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."

"Besides this is different. He's different. Special. Older, more sophisticated." She looked pleadingly at Kate. "You believe me, don't you?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe, Tess." She crushed an empty bakery box and stuffed it into the trash. "It's what you believe that matters."

"See?" She made a face at Blake, who only shrugged and went to chat with a couple of the regulars. Tess leaned against the counter, her expression dreamy. "You know how you can just look at someone and know?"

"Know what, Tess?"

"That they're special. Different. That they're the one for you."

An image of Luke popped unbidden into Kate's head. As he had been that first time she saw him, standing outside the student loan office, looking defiant and proud, yet somehow vulnerable, too.

Kate shook her head, as much, she realized, to expel his image as to differ with Tess. "But can't that feeling translate to friendship? Just because someone is attractive to you, or thinks you're attractive, or makes you smile or whatever, that doesn't mean you have to fall in love with him. It doesn't mean you have to become sexual with him."

Because sometimes when you do, it ruins everything.

"It doesn't work that way." Tess drew her eyebrows together. "I only know how I feel, you know? It's like…" She hesitated before beginning, as if to gather her thoughts. "It's like, if I don't have him I'm going to go crazy or die. And when I get that way, I'll do anything to be with him."

"Do anything to be with him?" Kate repeated, arching an eyebrow. "Even lie? Even cheat or hurt someone you care about? Even lose your self-respect?"

Tess met Kate's eyes, her cheeks pink. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I would."

Kate was taken aback. She hadn't expected that answer. Truthfully, she was shocked by it. "You can't mean that, Tess. And if you do, don't you think that's a problem?"

"A problem? No." The younger woman looked dumbfounded at the suggestion. "Why should I?"

"Tess, you're telling me you'd lie to be with a man. That you'd hurt yourself or a friend. In my book, that's a problem. It's not healthy."

"You don't get it. It's because the feeling's so strong. And that's love. I know it is."

"How?" Kate challenged. "You've been in love dozens of times in the past year, it's never lasted. If it were really love, it would."

Blake finished with his customer and crossed to where they stood. He nodded his head. "I've been in love like that. The way Tess is describing. A couple of times."

"Really?" Tess turned to him. "What happened?"

He was quiet a moment. "Let's just say, I never want to feel that way again." Kate opened her mouth to console him, but he shook his head. "I'll clear the tables."

Kate watched him walk away, heart breaking for him. Blake had not had an easy life, she knew. He'd had to battle discrimination and intolerance, even from his own family. He longed, like all people did, for love and acceptance, yet had had his heart broken time and again. And despite his acerbic sense of humor and oftentimes sarcastic tongue, Kate knew that deep down he was a softy with a heart of gold.

"Don't you feel that way about Richard, Kate?"

Kate turned back to the other woman, thinking back fifteen years, to her first meeting with Richard. To how she had felt during the first weeks and months of their love affair. Giddy. Flushed. Over the moon.

She smiled at the memory. "I suppose I did. Once."

Tess looked so disappointed for her, Kate laughed. "Nobody died, Tess. What you don't understand yet is that love and marriage are about so much more than what you're talking about. They're about commitment. And sharing. And trust. They're about working together to build a good life. And a family. What you're describing is new and exciting. But it's fleeting."

"That makes me so sad for you."

"Don't be. It's incredibly rich and satisfying." Even as she said the words, meaning them with her whole heart, she felt a tug of dissatisfaction, as if indeed, something were missing from her life.

The feeling unsettled her, and she reminded herself that there was something missing from her and Richard's life- children. But they were remedying that.

"You'll see, Tess. It's good. Really good. I promise."

The conversation with Tess nagged at Kate for the rest of the day and into the evening. Even during dinner with Richard at their favorite restaurant, she had found herself going over each part of the conversation in an attempt to figure out what had triggered her melancholy. She had found herself thinking back, remembering their courtship, her feelings. Attempting to analyze his.

From their first date, Richard had made her feel like a princess. Like the poor, plain stepsister who had somehow won Prince Charming. He had taken her places she had only dreamed of, had shown her a way of life so far out of her league she had been left wide-eyed with wonder. She had fallen madly, wildly in love with him. He had seemed to be just as in love with her.

Seemed. She shook her head at the thought. Like all young couples, they'd had their troubles. He had been young, used to getting his way, to being the center of attention. He had been something of a ladies' man; when they'd begun dating, he had been up-front about that. He didn't plan to get serious about one girl, he'd said. But they had become serious. And when they had, she'd demanded he choose.