Free OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE by Lindsey Brookes Page B

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.