Free Explosive Engagement by LISA CHILDS Page B

instead of them. Logan and Stacy almost hadn’t been as lucky. If Cujo’s bark hadn’t made him take cover, they would have been hit for sure. “I shouldn’t have brought you back here.”
    Stacy dragged his shirt back together, covering herself as best she could with the thin silk. “No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed.
    “And I damn well shouldn’t have announced it in front of your brothers...” But he’d thought that doing that might actually keep them safe because her brothers wouldn’t risk hurting her.
    But maybe her family wasn’t as close as he’d thought, especially given that someone had planted a bomb inside her apartment.
    She vaulted to her feet and pressed her palms against his chest again. But she wasn’t caressing his skin this time. She was shoving him back with such force for her delicate size that she nearly caused him to stumble.
    But he held his ground and then he held her, sliding his arms around her trembling body. She struggled against him. “You’re wrong! You’re so wrong!”
    He was. But he was referring to his feelings rather than his suspicions. Even now—even with his house in shambles around them—he wanted her.
    He wanted to pick her up again and carry her to his bed, to ignore the damage and the continued threat to his life and hers. But he didn’t want to just keep her safe.
    He wanted her.
    * * *
    S HE WAS WRONG . She still hated him—because he was so quick to think the worst of the people she loved. And she hated that even though she hated him, she still wanted him. Her skin heated as she pressed her palms against his muscular chest. She intended to push him away, but she was tempted to clutch him close again—to finish what they’d started before the shooting had begun.
    Had they actually been about to make love?
    No, it would have been just sex; it wouldn’t have been making love. There had never been any love lost between them—except for the people they’d loved and lost. Their fathers...
    And they would always blame each other for that.
    So she forced herself to push back until she broke free of his arms. She stumbled a couple steps before regaining her balance. And, when she averted her gaze from his naked chest and lean hips, she regained her perspective.
    “It can’t be my brothers,” she insisted.
    “If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have gone along with my mother’s crazy plan to marry me,” he said. “You know they’ve been trying to kill me.”
    “I don’t know that,” she said. And she’d been wrong, too—more wrong than he’d been—to so easily think the worst of the people she loved. It didn’t matter how many times they’d wished him dead instead of their father; that had been just talk. Like the Amazon woman had said, Stacy had uttered her share of threats, too. Empty threats.
    He snorted derisively. Maybe he still believed that she’d ordered her brothers to kill him. Or maybe he was just calling her out on the doubts she’d had over her brothers’ involvement in those previous shootings.
    “They are not the ones who’ve just shot up your house.” She flinched as she took in the damage. She sure as hell hoped it wasn’t them. “They know I’m here and they would never risk hurting me,” she said. “Not even to hurt you.”
    “Maybe I’m not the only one they want to hurt,” he said. “That bomb was planted in your apartment.”
    “My brothers had nothing to do with that bomb!” She had absolutely no doubts about that. They might kill for her—even if she hadn’t asked—but they would never kill her.
    “You can’t be sure of that,” Logan insisted.
    “Your brother is the one who knows explosives.” And he’d taught Logan enough to be able to stop one from going off. Had he taught him how to make it, too? Had her brothers been right to mistrust him? “And so do you...”
    “Cooper shared only a little of his IED knowledge with me,” he said. “I disarmed it more with luck than anything