Ransom for a Prince

by Lisa Childs

  He audibly sucked in a breath. “She’s hurt?”

  “Yes, sir. She’ll be fine, but they’ll be keeping her a couple of days for observation.”

  “What happened? Horse throw her, or did she cut herself with some power tools?” he asked, then grumbled, “Damn stubborn woman works harder than any man I know.”

  “I know.” She could only hope to be half as strong as Helen Jeffries was. But Helen had once been like her, an abused wife. That was how, at their first meeting in town four years ago, Helen had known what Jessica had been through and how badly she’d needed a friend. “But this wasn’t an accident. Helen was attacked and beaten.”

  Curses rattled the phone. “Who did this? Who hurt her? Did Sheriff Wolf catch them?” “Not yet.”

  “I bet this has something to do with the press conference one of those princes held this morning, stirring everything up again.”

  “Did Helen tell you that I was the witness he was asking to come forward?”

  “Helen never tells anyone’s business,” he defended his lady friend. “I just put it together this morning when I saw his press conference on TV. Before then I never even knew there was a witness. Then it made sense that it was you. You work up at the resort, and that road is the only one between it and the ranch.”

  So Sebastian was right that whoever was behind that explosion could have figured out she was the witness and come after her because of that. But the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach warned her otherwise.

  “None of what has happened around here has really been the royals’ fault,” she found herself defending them, specifically Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh.

  “No,” he agreed with a heavy sigh. “But trouble just finds them.”

  Jessica could see down the hall to the waiting room where Sebastian waited with Samantha. The little girl clung to him, sitting on his lap, her arms wrapped around him. Since climbing out from beneath the stairs, she had not let him go. If not for him, she might still be in her hiding place. He’d reached out to her, not just physically but emotionally. He’d connected to her little girl on a level that Jessica had not been able to.

  Because he had lived through a similar situation…

  From whom had he and his brother had to hide?

  “Is she awake?” Clay asked.

  “Helen?” Of course he was talking about Helen. She turned away from the waiting room. “Not yet. She has a concussion, so they’ve put her in a medical coma to avoid any swelling.”

  His breath rattled the phone. “Probably a good thing because if she was awake that damn woman would be tracking down the guys who did this herself.”

  Jessica smiled and agreed. “She probably would.”

  “I’m on my way, but if she wakes up before I get to the hospital, can you tell her that I, that I…”

  Her smile widened. “Yes?”

  “Just tell her that I’ll be right there, okay?”

  It was good that he would because Jessica couldn’t be there for her friend. But she wasn’t sure that Clay would be, either, in the long run. The two only casually dated. Neither wanted anything deeper or more complicated, or so they claimed.

  Jessica understood. She didn’t want anything complicated, either, which was all that her feelings for Sebastian were—a complication. They had no future. If Evgeny had found her, as she suspected, then she had no future at all.

  “IS THE SHERIFF still out at the ranch?” Sebastian asked, speaking into the cell phone he’d turned on despite the warning on the waiting room wall prohibiting their use. While some of the staff glanced at him, no one tried to enforce the rule. Of course he wasn’t the only one breaking it.

  Jessica had used her phone already to call one of Helen’s friends. Now, while she waited for that friend to arrive, she let Samantha play games on the phone at a table in a corner of the waiting room. But she stayed close to her, as if worried that someone would storm in and grab the child from her arms.

  “No, he’s left,” Antoine replied. “The forensics experts are still here, collecting evidence.” And apparently Antoine was overseeing their collection.

  “Is Jane there?”

  “Yeah, she finished up with your Hummer and came out to this scene. She’ll compare the bullets found here to the slug she pulled from the armrest.”

  They’d fought earlier over Sebastian not immediately reporting the shooting, but perhaps his brother understood now that he had not been willing to let Jessica out of his sight even then. And now—never…

  Or at least not until whoever was after her was apprehended. Then once she was safe, he’d have to let her go. What kind of future could they possibly have with her home in America and his home and responsibilities all in Barajas?

  She’d been willing to leave her home out of fear. Would she leave it out of love? Not that he expected her to fall in love with him. Or he with her…

  He shook off the wayward thoughts and focused on what was important. “Did they find anything that might lead us to the men in the van?”

  “They found the van in the Rattlesnake Badlands,” Antoine replied.

  “That is where those shots came from.”

  “You need to go out there with the sheriff or Jane and point out exactly where those shots came from.”

  “I can’t leave Jessica and Samantha.”

  “They are not your responsibility,” Antoine said.

  “They’re in danger, possibility because my press conference revealed her as the witness. They are my responsibility.”

  Antoine did not argue with him.

  “They found the van,” he said. “What about the men?” He would not let Jessica and Samantha out of his sight until they had been apprehended.

  “The van was empty and on fire,” Antoine replied. “That was how they found it so easily.”

  “That was how the men destroyed whatever evidence they might have left that would have led to their whereabouts.”

  “We’ll find them,” Antoine vowed.

  Samantha glanced up from her mother’s cell phone and smiled at him—that smile that lit up her face and the entire room and his heart. Her mother stared up at him, too, but her beautiful face was tense, with no smile. And those big eyes of hers were dark and full of fear.

