Chapter
JFK’s head was so full of new information and ideas, he thought it might explode. More than once that morning sitting across from Dom at the restaurant he’d felt like he was being messed with. Like waiting to eat until everyone at the table got their food. In the fire station when it was chow, you ate. Because nothing attracted calls like a dinner bell.
Taking a left turn towards Powers’ dumpy apartment, he took his hat off and scratched his head, reminded of more of the rules.
Taking off hats indoors. For real. Hat head and a stinky lid were more offensive than just wearing the stupid thing, but not according to whoever decided this crap. Twenty-seven years old and he’d never even heard that before. Hats off for the flag or national anthem, sure. That was every parade and every sports game. But just walking into a building. How weird. And pointless.
And they’d barely scratched the surface on silverware placement and usage. Silverware. It had almost been enough to make him give up, but for Mercy it was worth it. Not that he had any delusions of anything ever happening between them, but even for a shot to see her again and not make a fool of both of them, he’d give his left n—knnnuckle. And maybe someday he’d have a real shot with a girl more in his league and be able to use the manners info.
He’d never met anyone like Mercy and since he’d left her house last night, she hadn’t left his mind. Even that woman running alongside the highway looked exactly like—wait, it was Mercy!
JFK swerved to the side and came to a stop just in front of her. The coat, jeans, boots, and purse made interesting jogging gear. He rolled down the window and she stepped up, breathing heavy but smiling in at him.
“Cold day for a jog,” said JFK. “Can I give you a ride?”
“Yes. I’m not even going to banter because I’m so late.” She reached for the door handle.
“Wait!” said JFK locking the doors just as she pulled up on the handle. “Hold on.” How could he manage this one? Shutting off his truck, he hurried out, leaving the doors locked, and jogged around to the passenger side. As he reached Mercy, he hit the button on the fob to unlock the doors. “Let me get that for you.”
Looking like she didn’t really get what was going on, Mercy took a half step back. After opening the door, JFK held out a hand. Mercy was frozen, moving only her eyeballs, trying to figure him out. Did he do something wrong? Opening doors was the manner he’d spent the most time with Dom on that morning, but it had been all classroom material. No practical exercises or anything.
“Thank you,” said Mercy, with a surprised smile. She put her hand in his and climbed up. Now that she was wearing pants, the question of where to put his eyes was not as tricky as last night.
JFK checked to make sure she was clear of the door, closed it, then ran back around to his side. In a single motion he put his keys in the ignition, started the truck and shifted into gear. No one was coming in his lane so he pulled out.
“Where to?”
“Two Hearts Rescue,” said Mercy. “You are an answer to prayers.”
JFK didn’t know about that. It’s not like an angel had visited him and told him to drive on this road at this exact minute, so how could prayers have anything to do with it? “The interview. That’s right.” It was 11:55 so JFK stepped on the gas. “You’ll do great.”
“Any tips? You know Poppy pretty well, right?”
He did, but not really in a professional sense as far as Poppy was concerned. “Tell Poppy … tell her she owes JFK a favor for the horses and he’s calling it in. Also tell her I’m sorry about the fat comment I made that day.” He’d never apologized for insinuating that Poppy was carrying some extra weight that day. True, he’d been buzzed, and he’d only used the word ‘healthy’, but it was meant to be cutting. The irony was the 80 extra pounds he carried around back then. Now he was down to about 40 extra, and if he kept eating oatmeal at restaurants like he had today, he’d lose that soon enough. Oatmeal, though. At a restaurant. If that didn’t prove he was serious about changing, nothing did.
“I’m not saying anything about a fat comment,” said Mercy.
“Fine, but the other part, about the favor I’m calling in, I’m totally serious. She was shedding tears of gratitude that day.”
“I didn’t take you for the kind that tracks favors.”
That was true. So true. “I’m not. Usually.” He didn’t want to start bragging or making it sound like he was in love with Mercy or anything so he left it at that.
