Kitabı oxu: «The 6'2'', 200 Lb. Challenge»

Chapter One

He was Mimi Pickford’s second and final chance.

She was not going to let a little obstinacy about answering the door stand in her way.

“Mr. St. James?” she shouted, propping open the screen door to knock once again on the front door of the two-story brick bungalow at the edge of town. “Gibson St. James, could I have a minute of your time? The chief sent me.”

There. That oughta do it.

Invoking the name of his boss surely should let him know that she wasn’t an insurance saleswoman, a poll taker or a reporter. The chief had specifically mentioned that there had been a lot of reporters.

Gibson St. James was a hero, a real-life hero, perhaps the only hero in the tiny Wisconsin town of Grace Bay. Mimi knew who he was and everybody else in town did, too.

A Grace Bay native who had migrated to Chicago to pursue a career as a firefighter, he had returned only this past year, saying he was tired of big-city life and ready to follow the St. James’s family tradition.

He had joined the same fire department his father and his grandfather before him had served on. Portraits and photographs of the elder St. James men graced the hallway in the municipal building.

On the night of the big fire, she had been as mesmerized by the television set at work as any of the customers. The Milwaukee stations had interrupted regular programming to cover the blaze.

When Gibson St. James had emerged from the four-story walk-up with a tiny baby boy in his hands, the cameras had captured a little bit of the stuff myths are made of. His helmet fell to the ground, revealing cinder-kissed and sweat-soaked blond hair. Sooty smudges highlighted the strong, sure lines of his face.

He cradled within his yellow slicker the little boy who had moments before been given up for dead. As he pulled open his coat to reveal the boy, the building behind him heaved and collapsed.

The picture taken by the photographer from the Milwaukee Herald later would appear in a Time magazine spread on American heroes. And Wisconsin’s governor would even devote part of his next day’s press conference to applauding the actions of the Grace Bay firefighter.

When the clock struck twelve on the night of the blaze, the fire had been brought under control, and hungry firefighters and volunteers crowded into the six booths, three tables and eighteen counter seats of Boris’s Diner.

They weren’t thinking about heroism.

They were thinking about their empty bellies.

With Boris at the grill and only one busboy, Mimi had handled every customer with a smile, quick service and a cup of coffee that she never let run dry.

She had kept an eye out for Gibson then, not knowing that he was being rushed to the community hospital. With the list of injuries Gibson St. James sustained—a shoulder pulled clear of its socket, cracked ribs, bruised lungs, a chipped femur and a sprained wrist—it was a miracle that he had gotten out of the building on his own.

Much less with the miracle baby still breathing.

But for Mimi, the real miracle would be convincing the chief that she could do as good a job as Gibson someday.

When she had gone to see the chief this morning, he hadn’t seemed interested in discussing her future career—only Gibson’s. Grace Bay’s favorite son had apparently checked out of the rehabilitation institute after only a week there, very much against doctor’s orders. He’d insisted that he could get himself home. He didn’t need anyone’s help, he said.

Gary Redmond, the owner and driver of the town’s only taxicab, had dropped Gibson’s resignation letter on the chief’s desk while the weary, injured hero waited outside.

“I told Gary that I wasn’t taking the letter,” the chief said. “But he told me that Gibson had offered him a ten-dollar bonus if he could find someplace, anyplace in my office to put it. I found a place for his resignation letter, all right.”

The chief good-naturedly showed her the paper airplane he had made from Gibson’s curt note. He whizzed it past her head out into the firehouse apparatus room, seemingly unaware of Mimi’s crimson-faced humiliation. But then he finally addressed the subject at hand.

“You failed the exam,” he said bluntly, putting his feet up on his desk. “Most women would. Exam’s too tough for a woman, too tough for most men. But that’s what bein’ a firefighter is all about. I built that obstacle course myself to test the skills a firefighter needs. There’s no shame in saying that a woman can’t do it.”

“But there are women firefighters all over...”

