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  PRAISE FOR CHARLES MARTIN

  “Another stellar novel from Martin. His fabulous gift for characterization is evident on each page. Layers of the story are peeled back to show the spiritual truth underneath the gripping plot. This is a reimagining of the prodigal son story from the Bible, and the reader’s faith can’t help but be enriched and encouraged after completing the book. Cooper is an intricate character with an amazing story to tell, and the supporting cast is just as important to provide additional depth and understanding. This novel should be on everyone’s must-purchase list.”

  — RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK! FOR LONG WAY GONE

  “Martin crafts a playful, enticing tale of a modern prodigal son.”

  — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FOR LONG WAY GONE

  “Cooper and Daley’s story will make you believe that even broken instruments have songs to offer when they’re in the right hands. Charles Martin never fails to ask and answer the questions that linger deep within all of us. In this beautifully told story of a prodigal coming home, readers will find the broken and mended pieces of their own hearts.”

  — LISA WINGATE, NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BEFORE WE WERE YOURS ON LONG WAY GONE

  “Long Way Gone takes us to even greater reaches of the heart, as Martin explores the complicated relationship between father and son. He weaves all the pieces of this story together with a beautiful musical thread, and as the final pieces fall into place, we close this story feeling as if we have witnessed something surreal, a multisensory narrative for anyone who enjoys a redemptive story.”

  —JULIE CANTRELL, NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PERENNIALS

  “A beautiful story of redemption and love once lost but found again, Long Way Gone proves two things: music washes us from the inside out and Charles Martin’s words do the same.”

  —BILLY COFFEY, AUTHOR OF STEAL AWAY HOME

  “Martin’s story charges headlong into the sentimental territory and bestseller terrain of The Notebook, which doubtless will mean major studio screen treatment.”

  — KIRKUS (STARRED REVIEW) ON UNWRITTEN

  “Charles Martin understands the power of story and he uses it to alter the souls and lives of both his characters and his readers.”

  —PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “Martin is the new king of the romantic novel . . . A Life Intercepted is a book that will swallow you up and keep you spellbound.”

  —JACKIE K. COOPER, BOOK CRITIC, THE HUFFINGTON POST

  “Martin’s strength is in his memorable characters . . .”

  — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ON CHASING FIREFLIES

  “Charles Martin is changing the face of inspirational fiction one book at a time. Wrapped in Rain is a sentimental tale that is not to be missed.”

  — MICHAEL MORRIS, AUTHOR OF LIVE LIKE YOU WERE DYING AND A PLACE CALLED WIREGRASS

  “Martin spins an engaging story about healing and the triumph of love . . . Filled with delightful local color.”

  — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, FOR WRAPPED IN RAIN

  “Charles Martin writes with the passion and delicacy of a Louisiana sunrise–shades of shepherd’s warning and a promise of thunderbolts before noon.”

  —JOHN DYSON, READER’S DIGEST, FOR WRAPPED IN RAIN

  “[The Dead Don’t Dance is] an absorbing read for fans of faithbased fiction . . . [with] delightfully quirky characters . . . [who] are ingeniously imaginative creations.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  OTHER NOVELS BY CHARLES MARTIN

  Long Way Gone

  Water from My Heart

  A Life Intercepted

  Unwritten

  Thunder and Rain

  The Mountain Between Us

  Where the River Ends

  Chasing Fireflies

  Maggie

  When Crickets Cry

  Wrapped in Rain

  The Dead Don’t Dance

  Send Down the Rain

  © 2018 by Charles Martin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Epub Edition April 2018 9780718084769

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Martin, Charles, 1969- author.

  Title: Send down the rain / Charles Martin.

  Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017044610 | ISBN 9780718084745 (hardback)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A7778 S46 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044610

  Printed in the United States of America

  18 19 20 21 22 LSC 5 4 3 2 1

  For Lonnie

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Charles Martin

  Other Novels by Charles Martin

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.

  — PSALM 84:5

  NOVEMBER 1964

  The breeze tugged at my hair and cooled my skin. The waves rolled up and rinsed my heels and calves. Seashells crunched beneath my bathing suit. The air tasted salty. Shirtless and tanned, I lay on my back, propped on my elbows, a pencil in one hand, a small piece of paper in the other. The paper was thick. Almost card stock. I’d torn it out of the back of a book. An amber sun was setting between my big t
oe and my second toe, turning from flame orange to blood red and slowly sliding down behind the ball of my foot and the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. I busied the pencil to capture the image, my hands giving my mind the space it needed.

