Erica Spindler - Cause for Alarm

Now, on Monday, after having read their profiles a hundred times, she realized she had found so much more than just a couple to adopt her baby. The man she had been waiting for all her life. The one she was meant to be with.

Julianna drew in a ragged breath, struggling to get ahold of her runaway thoughts, denying them even as she was drawn back to his words, ones she knew now by heart.

We met at the university. She was so alive, so bright and eager and smart. I looked at her and saw the future in her eyes. My future.

What had John seen when he'd looked into her eyes? A child who needed protecting? An innocent who could be molded to his liking? Julianna swallowed hard. What had anybody ever seen in her eyes?

At the answer, the tears welled and spilled over, trickling slowly down her cheeks. Her mother had treated her like one of her expensive accessories, no different than a Hermés scarf or Gucci handbag. John, too, had had a narrow space for her in his life. And although he had professed to love her and had treated her well, he had wanted her to conform to that space and fill no other.

She wanted more now. She wanted what Kate had.

Angry, Julianna swiped at her cheeks and lowered her gaze again to the profile on her lap. She read about Richard's childhood and family, his dreams and aspirations. He shared his hopes for the future; his views on love, marriage and parenting.

She turned the last page, realizing only then that she was trembling. His words were her thoughts. Her hopes and dreams and prayers. This man, though they had never met, had reached into her head and heart, touching her in a way no one ever had.

It was as if he knew her. As if they were connected somehow, one person separated by time and fate.

Brought back together by the same.

Richard. And Julianna.

She tested his name on her tongue, saying it aloud, mating it with her own. Their names sounded…right together. They felt right together. As she said them, repeating them over and over, it was as if a bell went off in her head, a sort of chime, ringing out the beginning of her life. The real beginning, one that had nothing to do with her physical birth. Nothing to do with her past.

She was new now. Reborn. All the pieces had fallen into place. It all made sense. This was why she had gotten pregnant. Why John had driven her away. This was what every event of her life had led her to.

She believed in fate. In destiny. She had found hers.

Richard. And Julianna.

Julianna laid the profile aside and picked up its accompanying photo album. She ran her fingers over the embossed leather cover, heart beating uncomfortably fast, almost afraid to open it, though she didn't know why.

Perhaps because what she was feeling was so potent, so new and frightening. Perhaps because of the feeling in the pit of her gut-that she had just run headlong into her future.

Her future. Theirs. Richard and Julianna's.

With trembling fingers, Julianna opened the photo album. She went from one page to the next, turning them almost reverently, breathless at the enormity of what was transpiring, how her life was changing.

He was as she had pictured him through his words. Tall and dark-haired, with broad shoulders and an enticing, boyish smile. He looked strong and confident. A man a woman could lean on. One who loved deeply, passionately.

The man she had been waiting for.

Richard and Julianna.

And Kate. A problem.

Julianna drew her eyebrows together. She bore the woman no ill will. How could she? After all, she was a part of this, too, one of the pieces that had drawn them all together. If not for Kate's desire for a child, how would Julianna have found Richard?

Julianna skimmed her gaze from one photo in the album to the next, reading the accompanying inscription. Richard and Kate skiing in Aspen. Sailing on Lake Pontchartrain. Vacationing in the Tropics. Arms around each other. Smiling and gazing into one another's eyes.

Julianna stared at the photos, a knot in her throat. Kate wasn't gorgeous. She wasn't even beautiful, not really. But she looked smart. She looked classy. Not like a little girl. Not dependent. Not an over-sexed glamazon.

She touched one of the photographs, stroking her finger over Kate's glossy image. Kate was someone a man like Richard would fall in love with, she thought. Someone who would be this man's lover and partner.

Someone who deserved all the good things that had come to her.

Julianna frowned. At the tug of jealousy she felt. At the pang of insecurity.

She shook the emotions off. Those wouldn't do. She was prettier than Kate, younger and sexier. Class could be acquired, education feigned.

If she chose, she could be everything Kate was, have everything Kate had.

If she chose.

Julianna returned her attention to the album, to the photos of Richard and Kate. As she gazed at them, Kate disappeared and Julianna became the woman on Richard's arm, the woman he looked at with such love. The one to whom all the good things had come.

Yes, she thought. She chose to become the woman Kate was. To have what she had; to live her life.

All she had to do was make it happen.

The Saturday morning crowd at The Uncommon Bean consisted almost exclusively of college students and singles. The former came to visit with friends or to study, the latter to meet other singles, a healthy alternative to the bar scene.

This was the double-cappuccino, café-mocha crowd, and business had been brisk. Neither Kate, Blake nor Tess had been away from the counter except to bus tables since they opened up.

"We're out of scones," Blake announced, placing the last one on a plate. "And if this crush keeps up, we'll be out of croissants and muffins, too."

"What gives this morning?" Tess tucked her blond hair behind her ear. "Is it a holiday, or something? I've never seen it quite this busy."

"The weather, I think," Kate replied, smiling and thanking a customer as she counted out her change. "Everybody wants out of the house when it's this pretty."

"Not me." Tess passed a hand across her eyes. "I'd love to be home, in bed, the curtains drawn. I'd sleep 'til at least three, I swear I would."

Kate shot the other woman a part sympathetic, part exasperated glance. From the looks of her employee this morning, she had been out partying the night before, no doubt stumbling in sometime around dawn.

Tess smiled at the couple who approached the counter, took their order and called it back to Blake, who was manning the espresso machine. She glanced at Kate. "I met a guy last night. I think I'm in love."

Here we go again. Tess, an art student at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, was pretty, vivacious and smart-but an absolute dope when it came to men. She believed every line she was tossed and fell for every guy in a tight pair of jeans. Blake, not the most sexually conservative himself, said Tess had the morals of an alley cat. Kate was of a different opinion-she felt Tess used men and sex as a way to feel good about herself.

That kind of thinking and behavior was not only self-destructive, it was downright dangerous, and Kate used every opportunity to try to counsel the girl. If only she could see how terrific she was. She didn't need a man, or anything else, to validate her.

Kate shook her head. "Oh, Tess."

The young woman frowned. "I don't know why everyone always says that to me."

"Honey," Blake drawled, his back to them as he frothed milk for a cappuccino, "consider your track record. You fall in and out of love daily. Like a rabbit."

"I wouldn't talk, Mr. Monogamy."

"Yeah, but I don't call it love."

"Okay children," Kate murmured, using the sudden lull to refill the pastry trays. "Let's not fight."