Ransom for a Prince Read online

  “You found the witness.”

  “She’s here.”

  “Wait for me before you approach her again,” Antoine urged. “You shouldn’t be out—anywhere—alone.”

  “I’ll be fine. Her vehicle is the only one here.” Unless there was one parked inside one of those big barns. To be careful, and because he couldn’t shake the experience with the van, he carried the gun he’d pulled from beneath the seat. He’d tucked it in the waistband of his pants and covered it with his suit jacket. Ever since they’d learned of the threat to their lives, he’d carried a weapon or had one stashed within reach.

  When he’d finished out his service in the military, Sebastian had sworn to never take up a weapon again. But then he hadn’t considered that he’d ever have to go back to war. While it wasn’t official yet, that explosion had been a declaration of war—or at least the first battle. Had Amir survived it?

  “Not seeing another vehicle doesn’t mean much,” Antoine spoke as he often did, as if he was privy to Sebastian’s thoughts. That damn twin connection of theirs.

  Sebastian glanced back down the long driveway, making sure no one had followed him, but he couldn’t see to the road. Someone could have followed him that far and headed back to the ranch on foot now.

  “She’s by herself,” he said. Unless she had a husband. But then why had the man let her go into town alone when she was already aware that she was in danger? Why hadn’t he been there to protect her?

  Sebastian pushed open the driver’s door and stepped onto the drive. “I’ll let you know what I find out,” he assured his brother.

  “Be careful,” Antoine advised.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, you won’t have to rule Barajas alone.”

  A vulgar curse shot out of the speaker.

  Sebastian chuckled at his brother’s name-calling as he slammed the door shut. His brother had a tendency to be overprotective of him but with good reason. They had been all that each other had for a long time now. And they, as well as the other royals, were in mortal danger right now.

  Along with the witness.

  He crossed the porch to the front door, and a curtain twitched at a window. Not wanting to scare her any more, he brushed his knuckles softly against the weathered wood. A shadow moved behind that curtain.

  “It is all right,” he assured her. “I came alone. You are not in any danger.”

  Just to make certain no one had walked up from the road, he glanced around him toward the barns and pastures. While he stared away, the door creaked open behind him; she must have finally decided to trust him.

  He turned back, and this time he had no doubt that he was staring into the barrel of a gun. Actually the double barrel of a shotgun.

  Despite the fear Sebastian had been convinced he’d seen in her eyes, she wasn’t in any danger.

  But he sure as hell was. It appeared as though Sheriff Wolf had been right. With her wide vulnerable eyes and sexy little body, the mysterious red-haired woman had lured him right into her trap.

  Perhaps she’d been telling him the truth, too, when she’d denied seeing anything the night of the explosion. Apparently she wasn’t the witness with a hit out on her. She was a hired assassin about to carry out the hit on him.

  Chapter Four

  While her heart pounded furiously with the fear coursing through her, Jessica steadied her hands on the shotgun, so that he couldn’t pull the weapon from her grasp. But he didn’t reach for it. Instead he propped his fists on his lean hips and stared her down just as he had the pushy reporters during the press conference.

  She resisted the urge to squirm beneath that stare. She refused to be intimidated. Again. By his manner—or his looks.

  Why did he have to be so damn handsome? That golden brown hair, those deep blue eyes and his long, lean body clad in a dark suit—all conspired to addle a woman’s brains. Jessica would not be addled, either.

  Summoning her pride and whatever strength she possessed, she lifted her chin and met his stare of intimidation head-on. Those damn mesmerizing eyes of his narrowed as he scrutinized her face as if he could see right inside her mind. Or her heart. Or her soul.

  “Put down the gun,” he ordered as if she were one of his subjects or servants. Then he lowered his voice and softly added, “Before you hurt yourself.”

  Was he for real?

  She’d expected him to be furious with her for driving off as she had, with him nearly being dragged along with her vehicle. When he’d spouted that nonsense about her not being in any danger before she’d opened the door, she’d figured he had to be lying. Men always lied to her. Even though he was a prince, he was a man first.

  “I’m not the one who’s going to get hurt if you don’t leave me alone,” she warned him, shoving the barrel closer to his chest.

  His gaze dropped from hers to the gun, then rose back up to her face. But he still didn’t move. Despite her holding a weapon on him, he betrayed no fear.

  Jealousy flashed through her—along with wistful admiration. Even after the explosion and attempts on the lives of the other royals, he felt no fear. Jessica couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been afraid. But maybe it was good that she had enough sense to get scared; it had probably kept her alive for the past five years.

  “I wasn’t wrong,” he murmured, as if talking only to himself. Then he raised his voice and added, “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  His arrogance and condescension grated on her already frayed nerves.

  “I will if you don’t leave. You’re trespassing,” she informed him. “Get off this property.”

  He remained standing stubbornly right in front of her—as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “I am not leaving until you tell me what you saw that night.”

