The Minefield

From the back cover

When his wife Sarah and daughter Lily wander into an abandoned minefield on the back hills, Jake Miller is the only man in town with the skills to defuse the military-grade mines. The emergency broadcast summons him; his neighbours drag him from a poker game and push him toward the barbed wire, where Lily screams for him to save them.

But Jake veers off toward a small white mouse caught in a tripwire. He frees the animal with his one-use kit, then shrugs off Sarah's pleas, Lily's kneeling, and the town's fury, dealing himself another hand of cards while the two bleeding women beg. When a neighbour finally offers old army supplies, Jake assembles the last detector, smiles, and hurls it over the cliff.

Now the town turns on the man they once called chief, and Sarah and Lily are left with nothing.