“Where are you heading?” she asked, looking around the truck and pausing for a second on the six packs of home brew in the back.
Great, she’d think he was a lush driving around with 72 bottles of beer. He was on his way to give them to some of the guys on the job who appreciated a quality brew. For now, he’d given up drinking. Again, he didn’t want to sound all high and mighty, or make her think he was trying to impress her by changing his life, so he just said, “Dom and I went out to breakfast.”
“And Emily?”
“No,” said JFK, “just the guys.” He’d sworn Dom to secrecy, so hopefully she couldn’t pry anything out of him. Cousin, right? No, she called him Uncle Dom. But they couldn’t be more than a few years apart in age.
Crap, she was going to think he was buttering up Dom to get to her, or win over the family so that she’d fall for him or some stupid thing like that, so he changed the subject. “Don’t you have a car?”
“It died.” The despair in her voice was tangible.
“While you were driving it? Do I need to go back and tow it?”
“No,” said Mercy. “It wouldn’t start. So I started running.”
“Dang. Bad timing. You shoulda called.”
“I didn’t have to,” said Mercy, giving him that hero-look. “You showed up.”
That was quite lucky, he had to admit. They pulled into the Two Hearts parking lot at 11:58. “What time should I pick you up?” he asked.
“I can’t ask you to—”
“No time to argue,” said JFK, using her tardiness against her.
“Half an hour?” she said. “I don’t know how to repay you.”
“Give me your keys,” he said. “That would be a start.”
“It’s yours,” said Mercy, dropping her keys into his outstretched hand. “Just give me half if it’s worth anything for scrap. Oh, and grab the gum out of the console. I think there’s a half a pack left.”
JFK was so stunned that she’d handed over her keys so easily that he didn’t realize she’d pushed her door open. “Shoot, let me get that for you.” He shoved the gear shift into Park.
“No time!” she said brightly. “Gotta run.” As she closed the door she was saying, “Thank you thank you thank you.”
JFK lowered the passenger-side window again and called, “Remember, tell her JFK’s calling in a favor.”
Well okay, he’d just referred to himself in the third person. What an idiot. But Mercy raised a thumb in the air as she ran up to the front door.
Now that had gone better. So much better, it was like he was two different people. Maybe people really could change. And maybe there was something to Dom’s sissy etiquettes.
Anyway, he had half an hour to get ready to make another good impression on her, and he had the keys to her car. And her home, he noticed, and immediately wanted to replace some hand sanitizer with lubricating jelly or gift wrap every item in her fridge.
“Stop,” he said. “Try to act like an adult and just go see if you can get her car to run.” If it was something simple, half an hour would be plenty of time.
Chapter
Poppy’s brilliant smile set Mercy at ease instantly. It was the kind of smile that shouted charisma. Women would want to be around her because it was hard to not smile back and just feel great, and she suspected men found it just as appealing, but in an attractive way. It reminded Mercy of that actress from The Notebook.
They sat across a small desk from each other in the admin office of the cl
inic.
“It was so great to meet you at the award ceremony,” said Poppy. “Sorry there were some awkward moments. JFK has a heart of gold, but he buries it under a layer of manure because he doesn’t want anybody to see it.”
The whirlwind rescue and ride hadn’t had time to settle on Mercy, but she was back in the JFK Fan Club, and craving pretty hard some more time with him. At least to give him a second shot. “He made me promise I’d tell you that he’s calling in a favor for the horses.” Mercy regretted playing that card as soon as she said it, but Poppy started laughing.
“After all this time, he finally brings that up. I kinda thought that if he ever tried to get payback it would be a few rounds of drinks at Pineapple’s or something like that.”
“I brought a résumé,” said Mercy, trying to get the focus back on her. She pulled the envelope out of her purse. “If you want letters of recommendation I can get them.”
“I don’t need any of that,” said Poppy. “You’re hired, if you want the job.”
