Perfect Partners

your mind? You can’t go dashing about in an isolated area at this time of night. Anything could happen. Why, just the other day I saw an article about a series of murders in mountain campgrounds.”
    Joel folded his arms across his chest, half amused in spite of his foul mood. “Did the article specify which campgrounds and where they were located?”
    “Somewhere down in California, I think,” she mumbled. “But it hardly matters where it happened. The point is, it’s dangerous to run around alone at night. There are a lot of crazy people in the world.”
    “I can outrun them.”
    “What about bears?” she shot back, undaunted. “Can you outrun a bear?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
    “It’s quite chilly out there,” Letty said.
    “It’s not that cold. I’ll be warm enough once I start moving.”
    “I read an article about some sort of horrible creature that lives in the mountains out here in the Pacific Northwest.” She looked a bit desperate now.
    Joel nearly laughed. “You don’t believe in Bigfoot, do you?”
    “No, of course not. All the same, I think this is a very bad idea.”
    Joel felt another wave of cold night air flow through the open door. “Your reservations on the subject are duly noted, Ms. Thornquist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run.”
    She touched his arm, her fingers light and gentle. “I really wish you wouldn’t. It’s going to make me very uneasy.”
    He shook his head, losing patience with her. He stepped out onto the deck and draped the towel over the railing. Letty came as far as the door. He scowled at her. “Damn it, I don’t want to hear any more about this. Go on back to bed.”
    Her chin came up at a stubborn angle. “No, I will not.”
    He sighed. “What do you intend to do?”
    “If you’re going to insist on this foolishness, I’ll keep watch from here. I can see a good portion of the road, and there’s a full moon. I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”
    Joel gazed at her in disbelief. “You’re going to wait up for me?”
    “I don’t have much choice, do I? I couldn’t possibly go back to bed and get any sleep knowing you’re running around out there like a moving target in a shooting gallery.”
    Joel gave up. “Suit yourself. I’m going to run.”
    He loped down the steps without a backward glance. The crisp, clean night called to him, offering to blow away some of the anger and frustration that had been threatening to consume him all day.
    He looked back once as he moved out in a long, easy stride. He could just barely make her out behind the sliding door. Her nose seemed pressed anxiously to the glass. For some reason she did not look like a prim little midwestern librarian in that moment. Instead, with her ghostly pale nightgown and her wild, tangled mane she seemed more like some fey creature of the night. There was an intriguing, sweet, rather innocent sensuality about her that Joel was finding increasingly disturbing.
    Hell of a time to be thinking about sex.
    He jerked his attention back to his running. What was the matter with him? he wondered grimly. Letty Thornquist was a major thorn in his side at the moment. He did not need to complicate an already difficult situation with sex.
    Ms. Thornquist probably did not approve of sex, anyway. She had undoubtedly read an article that detailed the myriad dangers involved these days.
    Hell, even he had read a few of those articles.
    Joel ran easily on the edge of the blacktop road that paralleled the twisting river. When he looked down the steep embankment of the small gorge he could just barely make out the sheen of moving water. Charlie Thornquist had come up here often to fish in that river.
    Joel gave himself over to the running, channeling his frustration into energy with a directed purpose. He could handle it as long as he did that. It was an old tactic, one he used whenever the restlessness deep within him reached the boiling point. Nights were always the worst times.
    On the other hand, he reminded himself, nights were often the times when he saw things most clearly. Ideas that had been whirling around in the back of his mind for weeks would suddenly crystallize into a clear vision at night. Problems that appeared incredibly tangled during the day often unraveled at night.
    Joel knew he did some of his best work at night. He had learned that some things, such as revenge, were best plotted in the dark hours before dawn.
    And wouldn’t the fact that