Cole had wanted to do the same, but for different reasons. He’d hardly eaten a thing, for watching Debbie mingling with his friends. The men had begun to reminisce about a narcotics bust they’d made last year that had made national news. The longer they’d talked, the more graphic their stories became. They were too proud of the fact that they’d taken down one of the larger drug lords in the area to let it be forgotten.

Cole sat and waited for a reaction from Debbie that never came.

She listened. Cole started to think she was going to let it slide. But what she finally said wasn’t what he’d expected. It wasn’t horror at the tales, and it wasn’t a put-down of their occupations. She’d simply caught one of the men in a slight fabrication of the truth.

“I don’t see how that happened,” Debbie said, trying not to grin at a statement one of the men had just made.

“What don’t you see, little lady?” the detective asked. He rolled his eyes at Cole, thinking he was going to get her good.

“Well…just a few minutes ago, you said you fainted at the sight of blood. If that’s true, then I don’t see how you managed to take the entire bunch into custody alone. You said they were ‘all shot up.”’

The men erupted into laughter as the off-duty officer grinned at Debbie’s remark.

“Yeah, I do,” he’d answered. “But I always manage to slap the cuffs on them before I pass out.”

Cole had laughed along with them. Instinctively she’d hit on the right note with these guys. They were serious when it mattered and got through the horror of what they saw by laughing at it.

He wanted to believe she could fit in. He wanted to believe that he could begin a life with her. He wanted to, but the certainty wasn’t there. Debbie might be strong enough…but he didn’t know if he was strong enough to lose her if she wasn’t.

He tugged at the drawstrings and then tied them snugly, tucking the dangling ends inside the pants.

“That better?”

Debbie nodded and opened her eyes, willing him to make a move. He did.

“Want to go for a walk?” Cole held his breath, waiting for her to answer.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

*  *  *

The tide had swallowed the shoreline as Debbie knew it. It was another something that would take getting used to. In Oklahoma, water stayed put. Except for intermittent floods in certain areas, water pretty much knew its place.

The words of an old Gatlin Brothers’ song came to mind. She didn’t know about all the gold still being in California, but California definitely was a brand new game.