Ransom for a Prince

by Lisa Childs

  “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 ha
ve 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.

  She was damn sure she knew to whom one of those vehicles belonged. Prince Sebastian. Had he been involved in a crash?

  A pang of concern stabbed her heart, and she gasped. While she didn’t trust him, she would hate for him to be hurt—not because she personally cared what happened to him, though. She just hated the thought of anyone getting hurt.

  Except one man.

  “Someone follow you back from the resort?” Helen asked, peering over Jessica’s shoulder.

  She sucked in a breath. “Where’s Samantha?”

  “In her room, cleaning up like you told her. She’s such a good kid—always minds her mama,” Helen said with so much pride that she could have been the little girl’s biological grandmother instead of just her honorary one.

  Her breath escaped in a ragged sigh. “If only I’d do what I tell myself to do…”

  Helen chuckled. “You’re a good girl, too, Jessica. What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t go to the resort,” she admitted.

  “You went to town.”

  Choking on regrets, she could only nod.

  Helen squeezed her shoulders. “That was a lot of money.”

  “I didn’t collect it,” she said. “I didn’t tell him anything.” Sure, the prince had seemed genuinely concerned about his friend, but she knew too well that concern—even love—could be faked to mask someone’s true nature or agenda.

  “So that’s why you’re worried he followed you back here?” Helen asked, continuing to stare down the long gravel driveway. It was so long that they couldn’t see the road, though. Someone could have turned off behind her, and she would not know.

  “I don’t think he was the only one following me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For bringing trouble back to the ranch.”

  “I don’t see any cars out there, honey.” Helen stepped back. “You must have lost them.”

  “For now,” Jessica said, turning away from the door. “But someone in town might have recognized the Suburban, and if he—or anyone else—asks around…”

  “They’ll know where to find you.”

  “At the Double J. I knew Samantha and I would have to leave here someday, but I’d hoped to do that before I brought trouble to you.” She shouldn’t have stayed in one place for so long. When she’d first run away, she hadn’t stayed anywhere for more than a few weeks. But then she’d had Samantha, and the little girl had needed a home. “After everything you’ve done for me, that’s the last thing I ever intended to do.”

  Helen shrugged off Jessica’s concern. “Because the bottom of the J rotted off, it’s the double T. Double Trouble, honey. Trouble’s been here long before you showed up in Wind River County. Trouble will end here, too.”

  That was what Jessica was afraid of…

  “SO THE VAN’S GONE?” Antoine asked, his voice sharp with frustration as it emanated from the speaker.

  “It took off.” He shouldn’t have let it, but he’d had no justification for shooting out the tires or windows. So he’d refrained from firing his weapon, even though his finger had itched to pull the trigger.

  Hell, he’d probably had no justification for running the van off the road in the first place. Sure, it hadn’t let him pass, but drivers in the States were different than drivers in Barajas. There was road rage here. And there was also royal rage here in Wind River. Perhaps they had recognized the Hummer as belonging to COIN security detail and that was why they’d driven as erratically as they had. But Sebastian suspected the driver hadn’t acted out of road or royal rage but had had another agenda entirely. Plan B?

  Prince Stefan Lutece had learned from a forensics expert that the bomb had been intended for all of them and that when it had failed, whoever was behind the assassination attempt had moved on to plan B. Whatever that was…

  “You probably scared the hell out of some r
eporters,” Antoine remarked. “I hope.”

  “I’m sure they’ll leave her alone now.”

  Sebastian seriously doubted that they would leave the woman alone or that they were just reporters. When the window had rolled down a crack, sunshine had glinted off the metal of the barrel of a gun. Even though he’d more often stared down the barrel of a long-range sniper rifle, he had recognized when he’d been staring into one.

  “If they were reporters, they would have asked me for a statement, would they not? Reporters have been hounding us since we arrived in Wyoming. I was alone. They could have asked me whatever questions they wanted.” Instead they had flashed a gun and then had driven away in reverse to escape him.

  “Even alone you’re not exactly approachable,” Antoine said with a teasing chuckle. “And if they weren’t reporters but some of the hired guns, wouldn’t they have done something else to you…because you were alone? You’d presented them with a great opportunity.”

  “But perhaps they are not after me.”

  “Even before there was a hit put out on the witness, that bomb had been set in the limo to take out all of us,” Antoine bitterly reminded him. “If there were hit men in that van, they would have gone after you.”

  Sebastian expelled a breath of relief. “Of course. You’re right.” He chuckled. “So I did scare the hell out of some reporters.”

  “As you said, they’ve been hounding us since we arrived—they had it coming.”

  “They had it coming for interfering in my following the witness. I think I lost her,” he admitted. “The sheriff said her vehicle was registered to the Double J, but the only ranch I’ve found between the resort and the Rattlesnake Badlands is the Double T.” When he’d reached the badlands, he’d turned around and headed back to the driveway to that ranch. As he drove past it, he glanced at the wooden sign that hung on rusted chains from a sawed-off log. The T looked odd. Perhaps it had once been a J. But if it hadn’t, he could ask if anyone knew where he could find the Double J.

  And the witness…

  The dirt drive wound between fenced pastures and past a couple of weathered red barns to a two-story farmhouse. He wouldn’t need to ask where to find the Double J; he’d found it. He parked behind the rusted SUV. “I’m here,” he told his brother.