OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE (7 page)

“Nanci, please tell me you didn’t.” 

“I did.  Hmm...I wonder if Stud Muffin’s on duty.”

Kelsie spewed out threats of murder, but they were drowned out by the whining of sirens as two fire trucks, a red car with a flashing light on its roof and an ambulance flew single file up the narrow alleyway, coming to a stop at the edge of the porno restaurant’s backyard.

“Oh, hell.”  Kelsie hung her head, resting her brow on the limb she was draped over.  Please, God, don’t let Cole
Maxwell be working today.

“More exciting than a cat I suppose,” Joe muttered to Cole as they pulled up behind A Little Spice. 

“I can’t believe
we had to cut dinner short again to rescue some woman who got herself stuck in a tree.”

“Tell me about it.”

He looked toward the building.  “What’s she doing up in that tree anyway?”

Joe shrugged.  “I’ve seen stranger.”

True.

Cole glanced out the ladder truck’s freshly washed window and caught sight of a tall, slender woman standing
in the shadows cast by a large oak tree.

“Maybe it’s a publicity stunt for the new strip club,” Stubby said over the headset from the back seat of the vehicle.

“Strip club?” Joe repeated.

“Not that I’ve been in it,” Stubby said in his own defense.  “I’ve just heard rumors
that’s what this place is now.”

“
If so, a publicity stunt to draw in business wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Cole replied.  “Only one way to find out.”  He reached for the passenger door handle.

The three of them exited the Ladder truck, while the rest of their unit did the same, all making their way over to the woman waiting in the shadows.

“Hurry,” she called out, waving them over.  “My friend’s over here.”

That voice.  There was something very familiar about it.  Too familiar. 

Cole stepped around Joe and groaned.  Sure enough, it was Nanci with an ‘i’, Kelsie’s friend from the bar and grill.  He didn’t even have to look up to know who the woman was in the tree above him.

“Cole,” Nanci chirped, sounding a lot les
s frantic than she had when she’d been flagging them over.  “I’m so glad you’re on duty.”

“Must be your lucky night,” he replied.

“Not hers,” she said.  Looking up into the tree, Nanci cupped her hands to her mouth and called out.  “Kelsie, your knight in shining armor’s here.”

There was a
muffled groan above him.

His gaze moved slowly upward and stopped.  Sure enough, even in the settling darkness, there was no missing th
e flame-colored hair catching in the evening breeze.  A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Kelsie?”

After a very long pause, she finally replied in a defeated sigh, “Yeah.”

She didn’t appear to be injured. 
Despite knowing that, he couldn’t keep the concern from his voice.  “Are you alright?”

“Just perfect.”

The sarcasm in her tone calmed him enough to have him fighting a grin.  “Great.  Let’s see what we can do about getting you down.”

Joe craned his neck to look up.  “So that’s your Little Cupcake, huh?”

Nanci brought a hand to her mouth, muffling her laughter, clearly amused by Cole’s soon-to-be
ex-best friend
. 

Snickers and snorts erupted from the rest of his crew.  Thanks to
that big mouth from Station 24, they all knew this was the woman he’d been kissing in the emergency room.

Cole turned to them, one lone dark brow raised in warning. “Not one word.  In case you’ve all forgotten, we’ve got a job to do.”  Hell, someone had to maintain a level of professionalism at this call.

The Lieutenant clasped a firm hand on Cole’s shoulder and said with a grin, “She’s all yours, oh, knight in shining armor.”

And to think he’d given up Joe’s chili, hot off the stove, for this.  He stepped closer to the tree and called out to Kelsie again.

“Yeah?”

“Just hold on.”

“You can count on it.”

Sort of like how he could count on her being in some sort of predicament every time they crossed paths. 
People began to gather around to see what all the excitement was about. 

T
o make matters worse, a news truck pulled up behind the parked emergency vehicles.

Damn.

“Clear the area,” he instructed his unit, then turned his attention back to Kelsie.  “Can you climb down?” he asked, experience prompting the question.

Some people had a tendency to panic at the thought of being brought down by someone else and end
ed up coming down on their own.

The leaves on the branch Kelsie clung to shuddered as she shifted to peer
down at him from over the branch.  The look she gave him was nothing short of glaring.  “If I could, would I be hanging here in complete humiliation?”

“Boy, someone
’s a little cranky this evening,” Joe muttered.

Cole gave him a firm jab in the ribs with his elbow.

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Nanci said, flashing Joe the same flirtatious smile she’d used on Cole that night at Casey’s.  Joe had better watch out.  “She gets that way once in a while.  It’s the red hair.”

“Can we leave my hair out of this and get me down from here?”  Kelsie
demanded impatiently, obviously having grown tired of her perch.

“Hang on,”
he calmly instructed.  “We’ll have you down before you know it.”

Joe nodded.  “I’ll get the truck, but you’re going up after her.  I think she bites.”

“I heard that!” Kelsie exclaimed, but Joe was already on his way across the yard to get the ladder truck, laughing as he went.

Cole’s gaze shifted back to the China doll dangling above him.  It was hard to remain professional and keep the grin from his face.  Rescuing Kelsie from sticky situations seemed to be becoming a habit with him. 

His friend eased the ladder truck up to the rear of the building until it was close enough to the sprawling tree for the bucket to access the branch Kelsie had somehow gotten herself stranded on.

He
signaled for Joe to stop and then climbed up onto the truck, making his way into the bucket at the end off the ladder.  Reaching for the control panel, he called out to Kelsie, “I’m on my way.  Don’t let go until I tell you to.”

“Even if I did, this tree has other plans for me,” she told him as he drew near.  “My shirt is caught on the branch above me.”

