Dana Mentink: Escape from the Badlands

A brother’s promise

After his brother is convicted of murder, Shane Mason will do anything to clear his name. But when his investigations lead him to enter South Dakota’s Desert Quest extreme race, Shane is floored by the surprise waiting for him. Kelly Cloudman—the woman he can’t let himself love—is the race’s medic...and the killer’s next target. A painful memory from his past divided Shane from Kelly, but he’s not going to let her out of his sight again. Even if it means revealing his secrets, Shane won’t stop until he’s found the truth—and kept the murderer from striking again.

Kelly looked again at the GPS fixed to the dashboard, which suddenly blinked to a blank screen.

“Don’t quit on me now,” she muttered, pushing down the panic at the thought of being lost in this maze of twists and turns. The sides were high, giving her the pinched, closed-in feeling that something bad was going to happen.

Stop being silly. You’re driving through a storm, that’s all.

Her stomach clenched into a tight ball as the storm let loose.

Frantically she yanked the wheel back and forth, to no avail. The water began to fill the canyon as if someone had turned on a giant faucet, causing the car to hydroplane. Willing herself not to scream, she wrenched ineffectively at the wheel. It began to turn in lazy circles until it smacked into a rocky projection and lodged there. Flash flood, of course.

She peered out the window, terrified to see the water rising steadily. It was cresting the bottom of the door and moving fast.

With fingers gone cold she unlocked the driver’s door and pushed.

Nothing.

DANA MENTINK

lives in California with her family. Dana and her husband met doing a dinner theater production of The Velveteen Rabbit. In college, she competed in national speech and debate tournaments. Besides writing novels, Dana taste-tests for the National Food Lab and freelances for a local newspaper. In addition to her work with Love Inspired Books, she wrote cozy mysteries for Barbour Books. Dana loves feedback from her readers. Contact her at her website, www.danamentink.com.

Escape from the Badlands

Dana Mentink

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

Welcome to Love Inspired!

2012 is a very special year for us. It marks the fifteenth anniversary of Love Inspired Books. Hard to believe that fifteen years ago, we first began publishing our warm and wonderful inspirational romances.

Back in 1997, we offered readers three books a month. Since then we’ve expanded quite a bit! In addition to the heartwarming contemporary romances of Love Inspired, we have the exciting romantic suspenses of Love Inspired Suspense, and the adventurous historical romances of Love Inspired Historical. Whatever your reading preference, we’ve got fourteen books a month for you to choose from now!

Throughout the year we’ll be celebrating in several different ways. Look for books by bestselling authors who’ve been writing for us since the beginning, stories by brand-new authors you won’t want to miss, special miniseries in all three lines, reissues of top authors, and much, much more.

This is our way of thanking you for reading Love Inspired books. We know our uplifting stories of hope, faith and love touch your hearts as much as they touch ours.

Join us in celebrating fifteen amazing years of inspirational romance!

Blessings,

Melissa Endlich and Tina James

Senior Editors of Love Inspired Books

To Laurie, who is a wonderful editor and a truly splendid sister.

* * *

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

—Hebrews 12:1–2

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

ONE

The site might as well have been on Mars, rather than tucked in the South Dakota Badlands. Shane was still sweating from the fifteen-mile bike ride, which was nearly vertical in some places along the lonely trail and eventually led to an abandoned mine. They’d finally reached the spot known by the other endurance racers as Sheer Drop. It was a cliff of gray rock, striated with layers of black and white, studded with one lone tree standing sentinel against the sky. The view was spectacular. Even in his preoccupied state, Shane recognized the magnificence of the canyon below, twisting and brushy, and the hills with their covering of wind-tossed grass. The air was scented with the tang of newly fallen rain on long-parched ground.

Shane knew the Desert Quest race producers were keeping tabs on the participants. Back at the campground, which served as base of operations, they tracked everyone carefully via the GPS units all the racers carried, particularly Shane, as he was a late addition. He knew that race producer, Martin Chenko, and the man Shane was really interested in talking to, Devin Ackerman, were watching them.

Go ahead and watch, Ackerman. Enjoy things while you can.

A cold drizzle of rain snaked down his back as he laced on his climbing shoes and secured the bike before beginning preparations for the descent, slipping on a harness and checking the static rope already affixed to the top of the cliff.

The bank of clouds blotted out the afternoon sky, and the wind blew in sporadic gusts. If the October drizzle morphed into a serious storm, the corrugated rocks would turn slick and rappelling down would be dangerous. Storms in the South Dakota Badlands were more than noisy. They were deadly. The man next to Shane regarded him without a hint of a smile, prematurely silver hair glinting in the sparse sunlight.

“Think you can make it? You’ve got to prove competency before they’ll let us race as a team,” Andy Gleeson said. “If you can’t, say so now and I’ll find another teammate. I’m in this thing to win the fifty thousand. My partner bugged out two weeks ago. That’s the only reason I’m giving you a look.”

“I got that. I can do it, if they don’t call it on account of the weather. It’s just a trial run.”

“Seems to me you got a good incentive to win,” Gleeson said, giving him an appraising look. “Ranching can’t pay too good.”

Shane started. “How did you know I’m a rancher?”

Gleeson looked at the sky. “Ah, you just hear things.”

What things? Did Gleeson know about Shane’s brother, even though he’d used a fake last name? If he did, then Ackerman might know the truth as well, the real reason Shane had entered the race. He itched to grill Gleeson, but further questions would only make things worse.