Page 1 of Gentle Persuasion

Chapter 1

The doorbell’s loud persistent summons pulled Cole Brownfield from the backyard pool. It sent him stomping through the house, leaving a wet trail of drips and footprints in his wake.

“What?” he growled as he yanked open the front door to face a stranger. He knew he was being rude but he’d just gotten home from a three-day stakeout and was bone weary.

He and his partner, Rick Garza, also a member of the Laguna Beach Police Department Narcotics Division, had scrunched themselves in the back seat of a burned-out abandoned vehicle in a less than appealing part of the city. For several hours, they’d watched the constant stream of traffic coming and going from the small, nondescript residence that had tentatively been identified as a crack house. After last night, that had been confirmed.

During their stakeout, he’d been crawled on by bugs and barked at by stray dogs. And sometime during the night, someone had tossed a sack of garbage into the yawning openings of the vehicle that had once been windows. He’d never been so glad to get up and out of a place in his life. The only thing that had kept him sane was the thought of diving into the clear, clean, sparkling waters of his backyard pool. But he’d only made two laps when the doorbell had interrupted his relaxation. The quick dip for which he’d yearned before crawling into bed was fast becoming an impossible dream.

Cole continued to drip as he glared over the man’s shoulder to the cab parked on the street.

“Is this the Brownfield residence?” the cab driver asked.

“Yes,” Cole answered. “Who wants to know?” Being a policeman made him instantly suspicious of strangers. After the last seventy-two hours, he was in no mood to play twenty questions with a cab driver.

“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.”

“Don’t mention flying, please,” she muttered, and staggered gratefully into the house.

***

“Dad! Why am I the last to ever know anything of importance around here?”

Cole’s question came as his brother, Buddy, was trying to maneuver their father back into the house from his latest trip to the doctor’s office.

Morgan Brownfield sank into his favorite chair and dropped his cane onto the floor. He grunted, lifting his leg as Cole quickly shoved a hassock beneath the heavy cast. He leaned back and stared at his eldest son’s angry impatience.

“Yes, the doctor said I’m healing just fine. Thank you for asking,” Morgan drawled. Ignoring the look of guilt sweeping across Cole’s face, he asked, “Now what are you so worked up about?”

“That…that girl…from Oklahoma is here. You know! Lily’s friend…Debbie something or other.” He knew good and well what her name was. But he wasn’t about to admit to his family that she’d haunted his dreams for months.

“Oh! Debbie’s here! Great! Lily called days ago to tell us she was coming. Lily was going to come herself but her doctor discouraged it. She’s into her eighth month of pregnancy and too near delivery for air travel. The only way Case and Debbie could talk her out of coming anyway was for Debbie to promise to come in her stead. I was going to have a pay a live-in to help out until I got back to my feet anyway. I’d rather pay someone I know than have a total stranger living in my house.”

Cole grimaced. This meant she wasn’t here for a day or two. This sounded like weeks, even months.

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