OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE

by Lindsey Brookes

  “Maybe next time, when you’re in your own truck,” she heard herself say.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.” He glanced back over his shoulder and then met her gaze. “I should get going. There’s a crew of hungry men waiting to go back to the station and finish their dinner.”

  “You were eating when Nanci called for help?”

  “Starting to.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling terrible that her poor choice of date escape had taken them from their meal.”

  “Happens all the time,” he assured her, easing some of her guilt. “That’s what microwaves are for.”

  “I should let you go then.”

  He straightened and stepped away from the car. “I’ll call you.”

  She forced a smile and pulled away before she gave in to the urge to ask with as much impatience as she felt – When? Had she completely lost her mind? After trying so hard to forget the hunky firefighter who’d given her the most incredible kiss of her life, a man too perfect for her own good, she had committed to seeing him again – on a date of all things! Then again, he had been holding her favorite heels hostage. And she had been through a traumatic experience. And…

  Who was she kidding? She had accepted because she wanted to go out with Cole Maxwell. She doubted there was a woman alive who was completely immune to that sexy smile of his. She’d tried.

  Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed her apartment. When the answering machine kicked on, she punched in her code and listened to her messages.

  The first two were from phone solicitors. The last from the strip club gigolo she’d ditched that night. He wanted to tell her that he couldn’t see her again. That, despite her being a hot redhead, he didn’t date crazy women. Apparently, he’d found out she’d been the one the fire department had come to the club to rescue from the tree.

  Maybe he had a point. Maybe she was crazy. If she was, her ex was at least partly to blame for it. He’d messed up their ‘perfect’ life. Messed her up. After the initial shock and hurt, she’d finally come to the conclusion that her life was better off both emotionally and physically if she remained man-free. Then Cole Maxwell had to go and show up in her life and make her start wanting things again. To be held close again by a man. By him. And kissed passionately. By him. To…

  She pushed any further thought of what the hunky firefighter made her want from her mind with a groan as she pulled into the gas station on the corner. Nanci had wine, but after a night like she’d had one bottle was not going to be enough.

  A few minutes later, she was standing at her friend’s door. When Nanci didn’t answer the knock, she opened the door and stepped inside, calling out, “I hear there’s a chick flick party going on in here.”

  Nanci popped her head out of the living room a second later. “You came!”

  “You invited me, remember?”

  “Seeing as how I’m numero uno on your current shit-list, I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”

  “And miss a night of cheap wine and movies with my best friend?” she said, tossing her purse onto the end table by the sofa. “Not a chance. I even brought another bottle of wine.”

  Nanci laughed. “Good. After the tree incident tonight, we’re going to need it.”

  Kelsie laughed. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “I’ll grab some glasses from the kitchen. You want some popcorn?”

  “Do you even have to ask? What good’s a movie without popcorn? I just hope you bought the really bad kind with extra salt and butter.”

  Her friend smiled. “Boy, are you living on the edge tonight or what? First, you attempt to play jungle girl and climb down a huge, sprawling tree. And now this. Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

  “Ha ha.” Kelsie followed her into the kitchen, ignoring her playful taunts. “Tell you what, I’ll make the popcorn and you pour the wine.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Popcorn’s in the cupboard above the sink.”

  “As if I don’t already know that.” She’d spent enough time there over the years to know where Nanci kept everything.

  A couple minutes later, she pulled a steaming bag of buttered popcorn from the microwave and emptied it into the plastic bowl Nanci had handed her. “I’m still mad at you, you know.”

  “I’ll survive,” her friend replied with a grin.

  “I can’t believe you actually called 9-1-1.”

  “You certainly didn’t expect me to climb up into that big ass tree myself to rescue you.” She opened the fridge door. “You know how much I hate heights.” Reaching in, she grabbed for the bottle of strawberry wine chilling on the door shelf between a carton of pulp-free orange juice and a squeeze bottle of ketchup.

