icy hard with anger, he stared down at her.
He was mad at her? She was the one who should be angry—furious even because he had no right to show up at her father’s funeral at all—let alone wearing a tuxedo. Her heart skipped a beat before the rate sped up. He looked damn good in the black tux with the pleated white shirt. The black bow tie had already been undone and the once-white silk shirt was a little smudged and rumpled. But still...
She hated him; she reminded herself of that as she jerked away from the unsettling warmth of his long, hard body. “What the hell are you doing here?”
And why had he put his arm around her? He was the last person from whom she would ever expect support—especially today.
“I think you know,” he replied, his deep voice vibrating with anger.
She shook her head. “I have no idea...unless you want to make sure that he’s really dead...”
With a trembling hand, she gestured toward the casket and toppled over one of the flower arrangements. The vase rolled across the tiled floor, leaving a trail of multicolored petals and water behind it. She gasped at what she’d done.
But Logan Payne didn’t react. He was staring at the casket. Maybe she had been right about his reason for coming.
She followed his gaze to her father’s corpse. She’d already seen it when he’d died. She had made it to the prison in time to say goodbye. Wasn’t that supposed to have given her closure?
Stacy felt no calm acceptance. No gratefulness. She felt nothing but anger—all toward Logan Payne. So she turned back to him, and then she turned on him. Literally lashing out at him in her anger, she swung her hand toward his unfairly handsome face.
The man had some crazy reflexes, because he caught her wrist, stopping her palm just short of one of his chiseled cheekbones. Despite not slapping him, her skin tingled—maybe with the need to slap him yet. Maybe because he was touching her, his long fingers wrapped easily and tightly around her narrow wrist.
“I can’t believe even you are such a heartless bastard that you’d show up at my father’s funeral,” she said, lashing out now with her words. “And in a tux, no less.”
He glanced down at himself, as if he’d forgotten what he was wearing.
“But then I guess this is a celebration for you,” she continued. “Do you intend to dance on his grave at the cemetery, too?”
She would make damn sure of it that he never got the chance—even if she had to throw him out herself since no other mourners had arrived yet. Where the hell were her brothers?
They had always been there for her when she needed them most. Until today...
“I’ve already been dancing,” Logan replied.
She struggled against his grasp; she didn’t want a man capable of such a hateful comment touching her.
“At my brother’s wedding,” he continued.
That explained the tux.
“But then somebody tried to kill me,” he said. “Again.”
That explained his white shirt being smudged and rumpled and his thick black hair disheveled, as if he’d been running his hands through it. What would it feel like? Coarse or soft? Not that she cared to ever find out. She didn’t want to touch Logan Payne, and she sure as hell didn’t want him touching her.
So she tried again to wriggle free of his hold. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Do you think I care?”
“I think you’re behind it,” he said.
“Me?” She hadn’t even been able to slap him. “How am I supposed to have tried to kill you?”
“You shot at me,” he said.
“I don’t own a gun.” Her brothers had tried to give her one for protection, but she’d refused. Her protection had a threatening growl and a mouthful of sharp teeth to back up his threats. Too bad she hadn’t been able to bring Cujo to the funeral.
He snorted derisively, as if he doubted her. Of course he doubted her; Logan Payne doubted everyone.
“You’re doing it again,” she said. “Accusing someone of a crime they didn’t commit.” She turned back to the casket. Her father was only in his early fifties but he looked much older. Prison had turned his brown hair white and etched deep lines in his tense face. Wasn’t he supposed to look peaceful, like he was sleeping? But even in death, her father had found no peace—probably because of Logan Payne.
“I didn’t accuse your father,” he reminded her. “He was caught at the scene. He was tried and convicted.”
“Of murder,” she said. Shaking her head yet at the injustice, she added, “My father was not a murderer.”
Patek Kozminski had been a lot of things—by his own admission—but he could have never taken a life. The judge and jury had come to the wrong conclusion.
“He killed my father,” Logan said with all the rage and anguish as if it had just happened yesterday instead of fifteen years ago.
She shook her head again.
“My father caught him in the commission of a felony...”