He raised the bucket, moving in her direction as quickly as he could.  There was no telling how long she had been up there and he didn’t want to risk exhaustion causing her to lose her grasp.

The first thing that greeted him was her shapely, jean-clad backside.  Okay, so occasionally the job did have its perks.  Grinning,
he raised the bucket just a little higher.  Sure enough, the lace shirt she wore was pulled taut by several branch tips that had worked their way in through the sheer material. 

“Hooked you good,”
he said as he reached out to un-snare her.

“Tell me about it.
”

“Just give me a sec and I’ll have you free.”

He maneuvered one branch tip at a time out of the lace, ignoring the chorus of
‘Someday my prince will come...
’ ringing out below him.

Kelsie groaned.  “Friends of yours?”

“Yeah,” he admitted with a shake of his head.  Freeing the last bit of lace, he straightened.  “They appear to be bonding well with your friend.”  Nanci had just joined in with the all-male chorus below.

“
Yeah, well, she’s dead when I get down from here.”

He
glanced down at Joe and his Merry Men in blue.  “I might very well be sitting in jail with you.”  Turning his attention back to Kelsie, he asked with a grin, “You work here?”

If looks could kill...

He chuckled.  “Sorry.  Couldn’t resist.  Let’s get you into the bucket here before the news crew figures out a way to get close enough to snap a picture of you.”

“News?” she shrieked.

He nodded.  “Just pulled up.”

“Oh, God.  I think I’d rather you just leave me up
in this tree.”

He
gave another husky chuckle.  “I have no intention of leaving you up here.  If you’re worried about the media, you can hide your face in my shirt when I take you down.”

“Are you always this accommodating?”

“It depends.  Would that make me too perfect?”

“
Sorry to tell you, but you’ve moved beyond perfect in my book,” she replied as he helped her into the bucket.

“
Damn.  I was afraid of that.”  He kept a firm grip on her arm until she was safely inside.  “Almost there.”

She nodded shakily.

The second he released her to stand on her own, her legs gave way beneath her.  He caught her, bringing her up against him.  “You okay?”

She clung to him. 
“My legs are just a little weak from hanging on to that branch for so long.  I’ll be fine.”

Not willing to take any chances, he continued to hold her as he lowered the bucket.  “I’m almost afraid to ask what you were doing up there in the first place.”

Heat rushed to her
cheeks.  “I was sort of attempting to get out of”

“A bad date?” he finished for her.

She nodded. 

“Ever hear of
leaving by the front door?”

“I had my reasons
for leaving the way I did.”  Research for her book being one of them.  Safely ditching her date another.  But she wasn’t in the mood for explanations.  Needless to say, this escape plan would not be going into her survival guide.  That is, unless she added a chapter of date escape not-to-do’s.  The only good thing to happen that night was that the floor show that had begun when she’d headed upstairs had kept her date too distracted to notice she hadn’t returned yet. 

“You know,” he said with a lone dimpled grin that made her legs weaker than they already were, “if you’re trying to get me to go out with you, all you have to do is ask.”

“What?”

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble to get my attention.”  He wriggled his dark brows playfully.  “You’ve
already got it.”

Kelsie pushed him away.  “I was not trying to get your attention.”

“That so?”

Legs still not cooperating, she was forced to grab for Cole’s shirt to steady herself
again.  “That’s so!”

“Then I guess you dressed that way to impress your not-so-perfect date,” he said with grin.  “Lucky guy.”

She followed his gaze downward to discover two more of the buttons on her lace shirt had come undone, revealing more than an eyeful of flesh.  With an embarrassed gasp, she pulled the gaping material together and fumbled to work the buttons back through their holes.  But her trembling fingers refused to cooperate.

“Here,”
he said, pushing her hands away.  He quickly re-buttoned her shirt and then drew her to him as the bucket settled onto the back of the truck.  “Camera pointed our way,” he said in a tight whisper.

Having no desire to have her face plastered on the front page of the paper,
she clung to him, burying her face in the front of his uniform shirt. 

When he
helped her out of the bucket and to the ground, he continued to block the news crews’ view as best he could.  “Let’s get you over to the Medic truck.”

“I’m fine,”
she said, lifting her head to look at him.

Cameras
clicked around them as the determined news reporters went after their story. 

Kelsie groaned.

“What’s done is done,” he whispered near her ear.  “And I have a job to do.  Seeing that you are checked out is part of it.”  Giving her no time to refuse, he led her over to the awaiting Medic vehicle.

Oddly enough, she found herself wanting to
follow him.  A bad sign.  Those dark eyes and sexy grin were getting to her. 
And those hands
, she thought with an inner sigh.  So skilled.  When he’d helped her button her shirt, her thoughts had been on what it would have been like to have him undressing her instead, running those large hands of his over her eagerly awaiting flesh... 

“
Nate, I need you to look her over before I can send her on her way.”

The medic grinned.  “No problem.”

Just then, Nanci’s head popped around the open doors of the rescue truck.  “You alright?”

Just when she’d been ready to kill her friend for calling 911, Nanci rescued her from her dangerously straying thoughts about Cole.  Kelsie
flashed a grateful smile.  “I’m fine.”

Her friend looked to Cole for confirmation. 

“We have to check her out before we can return to the station.”

“Oh, okay.  Had me worried for a moment.”  She handed him
her discarded high heels.  “She’ll be needing these.  They’re her favorite ones.”

Instead of handing them over,
he turned to her with a calculating grin that had Kelsie’s pulse rocketing.  His gaze settled on her bare feet, his dimple deepening.  Then those dark eyes lifted to meet hers.  “How about a trade?”

“A trade?”