The chief held up a beefy hand to silence her. “I’m a great believer in equal rights for women and all that kind of stuff,” he assured her.

Right, Mimi thought.

“And in big cities, sure, a station house can have a woman or two without affecting the readiness of the station to do its job. And maybe there’s even ways having a woman on the force could be a good thing,” he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that if she asked him to name one, he would be stumped.

“Physical strength isn’t everything,” Mimi offered.

“Here in Grace Bay, we haven’t got more than five guys on duty at one time. And we got a lot of territory to cover. I can’t hire someone who can’t hoist a two-hundred-pound weight up a ladder and down. I can’t put someone on a crew who can’t carry a charged hose. I can’t make allowances for a guy—or gal—who isn’t strong enough to do the job.”

“But I really want this!”

She hadn’t meant to come right out and say it. But it was true. Boris was a fine boss; his diner was a great place to work at; she had been there so long that she knew everybody; and she made enough in tips to get by comfortably.

But that was just it.

She was getting by. Comfortably.

Any other woman her age—twenty-five— would have had the option of cutting loose and heading for one of the big cities searching for something more than “comfortable.”

Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, even Chicago wasn’t too far away. But Grandma Nona, who had raised her, was sickly and couldn’t do the things for herself that needed to be done. Mimi couldn’t leave because she knew her grandmother regarded a nursing home as the equivalent of death row.

But Mimi wanted more out of life than brewing coffee and serving the day’s specials at the town’s only restaurant.

The ad in the Grace Bay Chronicle for rookie firefighters had been intriguing. She hadn’t admitted to herself that part of her interest had been sparked by the heroics of a fireman she had never met.

“I know you want the job,” the chief said gruffly, swiping a tissue from the box inside his desk drawer.

He held it out to her, but Mimi shook her head, blinking back the tears that threatened to crown the shame of not being able to complete the chiefs obstacle course. The test had included heavy lifting, running with hoses charged with pressurized water, crawling on all fours back and forth on a horizontal ladder. All of this was capped off with chin-ups, pull-ups, push-ups and every other kind of -ups. The test was timed.

She had done the course so slowly that the chief, in a burst of rare compassion, had put away his stopwatch rather than inform her of the excruciating immensity of her failure.

She was the only one taking the test in the apparatus room and she was the only one failing.

At least she had done better on the written exam.

“Look, Mimi, I’ve always had a soft spot for you because you’ve always managed to find me the extra big slice of pie when I come to Boris’s. Especially when there’s lemon-cream.”

“Did you know I make all the meringue pies we sell? I’d be happy to give you your own lemon-cream meringue pie if you’ll let me take the physical exam again.”

“It’s a tempting offer, but I’ve got something in mind that’s a little more complicated,” he replied, rubbing his jowl. “Something just a little more complicated than lemon-cream meringue.”

And he had sent Mimi out the firehouse door with a mission.

She wouldn’t fail him.

She couldn’t fail him.

She knocked on the bungalow door again, rapping it really hard.

“Mr. St. James, I need to talk to you!”

Nothing.

“Mr. St. James, I know you’re in there and if you don’t answer me I’m going to knock this door down.”

An empty threat, to be sure.

“Fine. Open the door,” an irritated reply came from inside.

She turned the knob.

“I wish I had known. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble,” she murmured to herself.

And stepping from the brilliant sunlight of a late-August afternoon, she entered the deepest, darkest recesses of bachelor hell.

Gibson flipped off the remote and leaned back in the armchair so he could get a good look at the blonde standing at the door.

He blinked once, twice, and then he shook his head in disbelief. The sliver of blinding sunlight from beyond the door illuminated an angel.

No wings or a halo, sure.

But Gibson suddenly knew that an angel could wear a pair of faded jeans that fit nice and tight and a white T-shirt that faintly glowed.

She was a beauty, tall and willowy, with the kind of curves that made a man expect to find a staple on her stomach and a month to call her very own. She had long blond hair that the summer had streaked and curled according to its whim; eyes the color of cornflowers, fringed with thick, sooty lashes. Her cheeks were touched by the summer sun; her pouty mouth painted a shiny cotton-candy pink.