Logan Payne was no longer a police officer, but he still talked like one. His father had been a police officer, too, who’d caught her father robbing a jewelry store.
“He resisted arrest,” he continued, “they struggled over the gun. And my father wound up dead.”
“My father did not kill him.” The man she’d known and loved wouldn’t have resisted arrest; he wouldn’t have fought with a police officer. He wouldn’t have wrestled the gun away from him and shot him with it. There had to have been someone else there that horrible day, someone else who’d really committed the crime...
“My father is dead,” Logan said.
“And now so is mine,” she said, gesturing again to the casket, but this time she was careful not to knock over any flower arrangements. “Are you happy?”
Logan sighed. “No.”
“No, of course not,” she hotly agreed. “You would have rather he lived many, many more years and spent every one of them behind bars. That’s why you showed up at every parole hearing to make sure he didn’t get out.”
“He killed a man!” Logan said.
Tears stung her eyes, and she shook her head. “No, no, he didn’t...” There had to have been someone else...
“The judge and jury convicted him,” he said it almost gently now, as if Logan Payne had any concern for her feelings.
He hadn’t, or he would have stopped showing up at the parole hearings; he would have let her father get out of prison. If not for Logan fighting it, her father would have been granted parole. He had been a model prisoner.
He had been a model father, too—even from behind bars. Now she had no father at all. She could almost relate to Logan’s rage, but hers was directed at him.
“He wasn’t convicted of murder, though,” he said, correcting her earlier comment. “It was manslaughter.”
“Which is why he had been up for parole already four times.” And why he would have been released...if not for Logan Payne.
“It should have been murder,” he said. “The charge was too light. So was the sentence...”
“The sentence wound up being death,” she said. “You gave him that sentence.”
“I didn’t—”
“If you hadn’t showed up at those hearings, he would have been released. He wouldn’t have been there for that crazy prisoner to stab. He wouldn’t have been behind bars with animals like that!” She swung her other hand now. But his damn reflexes were so fast that he caught her wrist again. She struggled against his grasp and cursed him.
But Logan didn’t even blink at her insults. His gaze remained steady and intense on her face. He was always so damn intense. Despite her rising temper, her flesh tingled and chilled, lifting goose bumps on her skin—even skin that was covered by her new black sweater dress.
“What the hell’s going on?” a familiar voice demanded to know.
“Get your damn hands off her, Payne!” another voice chimed in.
Her brothers had finally arrived. She’d wanted them earlier—to be there for support over her father’s funeral. But now she felt a rush of fear as they ran down the aisle toward her and Logan. She was actually afraid for Logan because her brothers were very protective of her—to the point that they had even killed for her.
Were they about to do that again?
Chapter Two
Logan released her—so abruptly that Stacy stumbled back. He would have reached for her again, just to steady her, but one of her brothers caught her. The other one reached for him. Garek or Milek—he didn’t know who was whom. They weren’t twins, but they looked nearly as much alike as he and Parker did. These guys were tall, too, but with blond hair and gray eyes.
Stacy had the same smoky-gray eyes—with thick lashes she kept blinking. Not to flirt with him—he was the last man she’d ever flirt with—but to fight back tears over her father’s death. Her hair wasn’t as blond as her brothers. It had streaks of brown and bronze and gold.
He jerked away from whichever brother was grabbing at him. Then he dodged the fist the man swung, even more easily than he had dodged Stacy’s attempts to slap him. Maybe he should have just let her hit him. Maybe then she would have gotten the revenge she sought.
No. He doubted her quest for revenge would be satisfied until he was as dead as their fathers.
She might have been telling the truth about not owning a gun. But she didn’t need to; she had brothers who would do anything she told them and that was the same as pulling the trigger.
He reached beneath the tuxedo jacket for his gun.
“Really?” Stacy asked, her voice shaking with anger. “You’re going to pull a gun at my father’s funeral?”
He paused with his hand on his holster. “Would you rather I just let them kill me?” He mentally smacked himself for the dumb comment. Of course she would rather he just let them. That was the whole point of trying to murder him.
“They’re not going to kill you.”
“Don’t lie to him, Stace,” one of them said.
