Operation Date Escape

intention of sticking around long enough for it to become a problem.
    Teeth clenched, Cole fought to control the emotions warring away inside of him. Anger. Hurt. Confusion. He tossed the paper onto the oversized table and looked up to find everyone else at the table smiling.
    Smiling?
    Relief surged through him. They’d set him up. This was another one of their playful firehouse gags. “Real funny, guys. I’ll admit you had me going there for a moment.”
    This time they were the ones looking confused.
    “What are you talking about?” Joe asked and reached for the paper. After a quick once-over he looked up, meeting Cole’s gaze from across the table. “We didn’t do this.”
    The lieutenant snatched the paper away from Joe and read it. Soon the paper had made its way all the way around the breakfast table and questions were being fired at Cole. Questions he had no answers to.
    “What all’s in the book?” Stubby asked as he grabbed for the paper. “Are we in it?”
    Unable to take any more, Cole pushed away from the table and stood. “I have no idea. I guess you’ll all just have to read the book to find out.” That said he turned and walked out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

    Kelsie hung up with a frustrated sigh. She’d been trying to reach Cole at home all morning with no success. Maybe he was avoiding her calls. It wouldn’t surprise her. Her mother would probably say it served her right, running out on a good man the way she had and not returning his calls.
    Now that she was finally ready to talk, ready to tell Cole how she really felt about him, she couldn’t reach him. She’d gotten his answering machine both on his cell phone and at home, but she didn’t want to leave a message. What she had to say to him was too important to be done over the phone.
    Seeing as how he was avoiding her calls, and probably deservedly so, she decided to drive to his house and force him to hear her out. To apologize. To explain. To tell him that she had fallen in love with him, too.
    For as close as Cole lived to her place, it felt like the longest drive she’d ever had to make. Her stomach was all aflutter and her heart was pounding in anticipation.
    She tried calling his house once more with no luck. Now she knew how Cole and her mother and Nanci felt when she’d done the same thing to them. Shoving her phone back into her purse, she made the turn down Cole’s street.
    The window curtains were all drawn and there was no truck in the driveway when she arrived. She prayed his truck was in the garage and that he was home and just hadn’t taken the time to open the curtains. He had to be there.
    Her cell phone r inger went off, making her heart lurch. She grabbed for it, bringing it to her ear. “Cole, I’m so glad─”
    “It’s not Cole,” Nanci interjected.
    “Oh.” She should have checked the caller I.D. first.
    Nanci laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
    “What’s up?” Kelsie asked as she sat staring out the window at Cole’s front door.
    “I just crawled out of bed and tried to call you. Where are you at so early in—” her friend’s words grew garbled and then the call disconnected.
    She waited a minute or two for Nanci to call her back, but she never did. Shoving her phone back into her purse, she got out of her car and walked up to the front door, knocking twice.
    No answer.
    She knocked again, this time a little louder. “Come on, Cole, please answer.”
    Her cell rang again. She hurried to check it. Nanci was finally calling her back.
    “ Hello?”
    “Me again, and my battery is almost dead, so I can’t talk long.”
    “Where’s your car charger?”
    “I forgot it in Joe’s truck the other day when we took a drive up to Alum Creek State Park. You and Cole are going to have to go with us there sometime soon.”
    She loved Nanci dearly, but she didn’t have time for girl chatter. “Can I call you later? I’m at Cole’s house right now.”
    “You called him? How’d it go? Pretty good I guess if you’re at his house.”
    “Nanci...”
    “Oh, shit, I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”
    “No,” she said impatiently. “Because I haven’t spoken to Cole yet.”
    “But you’re at his house.”
    “He wasn’t answering his phone, so I decided that he was avoiding me like I’d done to him. So I took a drive over here to apologize in person. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to be home.”
    “J oe’s on duty. You could call the station and ask him if he knows