Erica Spindler - Cause for Alarm

It was as if their last, awful fight had changed not only his attitude but in some fundamental way, his feelings as well. He was like a new man.

"I'm so glad," Marilyn said when Kate finished. She gave her a quick hug, then grinned wickedly. "Nothing like a guilty conscience to straighten a man right up."

Blake wandered over, a carton of napkins hooked under his arm. He caught the last of Marilyn's comment. "Straighten a man up?" he repeated, his expression deadpan. "Honey, you're entitled to your orientation, but don't go and ruin it for the rest of us."

"Why is everything with you always about sex?"

Blake smiled. "You know what they say, girlfriend, everybody's good at something. I just happen to be the prince of peni-"

Kate held up her hands to stop them. "No doubt about it, I'm back now."

"Then you're ready to be brought up to speed?" He stowed the carton under the buffet, then turned back to the two women. "It's been a regular Peyton Place around here."

"Peyton Place, huh? Since we're in a lull, fill me in."

"Ralph and his wife split," Tess said, referring to one of the regulars. "She got custody of the Jeep and the cat."

"He was devastated," Blake added. "He loved that vehicle. And he'd just made the last payment, too."

They went on to tell her about a surprise pregnancy, that their resident writer finally sold a book, and that Big Burt Beals had lost twenty-five pounds on the Sugar Busters diet. "Not to mention," Blake added, "Tess's five new love-of-her-life boyfriends."

"It was six, I think." Marilyn laughed.

"I heard that." Tess bopped up behind them, carrying Emma. Obviously fascinated by Tess's blond hair, the infant had a fistful of it. The young woman seemed not to notice. "Can I help it if so many guys are fatally flawed?"

She turned to Marilyn and Blake. "Did you tell her about the new guy?"

"She's referring to our newest regular," Marilyn offered from the counter where she had gone to take an order. "Actually, we have three."

"All men," Tess murmured. "Though only one's a hunk-a-hunk of burning love. Nick Winters."

Kate freed Tess's hair and took Emma from the other woman. "Tell me about them all. Nick Winters first."

"He's really cute." Tess crossed to the counter to help Marilyn, took an order, then glanced back at Kate. "And single."

"And too old for you." Marilyn rolled her eyes. "But she's right about him being attractive. He's rugged but also an intellectual. Up until recently he was a professor of philosophy at Cleveland State College. He inherited some money, sold everything he owned and hit the road."

"What's he doing down here?"

"Just one of his stops on his Tour of America."

"Then there's Steve Byrd," Blake said, "my personal favorite. A real flashback to the sixties kind of guy, complete with a ponytail. He followed the Grateful Dead for the past twenty-five years, making a living selling Dead paraphernalia at the concerts. Says since Jerry Garcia died, life has no meaning."

"I don't think there's much doubt that this guy all but fried his gray matter with drugs." Marilyn shuddered. "I never could understand that whole scene."

"Sounds like he'll add a little color to our motley crew." Kate laughed. "So, what about our last new guy? You said there were three."

Her employees exchanged glances. Blake cleared his throat. "He's a little scary. Ex-military. Doesn't talk much. Comes in every day and glares at Steve. And everyone else who looks a little counterculture. Including me and Beanie." Blake shuddered. "He's got gay-basher written all over him."

"What's his name?" Kate asked.

"Don't know. I told you, he doesn't talk much."

"I tried," Tess said."He was really ugly to me, so I backed off fast."

"For once I agree with Blake," Marilyn said. "Something about this guy is as cold as ice."

As cold as ice. Kate frowned, unsettled. Why would someone like that even choose to hang around a place like The Uncommon Bean? She couldn't think of any reason except one-he was looking for trouble.

She would just have to make sure he didn't find it.

John sat on a park bench, the October day bright and mild. Before him lay Lake Pontchartrain, its diamond surface broken by the occasional swoop of a gull diving for food. Above him, the branches of a centuries-old live oak spiraled toward the sky, a majestic and awe-inspiring work of nature.

A beautiful scene, John thought. Magnificent, calming. At any other time. But not now.

He breathed deeply, working to control his rage. He had followed Julianna. He knew where she worked, her hours, that she didn't associate with any of the other employees. He had learned that she'd given birth to a girl and that she had given her up for adoption. He knew to whom.

He knew everything.

He lifted his gaze to the perfect, Easter egg blue sky. Everything.

Julianna was fucking someone else. His Julianna. His special girl. He flexed his fingers, understanding now the drawer full of cheap undergarments, picturing her in them, writhing under the man's hands.

Like her mother, she had become a whore. She had forgotten his lessons about loyalty and commitment.

A whore.

Fury choked him. He had thought she was different. Special, more worthy than other people.

She had been. Once upon a time.

A sound slipped past his lips, low and feral, like an animal in pain. A sound of grief, of mourning. For the girl he had known. For the purity and light that had been lost.

He closed his eyes, seeing her with his mind's eye, as she had been that first day, radiating goodness, an innocence that had touched the cold places inside him, warming them.

John brought his hands to his face, shocked at how they trembled. How could he have been so wrong about her? He dropped them to his lap. And now, how could he say goodbye?

A mother and her daughter strolled past. The little girl looked to be about the age Julianna had been when they first met. The child peered flirtatiously over her shoulder at him as they drew away, already the coquette.

He stared back at her, unmoved. She didn't have Julianna's inner light. Her beauty of spirit that made her different from others. No one did.

He hadn't been wrong about his Julianna.

John sucked in a sharp breath. She was special. But she was also young, still a child-if not in years then in her heart. Her youth made her reckless, easily influenced.

She hadn't been raised to take care of herself. In confusion, she had turned to this Richard, this nothing. Without John to guide her, she had succumbed to the ways of her mother.

John stood. Above, a gull shrieked and circled, then dove for its prey. The man was to blame. The baby. The woman.

One complication had become three. The complications would have to be eliminated.

And once eliminated, he would know if Julianna was as worthy as he had thought her to be.

The next few days were busy and exhausting for Kate. Being back at The Uncommon Bean after so many weeks at home was a major adjustment. For Emma, too. The constant noise and parade of new faces overstimulated the infant, which led to fussiness, especially at night. By the time Kate got her daughter rocked to sleep and tucked into her crib, all she had the energy to do was change into her nightclothes and fall into bed.

Add to that all manner of small annoyances that she'd had to deal with on the home front-crackling on the phone line and the repairman who'd shown up needing to check the inside wiring; lack of rain necessitating constant watering of her lawn and flower beds; a refrigerator that had decided after only six years to call it quits.

But even with all that, something Marilyn had said kept tickling at the edges of Kate's thoughts.