Letty smiled. She felt suddenly content and sure of herself in a way she had never been before. A heady sense of feminine power swept through her. “You really think so?”
“I know so. I've got the singed fingers to prove it.” It was Joel's turn to fall silent for a moment. Then he stirred slightly, pulling her more firmly into the cradle of his thighs. “Letty?”
“Hmm?”
“I didn't thank you for what you did tonight.”
She yawned. “What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about you walking out on Victor Copeland because you wouldn't tolerate your CEO being insulted in public.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that. Thanks. I doubt if anyone has ever walked out on Victor Copeland. And as for me, I've never had anybody try to protect me like that.”
“Noblesse oblige,” Letty said grandly. Then she started to giggle.
Joel gave her a small admonishing squeeze. “Shut up and go to sleep, boss.”
This time she did as he said.
The ringing of the bedside telephone awakened Letty the next morning. She groped for it without opening her eyes.
“Hello?” A dial tone was the only response.
“Wrong phone,” Joel muttered into the pillow. He was sprawled on his stomach beside her, taking up three-quarters of the available space.
When the phone rang again, Letty realized what was happening. “It's my phone.”
“Don't worry about it.”
But Letty was already scrambling out of bed. She blinked as she caught sight of herself in the mirror and realized she was stark naked.
The phone rang again.
Letty found her glasses and pushed them onto her nose. Then she grabbed her nightgown up off the floor and pulled it on over her head as she hurried through the connecting door into her own room.
“Hello?”
“'Morning, Letty. Victor Copeland here. Hope I'm not calling too early?”
“No.” Letty sat down on the edge of her bed and tried to blink herself awake. “No, this is fine. What can I do for you?”
“I'd like to buy you breakfast if I may. I want to apologize for my daughter's behavior last night.”
“That's not necessary, really.”
“Please.” Victor sighed wearily into the phone. “Look. We both know there's a hell of a lot at stake here. To be real blunt, I don't think there's any way I can do business with you as long as you've got Blackstone hovering over your shoulder. In case you don't know it by now, he hates my guts.”
“Look, Mr. Copeland—”
“Victor. I have to talk to you, Letty. You're the president of Thornquist Gear, and I'm in charge of Copeland Marine. Let's do business together like a couple of 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 the fast way, you know what I mean?”
Letty thought about the ten years Joel had sweated to turn Thornquist Gear from a tiny storefront business into a major corporation. “No, not exactly. And I don't see that it matters. I'm not interested in your opinion of Joel.”
Victor gave her an injured look. “I just wanted you to understand the reason for all the bad blood between us. Old Hank was a good solid, honest-as-the-day-is-long kind of guy, but that boy of his was trouble right from the start. Just ask anyone who remembers him. And that's a lot of people in town, I guarantee you.”
“Mr. Copeland, I think we should confine our conversation to business, don't you?”
He shook his head slowly, small eyes almost disappearin
g as he narrowed them. “The thing is, you got to understand why me and him can't ever do business together. He's out for revenge, Letty. Pure and simple.”
“Revenge?”
“Yep. That's the way it looks to me. Knew it as soon as I saw him walk into the restaurant last night. Now that Charlie Thornquist is gone, Blackstone wants to use his position to try to screw me out of Copeland Marine Industries. What's more, it don't matter none to him that in wiping out my company he's going to wipe out this whole town.”
“You think that's what will happen if your boatyard closes?”
Victor eyed her speculatively, obviously sensing a weak point. “I know so. Hell, Echo Cove wouldn't even exist without Copeland Marine, and that's a fact. Just ask anyone. Whole damn town will go down the tubes if the Copeland boatyard closes.”
Letty had been afraid of that. She took a swallow of the bad coffee. A few weeks ago she would have said the brew tasted fine. But today she found it weak and totally lacking in character. She had apparently become addicted to Seattle-style coffee.
“Maybe you'd better tell me just why Joel wants to destroy your company,” Letty suggested after a moment.
Copeland's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “I thought after last night you might have figured it out for yourself.”
“I'm afraid not.” She'd had a lot of other things on her mind last night, Letty thought wryly.
“I told you Joel Blackstone was the kind that was always looking for the easy way. Fifteen years ago that bastard—”
Letty held up a palm to silence him. “Please watch your language when you refer to my employee.”
Victor scowled. “Fifteen years ago Joel Blackstone decided he could cushion his life real nice by marrying my daughter, Diana.”
Letty stared at him, her heart sinking. “I see.”
Victor nodded sadly. “Yes, sir, thought he'd set himself up real nice. Thought if he was my son-in-law I'd just naturally turn Copeland Marine over to him, and he could sit back and prop his feet up on my desk for the rest of his natural life.”
Letty decided to put her coffee mug down before it slipped from her trembling fingers. But her voice was very steady when she spoke. “I take it you did not approve of the marriage?”
“Hell, Blackstone knew I'd never approve of Diana throwin' herself away on a no-good troublemaker like him. So he seduced her.” Victor's eyes flashed with old anger, and the color in his jowls darkened. “The s.o.b. dared to put his hands on my daughter. Sorry, Letty, but that's what he was. Probably thought that if he got her pregnant, I'd agree to let him marry her. I caught 'em together red-handed, myself.”
“Then what happened?” Letty asked carefully.
Copeland shrugged and gave her a wry grimace. “I did what any father would have done in those circumstances. Told him if he ever touched my girl again, I'd get my gun and I'd use it. Told him to get out of town. He left a couple of days later.”
“Just like that?”
Copeland sighed heavily. “No, it wasn't quite that simple. The next day he came by my office at the yard. Made some threats. Tried to take me apart. I had a couple of the men toss him out. Then he left town. I haven't seen him since. Until last night, that is.”
