Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Nancy Rue has written over 100 books for girls, is the editor of the Faithgirlz Bible, and is a popular speaker and radio guest with her expertise in tween and teen issues. She and husband, Jim, have raised a daughter of their own and now live in Tennessee.

Stephen Arterburn is a New York Times bestselling author with more than eight million books in print. He most recently toured with Women of Faith, which he founded in 1995. Arterburn founded New Life Treatment Centers as a company providing Christian counseling and treatment in secular psychiatric hospitals. He also began “New Life Ministries”, producing the number-one Christian counseling radio talk show, New Life Live, with an audience of more than three million. He and his wife Misty live near Indianapolis.

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Healing sands

Thomas Nelson

Chapter One

That particular hour it was a waste-of-time photo shoot. I told my editor at the Sun-News that before I even pulled away from the movie set at White Sands. I was still ranting about it into my Bluetooth as I pulled out onto Highway 70 and headed across the Chihuahuan Desert toward Las Cruces, straight into the eyeball-searing sun.

"Why anybody wants to make a film in the middle of a gypsum dune field is beyond me," I said. "Two hundred and seventy-five miles of nothing but white."

"I know shooting there in the middle of the day is a nightmare," Frances said. "I thought they were going to let you take inside shots of rehearsal."

"Evidently, `they' didn't know what they were talking about. Or they just said that to get us there, with no intention of giving me access to the set."

I took a long drag out of my water bottle and attempted to stick it back into its holder on the console. I missed and the thing tipped over, still open, onto the floor on the passenger side. Right into my unzipped camera bag.

"So-what happened?"

"After they discussed it to death," I said, "they finally decided I could interview Darnell Pellington."

"Who?"

"Exactly." I kept my eyes on the highway and groped on the floor to retrieve the bottle. "He's one of the co-stars."

"You were supposed to get-"

"I know, okay? I wasn't going to break out the 400 and do the paparazzi thing."

The typing stopped, and Frances sighed into the phone. "So what did you get?"

"Ten minutes in Darnell's trailer while Ken interviewed him. In light so low all the people tromping through needed miners' helmets to see where they were going."

"So you're telling me it was a bust."

I finally got my hand on the water bottle and fished it out of my bag, empty. "Look, I'll send you what I got as soon as I can get Internet access. There's probably something salvageable."

Frances gave me the short grunt she delivered when she could take the time to laugh. "I'm sure it's more than just salvageable. Anyway, no big deal. It's just a secondary story."

Oh. That made me feel infinitely better. I abandoned my attempt to assess the damage to my camera and focused ahead on San Augustin Pass, rendered invisible by the afternoon sun on my Saab's dirty windshield.

"At least you got to see White Sands," Frances said. "That your first time?"

"Yeah," I said. And hopefully my last. Everyone had raved to me about the mile upon mile of pure white sand in the middle of a New Mexico desert, its unique beauty, blah blah blah. Personally, if you've seen one sand dune devoid of vegetation, you've seen them all. I'd been too busy crawling around with a light meter on the floor of what could have passed as a FEMA trailer; I couldn't exactly appreciate the splendor. Besides, the silence out there made me nuts.

"Well, sorry about the assignment," Frances said. "You're on till three?"

"Yeah. I'm headed back to the paper now."

"I'll see what else I can come up with."

That was Frances Taylor's version of good-bye. I climbed the pass and fumed.

If she gave me another city official's daughter's wedding or the fiftieth fiesta of the year, I was going to have an embolism. I'd lost count of how many times in the last six weeks I had questioned the wisdom of taking this job instead of ...

There was no instead of. Photography was all I knew, and I was lucky to get a position when most newspapers were downsizing. It wasn't the kind of photojournalism I was used to, but it served my only purpose: to be close to my boys.

The Saab chugged over the pass that cut through the gargoyle peaks of the Organ Mountains. As I began the drop into the Mesilla Valley, I punched in Dan's number. I was in a borderline foul frame of mind already. What better time to call my ex-husband?

"What's up?" he said, in lieu of hello.

The hair on the back of my neck, I wanted to say.

"I thought I'd come by and see the boys when I get off work at three."

His silence was long and, in my view, calculated to set my teeth on edge.

"Alex will be here," he said finally. "He'd probably like to see you."

"Which means you don't think Jake would."

"Did I say that?"

"You didn't have to."

I could imagine Dan running the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe out me as much as the dust of whatever thing he was creating. I knew he wasn't smearing off sweat, despite the eighty-five-degree September heat. Dan Coe never got worked up enough to perspire.

"Look," I said, "how is Jake going to get past this thing he has about me if we don't spend any time together?"

"I can't force him."

"He's fifteen-you're thirty-nine. Who's the grown-up here?"

"So I make him see you. You think that guarantees he's going to talk to you?"

"If he doesn't see me, that's going to guarantee that he won't."

"I wish you'd just give him some time. Wait him out."

I squeezed the steering wheel. That was Dan's solution to everything. You're going broke? Give it time. You see that your marriage is disintegrating? Wait and see.

"I think it's a good idea for you to see Alex today, though," Dan said. "He starts soccer practice after school tomorrow, so a lot of his free time'll be taken up after today."

"He's playing soccer?" I tried to imagine my sprite of a ten-year-old doing anything athletic. All I could conjure up were his wiry arms and legs and his enormous brown eyes. And the charm-your-Nikes-off smile I missed. So much.

"He played last year too," Dan said. "He's good. So is Jake."

The message was clear: if I had been around for the last twelve months, I would have known my boys played soccer, and now loved tamales, and ...

"Look, I've got to get back to work," Dan said. "You want me to tell Alex you'll be by?"

"Tell him I'll take him out for Chinese. Jake too."

"They hate Chinese," Dan said.

I bit back a Since when? I knew the answer. Since I'd left their father and they'd chosen to live with him. Since I had become mama non grata.

My phone beeped. "I have another call coming in," I said. "I'll be there around three thirty."

It was Frances.

"Okay-get over to Third Street," she said. Her tone brought me up in my seat. "It's in about the worst zip code in the city, but-"

"What's going on?"

"A Hispanic kid was mowed down by a white guy in a pickup truck-looks like it might have been a hate crime. If that's the case, it could be A-1, three-column, possibly four, so shoot looser than you would otherwise."

"I'm on it," I said.

"You know where it is?"

"Yeah," I lied and veered into the parking lot of an abandoned pottery shop. "I can get there in ten."

When she hung up, I punched the address into the GPS I'd dubbed Perdita, which means "lost." Frances had a tendency to make assignments sound bigger than they were, probably because nothing much happened in a city whose marketing hook was "One of America's Top 100 Retirement Towns." My six months in Africa had made me something of a cynic about what we Americans consider...