Ransom For A Prince

Her fingers trembling, she fumbled with the handle before opening the driver’s door and sliding out of the vehicle. Then, head down, she hurried past the reporters’ vans. She hesitated outside the county courthouse before pushing open the door and stepping inside. Security scanners blocked the foyer, but while she stepped into a line, she could see into the outer office where the conference had been held. A few reporters waited while cameramen filmed the deputies taking calls.

Were those calls coming from people trying to claim the reward? But no one else had seen what she had, except for whoever she’d spied driving away from the scene. Maybe that person had decided to come forward and Jessica didn’t need to be here; she didn’t need to risk her own safety. Or Samantha’s.

She stepped out of the security line and backed toward the doors. She couldn’t risk going inside with all those cameras. But before she could turn away, Prince Sebastian looked up from the desk over which he’d been leaning. And his deep blue gaze met hers.

Panic accelerated her pulse, so that it leaped at her throat and hammered at her wrists. Even though several feet and people separated them, she had confirmation that the television screen had not made him more handsome than reality. With his golden brown hair, those piercing eyes and his long, lean body, he was as handsome in person as he’d been on the screen. More so even. Heat flashed through her along with the panic.

But then a camera flashed and another lens turned toward her, and panic won out. She turned and ran. But the sick feeling in her stomach warned her that it was already too late. Coming here had been a mistake. One that would probably get her killed.

Chapter Two

When the redhead turned and ran, breaking that strange connection between them, Sebastian’s breath shuddered out. Then, after those breathless seconds that he’d held perfectly still when their gazes had met, he moved again. Shoving through the security screeners, he pushed open the doors to the courthouse and raced after her.

She had to be the witness because he’d glimpsed the fear in her dark eyes, which had widened when the cameras had turned on her. The reporters hadn’t missed his interest in the woman who’d entered the courthouse but hesitated at the screeners. Sebastian had wanted to draw out the witness, not just for information about his friend but also to warn her.

Apparently she didn’t need his warning; she already knew she was in danger. And she ran as if an assassin—not a prince—pursued her. Despite his legs being longer than hers, he had to run to catch her. She’d already jumped inside her rusted SUV, but he grabbed the door before she could swing it closed.

“Let me go!” she implored him, her voice cracking with fear.

He shook his head. “You cannot leave until you say what you came here to tell me.”

“I—I didn’t come here to talk to you.”

“You are not the one who called and asked if I was at the office?”

Color suffused her delicately featured face. “No—No, that wasn’t me.”

He would not need Antoine’s assistance to determine if she spoke the truth or lies. She was not a very good liar. “Then why were you coming into the courthouse?”

“Uh, I have a ticket to pay.”

“You left before you paid it,” he pointed out.

“I—I forgot my checkbook.”

“Show me the citation,” he challenged her.

The color in her cheeks deepened to a darker red, nearly the same shade as her long auburn hair. “I forgot that, too.”

“You’re quite forgetful,” he mused. “Is that why you haven’t come forward before?”

Breaking the connection of their gazes, she ducked her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got that ticket.”

“That will be easy enough to verify with Sheriff Wolf. What is your name?”

She tugged on the door handle. “You don’t need to verify anything. Just let me leave.”

“Not until you share with me what you saw that night.” Had Amir survived the explosion or had someone removed his body to conceal his murder? But that made no sense. Why leave the chauffeur’s burned corpse and remove Amir’s?

Of course, none of it made sense. They had come to the United States to propose trade agreements that would benefit this country as well as COIN, especially the methods Prince Stefan Lutece had developed to make oil drilling environmentally safe. These methods were the only reason that Sebastian and Antoine had agreed to drill on Barajas, but they needed a buyer for that oil. They needed money for health care and other social services, so nobody else left their island for Europe or America. And so that the voice inside his head wouldn’t keep telling him that he wasn’t cut out to be a ruler or a protector.

“Tell me what you saw,” he demanded, his frustration gnawing away at his usually rigid control.

She flinched but stubbornly repeated, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You cannot claim the reward until you share your eyewitness account of the explosion.”

