Or so he thought.
“Cole,” Joe called after him in the hallway. “Hey, buddy, wait up.”
Cole slowed his step. “Aren’t you missing the big race?” He nodded toward the rec room.
His friend laughed. “As if any of us guys have a chance with Kelsie. Besides, I can find my own woman. I don’t need your cast offs. As a matter of fact, I happen to have a date with ‘Cupcake’s’ friend. Or will have as soon as I call and ask her out officially.”
“Nanci?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. It just so happens that I’m, and I quote, “One hot firefighter.”
“She said that?”
“Hell, yes, she said that. It’s not like you’re the only babe-magnet around here. My studliness aside, what’s really up between you and Kelsie?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the way she looked at you when you went up to get her.”
He had?
The only thing Cole had thought about at that moment was getting Kelsie down. Okay, and maybe kissing her again, but her safety had been his first concern.
“I don’t know what to think,” he said as they made their way down the stairs to the bay. “I don’t consider myself God’s gift to women or anything, but I’ve never had a problem getting them to go out with me.” His problem had always been in keeping the relationship going afterward because of his chosen profession.
Joe chuckled. “Yeah, can’t say I ever remember you ever having to bribe a woman to go to bed with you.”
“Kelsie and I are going to dinner, not to bed.”
“Yet.”
He rolled his eyes. He was by no means the stud his best friend tried to make him out to be. Sure he’d had his share of relationships in the past, but not all of them had ended up in bed.
“With Kelsie, I’ll be lucky if I get her to the dinner table.”
“The department ‘Stud Muffin’ afraid of a little challenge?” Joe asked as he ran his sleeve over the chrome backing on the Ladder truck’s side mirror.
“Hell, no.” Cole yanked open the equipment doors at the side of the truck.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is this thing with Kelsie is driving me crazy.”
“Thing?”
“She’s not like any woman I’ve ever dated.”
Joe shrugged. “Might be a plus.”
He wasn’t so sure. “She’s trouble waiting to happen,” he said as he moved to check the hoses. “You’ve seen it firsthand.”
“What I’ve seen is a woman that makes your face light up like the skies over Thomas Worthington High School stadium on the fourth of July.”
She did?
Joe continued with his assessment of the situation. “You’ve always played it safe, dating all those boring, cookie cutter kind of women. It’s no wonder things never worked out with any of them.”
“Boring?”
“Yeah, you know. The kind of women who spend hours deciding on what shade of nail polish they’re going to wear out. The kind of woman who wouldn’t be caught dead in a tree.”
“I can assure you Kelsie wasn’t too thrilled to be caught up in that tree either.”
“All I’m saying is that maybe it’s time you stop playing it safe and give ‘trouble’ a chance.”
Joe was right. Kelsie wasn’t like any of the women he’d dated before. While he had a tendency to go for tall, mostly blonde and slightly more endowed women, he found himself surprisingly turned on by the petite little stick of dynamite with hair as fiery as her personality. One who wasn’t afraid to try things like rollerblading, or as in last night’s case, tree climbing.
He chuckled inwardly at the memory of it. And it was good to know that slightly mussed hair wasn’t a major crisis for her, because that hair of hers beckoned a man’s hands to run through it. His hands.
He closed the doors and leaned against the truck. “You know, Joe, I think you’re right. No more playing it safe in my personal life. We both know Kelsie is looking for the not-so-perfect man.”
“And?”
“I’m going to give her what she wants and have fun doing it.” All he had to do was keep her from pulling a date escape on him, too.
*
Kelsie stepped into the kitchen and groaned in protest of the sunlight penetrating the partially opened slats of the mini-blinds. She felt like hell. Not because she’d drank too much at Nanci’s the night before, though she had downed several glasses of cheap wine during their movie marathon. Her exhaustion was due more to the restless night she’d spent after she’d gotten home. One spent fantasizing about Cole Maxwell.
She made her way over to the kitchen pantry and pulled out a loaf of twelve-grain bread and a near empty jar of Jif. Peanut butter was one of her three main vices – coffee, chocolate and peanut butter. Not always in that order. It depended on what time of month it was.
After dropping two slices of bread into the toaster, she hurried to get the coffee maker started, desperate for a caffeine fix. There was no way she’d be able to spend the day shopping feeling the way she did. Like the human equivalent of a slug.
Adding more urgency to her need to pull herself together was the fact that if she didn’t go it would mean her mother and Nanci would be spending the day alone together – probably scheming. A dangerous thing.
She pulled her purse towards her across the counter and dug inside for her cell phone. Turning, she dialed Nanci on her way back to the toaster. The smell of freshly brewing coffee seeped into the air around her, teasing her sleepy senses.
“Hello?”
“Morning,” Kelsie muttered.
Nanci laughed on the other end of the line. “I can’t help but notice there was no ‘good’ in your morning.”
“Sorry. I haven’t had my daily caffeine fix yet.” She wasn’t about to tell her friend that her irritability was really due to having lost several nights’ sleep now thanks to a certain firefighter.
“Well, don’t even think about picking me up until you’ve gotten your fix.”