  “We have to find them,” Sebastian said. Movement near the doorway drew his attention from Jessica and Samantha. “The sheriff’s here.” He clicked off his cell.

  The dark-haired man headed toward Jessica, but Sebastian stepped in front of him. “Sheriff, I need to speak with you.”

  “You should have called me earlier.” Like Antoine, he was apparently not happy that Sebastian hadn’t immediately reported the shooting. “Right now I need to talk to Ms. Peters.”

  “I was there at the ranch, too,” Sebastian reminded him.

  “I need to talk to her about Helen Jeffries,” the sheriff said.

  “I doubt this attack had anything to do with Mrs. Jeffries.” From everything Jessica had said about the woman, she seemed like a saint—someone very unlikely to have any enemies.

  “I doubt that, too,” the sheriff admitted. “Those men were probably looking for Ms. Peters.”

  Sebastian’s guts twisted with dread and fear. “I am certain they were looking for Ms. Peters.”

  The sheriff nodded in agreement. “Because of what she witnessed.”

  “You heard what she had to say,” Sebastian reminded the lawman. “She didn’t see anything that would lead to whoever was behind the explosion. Nor did she see anything that would lead us to Amir’s whereabouts.”

  “Apparently they don’t know that.”

  That was what he had believed, too. But maybe Jessica was right, and there was someone else after her. Some monster from her past…

  A WEIGHT DESCENDED on Jessica’s chest, stealing the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t inhale from the mass she was suffocating under, the pressure bearing on her to run. Before it was too late…

  But she couldn’t drag her g
aze from the man standing on the other side of the room. Even though he was deep in conversation with the sheriff, he kept his implacable stare on her, as if unwilling to let her out of his sight.

  Then he walked away from the sheriff and crossed the room toward her and Samantha. The little girl vaulted out of her chair and launched herself at Sebastian, climbing up his body and into his arms.

  Jessica understood her daughter’s reaction. She wanted to crawl into his arms herself, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of dumping all her problems on someone else. Doing that to Helen could have cost the woman her life.

  “Sheriff Wolf would like to talk to you,” Sebastian said.

  “Me or…” She glanced at Samantha’s face. The child hadn’t said anything about what she’d heard while she’d been hiding in the closet, and Jessica hadn’t wanted to ask her until the child was ready to talk. She also suspected that she was not the person who should talk to Samantha about that. Neither was the sheriff.

  He shook his head. “He’ll ask Helen about what happened.”

  The little girl shivered when he said her friend’s name. Jessica had been careful that her daughter not see how badly Helen had been injured. She’d kept her in the kitchen until the ambulance had carried Helen to the hospital. Jessica had assured the little girl that the woman was fine but that the doctors were just being extra careful because Helen was so special.

  “Then why does he want to talk to me?” Jessica asked. She didn’t want to sit for another inquisition like she had at the resort. Once Clay arrived at the hospital to be with Helen, she intended to take Samantha and leave Wind River forever.

  “He wants your statement about what happened at the ranch,” he replied. “We took off after the ambulance before he had a chance to talk to us.”

  “He didn’t talk to you very long,” she observed.

  “I didn’t have as much to tell him as you do,” he said.

  Her gaze slipped from his handsome face down to her daughter’s. “You want me to tell him about…”

  “If you really believe he’s the one behind what happened today…”

  Maybe she had jumped to conclusions. Maybe those men were only after her because of what she’d witnessed and it had nothing to do with Evgeny.

  “I don’t know what to believe right now,” she admitted as exhaustion tugged at every muscle, weighing them down so that it took effort for her to rise from her chair.

  “You can believe me,” he said. “You can believe that I will protect you and Samantha.”

  She wanted to point out that he hadn’t even been able to protect his own friend from the explosion, but she couldn’t be that cruel. And it would be cruel because she knew how protective Sebastian was; it had to be killing him that his friend had been hurt, or maybe worse, and he hadn’t been able to help him.

  “I’ll talk to the sheriff,” she agreed.

  “You’ll tell him about…?” He glanced down at Samantha, who rested her head against his broad shoulder, as Jessica longed to do. They were being careful to avoid particulars while they talked, but the child must have picked up on the tone of their conversation. And probably on Jessica’s fear.

  Had she let that fear make her irrational? Of course there was no doubt they were in danger, and she would be more foolish to not be afraid.

  But she shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been five years. Maybe there’s nothing to tell the sheriff.”

  “Teresa!”

  The shout—and the voice—drew her attention to the door. And to the man who’d just walked into the waiting room. Both the name and the man were from her past. If only they would have stayed there…

  But as it all washed over her—all the pain and fear—hysteria rose and then bubbled out of her throat in a scream.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jessica’s scream echoed throughout the room and in Sebastian’s head, like other screams that sometimes haunted him. Samantha clutched him tighter, burying her little face in his neck as she trembled in his arms. While he patted her back with one hand, he reached for her mother with the other, needing to protect her.

