Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out by Jill Shalvis

her back to Tanner, damn him, because it had been him who put that unbearably erotic thought in her head.
    Hopelessly awake now, she straightened and blinked into the dark night that wasn’t quite asdark anymore. According to her watch, she’d slept for five and a half hours, fantasizing about hot sex, which accounted for her hard-as-rock nipples and the ache between her legs.
    It made her even grumpier.
    Still no cars, but at least the sky was lightening. At five-thirty in the morning, the sun would be up soon enough. Grumbling, beyond fear, because she had to pee and was starving, she got out of the car. With her purse slung over her arm and cell phone in hand, she headed up the road, not intending to stop until she had a signal.
    It only took about five minutes. She dialed Dimi’s town house first, and got her machine. “Get up,” she said unkindly into the phone. “I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere between Reno and Truckee and I need you to come get me.” She gave the exact off-ramp and her approximate location in high hopes her sister would wake up and come rescue her.
    In case Dimi didn’t get her lazy butt out of bed, Cami tried her mother next. She didn’t care about the time or waking up her mother, mostly because it was her mother’s fault she was in this predicament in the first place.
    But there was no answer there, either. “Okay, Mom, I’m stuck,” she said to the machine. “Your dreamboat ditched me for a babe in a two-seater.Who’d of figured, huh? I expect a ride pronto. Don’t you dare stop to take out your curlers first or I’m never giving you a grandchild.”
    Cami tipped her head back, studied the stars making their exit into the day sky and sighed.
    What now?
    Ted, the jerk, had clearly ditched her. That, or he’d gotten very lucky.
    Either way, she was on her own. And she wasn’t up for the walk, not without a bathroom, and there was no way she planned on squatting behind a tree, thank you very much.
    On the off chance Dimi was at this very moment raiding Cami’s bathroom for lipstick, or her kitchen for chips, she tried calling her own town house. Okay, yes, she knew there was no chance in hell Dimi would be up this early, but desperate times… Fact was, she needed to talk to someone, and if that someone was himself, so be it. When the machine picked up, she said, “Dimi, get your paws off my stuff and come rescue me from the date from hell.”
    Nothing.
    â€œOkay, yes, I’ve got an attitude,” Cami said, trying to be nice just in case, because it was very easy to annoy Dimi. “And I’m sorry, but you would, too, if you’d had the night I had.”
    Still nothing.
    Cami stopped walking and leaned against a tree on the side of the road. “Fine, you want a good laugh? It all started last night, even before I left. First my contractor told me I have this doormat on my forehead that says oh, please take advantage of me, and maybe I do, but it wasn’t very gentlemanly of him to point it out, you know? And then I had to go to Denny’s for the all-you-can-eat buffet, which believe me sounds much more appetizing than it is. And now I’m stuck out here around Highway Eighty all by myself because my date went off with another woman. The car won’t start and I have to pee. And I’m wondering why it’s so hard to have a nice date? It shouldn’t be that hard, women are easy enough. A cruise would be nice, yes, but not expected. I mean really, whatever happened to candles and moonlight and romance? Are you there? Are you listening? Annabel? Anyone? ”
    Cami sighed and felt the surge of self pity wash over her. “Oh, jeez. Not that I’ll ever admit it to him, but Tanner was right. I should have just said no.”

5
    T ANNER ARRIVED at the town house a few minutes early. He was tired, having stayed up too late with his father the night before.