OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE (6 page)

“Some friend you are,” Kelsie sighed on the other end
of the line.

“So good that I’m
even going to save some wine for you.  You can swing by after your date and tell me all about it.”

“
Better save me an entire bottle.  Something tells me I’m going to be needing it.  I’ll talk to you later.”

“Have fun,”
she told her and then shoved her phone back into her purse.  Kelsie needed to let down her guard, at least a little, and start enjoying life again.  Her friend had practically shut down since the divorce when it came to men and she couldn’t help but be worried about her.

Thus, the reason she and
Kelsie’s mother came up with their plan to fix Kelsie up with bad dates in the hopes she’d get tired of all the duds and start looking on her own for a good one.  She hadn’t.  Instead, she’d started writing her book on date escapes. 

Nanci curled her fingers around the handle of her shopping cart and gave it a shove, starting off down the aisle.  Kelsie might be stubborn, but she was a hell of a lot more stubborn.  S
he would see to it that her best friend got past what her asshole of an ex had done to her.  Somewhere out there was a man who was everything her best friend deserved, a man who could knock her Kelsie off balance with just a kiss.  A man like Cole Maxwell.

*
              *              *

Kelsie checked her watch for about the fifth time
and then glanced across the dimly lit restaurant/lounge she had agreed to meet her mother’s latest matchmaking attempt at.  The place, once a steak house, had just re-opened a week or so before and had been renamed A LITTLE SPICE.  She hoped that meant they served Italian – her favorite.  It would make up for her having to sit there alone waiting for a date she really didn’t want to be on.     

She and her
blind date, a jeweler her mother had crossed paths with, were originally supposed to meet at Fridays, but he had called an hour before to tell her he was running late and suggested they meet at A LITTLE SPICE since it was more centrally located.  That worked for her.  It had been years since she’d been there and she was looking forward to seeing if the food at the new place would be as good as it had been under the previous owners.   

Another glance at her watch had her wondering if her
blind date had changed his mind about going out with her.  Could she be so lucky?  Either way, she was giving him five more minutes before she walked out and made her way over to Nanci’s to watch chick flicks and drink cheap wine.   

So
caught up in watching the door, it wasn’t until that moment that she noticed the scantily clad women moving about the candlelit room, serving drinks to the customers.  Most of whom she realized were men.

The men
had their eyes trained on a long wooden stage behind the bar.  No doubt waiting for the entertainment her ‘date’ had made mention of on the phone when he’d called to switch meeting places. She’d assumed it was a band, but there was no equipment set up on the stage.

Her growing
unease intensified the second she caught sight of the shiny brass pole that ran from one of the wooden beams on the ceiling to the center of the stage below.

A stripper pole?
 
The thought had no sooner formed in her mind when music began to play from the speakers above.  A second later, the thick black curtains above the stage parted and a woman dressed in a red and gold harem outfit belly danced her way out onto the stage. 

P
anic set in. “Oh, shit.”

How had she been so oblivious to her surroundings? 
No doubt about it, she was seated in some sort of fancy strip club.  One the citizens of Worthington would have shut down in no time as soon as word got out about the place being there.  The community frowned on these kinds of places big time.

Her panic turned to anger. 
What kind of a man would invite a woman to a strip club on their first date?  On any date for that matter! 

Kelsie shot to her feet. 
This
was not the kind of show she’d been expecting to see.  She grabbed for her purse which was slung over the back of her chair.  But before she could make her escape, the front door of the lounge swung open and a short, balding man draped in gold chains walked in. 

He
scanned the room, stopping the second he spotted her in the corner by the stairs.  A slow smile spread across his rounded face.

Her mother wouldn’t have. 
A sick feeling came over her, getting worse with every step the ‘blinged-out’ man made in her direction.  He moved with an exaggerated swagger that was as far from sexy as a walk could get. 

“Kelsie, right?” 

Say no.

Before she could answer, the man gave her
a once over and then added with a wolf like whistle, “Your mother’s description didn’t do you justice at all.”

“
Y...you must be Jack.”  The
jewelry
salesman.  Her mother failed to mention he walked around with the entire store draped about his thick neck.

“The one and only.”  He circled the table to stand beside the empty chair next to the one she’d just vacated.  “I’ve never dated a redhead before, but I hear they’re pretty hot.”

“Not all redheads,” she countered, having no desire to be considered hot by this strip club gigolo.  “I’m really pretty boring.”

He settled into the empty chair and slung a beefy arm over the back of hers.  “I beg to differ.  Boring women don’t venture into strip clubs.”

Unless they didn’t know what the place was until they were already inside.  She thought the restaurant’s name, A Little Spice, referred to the food it served there, not the women.

“I’ll bet you’re a real wildcat in bed,” her date surmised with what
she could only assume was suppose to be a sexy wriggle of his uni-brow.

She wasn’t even going to go there.  If it weren’t for her determination to finish her dating survival guide
and her love for her mother, she would have stopped going on these disaster dates her mother and Nanci were constantly setting her up on.  This had to be her mother’s worse matchmaking attempt yet.  And there had been a lot of really bad ones to compare it to.

“Excuse me,” she said, preparing for her escape.

“Where are you going?”

“I, uh, need to freshen up.” 
Or puke.
  This guy was giving her the creeps.  She took the closest route of escape – the stairs.  

