Perfect Partners

moment?”
    Letty munched a sliver of toast slathered with sun-dried tomato spread. “I’ve broken off my engagement to Philip, I’ve quit my job, and I’ve decided to move to Seattle and take over the reins of Thornquist Gear.”
    The sharp crack of glass exploding on hard tile drew everyone’s attention. Letty glanced across the room to where Joel had been standing by the window and saw that he had dropped his bottle of ale.
    Joel looked up from the shards that glittered at his feet. His eyes burned like those of a tiger in the night as he stared straight at Letty.
    “Sorry,” Joel said very softly, his tone devoid of any emotion. “An accident. Don’t worry. I’ll clean it up.”

2

    J oel came awake in a cold sweat, fragments of the dream still far too clear in his head. He could see the car going over the cliff and sinking into the sea. His father’s face appeared, as it always did, at the window on the driver’s side, fingers clawing at the glass, eyes staring wildly at his son. Joel could see him screaming as the car sank below the surface. There was no sound, but Joel could hear the words in his head as his father shouted at him.
    “This is all your fault,” he had yelled.
    All your fault
.
    Joel lay still for a moment, orienting himself to his strange surroundings. The sighing of the wind in the trees outside the window brought him back quickly to reality. He threw aside the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed.
    He was having the dream more often these days. He did not need a shrink to tell him why. He was on the verge of taking revenge after fifteen years of waiting, and all the old feelings were awakening and starting to churn inside him. With any luck he would stop having the damn dream when everything was finally finished. Only a few more weeks and it would all be over.
    In the meantime, he knew from experience that he was not going to get back to sleep until he had worked off some of the adrenaline. Back home in his own apartment in Seattle, he would have worked out on the equipment he kept in the spare bedroom. Unfortunately there was no treadmill, stationary bike, or weights here at the Thornquists’ mountain place.
    There was, however, plenty of room to run. Joel put on his jeans and running shoes, picked up a towel from his private bathroom, and headed down the hall.
    He sensed that Letty was awake when he went past her bedroom, but he paid no attention until he realized she had gotten out of bed and followed him into the living room. Her soft, startled voice caught him just as he was unlocking the sliding glass doors.
    “Where in heaven’s name are you going? It’s one o’clock in the morning.”
    He glanced back over his shoulder and saw a wild-maned ghost in a long white cotton nightgown. Letty’s glasses were perched on her nose, making her look like a very serious, very intellectual sort of ghost. As she moved out into the weak moonlight, Joel saw that the long flounced nightgown was trimmed with a jaunty sailor collar and a red ribbon tied in a bow. The streamers of the ribbon drifted down the front of the gown.
    The blue-white moonlight glinted on the lenses of her little round glasses and revealed the frowning disapproval on her face. Her gaze raked him from head to toe, taking in the fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Joel wondered if she was about to rap his knuckles with a ruler.
    “Don’t worry. I’m not making off with the family silver,” he said. “I’m just going to take a run.”
    “You’re going running?” She stared at his bare chest as if she had never seen one before. “But it’s the middle of the night. You can’t be serious.”
    “Trust me. I’m serious.” He slid open the glass door. The crisp air flowed over him like clear, cold water rinsing away the last images from the nightmare.
    “Joel, wait. You can’t go out there alone at this time of night.”
    The patter of her bare feet on the hardwood floor stopped him. Joel reluctantly turned his head again. “What the hell’s the matter, Letty? I’m just going to run. Go on back to bed and get some sleep.”
    “I won’t have it.” She scurried forward and came to a halt directly in front of him. “I can’t let you do this, Joel.”
    He studied her with growing curiosity. “Okay, I give up. Why can’t you let me do this?”
    Her eyes widened behind the lenses of her glasses. “Because it’s dangerous, of course. What’s the matter with you? Are you out of