  Kelsie reached past her for the spray butter. “You could have brought a ladder with you and propped it up against the tree limb. I could have gotten down myself.”

  “Not safe. Besides, I did bring you a ladder. It just happened to be hooked onto the back of a fire truck. And let’s not forget the hunk that came along with it to help you down. If anything, you should be thanking me.”

  Kelsie sprayed the liquid butter onto the mound of steaming popcorn. “I guess that means I should be thanking you for the news crew, too.”

  “No need. I didn’t bring them.” She pulled two wine glasses from the cupboard above the sink. “News crews have scanners in their vans that tell them where all the action is. And you, my little money friend, were the action tonight.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Lucky me.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re so worried about. Even if they did get a good shot of you, you always take great pics. You’re naturally photogenic.” Nanci crossed the kitchen, disappearing into the other room.

  Was she kidding? It wasn’t as if she’d posed for a photo shoot. She’d been photographed being rescued from a tree outside of a strip club. How could any shot taken during that fiasco be good?

  Grabbing for the popcorn bowl, she turned to follow her friend. “Maybe I’m worried about my patients finding out I was anywhere near a place like that.”

  Nanci set the wine glasses down on the magazine-strewn coffee table and began filling them with wine. “When you’re sharing a picture with a hunk like Cole Maxwell, none of your patients are going to even notice where it was taken, just who you were with at the time. So be glad it wasn’t your date who rescued you from that tree.”

  The strip club gigolo.

  As much as she hated to admit it, Nanci was probably right. Most of the patients that came into their office were women. They all wanted the ‘perfect’ smile without having to invest the time into orthodontic procedures. Porcelain veneers were fast and all the rage. Mostly single women on the hunt. If she and Cole did make the paper, it would be him they’d be checking out. Oddly enough, the thought of other women ‘checking’ him out didn’t sit well with her.

  She placed the bowl of popcorn on the table between the filled wine glasses and then dropped down onto the sofa in front of Nanci’s most recent purchase – a huge flat screen TV.

  When her friend wasn’t working, dating, or dragging her out to try and hook her up with some guy, Nanci was at home watching movies. She owned more DVD’s than the local video store.

  Her gaze shifted to the oak curio in the corner of the room where one of her best friend’s more unusual hobbies was kept. Inside, beneath the golden glow of the cabinet light, was Nanci’s prized collection of vibrators.

  “I see you’ve added a few more to your collection,” she said, nodding toward the curio.

  Nanci followed her gaze. “Ebay.”

  “Eeew! You bought used vibrators?”

  “What do you think I am? Some kind of sicko perv?”

  “Do I have to answer that?” Kelsie replied with a grin.

  Her friend picked up a throw pillow and tossed it at her head. “They’re new. I just took them out of their packages to display them.”

  “Good. Now I f
eel better.”

  “Speaking of feeling better, you have to check this one out.” She walked over to the curio and pulled out what looked like some sort of hi-tech torture device. “It’s called ‘The Rabbit’ and can stimulate multiple areas at once.”

  “It looks painful.” Like something her ex deserved to have shoved up his ass. Then again, he’d probably have liked it. Kelsie leaned forward to grab a handful of popcorn. “So, how about that movie?”

  Shaking her head, Nanci returned her new toy to its special place in the curio. “There you go again.”

  “There I go again what?”

  “Avoiding anything that has to do with sex.”

  “What do you want me to say?” She pointed to the ‘Rabbit’. “That I’d like one of those for Christmas?”

  “That works.”

  “Forget it. That thing has way too many doodads on it for me.”

  Nanci closed the curio door. “One ‘doodad’ is too many for you.”

  Kelsie sat back with a sigh. “Do we have to delve into my sexual hang-ups again?”

  “I’m only doing it for your own good. How long has it been since you’ve gotten down and dirty with a man?”

  Too long.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does,” her friend argued. “You don’t want to have to worry about cleaning out the cobwebs before the guy you finally decide to have sex with gets to enter the love cave.”

