OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE (17 page)

“I’
m going to start calling patients.”  Nanci paused in the doorway.  “Look, I know your mom and I can be real pains in the ass when it comes to your love life, but we care about you.”

Emotion knotted in her throat. 
“I know that.”

“You deserve to find the happiness your ex screwed you out of.”

Literally,
Kelsie thought with a frown.

“So
do me a favor.  Don’t write Cole off completely.”

“Nanci─”

“And don’t argue with me.  I’m your elder.”

“By two months,”
she pointed out.

Her friend shrugged.  “Older is older and that makes me wiser.  All I ask is that you take some time to think things o
ver before doing anything drastic where Cole’s concerned.” 

It was a little too late to worry about that.  She
had a serious thing for Cole Maxwell.  It couldn’t get any more drastic than that.

Cole arrived at the fire station on Monday morning, more than eager to begin his shift.  Focusing on work was exactly what he needed to divert his thoughts from Kelsie.  Something he hadn’t been able to do since driving her home after their date that weekend.

Joe met him in the hall,
cup of coffee in hand.  “Well, if it isn’t Stud Muffin.  I thought for sure you’d be calling off today after such a wild weekend.”  

“You thought wrong,”
he replied as he continued on down the hallway toward the dorm-style room he used when on duty, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. 

“A little on the cranky side today?” Joe asked as he followed
him into the room.  It was more a statement than a question.

“Let’s just say I’ve had better days.”

Joe leaned against the doorframe, sipping at his coffee.  “I tried calling you yesterday.”

“I was at the gym working out.”

“So how did your date with Kelsie go?”

So much for trying to divert his thoughts. 

Cole tossed his bag onto his bed and pulled off his t-shirt.  “Good.”

“Good, huh?  Is that why you’re such a bundle of joy today?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”  About her.  He pulled his uniform from his bag.

His friend
studied him for a long moment.  “Something happened between the two of you.  Am I right?”

He
ignored the question.

His silence didn’t deter Joe in the least.  “Don’t tell me your little Cupcake ended up making one of her famous escapes out the restaurant window
.”

“You mean Nanci hasn’t already told you all about my date with Kelsie?
”

“No, why?”

“I thought girls always talked about those kinds of things.”

“They might, but I haven’t talked to Nanci since our date.”

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you two.”

“Who said things didn’t work out?”

“Since the two of you haven’t spoken, I just assumed−”

“
Never assume,” Joe said with a grin.  “It just so happens Nanci and I had a great time.”

But
his friend hadn’t called her since their date?  “So what gives?” Cole asked, curiosity getting the better of him.  “Why haven’t you called her?”  The question was barely out before a possible reason for his friend’s actions came to mind.  “Oh, hell, say you didn’t.”

“Say I didn’t wha
t?”

“P
ull a one night stand with the best friend of the girl I’m trying not-so-successfully to win over.”

“No need to panic, pal.” 
His friend’s smile widened.  “I have every intention of seeing Nanci again.  Let’s just say I’m playing hard to get.  Now, back to your date.  What happened?  Kelsie run out of the restaurant on you?”

“No,”
he replied, his jaw tightening.  “Kelsie didn’t run out of the restaurant.  I stopped her before she had the chance.”

“So what gives?
  Why the long face?”

He looked toward the window with a frown
and muttered, “She ran out of my bed.” 

Joe straightened so fast coffee spilled out over the rim of his coffee cup.  “
She what?”

Cole
turned and sank down onto his bed with a sigh. 
Damn.
  He hadn’t intended to bring that up.  “Nothing.”

His friend
set his coffee cup on the desk then dragged out the chair, straddling it.  His expression sobered.  “What happened?”

He sighed.  “Long story short, Kelsie
mentioned that she liked Mexican, so I surprised her with reservations at this little restaurant I know.  Candlelit tables.  Soft music.  The works.  And the food smelled great.”

“Smelled great, tasted bad?”

“I wouldn’t know.  We left our dinners sitting in the restaurant parking lot.”

Joe leaned back against the desk.  “What was your dinner doing in the parking lot?  And what does this have to do with Kelsie running out of your bed?”

“We decided to take dinner back to my place.  I set the carry out bag on the ground while I helped her up into my truck.  I got a little sidetracked and ended up driving off without our carry-out bag,” he explained as he finished changing for his shift. 

“Obviously dinner wasn’t a high priority at that point.”

“Not exactly.”

“Skipped right to the dessert, huh.”

He nodded.  “You could say that.”

Joe blew out a breath and shook his head.  “She must be something special.  I’ve know
n you a hell of a long time and you’ve never taken a woman back to your place for
dessert
.”

It wasn’t that he’d never taken a woman back to his house.  He had. 
But when he took a woman to bed, it was to hers, not his.  “The woman I take to my bed has to accept me for who I am.”

“
And Kelsie does,” Joe concluded as he reached for his cup of coffee.

“Yeah, she does,”
he said, tucking in his shirt. 

“So, uh, you and her...”

“Yeah.”

Joe took a long swallow of coffee.  “So this funk you’re in today is because the sex wasn’t all you two hoped it would be, and that’s why Kelsie left.”

Cole zipped up his uniform pants and buckled his belt.  “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“If it was so great, why’d she run
out on you?”

“Because I asked her to s
pend the night.  Huge mistake.  She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“You asked Kelsie to stay over?”

He nodded his reply.

Joe groaned.  “What the hell were you thinking?  You told me yourself that she’s leery of getting into a relationship again.”

“She is.”

“Well staying over constitutes a relationship in any woman’s book.  No wonder she ran.”

“Damn it, Joe, don’t you think I know that?”  He grabbed his street clothes and carried them over to the closet.