“I don’t want a reward.”

“Of course you do,” he said, dismissing her claim. “That is why you came here. And why you wanted to make certain I would be here when you arrived—to collect your money.” Not to ambush him as the sheriff had warned. Of course, if that had been her plan, he had stepped neatly into her trap when he’d raced after her. But when their gazes had met and held, he’d felt no threat from her—only to her.

She shook her head, and her hair nearly brushed the shoulder of his suit because he stood so close to her—close enough to smell her summer fresh outdoors scent. “I don’t want your money.”

He held in a snort of derision, not wanting to offend her despite his anger over her taking so long to come forward. She obviously had more pride than money. The color of her vehicle was indiscernible from the rust eating away at the metal. Her clothes had also seen better days. Her jeans were torn, her dimpled knees peaking through the holes in the washed-out denim. The cuffs and collar of her blue plaid blouse were frayed, the mismatched buttons straining across her full breasts.

Awareness raised the dark hairs on his forearms and heated his stomach. Despite her threadbare attire, she was an attractive woman—beautiful even with her wide, brown eyes and delicate features. But stubborn, too. No matter how much she denied it, she needed his money.

He glanced around her and checked out the inside of her vehicle. The seats were torn, foam protruding through the rips in the upholstery. The headliner hung low, separated from the roof. But it was what he noticed in the back that drew his attention. Some kind of booster-type car seat was buckled into a seat, empty for now. But she must have a child, unless she’d borrowed someone else’s vehicle. “Are you a mother?”

She followed his gaze, her breath audibly catching. “That’s not any of your business.”

He focused on her left hand that clutched the door handle. The fingers were bare but for scrapes and calluses. That didn’t mean she wasn’t married with children. She might have just removed her ring because of the manual labor she obviously did. He ignored the disappointment that cooled the heat in his stomach.

His attraction to her was ridiculous anyway. He dated only princesses and heiresses—women clad in designer gowns, not ragged jeans. Women who wore jewels, not calluses. As Grandfather had constantly lectured him and Antoine, princes could marry only princesses and vice versa. King Omar had practiced what he’d preached; he’d married the princess of a small European country lost during a civil war, and he’d brought her to reign over Barajas with him. If only their princess mother had listened to her father and married a prince instead of a mercenary…

He needed to make this woman listen to him. “What you witnessed makes you my business.” That was the only reason for his interest in her.

“I didn’t witness anything. I don’t want your reward. I just want to leave,” she said, her voice shaky with frustration and that fear she wasn’t able to conceal.

“If you don’t want my money,” he said, carefully hiding his skepticism, “then how about my protection?”

“Protection?” she asked, her eyes widening as she stared up at him.

“Is that not why you didn’t come forward earlier—because you were too frightened?” And perhaps not just for her own safety but also for the child she might have, if that car seat belonged to her. From her reaction, he was almost certain that it did. So she had a child. But did she have a husband? He suspected not because if she had someone to protect her, she should not be so scared. “You need not be afraid.”

She didn’t hold in her snort but expelled it softly.

He lifted his chin, offended at her derision. He was a ruler—coruler—and a former military officer. How dare she doubt him and remind him of someone else in his life who always had? “I will protect you.”

JESSICA LAUGHED. She need not be afraid? She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been afraid. “You can’t protect me.”

No one could.

“Have you already been threatened?” he asked, his voice deepening with concern. “Is that why you haven’t reported what you’ve seen?”

She had other reasons for not reporting, like that relentless media coverage. Had any of those reporters followed them out? Had they caught her image on camera? Even before the explosion, the coverage of the COIN summit had been national—broadcast on every network to every city. She’d tried hard to avoid the cameras every time she came to town or went to the Wind River Ranch and Resort. Until today she was pretty positive she’d been successful.

To see if the reporters had followed her like the prince had, she tried to look out the driver’s door, but she couldn’t see beyond him. He was too big. Too broad. Too close, so close that with every breath she drew, she inhaled him. He even smelled like a prince: regal and rich—musk and leather and a faint trace of citrus. His scent filled her lungs and had her heart pounding furiously. “I—I have to go.”