  She pressed the barrel against the lapel on the left side of his dark suit jacket, and finally, he stepped back. She followed him onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind herself. When the Hummer had come down the driveway, Helen had joined Samantha in her room to make sure the little girl stayed upstairs and at the back of the house. But Jessica didn’t want his voice—or hers—to drift up within the child’s hearing.

  Even though she’d only had one hand on the old shotgun when she’d shut the door, he hadn’t tried to pull it from her. So she observed, “You’re smart enough to know to not grab for the gun.”

  He lifted his chin, as if offended. “I know how dangerous guns can be.”

  Of course. According to Danny Harold, Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh had been a military sniper. “Then you should also be smart enough to leave. You’re wasting your time anyway. I have nothing to tell you.”

  He flinched, as if worried that by nothing she meant that his friend was dead. And once again that anguish and frustration passed through his deep blue eyes. But she suspected his frustration wasn’t just over not knowing where his friend was but with her for not telling him what he wanted to know.

  Because she’d expected him to be angry with her, she’d greeted him with the shotgun. No man would ever hurt her again. But she didn’t want to hurt him, either. She didn’t lower the gun, however. With Samantha in the house, she could not let the man any closer.

  He was already too close. His nearness had her skin heating and tingling and her pulse racing with awareness. She could not be attracted to him.

  She couldn’t…

  But she could tell him about that night. She could ease his worry. If she could trust him…

  “I know that you’re frightened,” he said, his deep voice low and soft. “But you have nothing to fear from me. I will protect you from harm. The people who caused the explosion will not get to you.”

  She couldn’t trust him. She had learned long ago that men who made promises that were impossible to keep were not to be trusted.

  SEBASTIAN HAD LOST HER. Even though she stood right there in front of him, she was gone. For a moment she had appeared about to confide in him. Her gaze had warmed and she’d relaxed her grip on the
gun.

  But now she clutched the shotgun tightly, the stock braced against her slender shoulder as if she were preparing to fire on him. And the brief warming of her brown eyes had cooled.

  Disappointment clenched the muscles in his stomach and not just because she wouldn’t tell him about the explosion. He was disappointed that her warmth was gone, and that she was all tense and scared again. He hated that she was so afraid and not just for her sake. Her fear brought him back to a dark place he’d never wanted to go again.

  “Let me help you,” he urged.

  When she had first greeted him with the gun, he’d thought for a moment that she might intend to shoot him and collect the money that someone had put on his head along with the other royals. But that moment had been fleeting. He’d had only to look into her eyes to know that she was no killer. He didn’t want her to become a victim, either.

  “You don’t want to help me,” she replied. “You want me to help you.” She shook her head. “And I can’t…”

  “You could,” he said, “if you’d let yourself trust me.”

  The color drained from her face, leaving her too pale and fragile looking. “I can’t…”

  “My nation—Barajas—trusts me and my brother to rule them and to protect them.”

  That was the whole point of the summit, to recharge their economy and gain them powerful allies. If Grandfather lived, he might have even approved of the trade agreement, although that was unlikely; King Omar had approved of so little his grandsons had done—mostly because he had not approved of what they were. Half commoner.

  “If an entire nation can trust me,” he asked, “why can’t you?”

  “Some leaders are ruthless,” she said. “They use intimidation and violence to rule.” From the way she stared up at him, her eyes wide and dark with fear, she believed he was that kind of ruler.

  “I would never…”

  She took one hand from the gun to reach behind her and open the door. He could have grabbed the shotgun from her—probably with no risk of it going off because her fingers were not near the trigger. But what would he do then—threaten her with it to tell him what he wanted to know? She was already too afraid to talk; scaring her more would not convince her to trust him.

  “You would never what?” she asked, as if interested in what he’d left unsaid.

  He’d been about to say that he would never resort to violence. But that wasn’t true because he had. In the military, during battle. Since coming to America, he’d felt as if he was at war again and that he had to be prepared for an attack from every direction.

  Friend and foe.

  And here this woman stood with double barrels pointed at his chest, threatening to pull the trigger. Obviously she, too, knew something about needing to be prepared for an attack.

  “I would never hurt you,” he assured her.

  Her stubborn jaw eased slightly as her lips parted on a wistful sigh, as if she wanted to believe him but dared not. The vulnerability in her dark eyes compelled him to reach out—not for the gun but to her face. But when his hand neared her cheek, she flinched.

  He pulled his hand back to his side but fisted it, wanting to slam it into the face of whoever had hurt her. After her reaction, he realized he was too late to protect her. She had already been someone’s victim.

  “Have you been threatened?” he asked. “Has whoever is behind the explosion already found you?” Perhaps that person had put the fear of God in her to keep quiet about what she’d seen that night.

  She shook her head, tumbling that thick red hair around her shoulders. But now, standing as close as he was to her, he could tell that the roots were not red but a deep chocolate brown. Why would she have dyed such rich, silky-looking hair? To hide?