It was the mouth that entranced him, hypnotized him, made him want to... It didn’t matter, because when she started talking, she broke the magic spell she had cast on him.

“The chief sent me,” she said briskly. “He wants me to get you healthy and back on board. I thought it was going to be an easy job. But this is awful.”

She picked up several discarded, nearly empty cartons from the carry-out Chinese place the next town over. She wrinkled her nose.

Gibson guessed the cartons were from a few days ago. Maybe a week.

No more than two.

Tops.

“Yuck. No wonder he sent me,” she said, putting the cartons back on the floor and eyeing the pile of crumpled, dirty clothes on the sofa. “The chief thinks I’m going to fail, but I’m telling you, when Mimi Pickford sets her mind to something, she never, ever, ever fails. At least, not for long.”

“Delighted to hear that,” he said flatly.

“We’re going to have you up on your feet and back at the station house in no time.”

“No, we’re not.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and he knew what she saw.

A week’s worth of beard that wasn’t his style, shaggy hair long overdue for a cut and a comb.

No shirt, ’cause it hurt his arms too much to put one on—he noticed she stared at his chest just a fraction of a second too long.

He looked down at himself.

He still had his muscle tone, but he had forgotten to button the top of his jeans.

He was sure he didn’t look like a hero.

He looked like a burn.

And the worst thing was, he didn’t care.

She stepped cautiously over the piles of newspapers to the picture window that faced the street.

“We’re going to start with a cleanup,” she said, purposefully ignoring his lack of enthusiasm. “A major cleanup.”

She yanked at the blinds, throwing a sudden, explosive burst of sunlight into the room. Gibson shielded his face with his hands.

“Pull that blind right back down!”

He had been so mesmerized by her, so bewitched by her beauty, so hypnotized by the feminine smell of her, that he had nearly forgotten that he didn’t want light, didn’t want comfort, didn’t want cheerfulness. He certainly didn’t want visitors.

And that included friends, co-workers, reporters, salespeople, minions from the governor’s office and anybody sent by the chief.

Especially cheerful blondes.

“Put that blind back down right now and get out of here!” he ordered, squinting at the light.

If he could have gotten up from his chair, he would have picked her up bodily and thrown her right out onto the front lawn. And wiped the palms of his hands in satisfaction for a job well-done.

As it was, he’d have to use his commanding voice—and his newly born lack of charm.

“Get out!”

He added a few words that he ordinarily wouldn’t have said in front of a lady, but she shrugged with as little concern as if he were a four-year-old testing out a potty mouth.

“Why do you like it so dark in here?” she asked, gathering up the week’s worth of mail that had formed a mountain by the front door.

“I like it because...it’s none of your business why I like it like this.”

“Sunshine’s good for you.”

“I don’t care if it’s good for me or worse than a cocaine addiction. And put that mail down.”

She ignored him, crouching with her back to him as she sorted the mail into piles. Magazines and catalogs, bills and personal letters, and the junk mail ready to be thrown out. All the stuff that mail carriers slipped through the slot every afternoon.

“Put that stuff down!”

He’d abuse her verbally until she got tired, insulted, offended—or all three.

Then she’d leave him alone.

It had to work. She looked like the kind of woman to whom people were usually nice.

And Gibson St. James didn’t feel nice.

But as she turned away from him to bend over the pile of mail, a particularly loathsome oath just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

He sputtered, trying to form the vowels and consonants that made up his next invective.

She had such a round, curved...

You’re losing it, Gibson, he thought sourly.

“What did you say you were doing here?”

“I’m not a reporter, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said over her shoulder. “And I’m not trying to sell you anything.”

“You’re not from the Wisconsin Guaranteed Life, Home and Casualty Insurance Company?”

“No.”

“And you’re not asking me to be the spokesman for anything, especially insurance?”

