Despite the cool temperature in the room, he began to sweat.

Stomach churning, he gauged the distance to the restroom as the discussion near the body continued.

Too far away. And he did not want to add upchucking in front of an audience to his list of most embarrassing moments.

The sole potential antidote to his condition was fresh air. Lots of it.

Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he bolted for the door. Pushed through into the foyer. Dashed for the exit.

Once outside, the sun took some of the chill out of his bones. But banishing the formalin from his lungs didn’t do as much to settle his stomach as he’d hoped.

In fact, in the end it merely delayed the inevitable.

Thirty seconds after his hasty escape from the mortuary’s back room, he admitted defeat. He was going to lose his breakfast—or what was left of it.

But he wasn’t going to do it in the middle of the parking lot, where the evidence would be splattered on the asphalt for the whole world to see.

Holding back the rumbling volcano in his stomach as long as he could, he sped toward the bushes edging the lot. Made it. Barely.

After he finished heaving, he pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth, and gave the deserted lot a surreptitious sweep.

Thank heavens there had been no witnesses to his mortifying spectacle. Puking at an autopsy didn’t fit the image of a county sheriff—or a former Special Forces soldier.

He couldn’t avoid autopsies forever, though. One of these days he was going to have to get over his smell issues.

Today, however, hadn’t been that day.

At least he’d made it outside before he humiliated himself.

Yet as he walked over to his off-duty Jeep to wait for Grace Reilly, a pungent stench dogged his heels. It was far worse than the formalin . . . and clear evidence of his Achilles’ heel.

There was also no disguising it.

If fate was kind, by the time Grace finished and came in search of him, the wind would shift, and the obnoxious odor would—

The back door of the mortuary opened, and the woman in question emerged into the sunlight.

He blew out a breath.

Fate wasn’t in his corner today.

She’d shed her protective garb to reveal well-broken-in jeans that hugged her slim hips and a soft, curve-enhancing T-shirt emblazoned with the words “My job requires humor, heart, and brains.”

His lips quirked up.

Clever—and sort of a private joke. Most people wouldn’t realize the humor part referred to the sample of eye fluid taken during autopsies.

As soon as she spotted him, she strode his direction across the asphalt, a breeze ruffling the wavy hair she’d freed from her surgical cap.

The stink was somewhat diffused now, but definitive. She had to smell it.

In the name of diplomacy, would she ignore it . . . or was she the type to confront an awkward situation, deal with it, and move on?