Operation Date Escape

have another party we need to get to.”
    Maggie Calhoun stood and walked around the table to give Kelsie a hug. “I’m sorry you have to leave so soon. We haven’t had much of a chance to visit. Hopefully, next time we’ll have the opportunity to get to know each other better.”
    Kelsie offered her a warm smile. “I’d like that very much.”
    The older woman looked to Cole. “B e sure to bring her around again. I like this one.”
    “You and me both,” he admitted openly.
    “Maybe to the company Christmas party,” she suggested.
    “We’ll be there ,” he told her with a mischievous grin his date’s direction. “Right under the mistletoe.”
    Kelsie responded with a warning jab in his ribs, making him chuckle.
    Laughter rose up around the table.
    Maggie turned to Kelsie. “All silliness aside, we’re so glad you could join us today.”
    “Thank you for having me.”
    The lieutenant stepped up beside his wife, slipping his muscular arm around her waist. “Any friend of Cole’s is a friend of ours. And I have to say that you’re even prettier than your picture.”
    “My picture?”
    “You know. The one they ran in the newspaper after Cole rescued you from that tree.”
    Cole rolled his eyes. Just what she needed to be reminded of.
    Maggie nodded. “And you’re a lot more down to earth than those other women─”
    “Will you look at the time,” Cole blurted out, cutting her off. “We’ve really got to get going.” With a quick goodbye to his friends, he hurried Kelsie away toward the open gate.
    “Other women?”
    Maggie was about the sweetest woman he had ever known, but she had a bad habit of blurting out whatever came to mind without thinking it through first.
    He glanced her way with a grin. “Jealous, doll?”

    Oh, was she ever, Kelsie thought. She hated the thought of Cole being with another woman. Not that she had any right to feel that way. They weren’t in a relationship. More her doing than his. But the thought of committing herself to one person, putting her heart out there to possibly be broken again, was terrifying. She couldn’t help but think of the old saying ‘too good to be true’. What if Cole really was just that?
    “You’ve got that look again.”
    Distracted from her thoughts she looked up at him. “What?”
    “That ‘I’m ready to run for the hills’ look. Should I change into my running shoes?”
    She laughed softly. “ I promise I have no thoughts of running anywhere. Except to your bed.”
    He gave a low growl. “Good. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”
    She pulled her keys from the pocket of her shorts and unlocked her driver’s side door. “I’ll follow you back to your place.”
    He nodded and then opened the door for her. “Just so you know, there weren’t that many.”
    She looked up at him as she settled behind the wheel. “That many?”
    “ Women.”
    “Oh.”
    He closed the door and then leaned in through the open window, resting his arms on the door frame. “I promise you there’s nothing for you to be jealous about. None of those women even came close to making me feel the way you do.”
    She smiled. “Are we talking in bed or out?”
    “Both.”
    “Race you home.”
    “You’re on.” He stepped away from her door and with a sexy grin took off in a sprint for his truck.
    He art racing wildly, she pulled away. Not only had she and Cole slipped away from his company picnic to go back to his place and have ‘hot, incredible’ sex, but he had just worked his way a little deeper into her heart and she wasn’t running.
    Halfway back to his place, he passed her in his truck, grinning as he did so. There was no denying the hunger she saw there. The same hunger that had her counting down the streets to Cole’s house. To Cole’s bed.
    He turned into his driveway and pulled into the garage even as the door was still lifting, giving her room to park in the drive behind him.
    “I hear there’s a party happening here,” she said to him as she stepped from her car.
    He gave a deep, husky chuckle, eyeing her up as he did so. “You’ve come to the right place.”
    “What kind of party is it?” she asked with playful innocence.
    “Pajama.”
    Excitement moved through her, making her body tingle. “Sounds like fun. Only problem is I left my P.J.’s at home.”
    They stepped up onto the porch. “No problem,” he said as he unlocked the door. He motioned her inside. “You wouldn’t have had them on very long