recognized you. You asked for my help. You demanded that I not call the authorities.”
He recalled the phone threat Prince Stefan had received the day they had arrived in the United States, the threatening letters he himself had received in the leading up to their trip. He also remembered now that minute or two after the explosion, mangled thoughts mixed in with the pain.
He had thought he would just need a minute to recover. Then he could go back to the resort, and between him and his friends they would figure out what was going on, figure out the publicity angle. He had wanted his security to check the scene before the police cordoned off the area as their crime scene.
His next thought made his stomach clench with dread. “The driver?”
Her lips flattened into a grim line. “Dead on impact. You had minor burns and some serious lacerations. Hit your head pretty hard. All in all, you were very lucky.”
He hung his head, not feeling lucky in the least. He would have Bahur’s family found and would make sure they were taken care of. The least he could do was to make sure that they had everything they needed. Guilt ate at him as he thought of the years the man had spent in his service, the future Bahur had been robbed of.
Because of him.
Those threatening notes hadn’t been bluffing. They weren’t some discontent coward’s way of trying to spread fear, as he had first hoped. His enemies were prepared to kill.
And here he was, in the middle of nowhere, unarmed and without any security. With Isabelle. Which made a bad situation intolerable. “My presence here puts you in danger.”
“Nobody knows.”
Except, an enemy who was resourceful enough to gain details of his top-secret trip to the United States, and could get close enough to put a bomb in his limousine, obviously had considerable resources and investigative skills. “We will leave this place. Thank you for bringing me here and hiding me,” he added, wanting to make sure that she knew her help was appreciated.
For a moment she looked unsettled, as if not quite sure what to do with him. “You were in and out of it at first, pretty adamant that I shouldn’t call anyone. Then you lost it completely, and I was dialing 9-1-1 when this shady-looking guy came to the door, pretending to be an investigator, asking if I saw the explosion, if I saw anyone driving by or walking away from the wreckage. He had an accent.”
“What kind?”
“A hard accent. Not French, for sure. Russian, maybe.” She paused for a second. “His hand kept straying to his back. I was pretty sure he had a gun ready. He gave me the creeps. I hung up the phone. Later that night I brought you out here. I was going to call an ambulance if your condition took a turn for the worse, if your vitals became unstable. They never did.” Her voice was soft, but that tightness still lingered around her eyes.
Her attitude toward him seemed to be a mixture of concern and resentment. Yet, somehow he got the feeling that the resentment wasn’t about the imposition of her having to take care of him.
“You saved my life.” No question about that. The kingdom of Jamala and he, personally, owed her a great debt. She and her child would be taken care of and would never have to feel the sting of the father’s abandonment. “I owe you my gratitude.”
She shrugged that off. “You had the good sense to be in a light coma. Any worse and I wouldn’t have had a choice but to take you in for intensive care. And you get points for getting blown up with a doctor in hailing distance.”
He’d been in high spirits that night, just back from an evening in town with his friends. Their first day in the United States. And he couldn’t let it end without seeing Isabelle. “I was coming back to you. I should have come sooner.”
She busied herself with stirring the soup. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did. Because if he had come back months ago, hadn’t let her slip away after their amazing weekend, then she wouldn’t have met another man, wouldn’t be carrying another man’s child now. Had he expected that after all this time she would wait for him? A part of him, deep down, obviously had.
Something sharp stabbed him in the middle of his chest.
He had meant to come back, had made plans. But matters of the state had interfered. He was a sheik; his time was not his own. Not even now.
“Have you heard anything about the royals at the Wind River Ranch and Resort?” He needed to call Stefan, Efraim and the others. They were probably searching for him. His disappearance must have messed up the negotiations between the United States and their Coalition of Island Nations, COIN.
She put the soup on the table, looking at home in the small kitchen. “All over the news, according to the nurses. They can’t even stop talking about it when I call into the hospital to check in on the patients I had to hand off because of the maternity leave. It’s been like the Wild West returned over at the resort with all those princes. Never a dull moment, apparently.”
His muscles clenched. “Has anyone been harmed?” Those four men were like brothers to him, even closer to his heart than his recently found half brother, Wade, who was yet another reason for his being in Wyoming. A quest that would now have to wait.
“Someone was shot, but not one of the royals.”
A confused second passed before he remembered that she didn’t know his true identity. Their two passionate days together had been pure fantasy, strangers acting out a scene from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. And now…with danger all around and him as weak as he was…probably not the best time to tell her. He needed to regain his strength and orient himself much better before he trusted anyone.
“We eat, and then we leave,” was all he told her. He needed to know for certain who his friends were and who his enemies were.
The phone threat texted to Stefan and the letters to him had to be connected. He’d received those letters back in Jamala. And Stefan received the text message before they even landed here. His instincts said whomever was behind the threats was from the islands and was not an American.
The miserable old king of Saruk came to mind, head of a larger neighboring country that wanted all the undersea oil rights, among other things. Five years ago he would have been the first person Amir would have looked at. But Prince Darek was taking over more and more of his father’s duties, making most, if not all, of the important decisions, and Darek was a good man, a friend. Amir trusted him.
So where did the threat originate? He had opponents back at home, of course. The summit had opponents, too. He cracked his knuckles. Either way, his enemy was either here now or used American accomplices. Someone had put a bomb on that limousine.
“Food is ready.” Isabelle was putting plates on the table, a picture of domestic femininity even with that tension he didn’t understand still in her shoulders. “You stay put. I’ll bring you a tray.”
He pushed to his feet, succeeding this time. “I’ll never regain my strength if all I do is sit around.”
And he needed his strength back desperately. Whoever had sent those threatening notes had taken things to the next level with the bomb in the car. He’d made his first kill, even if the driver had been an unintended victim. But the attacker was clearly committed to his goal, set on his course. He wasn’t going to give up until he accomplished whatever