  “Just because my ‘cave’ doesn’t have a revolving door like yours does doesn’t mean…” Kelsie sputtered in irritation. “I’m not sure what it means. Just worry about your own cave and I’ll worry about mine.”

  “Okay, as long as you remember what they say about a person’s body when it comes to sex.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Use it or lose it,” she said as she grabbed the DVD player remote from the TV stand.

  “If I wanted to be nagged this much about the lack of sex in my life I could have gone to visit my mother. Are you sure you’re really not her daughter instead?”

  “I wish,” Nanci replied as she settled onto the sofa.

  “At least she wouldn’t have to push you to go out and meet Mr. Right. You’re a dating machine.”

  “I’m not that bad.”

  She gave her friend the ‘yeah, right’ look.

  “Okay, so I like to date. Speaking of which, I’m so glad you agreed to give Cole a chance.”

  “I only agreed to go out with him to get my heels back.” Kelsie lifted her leg, wiggling a heel-clad foot. “As you told Cole, these are my favorite.”

  “Who are you trying to kid? You know you want to go out with the guy. It just took a little convincing.”

  “Don’t you mean blackmail?”

  Nanci nodded with a grin. “My kind of guy.”

  “Then maybe you should go out with him.”

  “Can’t. I’m going out with his friend, Joe. You remember him. He’s the one with the really big-”

  “I’m not listening,” Kelsie said, slapping her hands over her ears. “I’ve had enough sex talk for one night.”

  Nanci leaned over and tugged her hands away from her ears. “Big truck. You know, the one Cole rescued you with tonight. You really need to get your mind out of the gutter.”

  Kelsie snorted. “My mind? I’m not the one who wishes she could date a statue because he’d be hard all the time.”

  “Hmm…maybe I should start a male statue collection.”

  “I think you’d need to get a bigger place.”

  “So much for that idea,” Nanci said, reaching for her wine glass. Raising her other hand, she hit play on the remote.

  “What are we watching?”

  “My favorite - Romancing the Stone.”

  Kelsie couldn’t contain her groan. They had only watched that movie a few dozen times over the years. She could probably recite every line by heart. “Only if you promise not to keep replaying the scene where Michael Douglas slides down the hill into the water and lands headfirst between Kathleen Turner’s legs.”

  “You’re killing me here,” her friend said with a pout. “You know that’s my favorite part.”

  “Your fantasy you mean.”

  Nanci hid her smile behind her wine glass as she brought it to her lips. “Okay, I admit you wouldn’t hear me complaining if some sexy movie star ended up with his face wedged between my legs.”

  “The poor guy would have drowned if it had been you instead of Kathleen Turner. You’d have put him in a leg lock to keep him there.”

  She sat back as the movie started. “What better place for a man to be than between our legs, seeing to our needs.”

  Kelsie choked on the handful of popcorn she’d just stuffed into her mouth.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, waving away her friend’s concern. “I’m fine.”

  But nearly choking had Kelsie thinking about the first time Cole had come to her rescue at Casey’s Bar and Grill. The way his hands felt smoothing over her back. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t fine. She was thinking way too much about Cole Maxwell, his kisses, and just how hot the sex promised to be between them if she could get past her fears and give him a chance.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The big screen TV wasn’t the only form of entertainment that morning at the firehouse. Most of the excitement centered around the tree rescue Cole had performed the night before and one feisty little redhead the other men were still determined to refer to as ‘Cupcake’.

  To make matters worse, he and Kelsie had made the front page of the local paper. The picture was one of him bringing her down from the tree in the bucket. Unfortunately for her, the reporter managed to get a clear shot of her face so everyone who got the paper in Worthington would know she was the woman he’d rescued from the tree behind the soon-to-be-defunct strip club.

  It was amazing the firehouse’s copy of that morning’s paper had any ink left on it, considering how many times the men had passed it around.