“It must have been quite a shock to find out he was the one who had set up Copeland Marine for a takeover.”
“Hell of a shock, Letty. Hell of a shock.” Victor gave her an odd look. “You want to know the real pisser?”
“What's that?”
“After Diana married that namby-pamby Escott three years ago, I started wondering if I'd made a mistake runnin' Blackstone off fifteen years back. At least Blackstone had balls. Gotta give him that.”
Letty stopped in front of the small brick building she had passed earlier on her way to the café. The name Echo Cove Public Library was chiseled in stone over the entrance. She went up the steps and opened the door.
Inside she instantly felt at home. There was something very civilized about a library, she thought, even a tiny small-town library such as this. Since the days of ancient Alexandria libraries had stood for all the best that mankind could achieve.
The very existence of libraries held out hope for the future of the human race, as far as Letty was concerned. If people had enough sense to collect and store information and make it available to everyone, perhaps they would someday have enough sense to use that wisdom to stop wars and find a cure for cancer.
Being a corporate president was interesting work, but Letty knew that a part of her would always be a librarian.
“Can I help you?” The pleasant middle-aged woman behind the circulation desk asked when Letty approached.
“Do you keep your local newspaper on file?”
“Of course. We send the copies out to be microfilmed every six months. What dates do you want to see?”
“I just want to browse,” Letty said, not wanting to give out too much information.
“Certainly.” The woman came out from behind the desk and led the way toward a single microfilm reader machine housed in a corner. “The film is stored by year in those drawers. Help yourself.”
“Thank you.” Letty opened one of the drawers.
The librarian cleared her throat discreetly. “You're Ms. Thornquist, aren't you? You're here in town with Joel Blackstone?”
Letty arched her brows. “Word travels fast.”
The librarian grinned ruefully. “You know small towns. I'm Angie Taylor. My husband and I were having dinner in the Sea Grill last night when you arrived. I have to say it was a rare sight to see someone walk out on Victor Copeland. He was not pleased, I can tell you.”
“It was an awkward moment for all of us,” Letty murmured.
“I don't know about that. Joel Blackstone looked pleased with himself. But, then, it's no secret he hates Copeland. Look, I know this isn't any of my business, but my husband works down at the yard and we've lived in this town most of our lives. Is it true Copeland's in trouble financially?”
“I'm afraid I really can't discuss it, Mrs. Taylor.”
Angie sighed morosely. “I was afraid of that.” She shook her head. “All of us in that restaurant knew there was trouble brewing when we realized Joel Blackstone was in town. There's only one reason he would come back to Echo Cove, and that's to get revenge on Victor Copeland.”
“Did you know Joel well?” Letty asked carefully.
“No, I don't think anyone ever knew Joel well. He was always a very private person, even when he was a teenager. I started working here in the library when he was in high school.”
“Did he come in here often?” Letty asked.
Angie nodded. “He spent a lot of time in here after his mother died. His father started drinking after her death. He couldn't handle his sorrow. Her death was hard on Joel, too. He was left to cope with his grief on his own. He went to work in the Copeland yard that summer. Worked every hour he could and buried himself in books the rest of the time.”
Letty pictured a lonely young man trying to lose his pain in books here in this room. She understood completely. Books had been her secret refuge all her life. “I imagine this library was very important to him.”
“I think so. He certainly spent enough time here.” Angie smiled ruefully. “I don't imagine the town will be able to keep this place open for long if Copeland Marine goes under. Be a real shame to close this library. Joel wasn't the only kid who ever needed it.”
Half an hour later Letty found what she was looking for on the microfilm. There was not much to the story. Just a few short paragraphs stating that one Harold Blackstone, known as Hank, had been killed the previous evening in a car accident outside of town. He was survived by his son, Joel.
8
Joel paced the motel room, feeling like a caged lion. Make that a caged gerbil, he thought. Nobody except an idiot with the brains of a gerbil would have gotten himself into this mess.
Firecrackers. He was losing control of all the damned firecrackers.
E
very time he turned at the window and started back toward the far side of the room, he had to walk straight past the bed. The maid had not been in yet, and the sight of the rumpled sheets was making him crazy. It brought back memories of Letty lying there last night.
He altered his course to walk over to the bed. Reaching down, he grabbed a handful of the sheet and brought it up to his face. He inhaled deeply.
Hell, he could still smell her. He would never forget her unique scent as long as he lived. It was making him hard right now.
Christ, he had been a fool to let her go off alone to have breakfast with Copeland.
He dropped the sheet and stalked back to the window. There was no way he could have stopped her. She was the boss.
“You're the boss. You tell me what you want, Letty.”
“Oh, my God. Joel, it feels so good. I can't believe it.”
Her first real climax. He'd lay odds on it. And he'd been the one to give it to her. Joel hoped she would remember that.
She was so incredibly responsive. Joel had never had a woman react that way. Wild, gloriously wild. She was a hot, sweet treasure waiting to be opened up and explored and enjoyed. All she needed was a little experience with the right man.
All she needed was a little experience with him. Better yet, a lot of experience.
Next time, Joel promised himself, next time he was going to be deep inside her when he came. He had to know what it was like being inside when her whole body tightened and then gave itself up to such a shuddering release. He wanted to feel her nails in his skin and find out how tightly she could hold him.
Most of all he wanted to look into her eyes when he buried himself in her. He wanted her to know it would work like this only with him.
He hoped it would work only with him.
He prayed it would work only with him.
Fat chance. Letty was a very sensual woman. He had known that from the start.
He jerked his gaze away from the bed and looked down on the marina. It did not matter what Copeland said to her this morning. It did not matter how the bastard pleaded his case. It was too late to change anything. Letty had to realize that. Copeland Marine had to be liquidated. She could not justify pouring another penny into the failing boatyard.
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