Ransom For A Prince. Lisa Childs

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