Healing Sands by Nancy Rue & Stephen Arterburn

Author:Nancy Rue & Stephen Arterburn [Rue, Nancy & Arterburn, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Christian, General, ebook
ISBN: 9781595544285
Google: BPbfMwPLlHkC
Amazon: 1595544283
Barnesnoble: 1595544283
Goodreads: 6544593
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

I woke up Sunday with my pillow over my face and my cell phone ringing in my hand. Too groggy to check the ID, I fumbled the cell to my ear and mumbled a hello before my eyes were even open. I was instantly awake when I heard Dan’s voice.

“Ryan, can you get over to county?”

I came off the bed, already scrambling for my jeans. “What’s going on? Did something happen to Jake?”

“He’s okay physically . . .”

“Dan—what?” I clamped my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. Tell me.”

“Evidently he had a rough night. I don’t know any of the details, but they called and said he wants you to come get him.”

I froze with one leg in my jeans and one bent at the knee.

“Can you go?” he said.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Are you coming?”

“No. I’ll drop by your place later and leave his clothes. We’ll have to decide what to do about his school.”

Right. Ginger was not coming to my home to tutor my son.

“We’ll work that out.” I shoved one arm into the sleeve of my leather jacket, still wearing the T-shirt I’d spent the night in. “Do you know what happened? Did someone hurt him?”

“No.” Dan was clearly on the edge of tears. “They just said he told the guard this morning he changed his mind and he’d go with his mother. The guy who called me said he was pretty shaken up.” I could hear him barely holding on.

“Listen, you go, and please—”

“I’m not going to yell at him,” I said.

“I wasn’t going to say that. Just tell him I love him.”

“You can tell him yourself when you come to bring his stuff.”

“I can’t see him, Ryan. I can’t see him and not bring him home.”

“I know the feeling,” I said.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when they released Jake to me. He’d looked thin and vulnerable the day before, but that couldn’t compare to the almost transparent boy who seemed to have lost all muscle mass in the night and shook like a wet Chihuahua. The fear in his eyes was so deep I wasn’t sure he would ever emerge from it.

He said nothing all the way home, and I didn’t press him. I was afraid one word, even a kind one, would shatter him. When we got into the house, he glanced around briefly and said, “Where’s the bathroom? I want to take a shower.” It hit me like a kick in the stomach that he hadn’t been there before.

While he stood under the water until I was sure it had long since turned cold, I built a fire in the kiva and heated a bowl of canned soup and set a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on the table next to the couch. Despite my lack of domesticity, I did everything short of producing a cat curled up on the hearth to make it homey.

Still, when he emerged from the bathroom, face

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