“Don’t worry,” she told her. “It’s brewing as we speak.”
“Good. You need to be in top form today. You should see all the sales going on at the mall.”
Kelsie pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer and began spreading peanut butter in a thick layer across her toast. “You’ve already been out to get a paper?”
“Are you kidding? Even I don’t venture out that early. It’s my neighbor’s paper. I borrowed it.”
Yawning sleepily, Kelsie grabbed a coffee cup from the mug tree on the counter. “You stole your neighbor’s paper?”
“I didn’t steal anything. It’s like a ride share only involving the newspaper instead.”
“I’m not sure that theory would hold up in a court of law if the guy presses charges,” she told her with a grin as she filled her cup to the top with steaming hot coffee.
“Oh, hell, Johnny’s not going to even notice the rest of the paper’s gone.”
Kelsie bit into her toast. “The rest?”
“I left him the sport’s section. That’s all he cares about.”
Nanci was right. Her neighbor was an ex-college football player who lived and breathed everything sports. And seeing as how he lived in sweats, she couldn’t imagine him having any need of department store ads.
“I need to finish eating before I jump in the shower.”
“All right,” Nanci replied, a little too chirpily for Kelsie’s liking. “I’ll let you go.”
“See you in an hour.”
*
Three cups of coffee later, Kelsie eased her blue Ford Mustang up to the curb in front of Nanci’s house. Nanci was outside and heading toward the car before she ever had a chance to blow the horn to let her friend know she was there.
A stack of sale flyers tucked in the crook of her arm and her cross body ‘shopping’ purse in place, Nanci was in shop until you drop mode. She rounded the car and swung open the passenger
door, popping her head in with a smile. “Hi.”
“Hi back.”
She settled onto the passenger seat, laying the store ads on her lap while she buckled her seatbelt. “Hope you wore comfy shoes. This is no shopping trip for the fainthearted.”
Oh, goody. “Can’t wait,” she told Nanci with a forced smile. “By the way, not one word to my mother about my date.”
Nanci flashed a toothy, know-it-all smile. “Are you referring to the date you’ve agreed to go on with Worthington Fire Department’s calendar hunk?”
“Yes. That’s information my mother really doesn’t need to know.”
“My lips are sealed,” she said, running pinched fingers across the seam of her mouth.
She could only be so lucky. Kelsie smiled. “Thanks.”
“At least around your mom,” Nanci added as she settled back against her seat. “They’ll be fully functioning tonight when I see the man I love.”
Kelsie’s head snapped around. “Love?”
Her friend nodded.
“You mean lust?”
“That, too?”
Nanci had never used the word ‘love’ when referring to any man. “Who?”
“Joe.”
“Cole’s friend?”
She sighed softly. “That’s him. Killer blue eyes. Nice ass. We talked on the phone for about two hours last night after you left.”
“Just talked?” she asked as she pulled out onto the street.
Nanci smiled. “It was a phone date.”
She couldn’t resist. “As in phone sex kind of phone date?”
Her friend clicked her tongue. “You know me better than that. I never sleep with a guy on our first phone call.”
“But you wanted to.”
“You have no idea. That’s not saying things didn’t get hot and heavy.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before.
“That’s because I’ve never met anyone quite like Joe before.”
Kelsie laughed. “Something tells me he’s never met anyone like you before either.”
“What can I say? I’m one of a kind.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that statement.”
“Hey,” Nanci said excitedly, “maybe the four of us can go out together sometime. You and Cole. Me and Joe.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath. The only reason I’m going out with Cole is because you told him I would and I wanted my shoes back.”
Nanci rolled her eyes. “Why is it some people choose to live in such denial?”
“Call it what you will. I’m telling you, I don’t want to go out with Cole.” And she didn’t want to feel that flutter that moved through her stomach every time she thought about Cole Maxwell.
“Fine. Call him and tell him you changed your mind. It’s not like you don’t know how to reach the guy.”
“I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. You know that.”
“That’s the only reason, huh?”
There was no fooling her best friend.
“Yes,” she answered anyway. Sometimes the truth was too hard to accept.
Nanci glanced out the passenger window. “So where are you two going on your date?”
“I have no idea. We didn’t exactly have a chance to discuss it the other night. If you recall, I was sitting in the back of that rescue ambulance, hiding from reporters.”
Her friend’s smile widened. “I suppose a bedroom date is out of the question.”
She shot her friend a warning look.
“Maybe Cole will surprise you with some place romantic. A candlelit restaurant can set the mood for your date.”
Something she did not want. In fact, she wanted the date to be as unromantic as possible, seeing as how she became a puddle of sexual need every time she saw him. Even his voice turned her on. That meant their date needed to be somewhere loud where she wouldn’t have to hear that sexy voice and dark so she wouldn’t be tempted by his ‘calendar hunk’ face. But where?
A passing billboard caught her eye. An advertisement for a theater chain. A light went off in her head. That was it! A movie. It was perfect. Cole wouldn’t be able to talk to her in a crowded movie theater. At least, not much. And she wouldn’t be nearly as distracted by that sexy grin of his in a near darkened room.
