“I’m famished.” Jill Pruitt bit into the Big Mac her colleague had carried in from the fast-food strip near the high school. “Mmm. Hey, pass the fries.”

      “Fries? Jill, I’m surprised at you!” Marianne laughed. “I thought you were strictly a broccoli-and-turnip-greens girl.”

      “I can go for the occasional lard-soaked French fry,” Jill said, giving the math teacher a sly grin. Jill’s fellow instructors at Artesia High School knew all about her dedication to famine relief and her interest in computers and technology. But there was a lot they didn’t know, and she enjoyed throwing them off-kilter once in a while.

      She scanned the row of grades in her ledger, enjoying the symmetry of the numbers. “You realize most of what we’re eating in these burgers was grown outside the United States,” she spoke up. “Including the beef.”

      “Not again, Jill. Could we just finish figuring these midterm grades and go home? It’s Thursday. My favorite show is on tonight, and I refuse to miss it.”

      Jill took another fry. “When you grill a burger, the only part that’s American is the fat that drips onto the coals. The rest comes from who-knows where.”

      “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You told me before.” Marianne sipped a soda as she punched grades into her calculator. “You won’t be eating any burgers when you get to Pakistan, you know. Holy cows, and all that.”

      “Pakistanis are Muslims, girl. It’s Hindus who don’t eat beef.”

      “Whatever. So when do you leave? Aren’t you going to take a break after school lets out?”

      “A week, and then I’m outta here.” Jill thought about her battered old suitcase—already packed with cool cotton dresses and a pair of sandals. Unmarried at thirty-six—a long-term relationship had ended the year before—she had set aside her longing for a husband and children to concentrate on other interests. Seven years ago a short mission trip to Honduras had lit a fire inside her. She had seen poverty, hunger, homelessness. She had felt the suffering of the people.

      From then on, her life had been different. Everything became centered on obeying Christ—on putting her faith in action. The coming trip to Pakistan particularly excited her. As a volunteer with the International Federation for Environmental and Economic Development, she would go to the very heart of the country’s most desperate area. She had renewed her passport, gotten her vaccinations, and was champing at the bit to get on with the adventure.

      “I’m so pumped about this trip, Marianne,” she said. “I can hardly wait. Six weeks in Pakistan! I’ll be right across the border from Afghanistan. Can you imagine?”

      “You couldn’t pay me enough to go there. I can’t believe you spend your hard-earned salary to volunteer in places like that. I admire your dedication, Jill, but frankly, I’d be too scared.”

      “I love it. Did I tell you a group of my computer tech kids signed up to take care of my garden the whole time I’m away? They are so good. It’s like they’re doing their part, you know?”

      Jill tucked a blond corkscrew curl behind her ear and frowned at a row of grades. Matthew Strong was falling behind in website design class again. Matt had so much raw talent, but he typically failed to turn in several assignments each term. She had watched this pattern for two years, and she worried that this time he might bottom out altogether.

      “Have you ever had Matthew Strong in class?” she asked Marianne.

      “I’ve got him in trig right now. Weird kid. But brilliant. He could do anything he wanted—if he’d bother to turn in his homework.”

      “Same thing with me. I hope he hangs in till the end of the year.”

      “Did you hear about his ACT score? Good grief, he could go to MIT today if he wanted. A couple of college recruiters showed up at my classroom this afternoon to talk with him, and he never came back. So there goes another homework assignment.”

      “Matt’s only a sophomore, for goodness’ sake.” Jill took another bite of her burger. “These colleges need to back off and let him be a normal teenager.”

      “Matthew Strong will never be a normal teenager.”

      “If his father paid more attention to him, he might learn some social skills. His mom died of cancer, you know. The dad is hardly ever around.”

      “Lots of kids have absentee parents, but they don’t turn out like Matt. What about that tie he wears all the time?”

      Jill tucked the ringlet behind her ear for the hundredth time that hour. Even as she reached for one last fry, the curl popped back out and bounced around her chin. “It’s just Matt’s style, I guess.”

      “Style? That tie is gross beyond belief.” Marianne snapped her grade book shut. “Done! I’m taking off. You’ll be okay here, I guess.”

      “No problem. I’m almost through.”

      As Marianne grabbed her purse, she paused near Jill’s chair and leaned down. “Uh-oh. Speak of the devil,” she murmured. “I hope this is for you, Miss Pruitt, because I’m gone.”

      Jill swung around to see a tall, broad-shouldered man step into the classroom. His chambray shirt and faded denim jeans complemented dusty cowboy boots and an old leather belt. He took off his hat to reveal a thatch of short, spiky, brown hair, and he was looking at her with a pair of blue eyes that could belong to only one man.

      “Matthew Strong’s father.” She stood and thrust out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

      “Cole Strong.” His grip was firm, his palm callused. A working man.

      “I’m Jill Pruitt, computer ed. And that was Marianne Weston, Matt’s trig teacher. You’d better run if you want to catch her.”

      “You’ll do,” he said. The blue eyes bored into her. “I’m looking for my boy. Seen him today?”

      “He was in my class this morning. Why?”

      “He didn’t come home after school. Billy Younger tells me Matt likes to stay late and talk to you.”

      Jill sensed a thread of suspicion in the man’s voice. “He drops by between classes or at lunch. He’s been working on a term paper—”

      “Food, yeah, I know. Billy says you fired him up on it.”

      “I mentioned my work with hunger relief. Matt was interested, so we discussed it. I gave him some names and addresses to use as sources. Have you checked with Jim Banyon out at Hope? He—”

      “Matt’s not there.” Cole turned his hat in his hands. “Billy says he got crossways