Bridegroom Bodyguard by LISA CHILDS

motives. “Logan would have preferred you’d gone through him.”
    “I don’t want Logan putting himself and my sister in the line of fire,” Garek said. And that reply made more sense than him wanting to tell Parker directly. “She was nearly killed because she was with him when he was mistaken for you. My sister’s already been through too much....”
    And her brother had blamed Logan for that. Now he knew that Parker was really the one to blame. But then maybe he had reasoned that if he killed Parker, people would stop trying to kill his twin.
    “Sharon has already been through too much, too,” Parker said. And he glanced up again, but she—and the gun barrel—were both gone. She must have determined that Garek was no threat. Or she had decided that Ethan needed her more than Parker did because the baby’s cries had subsided. “Don’t hurt her.”
    “You think I came here to hurt you?” Garek asked, his voice gruff with more than wounded pride. “I came here to warn you, to help you...” He shoved off Parker and struggled to his feet, groaning as his body shifted.
    Parker had hurt him, but probably more emotionally than physically. Maybe since their siblings had married, Kozminski had begun to feel as if they were family. Parker had begun to feel that way, too, until he had suddenly gained an instant family of his own with Ethan and...Sharon. He wasn’t sure what she was, but before he had even known that the baby was his, he had witnessed that she and the boy were as connected as if they were mother and son.
    His mother was right. Damn her...
    “I’m sorry,” Parker said. “I just have to be careful....”
    “You have to be more careful now,” Garek advised.
    “Why? What have you learned?” What information did he have that was so important that he’d broken into the condo to share it?
    “The reward for your murders has been doubled,” Garek said. “And it was already a generous amount of money for a hit.” He shook his head, as if he was dumbfounded. “Now it’s an obscene amount of money.”
    Parker cursed.
    And Sharon appeared at the top of the stairwell. Those enormous eyes wide with concern, she stared down at him. Apparently she had heard only his curses, not what Garek had said. “What’s going on?”
    He wished he knew. Why was someone so determined that he and Sharon die?
    “You should tell her,” Garek advised.
    Parker wasn’t sure she could handle knowing how badly someone wanted her dead. But then he remembered how her grip had steadied on the gun and how she had been ready to shoot to protect him.
    “Tell me what?” she asked, and as she stepped closer to the stairs, he noticed the baby in her arms. Ethan clung to her, his little fingers tangled in her hair.
    While Parker was his father, she was the boy’s security. Ethan couldn’t lose her. The greatest thing Parker could do as the boy’s father was to make sure he kept this woman safe. “Whoever wants us dead upped the ante.”
    He wasn’t sure she would understand, but she nodded and sucked in an audibly shaky breath. And then with the boy balanced on one of her lean hips, she pulled the gun out with the hand on her other side. The barrel was pointed straight and steady down the stairwell.
    Garek laughed. “So she’s going to shoot you to collect?”
    “I have money,” Sharon said. “I’ll pay you to leave us alone.”
    Garek tensed as he realized what she thought, that she had the same suspicion that Parker had briefly entertained. “I have never met two more ungrateful people,” he murmured. “I come here to warn you and you both think that I came here to collect on the damn rewards.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you’re a Kozminski, right?”
    He hesitated but nodded.
    “Detective Sharpe warned me about you.”
    Garek sighed. “Of course he did.”
    “He warned me about Parker, too.”
    Garek laughed. “I knew the guy was an idiot. But you have nothing to fear from any one of the