More Than Words: Stories of Hope by Diana Palmer, Catherine Mann, Kasey Michaels

beginning to wonder that, myself,” Mary had to admit. She smiled shyly at him. “This is just the first load. There are two more in the truck, at least, and the other volunteers will be along soon with even more.”
    “Where do all these go?” Matt asked.
    “There’s a list,” Sam volunteered as he joined them, grinning, with an armload of food. “How’s it going, Matt?”
    “Fair to middling, Sam,” came the reply. The two men smiled and shook hands, and then Sam went back to collect some more food packs.
    “You know each other?” Mary asked Matt curiously, in a low voice.
    “Before he retired, Sam worked for the city as a building inspector,” Matt told her. “I had to rescue him from an irate client once. We had a beer together and discovered we had a lot in common. We were having lunch once a month until Sam’s bad luck.” Matt shook his head. “Pity about what happened to him. I remember a time when ethics were the most important part of business. Now it seems to be that only the corrupt prosper.”
    “I know what you mean,” Mary agreed. “It’s nice of you. Helping us make the deliveries, I mean.”
    He smiled at her. “It isn’t as if I have a hectic social life. Mostly I work.”
    “Same here!” she laughed.
    He hesitated, his dark eyes quiet and searching. “You’re an amazing person,” he commented quietly. “Most people would be thinking about themselves in your position, not about helping others.”
    “I wasn’t always like this,” she said. “I can remember a time when I was afraid of street people. It makes me a little ashamed.”
    “All of us have to learn about the world, Mary,” he said gently. “We’re not born knowing how hard life can be for unfortunate people. For instance, Sam there—” he nodded toward the elderly man “—was a decorated hero in Vietnam. He’s had a bad shake all the way around. His wife left him while he was overseas and took their daughter with her. They were both killed in a car wreck the week after Sam got home from the war. He remarried, and his second wife died of cancer. Now, his retirement’s gone with his thieving nephew, after he worked like a dog to become self-sufficient. The nephew was only related to him by marriage, which makes it even worse.” He shook his head. “Some people get a bad shake all around. And Sam’s a good man.”
    “I noticed that,” she said. “He’s proud, too.”
    “That’s the problem that keeps so many people out of the very social programs that would help them,” he said philosophically. “Pride. Some people are too proud to even ask for help. Those are the ones who fall into the cracks. People like Sam. He could get assistance, God knows he’d qualify. But he’s too proud to admit that he needs relief.”
    She smoothed over a food package. “Is there any way we could help him?”
    He grinned. “I’m working on something. Let you know when I have any good ideas, okay?”
    She grinned back. “Okay.”
    Sam returned with four more big containers of food. “Been talking about me behind my back, I guess?” he asked them.
    “We don’t know that many interesting people, Sam,” Matt pointed out.
    Sam shrugged, shook his head and went back inside with the packages.
     
    Matt drove the truck, giving Mary a brief rest. It had been an especially long day, because one of her employers wanted to take down and wash and press all the heavy curtains in the house. It had been a backbreaking job, although the house certainly looked better afterward. Bob and Ann had stayed after school for their individual sports programs. The extracurricular activities were important to them and Mary was going to make sure that they had as normal a life as possible, even with all the complications of the moment.
    “Where are the kids?” Matt asked, as if he’d sensed her thoughts.
    “At sports and band practice,” she said. “I arranged rides for them back to the motel, and the manager’s promised to keep an