Ransom for a Prince by Lisa Childs Page B

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.

    “I S 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