“I don’t mean to interrupt your lesson,” he said. “Please, continue what you were doing. Pretend I’m not here.”

“Um, yes.” The teacher cleared her throat. “Students, if you could please open your math books to page two oh three. Complete exercises ten through sixteen. And when you’re finished, we’ll go over the answers.”

As pencils scratched and papers rustled, Jeremiah wandered the classroom. The students were too intimidated to look at him, and they kept their eyes focused on their desktops. The subject was algebra, something that he had never bothered to master. He paused by the desk of the blond lad who had so clearly shown an interest in Katie, and, looking over the boy’s shoulder, he saw the name written on the workbook. Adam McKinnon. A troublemaker who would eventually have to be dealt with.

He moved on to Katie’s desk, where he stopped and watched over her shoulder. Nervously she scribbled an answer, then erased it. A patch of bare neck showed through a parting of her long hair, and the skin flushed a deep red, as though seared by his gaze.

Leaning close, he inhaled her scent, and heat flooded his loins. There was nothing as delicious as the scent of a young girl’s flesh, and this girl’s was the sweetest of all. Through the fabric of her bodice, he could just make out the swell of newly budding breasts.

“Don’t fret too much, dear,” he whispered. “I was never very good at algebra, either.”

She looked up, and the smile she gave him was so enchanting that he was struck speechless. Yes. This girl is definitely the one.

FLOWERS AND RIBBONS draped the pews and cascaded from the soaring beams of the newly built worship hall. There were so many flowers that the room looked like the Garden of Eden itself, fragrant and shimmering. As the morning light beamed in through the ocular windows, two hundred joyous voices sang hymns of praise.