“You’re not leaving until you tell me what you saw that night,” he ordered as if she were one of his subjects or his servants.

She was certain that would be the only relationship he’d ever entertain with someone like her. He’d boss her around and bully her—just like…

“I can’t stay!” she said, her panic escaping in a squeak that cracked her voice.

Those reporters couldn’t have missed how he’d chased after her. Even though she couldn’t see beyond his broad shoulders, she was certain that they had followed him. They would have to follow the story. She shouldn’t have come here—shouldn’t have let his blue eyes persuade her to risk everything for him. To ease his fear for his friend, she’d confronted hers. Why?

He was nothing more to her than a handsome stranger. And a stranger was all he could ever be.

She tugged harder on the handle, but the door didn’t budge. He held tight to the edge of the rusted metal. With her right hand, she jammed the key in the ignition, and with a silent prayer that it would start the first time, she turned the motor. The engine miraculously roared to life, the Suburban shuddering from the high idle and the missing exhaust.

“What are you doing?” the prince demanded, shouting to be heard over the motor.

She slammed the transmission into Drive and stepped on the gas, pulling away with the door hanging open. The metal slipped through the prince’s grasp. He ran, as if trying to leap inside the vehicle with her, but she accelerated. Then, with her hand shaking, she slammed the door shut.

She spared him only a glance in her rearview mirror. Standing in a cloud of exhaust, he stared after her as if dumbstruck that she had disobeyed him and that she had escaped him. For now. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach warned her that he would be just as relentless as that other man in tracking down her.

“WHAT THE HELL—”

Sebastian echoed the sheriff’s sentiments as the man joined him in the street. What the hell had just happened?

“—were you thinking!” Wolf yelled. “Running after her like that, you could have been running right into her trap.”

“She didn’t trap me.” Except in her gaze, with her fear and vulnerability.

“She freaked at the courthouse’s security screening,” Wolf said. “Most likely because she was armed. You’re lucky you didn’t get your damn head blown off.”

Sebastian’s temper flared; he did not like being reprimanded like a child or a fool even though he had to acknowledge that he might have acted like one. The fear in the woman’s eyes had brought out his protective instincts so that he’d worried only about her safety and not his own.

“She was not armed,” Sebastian insisted. Or more than likely she would have pulled the gun on him to get him to leave her alone.

“The sheriff is right, Your Highness.” Brenner, the head of the Barajas security detail, said. “You should not have left the courthouse without our protection.”

“I am fine,” Sebastian insisted, even though his pulse raced just like she had raced away from him. “Or I will be when I find her.”

“She is the witness?” Wolf asked.

Sebastian nodded.

“Did she tell you what she saw?” Brenner asked.

“Not yet,” he replied. “The reporters frightened her off with their cameras.”

“That’s why I had my deputies detain them,” Wolf said, his mouth curving into a slight grin as he glanced back toward the courthouse.

“I thought you didn’t believe she was the witness,” Sebastian said. “You were concerned that she might be another hired assassin.”

“And if that had been the case, I didn’t need any more collateral damage in Wind River County.”

“There has been quite enough,” Sebastian agreed. “I need to find her so that we can prevent something happening to anyone else. I need to learn what she saw.” He needed to know if Amir lived or…

The sheriff rubbed his hand along his jaw as if struggling with something. Then, with a sigh, he admitted, “I know where you can find her.”

“Where?”

“The Double J. That’s who the plate is registered to.”

He had been talking to her long enough for the sheriff to run the plate, and still he had not convinced her to tell him the truth. “Where is the Double J?”

“It’s about halfway between the Wind River Ranch and Resort and the Rattlesnake Badlands on Snake Valley Road, the same road where the limo exploded.”

Sebastian turned toward Brenner and held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

“Your Highness, I will drive you.”

He shook his head. “No, I cannot risk anyone else frightening her off.”