“Hurry back, Red,” he called after her.

“You can count on it,” she said with a forced smile.

Turning, she raced up the stairs, relieved to find she had the
ladies room all to herself.  Not that she should be surprised.  The only women in the place, other than herself, were those employed by the lounge.  And they were all busy downstairs working their tables.  Or the stage. 

If anyone she knew had seen her come into this place, she was going to die of embarrassment. 
It had looked so normal and restaurant-like on the outside.  The dilemma now was how to get out of there without being seen.  Jack was just sleazy enough to be the kind of guy who would follow her home in hopes of getting ‘lucky’ with a redhead.

No way was she taking that chance.  Maybe she could just stay in the ladies room until the club was ready to close.  Then again, her date was just sleazy enough to come into the restroom to find her.  Scratch that idea.

“Come on, Kelsie, think,” she muttered anxiously.

A gentle breeze drifted in through the open window be
side her, spurring an idea.  She stepped over to it, smiling when she saw the sprawling oak branches nestled against the backside of the building.  This was it.  The perfect escape.

No need to try and slip past her date downstairs.  No worry about being seen by any passersby while leaving what had turned out to be a flesh palace.  She could just climb down the tree
outside and go have that bottle of wine Nanci had promised to save for her.

She
hurried to remove the window screen, setting it against the wall below the sash.  Then she slipped off her heels and dropped them out the window, watching as they landed safely on the grass below.  Climbing down would be much easier to do barefoot.  Not to mention faster.   

She s
ecured her purse over her shoulder before climbing up onto the window ledge.  Thankfully, she had chosen to wear her good jeans to dinner that night.  Descending a tree in a skirt wouldn't have been an easy feat.  But considering what awaited her downstairs, she would have made the climb anyway. 

Choosing the sturdier of the two limbs by the window, she backed out onto it
, hugging it tight as she began her descent.  Legs locked securely around the branch, Kelsie smiled as she scooted backwards.  This truly was the perfect date escape.

Or maybe not.
 
Halfway across the limb, her plan hit a snag.

Literally.

*              *              *

Not even five minutes after she’d called Nanci from her cell phone to plead for help, her friend was there.  Thank goodness she’d been able to reach her.  She’d hate to have had to call her mother for help instead.

“That was fast,” Kelsie told her as she looked down from the branch she was clinging to.

Nanci stood
staring up at her from the base of the tree, arms crossed in a not-so-happy fashion, Kelsie’s discarded heels dangling from her extended fingertips.  “Lucky for you I live so close and, more importantly, that I wasn’t on a date.”

“Believe me, I
’ve already told myself that.”

“What I can’t believe is that you’re really stuck in a tree.  I’m telling you, Kelsie, you’re going to get yourself killed writing that damn book of yours.”

She was in no position to argue at that moment.  Not that Nanci was about to let her get a word in edgewise anyway.

“Climbing out of a second story window onto a tree,” her best friend continued to rant below her.  “What in the hell were you thinking?”

“I told you why I did this when I called you for help.  I know it was a crazy thing to do, but I had no choice,” she replied in her own defense. 

“Now that I see how high up you are in person, I think I would have chosen to be stalked by Gold Boy instead.”

“Not if you’d spent two seconds with him.  Besides, I climbed a lot of trees growing up.  This one isn’t any different.”

“Except for the fact that you’re not climbing up or down it,” Nanci was quick to point out.  “You’re stuck!”

“For your information Operation: Date Escape is going to help a lot of women.”

“Help them do what?  Break their necks?”

“I’ll admit this escape has some flaws that still need worked out, but I’d really prefer to work on them down there.”  She pointed to the ground. 

Her friend clicked her tongue. 
“I should leave you up there just to teach you a lesson.”

“Nanci,” she pleaded with a nervous glance up at the strip club’s open window. 

“Help is on the way.  Just hang on.”

As if she had a choice. 
Not when a spiny branch held the lacy back of her new blouse hostage.  So far, any attempt to free herself had resulted in the sound of tearing, not to mention the strain it put on the buttons at the front of the delicate emerald green blouse she’d worn.  One had already popped free, exposing more of her Victoria’s Secret assisted cleavage than she cared to share with the world.  Dialing her cell phone had been hard enough.  Attempting to rebutton her top was out of the question.   

“This is so embarrassing
,” she groaned.

Her friend’s
frown gave way to a smile.  “I suppose there is a good side to this.”

“And that would be?”

“The fact that it’s dusk.”

“What’s so great about that?”

“It means you’re less noticeable up there.  Another positive is that you chose a tree
behind
the strip club to climb down instead of one on the main street.”

“I wouldn’t be that stupid.”  Then again, she
was
dangling from a tree just outside of A Little Spice’s second floor ladies restroom.  It didn’t get much worse than that.

“I’m biting my tongue down here.  You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Smart girl,” she said, shifting slightly to get a better view of her friend through the finger-like branches.  “Now which guy from your little black book is coming to our rescue?”

“Your rescue,” her friend corrected as she peered up at her.  “And the answer to your question would be none.”

“What do you mean?”  Kelsie’s hands ached from holding on so tight, as did her inner thighs, which were locked in a death grip around the branch beneath her.  “You just said help is on the way.”

“It is.  I called 911.”

Nanci’s announcement nearly had her toppling off the branch she was straddling.  “You didn’t.”

Silence.