Explosive Engagement by LISA CHILDS Page B

story that Candace had learned.
    “The jury convicted them of manslaughter,” she said, “but the judge believed me over her and gave them light sentences. Milek went to juvenile detention and Garek a minimum security prison for six months.”
    Neither of those were easy stints. But the jury had convicted them and the judge had probably sentenced them because they’d had previous offenses for stealing, like their father. Could either of them have been with him that night?
    But Logan wasn’t thinking about that night now. He was thinking about Stacy. “And what about you?” he asked. “Where did you go?”
    “I wasn’t charged with anything,” she said.
    “But where did you go?” he asked. “You couldn’t have kept living with your mother.”
    She shuddered again. “No. She signed off her parental rights the day my stepfather died.”
    “Were you still just fourteen, like you’d been during your father’s trial?”
    She nodded.
    “So you went into the system?”
    Her lips curved into a wistful smile. “That might have been better. Because my father asked him, Uncle Iwan let me live with him. But his wife wasn’t very gracious about it.”
    Logan shivered as he remembered the older woman’s icy demeanor. “She doesn’t seem like the motherly type.”
    “No. But until I met your mother, I really had no idea what motherly is supposed to be.”
    She’d obviously had a horrible example of motherhood.
    “Your mother is great,” she said with more of that wistfulness.
    He sighed and agreed, “Yes, she is.”
    She drove him crazy much of the time—because of her generosity and forgiveness and, most of all, her meddling. But her heart was always in the right place; sometimes it was just too damn big.
    Except this time.
    He finally understood why his mother had taken such an interest in the daughter of her husband’s killer. And he loved her even more for it. His mother. Not Stacy. He didn’t love her. But he didn’t hate her anymore, either.
    “She’s great,” Stacy repeated. “But she’s wrong about the two of us.”
    Remembering the taste and sensation of Stacy’s lips beneath his, Logan’s pulse quickened with awareness and attraction and he wasn’t so certain that his mother wasn’t right about them.
    “Her plan isn’t working,” Stacy continued. “Since our engagement, we’ve nearly been blown up and shot. You really should just take me home. ATF must have cleared my place by now. The building isn’t even that big.”
    The building. “Could the bomb have been meant for the landlord? Maybe someone mistook him for living above the store?”
    “The landlord does live above the store,” she replied.
    He tensed. “You don’t live alone?”
    “No. I don’t.”
    He’d really misunderstood the situation with her. He’d thought she was as single as he was. But he wasn’t just confused. He was disappointed. “Why didn’t you say something earlier? The bomb could have been meant for your... roommate. ”
    “My roommate has no enemies.” She patted the dog’s head. “Cujo is my roommate.”
    What kind of game was she playing with him? “He’s damn well not your landlord, though.”
    She giggled.
    The realization dawned on him. “You own the building,” he said.
    She nodded. “Me and the bank. Given the property values in that neighborhood, I’m not sure which of us owns more, though.”
    “And the jewelry store? A tenant?”
    She shook her head. “No, it’s mine. I design and sell my own jewelry.”
    That explained the calluses on her hands since she worked with metal and tools and stones. He could have said something about the irony she’d brought up earlier—not only did the daughter of a jewelry thief live above a jewelry store, she owned the jewelry store. But he saw more significance than irony in the situation. “So the bomb could only have been meant for you.”
    She shook her head again. “I don’t know why. I have even fewer enemies than Cujo.”
    “What