Perfect Partners

normal, rational human beings. You owe me that much, don’t you think?”
    Letty looked up and saw that Joel was filling the doorway between the two rooms. He was still wearing his jeans. His face was harsh in the watery morning light. She knew that Copeland was right about one thing: it would be difficult to talk business in any normal fashion with Joel nearby.
    “All right, Victor. I’ll have breakfast with you. Forty minutes?”
    “Forty minutes is fine. There’s a café one block down from your motel. I’ll meet you there.” Victor paused. “Thanks, Letty. I appreciate this.”
    “Good-bye, Victor.” Letty hung up the phone.
    “That son of a bitch thinks he can charm you into letting him off the hook,” Joel said quietly.
    “He just wants to talk.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “I owe him a chance to present his side of the situation before I make any final decisions, Joel.”
    “The final decision has already been made, and you don’t owe Victor Copeland a damn thing. Don’t meet him for breakfast, Letty.”
    She crossed her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “I’m going to hear what he has to say. It’s only fair. It’s why I came down here. If I were in his shoes, I’d want to talk, too.”
    “I’ll come with you.”
    “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Joel. I’m afraid your presence will make it difficult to get a clear picture of the situation.”
    “You’ve already seen the spread sheets. The picture is clear enough, and you know it.”
    Letty drew herself up proudly, wondering where all the sweet, hot passion of last night had gone. “I’m going to talk to him, Joel.”
    The room was suddenly alive with a menacing silence.
    “Suit yourself,
boss
.” Joel closed the door between the two rooms with a soft, dangerous thud.
    Letty barely resisted the impulse to dash across the room, fling open the door, and hurl herself into his arms. She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to beg him to explain the messy situation in Echo Cove to her so that she could understand and side with him. She wanted to plead with him to hold her close and touch her the way he had last night.
    Letty stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes grew round with shock as she realized just where her thoughts were heading. She was not going to let Joel Blackstone use sex to gain her cooperation. She was not that much of a twit.
    If he thought for one minute that she was under his thumb now because of what had happened last night, he could damn well think again.
    Letty leaped to her feet and stalked into the bathroom.
    So what if it had been good? So what if it had been terrific? So what if she felt like a new woman this morning?
    She had called the shots last night. She had given the orders. All Joel had done was follow instructions.
    Who was she kidding?
    Letty groaned and stepped under the full blast of the shower.

    Forty minutes later Victor Copeland picked up his mug of coffee and studied Letty across the small table. The café was busy at this hour, but Copeland had told the waitress he wanted privacy, and she had hurried to provide it.
    Nearly everyone in the restaurant had looked up and nodded in respectful greeting when Copeland lumbered heavily down the aisle between the rows of booths.
    The effect was not lost on Letty. Victor Copeland was definitely an important man in Echo Cove.
    “I reckon you’ve probably figured out by now that me and Joel Blackstone go back a long way,” Victor said gruffly.
    “Yes, I got that impression.” Letty noticed that Victor’s color did not appear any better in the morning light than it had last night. She wondered if he had recently been ill or if his obvious weight problem was the cause of his florid skin.
    “I’ll be the first to admit that our association ain’t exactly been what you’d call real pleasant,” Victor allowed with a deep sigh. “He used to work for me in the yard, you know.”
    “No, I didn’t know.”
    “Him and his pa, both.” Victor shook his head at some old memory. “Hank Blackstone worked for me his entire adult life, until he got drunk one night and drove off a cliff just outside of town.”
    Letty absorbed that information. “Joel’s father is dead?”
    “Yeah. Been gone some fifteen years.”
    “I see.”
    “I liked Hank. Good man. Hard worker. Always gave an honest day’s labor for an honest day’s pay. Too bad his son didn’t cotton to the same values. But young Joel, he was always looking for