  Her scream and wide-eyed look of horror told him who had entered the waiting room even before he turned toward the doorway. Evgeny Surinka walked in alone, without the men Jessica was so certain he had sent ahead to grab her. He didn’t need to hire muscle. The man was built like a boxer, with heavy arms that strained the sleeves of his gray suit, and his hands, which he fisted at his sides, were the size of dinner plates.

  Thinking of those fists striking Jessica sent rage coursing through Sebastian, heating his blood. If Samantha wasn’t clinging to him, he would have launched himself at Evgeny. All he could do now was step between Jessica and the man who’d abused her physically so long ago and had continued to do so emotionally and mentally even after she’d run away from him.

  Evgeny narrowed his eyes, which were the same gray as Samantha’s. But while hers sparkled with warmth and friendliness, his were as cold and hard as the metal of the gun Sebastian wanted to thrust in his face. As if sensing his murderous intent, the man sucked in an audible breath. But he wasn’t looking at Sebastian anymore; he stared instead at the child in Sebastian’s arms.

  “Teresa, is this my daughter?”

  Jessica stepped out from behind Sebastian. “No.”

  “Why do I suspect a DNA test will say otherwise?” he challenged her.

  “You’re not the only one with suspicions, Surinka,” Sebastian said.

  “You know my name,” Evgeny said, and an evil grin curved his thin lips. “You have me at a disadvantage then because I do not know you.” The condescending glint in his eyes claimed otherwise.

  “I am Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh.”

  “The one who held the press conference this morning,” he said, his gaze skimming over Sebastian’s shirt and jeans. “I didn’t recognize you.” He turned back to Jessica. “But I recognized you.”

  “She was not there this morning.”

  “She must have showed up later—for the reward,” Evgeny said. “Or at least that’s what the reporters speculated when you chased her out of the Wind River County Courthouse.”

  “Were you here this morning?” Sebastian asked.

  Evgeny tilted his head again, his jaw clenching, as if he struggled to control his anger over being interrogated. “My plane just flew in,” he said. “Only booked my flight after I caught that glimpse of Teresa.” He kept staring at her, his gaze so possessive. “Despite the red dye and the straight hair, I knew it was you.”

  She shivered, and Sebastian wrapped his free arm around her shoulders. But she tensed in his loose embrace and shrugged off his arm. “No, you’re wrong. My name’s not Teresa.” She shook her head, even more desperately denying her identity than she’d denied being the witness. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “It’s been five years,” Evgeny said, “but I would know you anywhere, Teresa.” He reached a hand toward her, but she flinched and stepped back. “You can’t deny who you are.” The flinch had given her away because triumph leaped in his cold gray eyes. “You’re my wife.”

  “No.” She shook her head again but not in denial of her identity because she added, “I filed papers. I’m not your wife any longer.”

  “You filed while I was in prison,” he said, his voice hard with that barely suppressed rage. “But you never signed the papers.”

  “You didn’t give her the chance,” Sebastian said. He pressed his hand over the little girl’s ear that wasn’t nestled into his neck. “You put her in the hospital.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Evgeny said. “Or even why you’re talking. This should be a private conversation between a man and his wife.” He glanced toward the child, but he couldn’t see her face because Sebastian kept his hand there, protecting her from the cold hard gaze of her father. “And my daughter.”

  “She’s not yours,” Jessica said, her voice just a shaky whisper. She reached for Samantha, pry
ing the trembling child from Sebastian’s arms. Then she turned away, in the direction where the sheriff waited to speak with her and stood watching them, his eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what was going on.

  But Evgeny reached out and grabbed her arm. “You’re not getting away from me again.”

  Sebastian wrapped his hand around the Russian’s wrist and squeezed until Evgeny eased his grip. And Jessica tugged free and crossed the room, taking herself and her child out of the ruthless man’s reach.

  “You are going to talk to me,” Evgeny yelled after his wife. He shrugged off Sebastian’s hand and started toward Jessica.

  But Sebastian blocked him and the man shoved against his chest, trying to move him. Sebastian was immovable, though, with his legs planted apart and rage coursing through his veins. He wanted the man to swing at him so that he didn’t have to swing first.

  “The only one you should be talking to is the sheriff,” Sebastian said. “You have some questions to answer.”

  “About what?” Evgeny asked as he stepped back.

  “About what happened today—at the resort and out at the ranch.” And maybe even on that ridge. While his men had been in the van, Evgeny could have been in the badlands.

  That evil smirk crossed the man’s face, but he shrugged off Sebastian’s accusations. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Neither do I,” said Sheriff Wolf.

  Sebastian had been so focused on Evgeny that he hadn’t noticed when the lawman had joined them. Like him, the man had braced himself as if ready for a fight—or at least ready to break one up.

  “You need to be questioning him about the men who attacked Helen Jeffries,” Sebastian said. “They probably work for him.”

  “What men?” Evgeny asked, glancing around the waiting room as if expecting to find them. But the waiting room was not very crowded—only a few other people sat on chairs that faced the television. But they didn’t even pretend to be watching it; instead they watched them. “I just arrived in town.”

  “But you sent your men ahead to find Jessica.”

  “Teresa,” Evgeny corrected him. “And I did no such thing.” He turned toward the sheriff. “You have no reason to question me.”