Force of Nature
Pulled from the waves and gasping for air, the last person Antonia Verde expects to be her rescuer is Rueben Sandoval. He may once have been the love of her life, but his drug-smuggling brother ruined their chance of happiness.Now with a storm blowing in, Rueben’s island hotel is her only refuge. Soon they find themselves trapped on the island with a killer in the midst of a dangerous hurricane. Antonia’s life is in Rueben’s hands—can she trust him with her heart as well?
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STORMY REUNION
Pulled from the waves and gasping for air, the last person Antonia Verde expects to be her rescuer is Reuben Sandoval. He may once have been the love of her life, but his drug-smuggling brother ruined their chance of happiness. Now with a storm blowing in, Ruebenâs island hotel is her only refuge. Soon they find themselves trapped on the island with a killer in the midst of a dangerous hurricane. Antoniaâs life is in Ruebenâs handsâcan she trust him with her heart, as well?
Stormswept: Finding true love in the midst of natureâs fury
The pull of the tide was strong, but so was she.
She sloshed out to deeper water and paddled past the sheltered cove. In the distance, the swaying cabbage palms that dotted Isla Marsopa bent under the increasing pressure of the storm. The familiar twinge twisted her gut as she thought about her past with Reuben Sandoval, exploring that tiny paradise.
Keep swimming, she told herself fiercely. Paralleling the shore, she fought the tumbling waves, making her arduous way up the coast, intermittently treading water to preserve her strength. In the distance, she caught sight of the dock where Reuben kept his beloved boat, and for a painful moment, she wondered if he had painted over the name on the stern, Black-Eyed Beauty, his nickname for her.
Over the cresting foam, she caught a glimpse of a Jet Ski moving slowly, the driver twisting his head around as if he was looking for something.
Not something. Her nerves sizzled.
Someone.
Her.
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 Reviewersâ 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.
He calmed the storm to a whisper and stilled the waves.
âPsalms 107:29
To the brave men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Semper Paratus
Contents
ONE
Something about the man silhouetted on the dock made Antonia Verdeâs body hum with tension. His aviator sunglasses caught the waning Florida sunlight as he peered at his sleek cell phone, his mop of sandy hair tousled around his face by a steady breeze. No different than any other tourist basking in the warmth of a late November afternoon, Antonia told herself, eyeing him from the beach below.
The waves, green-gold and fueled by an approaching storm, slapped at her ankles. The air held a sharp scent of rain, roiling clouds speckling the white sand with shadows. Perhaps it was the threat of inclement weather that made her jumpy. But it was an incoming tropical storm, nothing more, hardly a source of concern for a lifelong Floridian, and sheâd wanted a quick sketch of the agitated surf.
More likely her uneasy feelings were a by-product of what sheâd recently survived. Having just returned from San Francisco, where she was almost buried alive in an earthquake-ravaged opera house, she had a right to be jittery. Not to mention the fact that sheâd had the uncanny feeling sheâd been followed on her way home from the airport by someone in an expensive car. All sheâd seen of him was a flash of an arm through the partially rolled-down window, a split-second glimpse of his face. Who would follow an out-of-work artist driving a beat-up Ford?
Iâm just on edge, thatâs all.
Memories from her disastrous trip needled her. So what if San Francisco had been a catastrophe, netting her no job and no money to help her sister set up a new life away from Miaâs terrible soon-to-be ex-husband. She was alive and ready to find a steady job if it killed her, and nothingâespecially not her own paranoiaâwas going to delay that. Still, she wished she could rewind the afternoon and make a different decision, to choose to linger in the shabby old family home with the cracked tile in the kitchen and the screen door that didnât quite close. There were plenty of flaws in that house, but the biggest of all was that it was simply a house now, not a home. That was what had driven her out to the beach, the solace of waves, the healing salt air.