“But she could still be—doing as the sheriff suggested—setting a trap for you.”

“She is not going to ambush me.” He feared she had something almost as bad planned, though. “Instead, she’s going to run away.” Flee, before she told him what she’d seen that night. “I order you to turn over your keys. Now.”

Unable to ignore a direct order, Brenner, his hand shaking, dropped the keys into Sebastian’s palm. “But, Your Highness—”

Ignoring the security detail’s concern, Sebastian rushed off toward the black Hummer parked directly outside the courthouse, behind the sheriff’s white Dodge SUV. Sebastian had already wasted precious minutes arguing with these men and had lost miles of road to her. After gunning the engine, he pressed hard on the accelerator, determined to close the distance between them.

But the traffic in town had him slowing and steering around other vehicles. Several minutes and more miles passed until he neared the drive leading to the resort. He sped past the turnoff for the resort and traffic thinned to just one vehicle ahead of him—a white panel van. Like a snake, the road wound through the lush valley, and at a curve, he caught a glimpse of the rusted SUV just ahead of the van. He accelerated and steered to the left, to pass the van. But it sped up and veered across the line, cutting him off.

He hit the brakes and cursed.

“What’s wrong?” The question, and the familiar voice, emanated from a speaker inside the visor. The vehicle was equipped with a hands-free communication system.

“Brenner called you,” he said, surmising that the head of the Barajas security detail had notified his twin that he’d gone rogue. Or even more rogue. When they’d discovered that the bomb had been meant to kill them all, they’d gone into seclusion at the resort. Well, almost all of them had. Sheik Efraim Aziz had insisted on personally searching for Amir. Sebastian had already been taking a risk holding the press conference in town, and for him to now go off alone with the threat against them…

“Brenner’s worried that you’re going to get yourself killed,” Antoine replied.

“Are you?” Sebastian tried again to pass the van, but it veered back across the line, blocking his maneuver.

“Should I be?”

Sebastian grinned despite his frustration with the van. “You know me too well to worry about me.”

“It is because I know you so well that I worry,” Antoine replied. “Come by the resort, and I will ride with you out to the Double J ranch.”

“I have already passed the resort.” And if he didn’t pass the van, he might miss the driveway for the ranch. Why the hell would the van not let him by?

“Turn around,” Antoine commanded. “Knowing that we are all in danger, you should not have gone off alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Sebastian murmured as he studied the van through eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Who’s with you? You left Brenner stranded at the Wind River courthouse.”

“I’m not alone on the road,” he clarified. Why wasn’t he? If the street was as remote as the sheriff’s report had led him to believe… “There is a van between my vehicle and the witness’s.”

The road curved again, and Sebastian caught a glimpse of the rusted Suburban and the red-haired woman in the driver’s seat who tightly gripped the steering wheel. Had she seen his vehicle behind the van? Seeing the van was probably enough to frighten her. Who the hell was in it? Reporters? With no windows on the sides, just sliding panels, it looked similar to the many vans that had been parked outside the courthouse.

He edged closer again, nearly pushing his grill against the back bumper. “Have the sheriff run this plate…” Mud had been smeared across it, concealing the numbers.

“What is it?” Antoine asked.

“Can’t read it.” He swerved to the left so quickly that the van didn’t have time to cut him off. But it tried, banging hard against the side of the Hummer. The metal of the van crumpled. There was no station name or number on the side of it, either. “Damn…”

“What?” Antoine asked.

“I don’t think they are reporters.” He pushed harder on the gas, surging the Hummer forward until he’d drawn level with the driver’s window of the van. But the glass was so heavily tinted that he could not see through it.

“Back off,” Antoine advised him.

Instead of heeding his brother’s advice, Sebastian cranked the steering wheel and slammed the Hummer into the van, just as they had slammed into him. Metal crunched and tires squealed. The seat belt snapped against his neck and chest as the impact jostled him. Both vehicles spun out, gravel spewing as they skidded off the pavement onto the shoulder of the winding road.

“What the hell’s going on?” Antoine’s shout vibrated in the speaker.