Her kind smile as she said those words sent Mercy to the edge of tears. “I want it,” she replied as quickly as she could.
“It’s only eighteen hours a week and it pays nine bucks an hour. There may be some office work, fundraising, and volunteer management, but it’s mostly feeding, mucking, walking, mopping, and loving anything that walks, crawls, limps, or is carried through the front door.”
“I can do that.” The pay wasn’t what she hoped to be making eventually, but for now, anything that brought in cash and was actually related to what she wanted to do was a godsend.
Poppy said, “I know something better will come along any time now, so if you need to quit suddenly, I get it.”
“Wow,” said Mercy, shocked at how life had suddenly started working out for her. “You all are so kind and accepting.”
“You’re part of the family now,” said Poppy with a shrug. “You don’t have an irrational phobia of pigs, like JFK does, do you?”
“Sounds like there’s a story there,” said Mercy.
“Yeah, ask him about it. But hey, welcome aboard. How soon can you start?”
“Right now,” said Mercy, “or anytime you need me.”
“Perfect! I’ve got scrubs in the back that you can throw on over your clothes.”
Wow, she couldn’t believe this was happening. “I just need to send a quick text. How long do you need me today?”
“Can you stay until seven? It’s an hour longer than most Saturday shifts will be so that we can get you trained up a little.”
“Yep, and thanks so much. You won’t regret it.”
Poppy set her at ease again with that wide, welcoming smile. “I’m so glad to have you on board. Meet me in the back when you’re ready.”
In a text to JFK, she sent, I got the job! If you promise not to murder me, you can give me a ride home at 7 tonight. On principle she never used emojis. If her recipient didn’t get her without little yellow faces to make it insultingly obvious, she avoided texting the person.
It only took him a few seconds to reply. Woot! I’ll open the door for you. So you know I’m not a murderer.
Something had gotten into him, and she liked it. The way he’d locked her out of his truck so he could open her door had surprised her, but had also charmed the breath out of her. Okay, so she was huffing from the run, but still. She added, If you can’t make it, let me know. I can line something else up.
7 it is.
Wow, who would’ve thought the day her car died could turn out to be so great? Once again she’d been shown that serenity—along with faith and action—worked.
Chapter
The day flew by as Poppy and the Animal Caretaker, Daria, showed Mercy the ropes and introduced her to the animals. There was no brain-stimulating non-profit managing going on, but she was making actual money for taking care of animals. And her co-workers made the work fun.
At seven, she tossed the scrubs in a dirty laundry bin, and walked out with Daria who locked up the place. Right at the front curb, sitting there like a limo ready to whisk her away, was her car. The color and model were right but something was off about it. JFK was standing by the passenger side door looking all ruggedly handsome and ready to open the door for her. Daria and Mercy waved goodnight at each other then she walked up to JFK.
“You didn’t have to bring it here so I could say goodbye to it,” she told him. “We’ve both known for some time it was one bad day away from the junk yard.”
“Nah,” said JFK, “it’s still got plenty of good days left.”
“You got my car to start?” Mercy just stood on the sidewalk with her mouth hanging open.
JFK ducked through the passenger side, reaching toward the key hole with her key.
“You can’t do it like that,” said Mercy. “You have to pump the gas—”
The car purred to life. No pumping the pedal exactly six and a half times. No prayers. He had just turned the key.
“You got my car to start!”
As soon as JFK came back out of the car, she threw her arms around him. Oh boy was he solid. There was strength in him and she loved the feel of him. Too bad there were no vines around to swing on. She also like his obvious nervousness at her sudden hug as he tensed up, halfway in the hug, and halfway just being hugged. When she had handed him the keys she never expected to see the car again, and here it was, almost as good as new.