“You’re not going to kill him,” she said with a meaningful glare at both of her brothers. “We are not going to ruin our father’s funeral.”
And that was the only reason that she wouldn’t let them kill him here—in the dark church with its dingy stained-glass windows and scratched up tile floor. It wasn’t as pretty and bright as the church he’d just left—the one his mother had bought and turned into a wedding chapel and reception hall.
“You don’t think he’s ruining it,” one of the brothers asked, “by showing up here in a freaking tuxedo?”
Regret flashed through Logan, but he’d been so damn angry—and with damn good reason—that he hadn’t considered how he was dressed before he’d rushed over from one church to another. “Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to change between my brother’s wedding and getting shot at.”
“If you were shot at during your brother’s wedding, maybe it had something to do with him or his bride,” she said. “Why do you automatically assume it had anything to do with me or my family?”
“Because it did,” he said with total certainty.
She shook her head. “We can’t be the only enemies you’ve ever made.”
Probably not, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “Usually people appreciate what I do for them.”
“You expect us to appreciate you keeping our father in prison?” she asked, her gray eyes widening with shock and outrage.
“Let me kill him,” one of the brothers pleaded with her.
She was younger than them, but she was definitely the one calling the shots, literally, in the Kozminski family. She stared at her father’s body lying in the bronze casket and shook her head. “Not here, Garek.”
Not “no,” just “not here.”
“And you wonder why I think it’s you behind the attempts on my life...”
“Attempts?” she repeated.
The one she’d called Garek laughed. “And there’s your proof that it’s not us,” he said. “We wouldn’t have had to try more than once to kill you.”
“I own a security firm,” he reminded them. “I will not be easy to kill.”
“I don’t know...” the other brother, Milek, mused as he walked around Logan. “You showed up here alone.”
“He’s not alone,” a deep voice very much like his own announced from the back of the church.
Of course Parker would have figured out where he’d gone. But he hadn’t come alone, either. Their little sister had tagged along like she always had when they were kids. She hadn’t outgrown that annoying habit yet. Fortunately, one of Payne Protection Agency’s most loyal employees had come along, too. Candace Baker stood next to Parker, her hand beneath her jacket, probably on her holster.
Instead of being grateful for the backup, Logan was incredibly annoyed with the interference. And the doubt. He could take care of himself and them, and he had proven that again and again.
“What the hell are all of you doing here?” he demanded to know.
“Mom sent us,” his twin replied.
“Of course she did.” Their mother had a problem remembering that he ran Payne Protection—not her. Logan had overlooked her interference when it had involved her matchmaking his brother with his new bride. But he didn’t want her interfering in his life. “She had no right...”
“That didn’t stop you,” Stacy bitterly remarked.
“I had no right to what, dear?” Penny Payne asked as she joined them in the church. Unlike him and Parker who wore the wedding tuxedos, she’d changed from her bronze-colored mother-of-the-bride gown into a black dress. She hadn’t been on the steps to see off Cooper and Tanya. She must have been changing then—as if she’d always intended to attend the funeral of the man who’d murdered her husband.
“Why are you here, Mom?” he asked. He doubted he would ever understand her, but neither had his father. It hadn’t stopped Nicholas Payne from loving her, though. And it wouldn’t stop Logan, either, unless he wound up like his father: dead at the hands of a Kozminski.
Out of respect for Mrs. Payne, Stacy motioned her brothers back, but they were already stepping away from Logan. They wouldn’t touch him now—not in front of his mother. She couldn’t promise they wouldn’t exact some revenge later.
Even now she wondered...
Could one of them have fired those shots at the wedding? Her heart pounded heavily with dread and fear. She couldn’t lose one of them like she’d lost her father—to prison. They had both already spent too much time behind bars.
And she couldn’t lose Logan Payne, either. Not for herself. She didn’t care about him. But his mother loved him. And it would kill her to lose a child like she’d lost her husband.
Mrs. Payne swung her hand toward that child’s face. His reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop her palm from connecting with his cheek. It wasn’t quite a slap but a very forceful pat. “Why are you here?” she asked him.
“You must have heard the gunshots outside the church,” he replied. “Somebody tried to kill me again.”
