"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.

Nothing like a guilty conscience to straighten a man right up.

Did Richard have a guilty conscience? Kate wondered as she bussed The Bean's outdoor tables. Was that why he was being so attentive? So thoughtful? Was that what the constant stream of gifts had been about?

She could understand if he felt bad about the things he had said to her. About Luke. And Emma. She supposed he cringed when he remembered how he'd tried to force himself on her that night. She still did.

But was there something else? Something more?

She cleared the table, collecting the used napkins, empty sugar packets and creamers, stuffing them into an empty coffee cup before she wiped the top down with a damp cloth. She was being paranoid. Letting her imagination run away with her. She had been ever since the day Old Joe had seen the girl on their swing.

The girl on the swing. Kate didn't know why, but it always seemed to come back to her.

As if her thoughts had conjured him, Kate looked up to find her neighbor approaching, his Shih Tzu prancing ahead, tugging at the end of its leash.

She held a hand to her eyes to shield them from the sun and waved with the other. "Joe," she called, "come have a cup of coffee with me."

He waved back and started up The Bean's front walk. Several minutes later, they were both seated at one of the tables on the porch, coffees in front of them and a bowl of water at their feet for the panting Beauregard.

They exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, then Kate got right to the point. "I've been wondering about the young woman you saw on our swing. Do you remember what she looked like?"

Joe appeared unsurprised by the question. He scratched his head. "Now, let me think," he murmured. "It's been a while, and she and I weren't eye-to-eye, you know."

He looked at Kate, forehead wrinkling in thought. "She had hair the color of yours, cut in about the same style. She was youngish, like a college girl. And she was wearing a short skirt."

He shook his head and snorted with disgust. "She had no business swinging in an outfit like that, if you know what I mean?"

Kate agreed that she did. "Is that all you remember about her, Joe? Was there anything else about her appearance or behavior that struck you as odd or outstanding?"

He thought a moment, then shook his head. "Sorry, Kate. Wish I could be more help."

They chatted a few moments longer, then he thanked her for the coffee and left. Kate stared after him, her thoughts whirling with the little bit he had told her.

Brown hair. Medium-length page boy. Youngish. That description could belong to hundreds of women in the Mandeville area. It also matched the one Citywide had given them of Emma's birth mother.

Dear God, Emma's birth mother.

Even as she told herself she was once again letting her imagination run away with her, she jumped to her feet and hurried to her office. She picked up the phone, dialed Citywide's number and asked for Ellen. A moment later, the woman was on the line.

"Ellen," Kate said, sounding breathless even to her own ears. "It's Kate Ryan."