  I heard someone coming, and then Bobby sat down beside me. Cross-legged. He wiped his forearm across his nose, smearing snot across a tearstained face. In his arms he cradled a jug of milk and a package of Oreos. Our favorite comfort food. He set them gingerly between us.

  I was nine. Bobby was two years older.

  We could hear Momma crying in the house behind us. The sun disappeared, and the breeze turned cooler.

  Bobby’s lip was trembling. “Daddy . . . He . . . he left.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  Bobby dug his hand into the package, shoved a cookie into his mouth, and shook his head.

  The sound of a plate shattering echoed out of the kitchen.

  “When’s he coming back?”

  Another cookie. Another crash from the kitchen. Another shake of the head.

  “What’s Momma doing?”

  He squinted one eye and stared over his shoulder. “Sounds like the dishes.”

  When they got married, Daddy gave Momma a set of china. MADE IN BAVARIA was stamped on the back of each piece. She displayed them in the cabinet. Locked behind the glass. We weren’t allowed to touch them. Ever. Evidently she was smashing them piece by piece against the kitchen sink.

  “Did Daddy say anything?”

  Bobby dug his hand back into the package and began skimming Oreos out across the waves. They flew through the air like tiny Frisbees. A final shake of the head. He unscrewed the milk jug top and held it to his mouth. Two more plates hit the sink.

  Bobby was trembling. His voice cracked. “He packed a bunch of stuff. Most everything.”

  Waves rolled up and over our feet. “What about that . . . other woman?”

  He passed me the carton. His words were hard in coming and separated by pain. “Brother, I don’t . . .”

  I took a drink, and the milk dripped off my chin. He flicked another Frisbee. I sank my hand in the package, stuck a cookie in my mouth, and then threw several like Bobby. The little chocolate discs intersected each other like hummingbirds.

  Behind us Momma wailed. Another plate hit the kitchen sink. Followed by another. Then another. The change in sound suggested she’d made her way through all the plates and moved on to the cups and saucers. The cacophony echoing from the kitchen kept rhythm with the irregular drumbeat of our own shattering fragility. I glanced over my shoulder but could find no safe purchase.

  Tears puddled in the corners of Bobby’s eyes. His lip was quivering. When Momma screamed and had a tough time catching her breath, the tears broke loose.

  I tucked the pencil behind my ear and held my sunset sketch at eye level, where the wind caught it like a kite. Imprisoned between my fingers, the paper flapped. When I unlocked the prison door, the crude drawing butterfly-danced down the beach and landed in the waves. I glanced behind me. “We better go check on her.”

  Bobby pushed his forearm across his lips and nose, smearing his face and arm. His hair had fallen down over his eyes. Like mine, it was bleached blond from saltwater and sunlight. I stood and offered him my hand. He accepted it and I pulled him up. The sun had nearly disappeared now, and cast long shadows on the house. Where our world lay in pieces around us like the ten billion shells at our feet.

  Bobby stared at the road down which Dad had disappeared. A thin trail of whitish-blue exhaust was all that remained of his wake. “He said some . . .” He sucked in, shuddered, and tried to shake off the sob he’d been holding back. “Real hard things.”

  I put my arm around his shoulder, and his sob broke loose. We stood on the beach, alone. Fatherless. Empty and angry.

  I made a fist, crushing a cookie. Grinding it to powder. When the pieces spilled out between my fingers onto the beach, a physical and very real pain pierced my chest.

  Fifty-three years later, it would stop.

  1

  PRESENT DAY

  Witnesses say the phone call occurred around seven p.m. and the exchange was heated. While the man seated at the truck stop diner was calm and his voice low, the woman’s voice on the other end was not. Though unseen, she was screaming loudly, and stuff could be heard breaking in the background. Seven of the nine people in the diner, including the waitress, say Jake Gibson made several attempts to reason with her, but she cut him off at every turn. He would listen, nod, adjust his oiled ball cap, and try to get a word in edgewise.

  “Allie . . . Baby, I know, but . . . If you’ll just let me . . . I’m sorry, but . . . I’ve been driving for forty-two hours . . . I’m . . .” He rubbed his face and eyes. “Dead on my feet.” A minute or two passed while he hunkered over the phone, trying to muffle the sound of her incoherent babbling. “I know it’s a big deal and you’ve put a lot of work into . . .” Another pause. More nodding. Another rub of his eyes. “Invitations . . . decorations . . . lights. Yes, I remember how much you paid for the band. But . . .” At this point, he took off his hat and rubbed his bald head. “I got rerouted at Flagstaff and it just plain took the starch out of me.” He closed his eyes. “Baby, I just can’t get there. Not tonight. I’ll cook you some eggs in the morn—”

  It was more of the same. Nothing had changed.