Her hand trembled against his cheek, and she sucked in a shaky breath before asking, “Again?”
He groaned as if in regret at his slip or embarrassment of her concern. “Mom...”
Stacy’s lips twitched at how close Logan Payne came to sounding like a petulant child. Even when he’d been a child of just seventeen at her father’s trial, he had already seemed like a man. Strong. Intimidating. Independent.
“You don’t need to be concerned,” he assured his mother. “I’m putting a stop to it now. That’s why I’m here.”
“How is coming here putting a stop to anything?” Mrs. Payne asked, her usually smooth brow furrowed with confusion.
“You know how,” he said.
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head.
“It’s one of them,” he insisted, but his gaze focused on Stacy.
“I don’t understand,” his mother continued. “Did you see one of them with the gun?”
Logan shook his head now.
“Then you have no business coming here today of all days,” she said, “unless you’ve come to express your condolences and pay your respects.”
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating with betrayal. “Are you here to pay your respects to the man who killed your husband...who killed my father?”
Stacy’s heart lurched with the pain in his voice. He was wrong about who’d taken his dad, but he’d still lost him, even sooner than she’d lost hers. At least she had been able to see her father the past fifteen years even though it had been behind bars.
“I am here for Stacy,” Mrs. Payne replied, and her arm came around Stacy’s shoulders.
She’d tried so hard to be strong—to be tough like her brothers and like Logan. But Mrs. Payne’s warmth and affection crumbled the wall she’d built around herself so many years ago. Her shoulders began to shake like her knees had earlier.
“Is it okay with you that I’m here?” Mrs. Payne asked. “If it’s too difficult, we’ll all leave...”
“That would be best,” a woman chimed in.
Stacy glanced up to see her aunt and uncle walking down the aisle toward them. Aunt Marta was tall and thin with frosted blond hair and a frosty personality. Uncle Iwan’s hair had thinned while his body had widened. He was a big, imposing man, but he smiled at her. Aunt Marta glared. That look wasn’t meant for Mrs. Payne but for Stacy. She’d been on the receiving end of it many times, but she was not yet immune to the coldness and shivered.
Mrs. Payne wrapped her arm more tightly around her, as if protecting her. She had done that in court fifteen years ago. A new widow then, she had still found sympathy for the daughter of the man convicted of killing her husband. Mrs. Payne had attended other court dates in Stacy’s life—offering her support when Milek and Garek had faced their charges.
Stacy clutched at the older woman’s waist. “Please,” she murmured through the emotion choking her, “please stay...”
Mrs. Payne nodded. “Whatever you need, honey...”
Logan reached out a hand for his mother as if to tug her away from Stacy. He did not have Mrs. Payne’s forgiving soul and warm heart. He was full of hatred and bitterness. But then his fingers curled into his palm and he pulled back his hand.
“We’ll discuss this later,” he said.
Stacy knew he spoke to her, not his mother, and his words were a threat. He still considered her and her family responsible for the attempts on his life. And she wasn’t entirely convinced he was wrong, especially with the way her brothers eyed him. He wasn’t the only one in that church who was full of hatred and bitterness.
For the next hour those feelings were put aside, though, for grief and loss during the funeral mass and burial. While the others left for the funeral luncheon at what had been her father’s favorite pub, she stayed behind at his grave site.
But she was not alone. She stared down at the fresh dirt covering her father’s grave. A light breeze fluttered the leaves in the trees and tumbled the loose soil across the grave. She shivered at the cold, but it wasn’t the breeze chilling her. It was the loss.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Payne said. She hadn’t gone with the others to the pub. She had stayed behind with Stacy, continuing to offer her support and sympathy. If only Stacy’s own mother was as loving and affectionate...
But she was like Aunt Marta—she loved money and herself more than anyone else. Even her own children...
Stacy shook her head. “You have no reason to apologize.”
“I am apologizing for my son,” Mrs. Payne explained.
Knowing how much Logan would hate that, Stacy smiled and finally pulled her gaze away from the ground to face the older woman. “He’s thirty-two years old. His mother should not be making apologies for him any longer.”
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