  “I had no idea that Cupcake was a stripper,” Stubby said as he tossed the newspaper aside and reached for the remote control of his miniature fire truck. It was one of twelve that lined the far wall next to the big screen. They were toys for overgrown boys, providing the men there with both entertainment and a bit of sport, a playful distraction from the harsh realities of their job.

  “Kelsie’s not a stripper.”

  “A peeping Tom?” Joe teased as he eased back in his recliner.

  Cole frowned in irritation. “No, she’s not a peeping Tom either.”

  “So she just has a thing for shimmying up and down tree branches?” the Lieutenant threw in with a hearty chuckle.

  Ha. Ha. They were in rare form that morning.

  “It just so happens she was trying to get out of a bad date,” he attempted to explain.

  “Another one?” Stubby inquired. No doubt referring to the one Cole had rescued her from the day he was seen kissing her at the hospital.

  Cole ignored the question. Kelsie’s personal life wasn’t any of their business.

  Joe cleared his throat, disguising a chuckle. “Must have been one hell of a bad date to have her climbing out of a second story window.”

  “It was.”

  Nate plucked another donut from the near-empty box on the dining room table and carried it with him across the Great room to his recliner. “Well,” he said, pointing his glazed donut at Cole as he settled into the Lazy Boy, “I sure hope you aren’t planning to take ‘Cupcake’ to one of those fancy high-rise restaurants in downtown Columbus on your date.”

  “Date?” several of the men muttered, their gazes shifting Cole’s direction.

  Big mouth.

  “I’m taking her out to dinner,” he muttered.

  “Downtown dining shouldn’t be a problem,” Joe decided. “There aren’t any trees along the street that are high enough for her to perform a high-rise Jungle Jane escape.”

  The Lieutenant shrugged. “I don’t
know, Joe. I’d bet there’d be a flagpole available if she got desperate.”

  The men burst into a round of raucous laughter that echoed off the beige walls of the Great room. The only one not laughing was Cole.

  He rolled his eyes. “Kelsie’s not going to be in need of a flagpole on our date.”

  “You sure about that?” Nate mumbled around the last nub of glazed donut he’d just shoved into his mouth. “I mean you did blackmail her into going out with you.”

  Heads snapped around to look at Nate, a roomful of ‘huh’s?’ following.

  “Not exactly,” he argued, drawing their attention back his direction.

  “Well damn. I must’ve misunderstood the situation. I could’ve sworn I saw you holding ‘Cupcake’s’ heels out of her reach and saying, ‘Your shoes for a date. I’m off duty this weekend. Let me take you out to dinner.’” He repeated Cole’s words pretty much verbatim.

  Joe looked to Cole, humor lighting his blue eyes. “You held her shoes hostage?”

  More laughter erupted around him.

  Cole gave a resigned sigh. “Okay, so maybe I did use a little friendly persuasion. She didn’t have to accept.”

  Nate opened his mouth to argue the fact, but Cole cut him off. “One more word from you and you’ll be sliding down the fire pole headfirst.”

  Though Nate knew he wouldn’t actually follow through with his threat, his friend let it go, much to Cole’s relief. He didn’t need the rest of the guys to find out Kelsie hadn’t even accepted his invitation, Nanci had agreed for her.

  Stubby pushed out of his recliner and walked over to the collection of remote control fire trucks beside the TV. Reaching for his, he flipped it over and turned it on, then placed it back on the floor. “Race anyone? First truck to cross the finish line gets to rescue ‘Cupcake’ from her date with Cole.”

  Footrests swung down in unison as the others shot out of their Lazy Boys and hurried to line up their trucks. As it was every time a challenge was issued between the men at the station, testosterone levels shot through the roof.

  Cole opted to forego the early morning competition and head downstairs to begin vehicle and equipment checks. The others were so intent on their race to be Kelsie’s next hero that none of them even noticed his leaving.