Dana Mentink: Race for the Gold

WHO WANTS TO ICE A WORLD-CLASS SKATER?

Speed skater Laney Thompson still has nightmares about the car crash that almost shattered her lifelong dream. But as she’s poised to compete in the world’s most important games, she finds worse trouble. Someone wants her out of contention…badly. Laney won’t let anything stop her—not sabotage, a stalker or partial amnesia. As she and her brooding trainer Max Blanco strive to overcome past tragedy, the ice between them starts to melt. But as the race draws closer, a killer becomes more desperate, and a race for the gold becomes a race for their lives!

“Laney,” Max said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

Her breathing hitched. When God made those eyes, she thought, he must have mixed in just a little bit of the sky, the windswept California sky where the ocean met the air. She readied herself for a directive. Instead, he offered a request.

“Do something for me.” He leaned close. “Please do not leave this training facility for any reason unless I’m with you.”

“I’m not a prisoner here, am I?”

“Not a prisoner, but much too important to risk anything happening.” He put a finger to her lips when she started to respond. “Not because of the skating, Laney.”

“Why, then?” she whispered.

“Because…” He blew out a breath. “Just do what I’m asking. Will you?”

Why did his fingers awaken trails of longing in her soul?

“I’m not going to lie to you, Max,” she breathed.

“And I appreciate that.”

“So I’m not going to answer at all.”

DANA MENTINK

lives in California, where the weather is golden and the cheese divine. Her family includes two girls (affectionately nicknamed Yogi and Boo Boo). Papa Bear works for the fire department; he met Dana doing a dinner theater production of The Velveteen Rabbit. Ironically, their parts were husband and wife.

Dana is a 2009 American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year finalist for romantic suspense and an award winner in the Pacific Northwest Writers Literary Contest. Her novel Betrayal in the Badlands won a 2010 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. She has enjoyed writing a mystery series for Barbour Books and more than ten novels to date for the Love Inspired Suspense line.

She spent her college years competing in speech and debate tournaments all around the country. Besides writing, she busies herself teaching elementary school and reviewing books for her blog. Mostly, she loves to be home with her family, including a dog with social-anxiety problems, a chubby box turtle and a quirky parakeet.

Dana loves to hear from her readers via her website, at www.danamentink.com.

Race for the Gold

Dana Mentink

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

—1 Peter 1:7

To Sugar Todd and all the athletes who pour their heart and souls into their sport and elevate us all in the process.

Contents

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

World Short-Track Speed Skating Qualifiers

The after-race recuperation did not sting quite as badly today; it was as if her muscles had gotten the news, the glorious golden news. Laney Thompson, gangly underdog in the short-track skating world, had just secured a spot on the American team. She was going to compete on the biggest stage in sports. It was an opportunity that only came around once every four years. Outside the speed skating arena where she’d spent the past two years of her life, the freezing air did nothing to cool the warm crackle of triumph that burned in her belly.

Max Blanco was next to her, suited up for their celebratory cooldown run along the road freshly cleared by a snowplow. She knew his elation matched her own. On a whim, she held a pretend microphone in front of his face, strands of her blond bob whipping against her cheek. “So, Mr. Max Blanco, how exactly does it feel to know you’ll be going after the most important gold medal in speed skating a few months from now?”

He laughed and she tried not to fall too deeply into those aquamarine eyes that made something inside her dance like a wind-borne snowflake.

“Maybe I should be asking you that,” he said. “How does it feel?”

She held her head up to the sky, closed her eyes and let the dancing flakes pepper her cheeks. “It feels like there is nothing in the world I can’t do.”

He suddenly grabbed her around the middle and swung her in dizzying circles until she was gasping for air.

“I told you, didn’t I? You struggled all season, but you laid it down when it counted and now you’re going. All the way!” He returned her to earth. “So after our run are you going to let me take you on a date?”

She felt herself blushing deeply. “We’re together all the time.”

He fisted hands on his lean hips and clucked. “That’s called training, Laney. A date is when two people go out and have a good time together without the need for free weights and treadmills.” He moved closer. “Come on, you promised once the trials were over you’d go out with me. I want to say I dated you before you won your gold.”

She shivered. “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”

He toyed with a section of her hair. “It’s only great if you’ve got someone to share it with, someone who understands.”

Did she understand what drove him? She knew the nuts and bolts of short-track speed skating, she understood the drive, the fiery burn that propelled them all to work through pain, to compete with only one goal in mind. But though Max fascinated and attracted her, she did not fully understand him.

A few people filtered out of the arena, techie types mostly. Most of the athletes and trainers had gone home to celebrate or indulge their sorrows. That was the hardest part. Only six of her women friends on the National Team had made it and the rest were devastated, plain and simple. But that was short track. Friendships were left at the edge of the ice.

Max pulled a small envelope from the pocket of his nylon jacket, fiddling with the corners. “Here,” he said, thrusting it into her hands.

She eased the flap of the envelope open and gently removed a tiny square of paper, notched and cut in what seemed like a million places. “What is it?” she breathed.

He took it from her hands and unfolded the square. It opened into the most intricate paper cutting she’d ever seen. He held it up and the sun shone through the minuscule cuts to reveal a bird, wings tucked, soaring against a cloud, breeze fluttering the paper feathers.