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
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
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,”