Full Bloom

how awful. What did they say? How did they handle it?"
    "They handled it the way they often handle a crisis. They called in Jacob Stone."
    "You're losing me," Diane warned. "Who's Jacob Stone?"
    Emily drummed her fingers on the counter, considering that question. "Jacob has worked for my family for several years, although I'm told he officially resigned from RI a couple of months ago. Obviously he didn't really sever his ties with the firm or he wouldn't have been available for checking out Damon Morrell."
    "What was his position with Ravenscroft?"
    "His position?" Emily narrowed her eyes. "Officially he was a vice president in charge of certain aspects of overseas construction operations. But unofficially he was my family's personal trouble-shooter. When the going got tough, my family's motto was Send Stone. Problems on the construction site? Labor difficulties? Industrial espionage? Trouble with local laws? Send Stone. One hundred percent reliable. Totally discreet. Utterly loyal. Always gets the job done with a minimum of fuss. In short, the perfect employee. I always thought of him as a paid enforcer. If my family had been a bunch of hoods instead of reasonably respectable business people, Jacob probably would have been a hit man."
    "He sounds fascinating." Diane took another sip of coffee. "So your family called him back into temporary service when they wanted Damon vetted, huh?"
    "Right. It's not the first time they've used him to get me out of what they considered trouble."
    "When was the first time?" Diana asked.
    Emily arched one brow behind her glasses, remembering. "The first time I ever encountered Jacob was five years ago. He had joined the company a year before that, but I hadn't run into him. No reason why I should have. RI is a big firm, and I rarely met many of the employees."
    "So how did you happen to meet him when you did?"
    Emily sighed. "I got myself kidnapped."
    "Good God! You're joking?"
    "Afraid not. A deranged employee who had recently been let go by RI decided to grab me and hold me for ransom. He somehow tracked me down at college and cornered me one night as I was walking back from the library. He had a gun."
    Diane looked severely shaken. "How awful."
    Emily made a face. "It sounds worse than it was. Oh, I was scared to death at first, but then I realized the man was more to be pitied than feared. He would never have used the gun. In fact, I later found out it was empty. But it looked real enough at the time, so I did what he said. He drove me to a cabin he had in the woods and started making ransom calls to my folks."
    "How did Jacob get involved?"
    "My parents called in Jacob and asked him to handle the payoff. They wanted someone they could trust completely. They didn't want the police involved at that point. They were terrified I'd get killed. Jacob talked to the man on the phone who gave him instructions where to deliver the money. Then I was allowed to talk to Jacob myself. Fortunately the guy holding me was half panicked and not thinking very straight. I managed to give Jacob enough clues that he was able to figure out where I was being held."
    "So Jacob showed up with the payoff and you were set free?"
    "Not exactly," Emily said. "Jacob located the cabin and came in through a back window. The guy who had grabbed me never knew what hit him."
    Diane's eyes were very wide. "Jacob rescued you! How incredibly romantic."
    "Not really. As far as everyone was concerned, it was just one more dumb mess I'd gotten myself into. Even Jacob yelled at me for being so stupid as to walk back through the campus alone at night and expose myself to risk. I was mortified and humiliated, as usual." And she had fallen madly in love with her rescuer, only to discover that Jacob Stone was married. At the time it had seemed like the end of the world.
    "It's not unusual for people to yell at someone who's just given them a major fright. Parents yell at kids all the time for just that reason. Out of curiosity, what was the outcome of the investigation involving Damon Morrell? Or did your Mr. Stone find out anything really interesting other than the fact that Morrell's a competitor with RI?"
    Emily paused and then decided there was no reason to be coy. "Jacob Stone could find something incriminating about an angel if someone assigned him the task."
    Diane leaned on the counter, her coffee cup cradled in both hands. "Okay, let's have it. What did he find out about Damon?"
    "It's embarrassing, Diane."
    "That's