  Allie Gibson wasn’t listening anyway. She was screaming. At the top of her lungs. With their marriage on the rocks, they’d taken a “break.” Six months. He moved out, living in the cab of his truck. Crisscrossing the country. But the time and distance had been good for them. She’d softened. Lost weight. Pilates. Bought new lingerie. To remind him. This was to be both his birthday and welcome home party. Along with a little let’s-start-over thrown in.

  The diner was small, and Jake grew more embarrassed. He held the phone away from his ear, waiting for her to finish. Allie was his first marriage. Ten years in and counting. He was her second. Her neighbors had tried to warn him. They spoke in hushed tones. “The other guy left for a reason.” The inflection of their voice emphasized the word reason.

  Jake didn’t get to tell her good-bye. She spewed one last volley of venom and slammed the phone into the cradle. When the phone fell quiet, he sat awkwardly waiting. Wondering if she would pick back up. She did not. The waitress appeared with a pot of coffee and a hungry eye. He wasn’t bad looking. Not really a tall drink of water, but she’d seen worse. Far worse. The kindness in his face was inviting, and judging by the appearance of his boots and hands, he didn’t mind hard work. She’d take Allie’s place in a heartbeat.

  “More coffee, baby?” She said coffee like caw-fee. Before he could speak, the obnoxious beeping sounded from the phone’s earpiece, telling him Allie had hung up a while ago. Furthering his embarrassment. He whispered to anyone who would listen, “I’m sorry,” then stood, reached over the counter, hung up the phone, and quietly thanked the waitress.

  Leaving his steak uneaten, he refilled his coffee thermos, left a twenty on the table to pay his seven-dollar bill, and slipped out quietly, tipping his hat to an older couple who’d just walked in. He walked out accompanied by the signature tap of his walking cane on concrete—a shrapnel wound that had never healed.

  He gassed up his truck and paid for his diesel at the register, along with four packs of NoDoz, then went into the restroom and splashed cold water on his face. The police, watching the diner video surveillance some forty-eight hours later, would watch in silence as Jake did twenty jumping jacks and just as many push-ups before he climbed up into his cab. In the last two and a half days, he had driven from Arizona to Texas and finally to Mississippi, where he’d picked up a tanker of fuel en route to Miami. He had tried to make it home for his sixtieth birthday party, but his body just gave out. Each eyelid weighed a thousand pounds. With little more than a hundred miles to go, he’d called to tell Allie that he’d already fallen asleep twice and he was sorry he couldn’t push through.

  She had
not taken the news well.

  He eyed the motel but her echo was still ringing. He knew his absence would sting her.

  So amiable Jake Gibson climbed up and put the hammer down. It would be his last time.

  Jake made his way south to Highway 98. Hugged the coastline, eventually passing through Mexico Beach en route to Apalachicola.

  At Highway 30E he turned west. Seven miles to the cradle of Allie’s arms. He wound up the eighteen-wheeler and shifted through each of the ten gears. Though he’d driven the road hundreds of times, no one really knows why he was going so fast or why he ignored the flashing yellow lights and seven sets of speed ripples across the narrow road. Anyone with his experience knew that a rig going that fast with that much mass and inertia could never make the turn. State highway patrol estimated the tanker was traveling in excess of a hundred and ten when 30E made its hard right heading north. It is here, at the narrowest point of the peninsula, where the road comes closest to the ocean. To separate the two, highway crews had amassed mounds of Volkswagen-sized granite rocks just to the left of the highway. Hundreds of boulders, each weighing several tons, stacked at jagged angles, one on top of another, stood thirty feet wide and some twenty feet high. An impenetrable wall to prevent the Gulf from encroaching on the road and those on the road from venturing into the ocean. “The rocks” was a favorite locale for lovers sipping wine. Hand in hand they’d scale the boulders and perch with the pelicans while the sun dropped off the side of the earth and bled crimson into the Gulf.

  The Great Wall of Cape San Blas had survived many a hurricane and hundreds of thousands of tourists walking its beach.

  NO ONE REALLY KNOWS when Jake Gibson fell asleep. Only that he did. Just before ten p.m. the Peterbilt T-boned the wall, pile-driving the nose of the rig into the rocks with all the steam and energy of the Titanic. When the rocks ripped open the tanker just a few feet behind Jake, the explosion was heard and felt thirty miles away in Apalachicola, and the flash was seen as far away as Tallahassee—a hundred miles distant. Alarms sounded and fire crews and law enforcement personnel were dispatched, but given the heat they were relegated to shutting down the highway from eight football fields away. No one in or out. All they could do was watch it burn.