“You could have fooled me.”

“I had no intention of rushing into things with Kelsie, but when we’re together things tend to heat up pretty fast. But it’s more than just sex,” he explained, reaching for a hanger.

“Sounds serious.”

“All I know is that I want to be with her.  Even when she makes me crazy.  I can’t stop thinking about that smile and those incredible green eyes of hers.”

“S
eems like you’ve fallen for your little escape artist in a big way.”  Joe stood and pushed the chair back under the desk.

“Not that it matters now.”

He turned back to Cole.  “What do you mean?”

Cole hung his jeans next to his t-shirt and then grabbed the empty bag from his bed and tossed it onto the closet floor.  “Kelsie doesn’t want to see me again,” he said, closing the closet door.  

His friend nodded in understanding.  “The commitment thing.”

“Apparently.  She tells me she’s not ready to get involved in a real relationship yet.”  He couldn’t help but wonder if Kelsie would
ever be ready for one.  Not with the way she ran every time things started getting a little too deep emotionally. 

“Then forget the relationship part,”
his friend suggested.  “Just give her sex and send her home.  You’d both make out in the deal.”

Was he kidding?

The expression on Joe’s face told Cole he wasn’t.  “I want more than sex from her, Joe.  I want to be a part of Kelsie’s life.  Someone she can confide in, laugh with, spend time with.”

“Hell, Cole, you’ve got it bad.”

“Tell me about it.”  He sighed again.  “It’s all I thought about last night.”

“This calls for a good strong cup of java.” 
Slapping Cole on the shoulder, he said, “Come on, Stud Muffin.  Let’s go figure out a way to get Kelsie to go out with you again.”

*
              *              *

Cole had just stood up from the lunch table when the overhead speaker came on.  “Cole, you have a visitor heading up to the rec room to see you.”

A visitor.  His heart slammed against his chest.

Kelsie.

She must have thought things over and realized how good they were together.  For the first time that day, he smiled. 

His department buddies wasted no time in razzing him, just as they had earlier that morning when they tried to get the goods on his date with Kelsie.  He’d given them very little.  Only Joe knew what
had really happened.  Not that he didn’t trust his crew, he did.  With his life.  It was just that Joe was his closest friend and the person he confided in most when it came to personal matters.

His
smile widened.  He couldn’t believe she had come there – to his station.  “Let’s get this place cleaned up,” he told the others, referring to the table full of dirty lunch plates and empty glasses that hadn’t been cleared way yet.

The men muttered a few ‘yes, mothers’, but hurried to take their dishes into the kitchen all the same.

Joe exchanged grins with Cole.  “Looks like we won’t have to come up with a plan after all.

“Looks that way.”

The rest of the crew retired to their recliners, but not before turning them around just enough to be able to watch the arrival of his visitor.

Telling them to mind their own damn business was a waste of time.  So he settled for, “Not one word from you guys when Kelsie gets
up here.  Got it?”

A lot of promises of good behavior were flung his way, but
he wasn’t buying it.  He knew these guys too well.  They lived to torture.  But at that moment all that mattered was that Kelsie had come to see him. 

“Cole?” a decidedly feminine voice called out from the entryway.

Definitely not Kelsie’s. 

He turned to find a tall,
attractive, very well dressed woman, probably in her late forties, standing there smiling at him.  There was something familiar about her, but he was almost certain he’d never seen her before.

His gaze slid down to the silver tray in her hand
s.  It was filled with what appeared to be assorted slices of cake. 

“
Uh, I’m Cole.  Can I help you with something?”

Her face lit up at that.  “You sure can
!” She moved toward him in a determined stride.  Smiling, she held up a plastic fork.  “I need you to try these and let me know which kind you like the best.”

“The one I like the best?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  I’m particularly fond of the cappuccino truffle torte myself, but I think my daughter’s more the French vanilla with cream cheese icing kind of girl.”

He
looked toward his crew; certain this had to be some sort of joke.  Only they weren’t laughing.  Their slightly agape expressions told him they were as confused as he was at that moment. 

“I’m sure they’re all good,” he said, trying to placate the plastic fork-wielding woman.

“Oh, will you just look at that dimple!” she exclaimed.  “And that smile.  You probably had her hooked right there.”

Her who?
 

The woman’s
gaze moved over him in an appraising manner that had him shifting uncomfortably where he stood.  “It looks like you take very good care of yourself.  I can certainly see why she’s crazy about you.”

No, crazy would be this cake lady
and her true cake of choice should be fruitcake with a side of nut roll because this woman was definitely nuts.

“Uh, well, yeah.  We try and stay in shape around here,”
he replied with a warning glance to his friends who were snickering in the background.  “The job can get pretty physical.”

“Of course.”  She smiled at him.

“Speaking of which,” he said, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I really do need to get back to work.”

“Yeah, he’s got dish duty today,” Nate called out with a grin.

The woman glanced toward the kitchen area.  “Oh, well let me get those for you while you taste the cakes.”  She set the tray on the dinner table and took a forkful of one of the miniature slices.  She lifted it to his mouth.  “Here’s the first one.  It’s lemon crème.”

“Um...” Cole muttered around the forkful of cake she’d just shoved in
to his mouth.  “Don’t you think your daughter and her husband-to-be should be the ones sampling these?”

“Absolutely, but Kelsie’s got a full schedule of cleaning
s this afternoon so I decided to─”

“Kelsie?” he gasped, half-choking on the tangy lemon cake still left in his mouth.

“My daughter,” she prompted as she handed him the fork.  She shoved the tray his direction and then stepped around the island to the kitchen area where a few dirty dishes awaited.  “Now try the raspberry crème,” she called out to him.