Reaching beneath the seat for Brenner’s spare weapon, the one he would not have been able to get through the security screeners, Sebastian assured his twin, “I have it under control.”

“Wait for me,” Antoine implored him. “I can be there shortly with a few of the security detail.”

“You’ll be too late,” Sebastian replied as he pushed open the driver’s door. Dirt swirled in the wind, stinging his eyes, so he had to squint against it and the sunlight as he approached the van.

The heavily tinted window lowered just a couple of inches—not enough for Sebastian to see the driver. All he caught was a glimpse—a glint, really—of sunshine off metal.

He was not the only one who was armed. Perhaps he should have worn a bulletproof vest for the press conference as Antoine and the sheriff had suggested. But if a true marksman had been hired to kill them, Sebastian knew they always went for the head shot.

Chapter Three

Gravel spewed as the van slammed into reverse. The tires fishtailed off the shoulder and then back onto the road. The prince stood in the cloud of dust swirling around him, a gun—probably a GLOCK—gripped tightly in his hand.

Dmitri held on to his own weapon, the barrel of the Ruger revolver trained on the prince as the driver continued backing away from the Hummer. “I should have fired at him,” he grumbled. “I still have a shot.” But only for a few more moments as the distance between them widened.

“Prince Sebastian is not the intended target,” the driver, Nic, reminded him. “We do not have clearance to kill him.”

“Not yet.” Dmitri reluctantly holstered his gun. Then he reached for his cell, his hand shaking slightly as anger coursed through him. “But we will…”

“The son of a bitch ran us off the road,” Nic snapped as his anger erupted.

“Ran you off the road.” Had Dmitri been driving, that would not have happened. He punched in a speed-dial number and swallowed hard when the boss answered immediately.

“Is it?” the man asked.

“We were not able to get close enough to tell,” Dmitri admitted.

“Why not?”

“We had interference,” he reluctantly explained, “from one of the royals.”

“Which one?”

“The one who held the press conference offering the reward. Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh. I had a shot. Should I have taken it?” Dmitri asked, turning to glare at the driver.

A deep chuckle emanated from the phone. “The prince is no threat.”

“He has military experience.” Dmitri recalled learning from the conference. He had posed as one of the reporters and then hung around with them afterward on the off chance that she might come forward for that reward. The prince had done what they had not been able to. He’d drawn her out of hiding.

“A prince with any real military experience?” The boss snorted. “I’m sure he never left his barracks without his security detail. He is no threat.”

“But we lost our tail on her because of him,” Dmitri said. Despite his efforts, Nic had been unable to keep the Hummer from passing them. Was it because, as Nic had grumbled, the Hummer was just more powerful than the van? Or was it because the prince was more powerful than Nic or the boss would admit?

“The plan was to use him to find her,” the boss reminded him. “Follow the plan. Follow the prince. He’ll lead you to her.”

“And once we have her?”

A chuckle rattled over the cell phone. “Then you will kill Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh, of course.”

“Of course…”

Dmitri stared through the dust-smeared windshield at the Hummer in the distance. As the prince rounded the rear of the vehicle to approach the driver’s side, sunlight glinted off the weapon he held.

Maybe the boss was right. Maybe the prince’s military experience meant nothing. But the tightening muscles in Dmitri’s gut told him that when the time came, Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh might not be all that easy to kill.

WITH HANDS TREMBLING, Jessica slid the dead bolt closed. Then she peered through the sheer curtain over the window in the door. Nothing had pulled into the dirt driveway behind the Suburban, but there had been vehicles following her. First the van. Probably the reporters from the sheriff’s office.

She shuddered at the thought of their cameras catching her on film to be broadcast everywhere…

She’d also heard another engine—one more powerful than the van’s. Then the crunch of metal grinding against metal had echoed throughout the valley. Due to the winding road, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of an accident in her rearview mirror—unlike the night of the explosion when the flames and wreckage had been unavoidable. She wished she hadn’t seen what she had that night. So today she hadn’t been about to stop to find out what had happened or even to find out who was following her.