“No.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Are you from the governor’s office?”

“Why would anybody from the governor’s office be bothering you?”

“They wanted to give me a medal,” he said flatly.

“That’s great!” she cried out, turning to bless him with a brief smile before returning to her sorting of the mail.

A man could die happy with that smile as the last image he saw.

Gibson looked away abruptly.

“I don’t want it,” he growled.

“Well, aren’t you the huffy one!”

She brought him a stack of magazines and catalogs. He noticed she smelled of vanilla and talc. A clean scent. But somehow more provocative than the perfumes worn by the bar girls in the honky-tonks up near the highway. Not that he’d ever liked their heavy, musky perfumes.

“Figure out what you want to toss and what you want to keep,” she said briskly.

He looked at the pile and shook his head. “You’ve got to leave.”

“Fine,” she said. And for a moment, briefly, he thought she might go. “If you won’t do it yourself, we’ll do it together. Keep or toss?”

She held up an old issue of Esquire.

“Keep or toss?” she repeated.

“Toss,” he said, sighing miserably. “So why are you here?”

She dropped the Esquire on the floor and held up a mail-order catalog.

“I want to be a firefighter,” she said. “Keep or toss?”

“Toss. So why did the chief send you here? I’m the last person to talk to about being a firefighter.”

She dropped the catalog on top of the Esquire.

“I failed the physical exam,” she explained. “And so the chief made me a deal. I drag you back into the station house and I get a second chance at the exam.”

“I resigned.”

“He doesn’t seem to care about that. Keep or toss?”

He looked at the catalog for gardening supplies. He wouldn’t be doing much bulb-planting in the fall since he couldn’t even get up from his chair. And he felt somehow sickened at the thought of new life, of the garish colors of spring’s floral renewal.

“Toss. You don’t look like a firefighting kind of woman to me.”

“And just what’s a firefighting kind of woman supposed to look like?”

He regarded her briefly, top to bottom. Then a little more slowly, his eyes instinctively lingering at all the curves.

Then a sly, lazy smile spread across his face.

“Wait a minute. You say the chief sent you?”

“Yes. Keep or toss the sports magazine?”

“Toss. In fact, uh, what did you say your name was?”

“Mimi. Mimi Pickford.”

“Okay, Mimi. That’s a nice name. You can put all that stuff down now.”

“Why? We’re just getting started.”

“I guess we are. I’ve finally figured out why the chief sent you. It took me a few minutes.”

“Good. Because I’ve been explaining it to you since I walked in the door.”

“Well, I got the message and you can pass along my thanks to the chief.”

“So you’ll help me out?” Mimi asked, in an innocent kind of way that made him doubt his conclusion for just an instant.

The instant passed as he took in her curves.

Those curves were made for a man.

It might be what he needed.

It might be exactly what he needed.

And so, like a man who has almost given himself up for dead and found an instant’s hope, he smiled.

“Sure, I’ll help you out.”

He stretched leisurely and mused that, although he’d never exactly done this kind of thing before, Mimi Pickford might be a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

“Do you need music?” he asked. “I mean, do you need music to get started?”

“No, but would you like some?”

“Do you usually work with music?”

She scrunched up her face.

“Well, Boris sometimes plays tapes of folk music from his homeland. He’s from Macedonia.”

“Is that around here?”

“It’s right next to Greece.”

“And you use a tape of Macedonian music?” Gibson considered this, wondering briefly who Boris was. “What’s the music like?”

“It’s got lots of clapping and chanting and drums,” she added. “Very primitive and evocative and kind of catchy in a bizarre kind of way.”

“Hmm. I suppose that’s okay. But I’m more of a simple rock ‘n’ roll man myself. Why don’t you just do this without any music?”

“Okay.”

“You can get started now.”

“I am started. Keep or toss last week’s News-week?”

He shook his head.

“No, Mimi, this is all very amusing, this part about cleaning my house,” he said, chuckling. “But just put down those magazines and take your clothes off.”