Operation Date Escape

your own.” Amusement lit his dark brown eyes.
    “ Stop looking at me that way,” she said with a frown. “I’ll have you know I did fall. Several times as a matter of fact. I really could have broken something.”
    “Your butt from the sound of things.”
    Her cheeks heated up with embarrassment as they crossed the nearly full parking lot. “So I can’t roller blade. Sue me. This whole thing is my mother’s fault anyway.”
    He stopped beside a shiny black Ford pickup and fished his keys out of his pants pocket. “Are you sure you didn’t land on your head one of those times you fell? Because, if not, I’m wondering if you aren’t a little off your rocker.”
    “I’m not crazy.” Although her mother was driving her in that direction at high rate s of speed. “For your information my mother told Cornelius I could in-line skate when she asked him to go out with me.”
    He opened the passenger door. “And you can’t?”
    She rubbed the backside of her jeans. “My butt says not.”
    “Need me to go in and borrow a hospital pillow for the ride home?”
    “Not necessary,” she assured him with a smile. “I think I can make it home without one.” She stepped up onto the shiny chrome running board. “Nice truck.”
    “Thanks.” He helped her up onto the passenger seat and then lounged against the open door, watching as she fastened her seatbelt. “So does your mother set up all your dates?”
    She studied his chiseled face, searching for something that would give way to imperfection, but damn it, she couldn’t come up with one thing. “She tries to.”
    “Hold that thought.” He straightened and stepped away. Closing the door, he rounded the truck to the driver’s side.
    God help her he even walked sexy. All six foot whatever of lean, mean, firefighting machine. She averted her gaze as he slid behind the wheel and started the engine. The less she looked at Mr. Perfect the better.
    “Okay, where to?”
    “Pardon me?”
    “I need your address to take you home.”
    “Oh.” She hesitated only a moment before giving it to him.
    He nodded. “I know the place.” Throwing the truck into reverse, he backed out of the parking space. “Now where were we?” he said as they pulled out onto Olentangy River Road. “I think it was something about your mother being your social planner.”
    She gave in to the urge to look in the direction of the man who had come to her rescue. “That is definitely an understatement. Ever since my divorce two years ago, my mother’s been determined to help me find that special someone to share my life with.”
    “And the spandex king back there was supposed to be that guy?”
    “I think she’s given up being choosey. It seems to have moved to the level of desperation on her part. Not that he wasn’t a nice guy,” she quickly added. “He just wasn’t for me.”
    “Not into guys in leotards?”
    “Those were athletic pants,” she corrected, not that she hadn’t found Cornelius’ wearing them to their date a bit odd.
    He shook his head with a chuckle. “To each their own I guess.” He turned to look at her, that teasing grin still intact. “So that’s what your little theatrical performance was about back there. You were trying to shirk your blind date obligation.”
    He made her sound so awful. Although it was true she had caused her date to rush her to the emergency room for an ankle injury that didn’t exist.
    “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him the date was a flop.”
    “I see,” he said, turning his attention back to the road. “I’ll be sure to store that one away in my mental files for my next bad date. Got any more creative escape ideas?”
    He had no idea. It suddenly dawned on her what he’d just said. “You date?”
    “I’m not a monk,” he said with a husky chuckle.
    That wasn’t what she had meant at all. “It’s just that guys like you are usually taken,” she felt the need to explain.
    “Guys like me?”
    She squirmed in her seat and fidgeted with her seatbelt, resisting the urge to blurt out what she really thought. That tall, dark, incredibly hot men in uniform like him were never left on the open market. Women snatched them up like after Christmas clearance items at the mall.
    “M en in uniform,” she explained. “Most of them your age are already taken.”
    That had his head snapping her direction. “My age? ”
    She nodded. “Older.”
    “I’m thirty-four. And, for your information, a lot of