“My fare,” the driver answered, and gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Here’s her bags. But you’ll have to help me get her out of the cab. Worst case of motion sickness I ever saw.” He walked to his vehicle, leaving Cole to follow along behind him.

Her? Cole didn’t like the sound of this. But the driver kept walking. Cole frowned. If he wanted an swers, it was obvious that he was going to have to get them for himself.

The warm sunshine had begun to dry the water clinging to his bare chest, but he broke back out in cold sweat when he recognized the passenger plastered to the floorboard of the cab.

“Sweet Lord!”

A familiar head of dark curly hair hung limply over the seat, dangling above the floorboard. “Little Red! What in hell are you doing here?”

Debbie Randall heard the voice. It was one she’d traveled halfway across the country to hear. And if the world would stop swimming backwards, she’d have time to enjoy the fact that the owner of said voice was standing before her nearly naked.

He looked fabulous: all hard brown muscles, wide shoulders, and tapered waist above slim hips. And dripping wet! Her mind boggled at the implications. But as luck would have it, her stomach changed her mind, and she made a dive out the opposite side of the cab and heaved. It was strictly for effect. There wasn’t anything left in her stomach to come up.

Cole was beyond speech. He eyed the look of disappearing patience on the cabby’s face, reached into his pocket to pay the fare, and realized he didn’t have pockets. Muttering beneath his breath, he retrieved Debbie’s belongings from the cab, fished a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse, and paid the man.

The cabby drove away, leaving Cole face to face with the reason he’d left Oklahoma in a sweat. She might be a bit green around the gills, but she was still the first woman who’d sent him running for cover.

In all his years as a cop, Cole Brownfield had seen a lot of tragedy and dealt with many situations fraught with danger. But he’d never been as scared as he was now with nothing between him and one slightly bedraggled, dark-eyed witch but a Speedo bathing suit.

“Cole,” she whispered, blinking slowly as she held out her hand, “please get me off the street and into bed before I shame us both.”

Cole staggered. My God! She hasn’t been here five minutes and she’s already trying to get me into— He pulled his wayward thoughts back into gear as he realized that she was referring to the fact that she was sick as a skunked dog. He took her by the arm.

“Come on, girl,” he said gruffly. “We’ll talk later. Right now you look like you just flew through hell backwards.”