Operation Date Escape

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    “Nanci,” she groaned, interrupting her friend’s animated rambling.
    “What?”
    “Don’t get too excited. For all I know it might be too late for hope for a future with Cole. All things considered.” She just prayed that it wasn’t.
    “You are kidding me, right?”
    Kelsie shook her head. “I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see me again.”
    “The man ’s been doing everything he can to find you. Calling me. Calling your mother, who you really should let know you’re okay.”
    “I can’t,” Kelsie said with a worried frown. “Not yet. She’ll ask too many questions. Ones I might not even have answers for yet.”
    “Tell you what,” Nanci said. “How about I call and tell her I’ve heard from you, no details whatsoever. I’ll simply tell her you promise to call her when you get home tomorrow.”
    “I’m not sure I’m ready to go home yet.” With the realization that she was in love with Cole, her life as she’d been determined to keep it - man-free, had changed. Her biggest fear now was that she’d pushed him too far this time. She couldn’t really blame him if he chose not to give her another chance.
    “Do you love him?”
    Tear of happiness filled her eyes. “Yes.”
    Nanci smiled. “Then go home tomorrow and get your man.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

    Kelsie walked into her apartment, feeling lighter emotionally than she had in years. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and she was in love with a man who knew what trust and commitment meant. And he loved her back. Or at least he had before she’d left. Now it was up to her to make things right.
    She tossed her purse onto the kitchen counter and walked over to her answering machine where the message light was blinking rapidly.
    Pressing play, she listened to her messages one by one. Most of them were from Cole, calling to make sure she was all right and asking her to call him at the station when she had time. Just hearing his voice made her stomach flutter with excitement.
    As expected, several of them were from her mother demanding Kelsie call her as soon as she got home. There were two from Nanci that had been left before her friend had come to the island to help her sort through things.
    Th e last call, however, came as a surprise. A really big one. It was from an editor at one of the publishing houses she’d sent OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE to. She loved the whole date escape guide concept and wanted to make an offer on the book.
    Heart racing, she played that last message over again, certain she hadn’t heard it right. Truth was she never expected anything to come of it.
    S tunned by the news, sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. Her bad date book was actually going to be published. Who would’ve ever thought that would happen? Certainly, not her.
    “This is what you wanted,” she reminded herself , her stomach in knots. To help all those women out there who find themselves stuck on a date from hell. It was why she’d suffered through all those awful blind dates her mother, and sometimes Nanci, had set her up on after her divorce.
    Every miserable moment she’d spent out with men who were not even close to being her ‘type’ had been done in the name of research. And it had all paid off. She was actually going to have a book out there that people would pay money for. How unreal was that?
    Kelsie sighed. She’d just gotten an offer on her book. She should be more excited by the unexpected news. But for the first time since she’d started writing her bad date survival guidebook there was something more important in her life. Make that someone. Cole.
    The very man she had walked out on days before and hadn’t spoken to since. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t exactly walked. Driven was more like it. But it was what she ’d had to do at the time. Mental self-preservation.
    Cole had come into her life, one she ’d worked very hard to maintain control of emotionally after her failed marriage, and he’d turned her safe little world upside down. He was everything she’d always wanted in a man, but was afraid to hope for. And to think how close she’d come to throwing it all away.
    Her cell rang. Kelsie grabbed for her purse and dug inside for her phone. “Hello?” she said, catching it third ring.
    “ You made it home I see,” Nanci said at the other end. She’d left the island a few hours before Kelsie had.
    “Just got in. You get your laundry done?”
    “Working on it.”
    “ Have you called