Perfect Partners

over to Diana. “When Joel showed up again after all these years, you really did think he was going to rescue you, didn’t you?”
    “I thought that if he closed down Copeland Marine once and for all, Keith and I would be free. We could go somewhere else. We’d have an excuse to leave town. Yes, I thought he was going to rescue me at last.” Diana burst into tears. “But it’s turning out all wrong. Now Keith is in danger.”
    “Have you talked to Keith about this?” Letty asked.
    “I tried, but he won’t listen. He says he can handle it.”
    Letty hesitated. “I’ll talk to Joel. I’ll make sure he takes the possibility of violence into account when he makes his plans. But I think that’s all we can do. You saw Keith and Joel downstairs. They’re really into this new plan. Neither of them is going to back off just because of some vague fears on our part.”
    “I know,” Diana said. “I feel like Cassandra. I’m trying to warn everyone, but no one will listen.”

    “What did you and Diana talk about when you left the table this evening?” Joel asked an hour later when he opened the door of Letty’s apartment.
    “Her father.” Letty walked into the hall and let her coat slide from her shoulders. She tossed it over the back of the couch and sat down. “She’s afraid of him, Joel.”
    “Bull. He’s always given her everything she wanted.” He went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards. “She’s not afraid of him; she’s afraid of what things are going to be like when he’s no longer in charge in Echo Cove.”
    Letty slid her feet out of her high heels. “No, that’s not it. She’s genuinely afraid of him. Afraid he might hurt Keith. She says she’s been afraid of the potential violence in her father since that day he found you and her together in the barn.” Letty met Joel’s eyes as he walked back into the living room carrying two snifters of brandy. “Did Copeland try to kill you that afternoon?”
    Joel shrugged. “If that teak board he was swinging had connected with my skull, he probably would have killed me, yeah.”
    “Oh, my God,” Letty whispered.
    “Hey, don’t look so panicked. It was fifteen years ago, and you’ve got to remember he hated my guts for daring to touch his precious darling daughter. He doesn’t hate Escott. Hell, Keith told me this evening that Copeland actually introduced him to Diana. Encouraged the marriage.”
    Letty sighed. “I don’t know, Joel. I’m starting to get really worried. I hope this is all going to work out.”
    Joel looked at her and smiled dangerously. “It better. It was all your idea, remember?”
    Letty’s eyes widened. Joel was right. The entire plan to save Copeland Marine was going forward because she had pushed it from the beginning. “Oh, my God.”
    “Welcome to the real world, Madam Librarian. I warned you that you weren’t sitting in your ivory tower back in Iowa any longer.”
    “Indiana,” she corrected automatically.
    But there was no real heat in her response. Her mind was too busily occupied with the potential ramifications of what was happening and with the realization that she would be responsible if disaster struck.
    That night it was Letty who found herself awake at two o’clock in the morning. She lay in bed, gazing up into the shadows and wondering if she was coming down with the flu. She felt somewhat nauseated.

    Joel scowled at the brief memo from Marketing that he found on his desk the next morning.
    TO: Joel Blackstone
    FROM: C. Manford
    RE: Ad campaign for Pack Up and Go camping equipment.
    Thought you ought to know that Ms. Thornquist has told us she does not like the male model used in the ads. She suggests we scrap the photos and shoot a new sequence featuring people who look like novices rather than experts.
    Okay to rework thrust of campaign?

    Joel swore softly. It irritated him to have to admit it, but Letty did have a point. She had hit on what was wrong with the entire campaign. The problem was that time was running out. The new line of camping gear would be in the stores in a few weeks. Decisions had to be made.
    “The hell with it,” Joel muttered. Letty’s instincts on some things seemed to be better than his. He had been unsure of the beefcake campaign right from the start. He picked up a pen and scrawled a message to Manford telling him to go ahead and reshoot the photos using plenty of kids and moms.
    Letty was achieving one victory after another around the