Abducted

ON THE RUN

When the high school sweetheart she never expected to see again bursts through the door of her medical mission clinic, nurse Sarah Gallagher can’t hold back her shock. But Dominic Jett isn’t there to catch up. He’s trying to save a life, and the thugs on his tail will stop at nothing to catch him. Now abducted and imprisoned on a remote island, Sarah and Jett become pawns in a tug-of-war between a powerful drug lord and a devious madman. And their only chance for survival is working together to find the valuable painting the dangerous men are searching for. But with someone trying to kill them at every turn, can they locate it in time to keep their reunion from turning fatal?

“Who is out there?” Sarah whispered.

“I can make out two men. Three maybe.”

“The police?” Her heart leaped as she sawed away at the bands around his ankle. “Rodriguez must have figured out what happened and sent help.”

Jett stared into the sunlight. “Uh-uh.”

Sarah worked frantically with the blade, freeing his ankles. “Jett, what are you thinking? Who are those men?”

“EODs have a motto,” he said slowly. “Always prepare for the worst.”

“How could this situation get any worse?”

Jett put his bound hands on her shoulder and held on, as if he could somehow anchor her there away from the danger. She reached for his hands to try to release them from the zip tie. “Jett?” she asked frantically. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got that feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“The kind of feeling I get right before something blows up.”

DANA MENTINK is an award-winning author of Christian fiction. Her novel Betrayal in the Badlands won a 2010 RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award, and she was pleased to win the 2013 Carol Award for Lost Legacy. She has authored more than a dozen Love Inspired Suspense novels. Dana loves feedback from her readers. Contact her via her website at danamentink.com.

Abducted

Dana Mentink

www.millsandboon.co.uk

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

—John 16:33

To Laurie, Shelley and Lindsay, those darling three that have my back and fill my life with the kind of love that only sisters can give.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Sarah Gallagher stood frozen in shock as Dominic Jett lurched through the clinic door, a limp body draped over his shoulder. The hot Mexican sun etched his bleeding face in golden fire. Why was he here in her clinic? She must be seeing things.

Peering at Sarah through swollen eyes, Jett sighed. “I really hate hospitals.” His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, letting his burden slide to the floor. His collapse finally jerked Sarah from her frozen shock.

She ran to the men, Juanita two steps behind her. Juanita called for their teenage helper to summon her father, the doctor, from the next village. Somehow she and Juanita wrestled the two men onto cots. It was a harder job with Jett, who was six feet five inches of ornery muscle and bone. He might not be in the navy anymore, but he kept his fighting trim. Sarah examined him, pleased to see his eyelids flicker open, revealing the chocolate-brown eyes that haunted her dreams, now hazed with pain. As they slowly opened, she recalled being lost in those eyes, her high school sweetheart, her everything. She blinked away the memory. “Can you tell me your name?” she asked.

“George Washington,” he said, pushing her hands away. “I’m okay. Stop poking me.”

Typical. He was the same stubborn, reckless man she’d known since they’d gone steady nine years before, except...different, as if the soul inside him had hardened into granite. She’d heard a rumor that he was working on a dive boat near the health clinic where she was completing her last medical mission, but she hadn’t believed it. “Just hold still and let me check your pupils at least. What happened? Did you say the wrong thing to the wrong guy again?”

“For your information, I saved that scrawny dude over there from the three men trying to beat him senseless. I was trying to be a do-gooder, like you.” His tone dripped with sarcasm. “See where that got me?”

She would not rise to take the bait, not now. Instead she pressed a wad of cotton to the cut on his forehead, her fingers grazing the strong bones of his cheek. He winced.

“Sorry,” she said, her stomach tightening at the intensity in his eyes. “Hold this while I get some disinfectant,” she commanded, pressing his fingers to the cotton, trying not to let the feel of his hand distract her. “Did you get hit on the head?” A blow on top of the injury she knew he’d sustained in his navy service could prove deadly.

His eyes narrowed, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Just help him. I’m okay.”