The hug suddenly became uncomfortable and she let him go. If there was a chance that a relationship might develop, she did not want it based in the slightest on him giving her things in exchange for affection. She’d been there and done that and had paid a heavy price. Even at her worst she had never explicitly prostituted herself, but there had been plenty of college boys who understood that they had a good shot of getting what they wanted from her as long as they supplied the party in a bottle.
So for now, with this amazing gift he’d surprised her with, she had to try to express her thanks with words.
“Mind if I drive?” he asked.
“Please do,” she said.
The door was already open, but he offered a hand as she climbed in. Was the height of her car off? Or was she just used to getting in the driver’s seat. She pushed the thought aside and basked in her date’s newfound manners. She was tempted to ask who he was and what he had done with her date from the night before, but instead she took his strong, supportive hand and let him guide her into the car. She would not be one of those people who perpetuated past mistakes and refused to accept a changed person. Heaven knew she had enough of those people in her life.
**
A gentleman takes care of a lady’s car. JFK was pretty sure that’s what Dom had said earlier. A real firefighter never passed up the opportunity to get into someone’s house or car or dorm room and play a good prank. If this could be considered a prank at all, he hoped it would go down as one of the best he’d ever done. So far she’d barely seen the tip of the iceberg and had seemed overjoyed. Maybe he could make up for last night after all.
When he climbed in the driver seat, he gave it a little gas.
“It sounds different,” she said. “It sounds healthier.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but I gave it a quick oil change.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she objected. “It probably cost more than the car’s worth.”
“Oh, I just did it myself, while Emily was working on the spark plugs and installing the new brake pads.”
“Emily?”
“And Dom. He bracketed the dangling exhaust pipe, so you shouldn’t get the rattle-ting-ting any more, and you’re not risking dropping the entire exhaust system every time you hit a pot hole.”
“You guys did all that?” Her normally composed, punk demeanor was totally blown by the wideness of her eyes and her hands raised involuntarily to her mouth. He was tempted to snap a picture.
“It needed a few other things so we changed the windshield wipers and air filter. Oh, while Emily
was in the brakes she cleaned the ABS sensors, so that dash light is off.”
Mercy’s eyes went to the dash. “What about those other warning lights? The gauges one and the one that looked like a motor?”
“Engine. We cleared those out. They shouldn’t come back on.” JFK turned on the running lights and the backlit lights of the radio and heater lit up.
Mercy’s face lit up too. “How did you get all those light to work again?”
“Just replaced a couple of fuses. Was the heater out completely?” He turned up the fan and warm air blew out of the vents.
“No, way! Do you know how long I’ve been carrying around blankets in here to keep me warm?” She looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Now you can take them back inside and use them for important things like building blanket forts. I got this working.” He pulled on the seat belt, then let it retract, which it hadn’t done on its own earlier that day. “And since it seemed like the preventative maintenance was, like we say in the station, A-shift quality, i.e. non-existent, we got under the hood and replaced the serpentine belt and the timing belt. If either one of those were to go out, you’re not going anywhere and the timing belt could have caused thousands in damage.”
Mercy was done talking and done reacting, just staring at him in disbelief.
“Let’s see, getting it running was no trick, I just had to clean the corrosion from the battery terminals and jump it. Oh yeah, while I was doing that I noticed that one of your washer lines was broken so I spliced in a new line.” He activated the wipers and sprayed washer fluid on the windshield. “Now you can see out of both sides of the windshield.”
Mercy’s hand was at her forehead now, and he was pretty sure she didn’t realize it.
“Can I show you one more thing? It’s outside. Let me get the door for you.”
He killed the engine since there was no reason to keep idling. Plus he wanted her to be confident that it would start back up for her.
When he opened her door and she looked up at him, the expression on her face had faded, and it was hard to interpret what she was feeling. Could be panic, could be gratitude. Could even be disapproval. Hopefully she’d say something soon to let him know. It had been a risk to do so much without any permission whatsoever.
Rescue and Redemption: Park City Firefighter Romance Page 7
