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Race for the Gold
Dana Mentink
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!
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 (http://www.danamentink.com).
Race for the Gold
Dana Mentink
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
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 (#u36190a4b-c4fb-5da9-98e2-ff2bc79bfea6)
CHAPTER ONE (#u934f3ba8-9b62-5e14-9bf7-6298aab6cf60)
CHAPTER TWO (#uf1d6228b-8457-5764-bf63-af07f4c091bb)
CHAPTER THREE (#u8be6d965-a115-51be-852b-d65b3712779c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uea3ae3fd-74b9-540b-b36b-788fe55dc860)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u4b5688d1-64ef-5ee0-98e3-9a2752c3edcd)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
DEAR READER (#litres_trial_promo)
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (#litres_trial_promo)
EXCERPT (#litres_trial_promo)
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.
“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She’d watched him sometimes, sitting alone, scissors in his hand that he immediately put away when she approached.
He shrugged and folded it back up and replaced it in the envelope. “A hobby of mine. Learned it when I was a kid.”
She clutched the envelope to her chest. “I’m going to keep it forever.”
“I think of you that way.” He cleared his throat. “When you’re racing, you’re like a bird, flying over the ice without really touching it.”
She found herself speechless as she tucked the little envelope carefully into her pocket. She knew where it would go every race, zipped under her skin suit, right next to her heart. “Thank you,” she managed. “I love it.”
He bent and fiddled with the lace on his shoe. “Ready to go, then?”
She nodded. “I’ll let you lead, since that’s what you’re used to.”
Laughing, sapphire eyes reflecting the sparkling snow, he headed up the road at an easy pace. They ran and laughed and dreamed together until five miles later they found they had looped back to the final bend in the road. Her fingers found the little envelope and she took it out again.
In his eyes, she was a bird, soaring, flying. The image hovered in her heart and awakened something she’d never felt before.
As if in some silent agreement, their pace slowed, breath puffing in the twilight, savoring the last portion of the run together. When they stopped, he took her in his arms again and she stared into those eyes now darkened by the shadows but still luminous as if they generated their own light from deep down in his soul.
He pressed his lips to her temple and she was lost in the warmth, the feel of his strong arms folded around her. “Congrats again, Laney. I know how you’ve struggled for this.”
“We both have,” she murmured.
Neither one of them heard the sound at first. The roar of an engine, the crunching of tires trying to find traction on the snow.
He broke off the kiss as the car rounded the corner, his hand clutching hers.
A flash of metal, the barest glimpse of the driver’s face.
With a sickening crunch, the car plowed into them. As she fell into the crisp layer of snow, she watched the tiny envelope settle gently to the ground.
ONE
Four long years, and it was as if the shock of the accident still lingered in her muscles, weakening the certainty she’d felt as a twenty-three-year-old champion. Now, at almost twenty-seven years old, Laney felt the eyes following her as she climbed from the heat box and clumped her way to the ice. Taking off her skate guards, she slid onto the sparkling surface of the ice and headed for the start line.
Was it whispers she heard from the coaches and the other girls? Or was it her own thoughts bubbling up to the surface, memories from four years before when she’d had her dream and lost it? It wasn’t the venue that sparked the tension inside; she’d spent most of the past year training in this very spot. Nor was it the fear of losing, not really. Though it was a practice race, it was an important one, an indication of her prospects for placing in the trials in a matter of weeks, the event that would decide who made the team for the Olympic Games.
Up until now she’d been training mostly on her own with Max, grinding her body back into shape in spite of the pain. Today was the time she would answer the question publicly. Was Laney Thompson back?
As she glided slow circles on the ice, she pondered the question she’d tried to answer for herself every day since the accident that broke her ankle and left her with a brain injury. Did Laney Thompson still have what it took to compete for the United States in the biggest meet of her life? Her competitions throughout the season had not been stellar, moments of brilliance mixed in with enough mistakes to leave room for doubt.
Again the tickle of guilt that inevitably came with the question. Did she even deserve to be back, poised for a second chance, when Max was not?
She knew he was there somewhere in the arena. How did he feel at that moment? Now a trainer, thanks to the screws in a hip that had been extremely slow to heal, he watched others strive to live out a passion now denied to him.
He’d emerged from the accident scarred inside, too, hidden damage that had caused him to withdraw from her. Or maybe he’d lost any tender feelings for her when she woke up unable to remember chunks of their time together. Something broke there on the snow that day, something more than bones and dreams. She didn’t understand what it was, and maybe she never would.
Beth Morrison gave her a smile, dimples standing out against her pale face, dark hair sporting a hot pink streak today. The girl looked so incredibly young. And when, Laney thought drily, had she become the old lady of the team at almost twenty-seven years old? Beth pointed to Laney’s left skate. “Not tight,” she mouthed.
Laney blushed and dropped to a knee to try it again. Gifted athlete, natural dancer, all-around high achiever Laney Thompson still had to remind herself of the steps to tying her skates. Why had the nuances of short-track speed skating lingered in her memory, but the act of tying her laces remained a challenge? And reading a clock, and remembering to eat or what not to eat? She’d almost triggered an allergic reaction two days prior when she’d been ready to eat a nutrition bar containing peanuts. It’s the brain injury, Laney, not you.
Tanya Crowley shot her an odd look before she concealed her eyes behind racing glasses. Was it disdain Laney saw on her lips? Mind games, an athlete’s trick.
Laney wondered what would happen if she produced a terrible race here today. Practice or not, she knew her performance would answer the question in her own mind. Could Laney Thompson be the person she was before the hit-and-run driver had almost taken away her future?
Her eyes scanned the darkened arena for Max. She did not see him. Zipping her skin suit up to her neck, she had a flash of memory, picturing the cut paper bird he had given her a moment before their lives were changed. After the crash, he’d retreated so far she doubted if there ever really had been the sweet connection between them.
