Healing Sands (53 page)

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An Excerpt from
Healing Waters
CHAPTER ONE

I
had done everything on my list. Everything but the last item. Neat black checks marked the first five to-dos:

paint bathroom

put last layer on torte

redo makeup

call modeling agency—say NO

shave legs

Before the traffic moved again and I made the turn into tiny Northeast Airport, I put a second check beside number five. I'd shaved twice. Chip liked my legs hairless as a fresh pear. Not that I expected him to be interested in them or in any other part of my ample anatomy, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared for a miracle. In truth, I'd probably broken out the razor again just to procrastinate— because I wasn't sure I could do the sixth thing on the list.

I snatched the paper from the seat next to me and folded it one-handed as I pulled up to the gate marked
EXECUTIVE AIRPORT
PARKING
. I was still trying to stuff the thing into my purse when an attendant marinating in boredom slid open the window in the booth. She drew sparse eyebrows together and mouthed something I couldn't hear. Of course. My car window was still up.

I pushed the button and felt like I'd just opened an oven door. As the aroma of jet fuel joined the July heat, the makeup melted from my face.

“Help you?” the woman said.

“I'm meeting my sister's private jet,” I said.

“Name.”

“Lucia Coffey. Oh—did you want my name or hers?”

“Don't need your name.”

Staring vacantly at some point beyond me, she smeared her wrist across her forehead and produced a damp cuff. My mascara gathered in puddles at the corners of my eyes. I didn't even want to think about the damage in my armpits.

The woman shifted her gaze to a computer screen. “Who's it you're meeting?”

“Sonia Cabot,” I said. “Abundant Living Ministries?”

The attendant's colorless eyes met mine for the first time. “She that woman on TV? Does the show for people got somebody dyin'?”

I gave my watch a surreptitious glance. I would be the one dying if I had to run from the car to the terminal to meet them on time. Just sitting there I was already dissolving like a pat of butter in a skillet.

“She's your sister?”

I looked up, unsurprised at the sudden interest on Apathy Woman's face. The tinge of suspicion didn't shock me either. I waited for the usual next question:
Are you sure?
To be punctuated with:
You don't look anything like her.

I was tempted to save her the trouble and say,
Sonia's adopted,
which wasn't true. Or,
Usually I look more like her than this, but I'm pregnant,
which wasn't true either. The bulge hanging over the elastic in my pants resulted from pure mashed potatoes and gravy.

“Where do I park?” I said instead.

She perused the clipboard and, the epitome of servanthood now, pointed. “Just to the left of that building. Door's on the end. You better hurry. Plane's due in about five minutes.”

I resisted blurting out a
No kidding?

She knew who Sonia was, which meant I should be careful not to smudge the image. Besides, as I headed for the small, unimpressive terminal building, I had other things to deal with. Like the fact that my hands were now sliding off the steering wheel and my face felt like I'd baked it in the aforementioned oven.

When I parked, a glance in the rearview mirror confirmed it. My cheeks were the color of a pair of tomatoes. I pawed in my purse for Kleenex, found none, and grabbed the list. I tamped it against my forehead, my vine-ripened cheeks, my neck, and then viewed the half bottle of L'Oreal foundation I'd spread on them so carefully just an hour before. So much for the 'do as well. Dark curls, the only thing on me that I
wanted
to be plump, had flattened to my head in strips.

A jet taxied in already, white and sleek, the sun glinting from it like an insult as it made a ninety-degree turn to come perpendicular to the terminal.

The hair was hopeless. Ditto for the sweat situation. My black tunic, permanently glued to the Spandex shaper beneath, cooked my skin and did little to keep the fat under control. I dabbed at my raccoon eyes with my fingers, wiped them on my black pants, and climbed out of my PT Cruiser.

The list dropped at my feet and I would have abandoned it, except that all I needed was for Sonia or someone from her entourage to see it when we got back to the car. Especially the last entry:

• tell Sonia I want my husband back

About the Authors

N
ancy Rue
is the best-selling author of books for teens and adults, including the Christian Heritage series and the Lily series. Nancy has been an English teacher, a public speaker, and a contributor to several publications. Her books have sold more than a million copies. She and her husband, Jim, live in Tennessee.

S
tephen Arterburn
is the founder and chairman of New Life Ministries, the nation's largest faith-based broadcast, counseling, and treatment ministry, and the host of the nationally syndicated
New Life Live!
daily radio program heard on more than 140 radio stations nationwide—including Sirius and satellite radio. Steve is also the founder of Women of Faith® conferences and has written over seventy books, including the best-selling Every Man's series.