  “Have you been found?” he asked again, as concern for her safety—and the safety of the child who used that car seat—filled him. That child was probably why she’d guarded the door and the house, so that he would not see her kid. Or so that her kid would not see him.

  “No,” she said. “But I will be found…if you don’t leave me alone.”

  “Yes, you will,” he agreed, remembering the van that had followed her from the courthouse. “That’s why you and your child need to come with me, so that I can protect you both.”

  She shook her head again, unwilling and perhaps unable to believe him.

  “Tell me what you saw that night,” he implored her.

  “I didn’t say that I saw anything,” she said.

  “You didn’t,” he replied. “In fact you’ve denied it until you admitted that they’re going to find you.”

  “Because you’re here,” she said, her voice rising with frustration. “Because you’re convinced I’m the witness, you’re going to wind up convincing them—whoever they are—that I am.”

  Was that true? Had he put her more at risk than she’d already been? Then that made him even more responsible for her safety, and as a prince, he took his responsibilities very seriously. Too many people depended on him.

  “Once you share what you know, you will no longer be a threat,” he pointed out.

  As she had outside the sheriff’s office, she snorted her derision. “I am not a threat now.”

  “And once you tell me what you saw, I will give you that reward.” Hell, he would give her more than he’d offered. “It’s enough money that you can go far away from here. You can get away from whoever these people are.” And whoever else had made it so difficult for her to trust.

  “Right now, I just want to get away from you,” she said. And she slammed the door between them. The bolt slid into place, locking him out.

  This woman had threatened his life twice. First, when she had driven off and nearly dragged him along with her vehicle. And second, when she’d thrust a gun in his face and then pressed the barrel against his chest.

  But he felt no anger for her—only an overwhelming sense of protection. Maybe there had been just reporters in that van, but he couldn’t take the chance that they had been. He couldn’t take the chance that they or whoever else had hurt her wouldn’t find her. And hurt her again.

  “IS HE GONE?” Jessica asked as she carried a box down the stairs.

  Helen turned away from the window. “I don’t see his fancy SUV anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s not still out there.” Watching. She had been watched for so long…until she’d finally escaped and started a new life. A life she now had to give up.

  “I take it that you didn’t tell him what he wants to know,” Helen mused as she took the box from Jessica’s arms and set it with the others piled near the door.

  “I can’t risk it,” Jessica replied—even though her stomach clenched into knots over that anguish she’d glimpsed in his compelling eyes. She’d wanted to tell him about his friend. But what if he was not really a friend to the man from the explosion? What if he was a threat?

  “I don’t know who’s a good guy or who’s a bad guy.” She had never been able to tell that—until it was too late.

  “I just know that I have to get out of here. Now.” Before the most dangerous man she’d ever known found her and Samantha.

  Maybe she should have taken the prince’s reward and taken his advice to go far away. But if she’d revealed what she’d seen that night, it wouldn’t have been just her life she risked. And she didn’t know if that other person affected had had the time or the resources to get far, far away from danger.

  “Then you’ll need this.” Helen pressed some crumpled bills into Jessica’s hand.

  “I can’t take your money,” she protested, thrusting the wad back at her. “You need all of it to keep the Double J going, so that someday you can turn it into a shelter like you’ve always wanted to.” But in a way Helen had turned it into one already, when she’d offered Jessica shelter four years ago. Helen had recognized Jessica not for her real identify but for what she was—on the run from an abusive relationship. Helen had recognized her because she’d seen herself a
nd her old fears in Jessica. She, too, had escaped an abusive relationship. She’d survived—but her husband hadn’t because Helen had no compunction against pulling the trigger to protect herself.

  “I want to do that because I want to help women who need help,” Helen said. “You need help, Jessica, so let me help you.”

  Prince Sebastian had offered to help her, too, but with ulterior motives that Jessica could not trust. Helen offered because she was a true friend. The best one Jessica had ever had and leaving her and the Double J—the only home Samantha had ever known—would be so hard. Tears stung Jessica’s eyes, and she blinked furiously to fight them back. She couldn’t cry. Not now.

  “You can help me,” she said. “You can watch Samantha for me again while I pick up my last check.”

  “You’re really going to the Wind River Ranch this time?” Helen asked, skeptically arching a gray brow.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll probably run into him,” Helen warned. “That’s no doubt where he’s gone now. All the royals are staying at the resort.”

  All but one.

  Jessica nodded. “I know that.”

  Everyone in the world knew where they were staying, at the luxurious resort on hundreds of acres in Wind River County.

  “But I’m going in the back employee entrance,” she said. “I won’t see him there.” With the expansive size of the lodge and ranch, she was unlikely to run into him again.

  She couldn’t run into him again because if she did, she would probably tell him what she had seen that horrible night when the limo had exploded in flames, bits of metal and glass flying through the darkness.

  But to share what she’d seen wouldn’t risk just her life. That other man from the explosion might have only survived because no one knew for certain that he had. If he didn’t trust his royal friends, why should she?

  Chapter Five