She made a mental note to check and see what was playing at the movies the second she got home from shopping. A romance was out of the running, because it would probably have her wanting to reenact the love scenes afterwards. Maybe a comedy. Whatever it was, she could handle it.
But what if she couldn’t? What if her lips wandered over to Cole’s in the dark? What if she reached over for popcorn and missed the bucket?
She groaned.
“Judging by that fantasy-induced look on your face,” Nanci said, pulling her from her heated thoughts, “I’d say skip the date and go right to bed with the guy. Get him out of your system.”
Bed was the last place she wanted to be with Cole. Okay, so maybe she really wouldn’t mind being there with him. She just couldn’t. She gave an exasperated sigh as she turned to look at her friend. “Have you heard anything I’ve said about not wanting any kind of relationship with Cole?”
“Every word. Fortunately, I know you well enough to also hear what it is you’re not saying.”
“And that would be?”
“That you’re really hot for this guy. And for good reason. Putting fires out might be his job, but men like Cole are capable of starting the kind of fires that can singe a hole right through a woman’s panties.”
Kelsie groaned again. That’s exactly what she was afraid of. It had been so long since she’d been with a man, Cole could prove to be too much of a temptation. She was in so much trouble.
“You’re caving…” Nanci said, her tone teasing.
“Am not.” She would keep her head on straight where Cole Maxwell was concerned. “I’m going out with him to fulfill an agreement, nothing more. In fact, I’ll call you the moment I get home from our date just to prove to you that I didn’t fall into bed with Cole like you seem to think I’m going to.”
“I’ll be sure not to hold my breath waiting for that call.”
She would prove her friend wrong. Show her that she could and would resist the hunky fireman who kept invading her thoughts. Another perfect man just lying in wait to tear her heart in two. Just as Kyle had. She’d never forget the day she stopped by Kyle’s office to surprise him with dinner plans for their anniversary. Only the surprise had been on her. She’d walked in to find her then husband and the office cleaning bimbo going at it on his desk. The woman apparently thought getting paid to polish things meant ‘polishing’ her employer’s fully erect body part as well. The jerk.
“If you ask me, I think Cole’s the perfect man for you,” Nanci said, breaking the silence.
Kelsie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You don’t even know the guy.”
“Okay, let’s look at what I do know. He’s incredibly sexy. Any argument there?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“He risks his life to save others.”
“It goes with the job,” Kelsie replied nonchalantly, but in all truth she admired men like Cole.
Ignoring her, Nanci went on, “He’s got a great smile which I know for a fact you’ve already taken notice of. And for the cherry on top of that sweet dish of a man, he throws candy to kids at parades.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Hey, I’ve been to parades before. Cole’s a firefighter and they always throw candy from their trucks when they go past kids. In fact, last July I wrestled a kid to the ground for a snack size Reese’s Cup.”
She shot her friend a questioning look. “You did what?”
Nanci pointed a finger at her. “Now don’t go looking at me like I’m that ugly old witch who rides the bike in the Wizard of Oz. That candy was mine. They threw it to me and this kid came charging out of nowhere to steal it. And during PMS week nobody takes my choco
late.”
Kelsie could relate to that, but taking candy from a kid… “Hope it was worth it.”
“Not really. By the time I got it back it was all smooshed.”
“I’m sure it still tasted good.”
“I wouldn’t know. I gave it to the kid.”
“Let me get this straight. You wrestled him for the candy and then gave it back?”
Nanci nodded. “I certainly couldn’t eat it that way. There’s a method to eating a Reese’s Cup, you know. You bite all around the outside edge first, saving the center for last. You can’t do that when the cup is smooshed. Now, getting back to you and Cole…”
“It would never work between us.”
“How do you know? You haven’t even given the guy a chance.” Nanci pulled a half empty pack of sugar-free Dentyne from her purse and held it out to Kelsie. “Gum?”
“Thanks.” She helped herself to a piece, unwrapping it as she drove. “For your information, I don’t have to give Cole a chance for me to know it wouldn’t work between us.”
“Why?”
She popped the stick of cinnamon gum into her mouth, and then tossed the wrapper into her purse, which was lying between the bucket seats. “Well, for one thing, he’s too good looking.”
Nanci arched a brow. “And you prefer ugly?”
“Kyle was hot and look where that got me.”
“Your ex’s being an asshole has nothing to do with his looks. Besides, Cole seems like a genuinely nice guy. Your mom’s going to love him,” she added as they turned onto the street where Kelsie’s mother lived.
Kelsie felt a rush of panic at the mention of her mother. “No she won’t.”
Her friend laughed. “Of course, she will.”
“She won’t have a chance to ‘love’ him, because she’s not going to find out about my going out with Cole. Your lips are sealed, remember?”
Laughing softly, Nanci pretended to zip her lips shut again, murmuring, “She won’t find out from me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unfortunately for Kelsie, sealed lips in Nanci’s case was in reference to the glossy topcoat her friend had applied over her bright pink lipstick. Because the first thing out of her friend’s mouth when her mother slid into the backseat behind them was, “Good morning! Nothing’s new with me. You might check with your daughter though.”
OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE Page 9
