out with a gasp of awe. “He is a real prince.”
“Yes,” Jessica murmured—finally—in acknowledgment.
“Barajas,” Cavanaugh continued, “is part of COIN, the Coalition of Island Nations consisting of Kyros, Nadar and Jamala, that came to your country—and your particular county—for a special summit to discuss trade agreements that would benefit the United States as well as COIN.”
Cameras flashed in his face as reporters interrupted with questions. A burly man, perhaps one of the royal’s security detail, stepped closer to the prince and leaned toward the microphone as if to warn the media to back off. But Prince Sebastian turned to him, an intense look in his eyes, and the man shrank back. Then the prince turned that stare on the reporters and the questions stopped, an eerie silence descending on the crowded outer office.
“Since our arrival, we have been under attack.” A muscle twitched in his lean cheek just above the tightly clenched jaw. “There have been vocal protests of our visit to your country. And there have been physical protests. On our first night here, an explosion occurred which killed a man.”
Jessica flinched but kept her eyes open so that she wouldn’t see again that horror. But it didn’t matter. The image was forever burned in her mind, like the body had burned.
“We have recently been made aware that there was a witness to that explosion,” Prince Cavanaugh continued. “We need this witness to come forward as we believe he or she has vital information.”
Jessica gasped. How had they found out? Who else might know that she’d been traveling that same road and had come upon the scene? She shivered.
The camera zoomed in on the prince. While an aura of arrogance and authority clung to the man’s broad shoulders and rigidly clenched jaw, he buried that pride as his gaze implored the witness to share what she knew. “This is a matter of life and death. A friend of mine—” his voice was gruff with emotion “—has been missing since the explosion. I am offering a substantial reward for information that will lead to his return.”
After another beat of silence from the reporters, the room erupted with questions. They shouted over each other, so their voices were unintelligible.
Prince Sebastian fixed that stare on the crowd again until they subsided to just excited murmurs. “One question at a time,” he directed them.
“How much is the reward?” Danny Harold asked. The reporter from the local television station had pushed closest to the podium.
The prince’s reply had the crowd gasping with surprise and awe.
“So it’s Sheik Amir Khalid who is missing?” Danny tossed out another question. “Do you believe he’s still alive or do you suspect he’s dead?”
The intensity of Prince Cavanaugh’s gaze changed from intimidation and arrogance to anguish and frustration. “We do not have enough information to determine the sheik’s whereabouts or his physical condition.”
“And you believe this witness might know where he or his body is?” Although many other reporters crowded the room, it was Danny who asked this question, too. Maybe it was because he was a local that his interest in the story seemed so personal.
The muscle twitched again in the prince’s lean cheek. “That is what we believe and why we are offering such a substantial reward.”
Danny snorted. “That substantial reward is going to have every kook coming out of the woodwork with a cockamamie story so they can claim the money.”
“Kooks?” the prince repeated, arching a golden brown brow.
“Crazies, crackpots,” Danny translated.
Prince Sebastian’s lips—the bottom one full and sensual—curved into a slight grin. “My brother, Prince Antoine, has a way of determining when a person is telling the truth or a lie.”
Danny nodded in agreement. “He was an interrogator with military special forces.”
The prince neither confirmed nor denied the reporter’s statement. He just stared again, his blue eyes unblinking.
“And you were a sniper.”
“Any more questions?” Prince Cavanaugh asked.
Jessica had many. So did her daughter.
“What’s a matter, Mama?” The little girl slid out of her chair to join Jessica at the sink. She tugged on her soapy hand to gain her mother’s attention.
“Nothing,” Jessica replied as she turned toward her daughter. The sun streaming through the windows glinted off the little girl’s honey brown hair and sparkled in her gray eyes, highlighting the child’s concern. Jessica forced a reassuring smile. “I just got caught up in the news, like you sometimes do your cartoons.”
“Didn’t you ever seen a prince before?”
Jessica wasn’t exactly certain what she’d seen that night except that it was probably enough to put her daughter and her in danger. Well, more danger than they were already in.
“There’re no such things as princes,” a husky but feminine voice murmured as Helen Jeffries joined them in the kitchen. The tall woman stomped her boots on the woven rug at the back door, knocking off mud and straw.
“Is, too,” Samantha said, pointing at the television screen. “He’s a real prince.”
Helen snorted. “He might legally be a prince, but I’ve yet to meet a man who’s a real prince.”
The little girl’s forehead scrunched up with confusion. “The ones in my books and movies aren’t real?”
“Fairy tales,” Helen replied cynically. “Not real.”
“What about Clay McGuire?” Jessica asked about the rancher Helen dated.
The older woman snorted again. “He’s a cowboy.”
“Can’t princes be cowboys?” Samantha asked.
Jessica chucked her daughter’s slightly pointed chin. “You got that backward, honey.”
The little girl’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “How?”
“Cowboys can’t be princes,” Helen explained with a grin. She stepped closer to the sink and dipped her hands into the sudsy water.
“You should have let me feed the animals,” Jessica said. Then she would have missed that special report.
Helen shook her head. She’d owned and managed the Double J alone for years. The older woman was so fiercely independent and proud that she insisted on doing more of the chores herself. Jessica was proud, too, though and had convinced Helen to accept her help in lieu of the room and board she refused to let Jessica pay her. “I’d rather work in the barn than the kitchen,” Helen said as she brushed a fingertip across Samantha’s button nose, leaving a dab of foam on the upturned tip of it.
Jessica lifted up her daughter and hugged her sweet-smelling body close. “Sweetheart, why don’t you run up to your room and change
