“Dialogue is the worst in movies.” JFK tried to keep a straight face, but many members of the audience were wiping tears of laughter from their eyes.
“I know,” agreed Justice. “The problem with dialogue is it rams the message down your throat.”
JFK nodded, “Right? I want my movies to give me their highly interpretive message through their silences.”
Justice sighed in satisfaction. “Why aren’t there more movies with no talking? Just long stretches of sad violin music?”
“Because the movie-going public consists of drivel-craving ignoramuses.”
“Indubitably,” said Justice.
In unison, they sighed loudly then nodded in silence.
JFK looked at Justice, then scanned his tie and fancy shoes. “When I first saw you, I thought you were a stuffy, self-righteous prig.”
This was a dangerous part since each of them was speaking actual truth, not just truth-serum truth. The audience went silent, holding their breath. It was Justice’s turn for a pause and he turned exaggeratedly slowly toward JFK.
Cracking a huge smile, Justice exclaimed, “That’s because I am!”
The Jewell family hooted and laughed and clapped. JFK let out the breath he’d been holding in the whole time.
“When you climbed in, with your football jersey and fireman ball cap, I used my superior odds-making skills to deduct that you were most likely a knuckle-dragging clod incapable of any career outside of public service with the IQ of an NFL-watching ape.” He laughed sharply, bending over at the waist. “Boy was I wrong!”
JFK slapped him on the shoulder, perhaps just a touch harder than necessary, and with a loud laugh of his own, said, “No, you weren’t!”
They fake laughed along with the audience’s real laughter for an annoying length of time.
Clover made some driving motions then looked over her shoulder. “Here you are, sirs. Football stadium on the right, Museum of Insurance and Accounting on the left.”
JFK put his hand on a fake door handle, knowing that Justice was doing the same, and looked out at the pretend football stadium as Justice gazed at his nerd museum. Once again, they sighed in unison, then turned back around to face each other.
“Hey,” they both said at the same time.
“After you, sir,” said JFK.
“How kind,” said Justice. “The museum is going to be here forever, but I was reading in Artsy Fartsy that the Contemporary Museum of Exhibition Institute Centre across town has a non-objective art exhibit entitled Studies in White. Every piece in the exhibit is composed entirely of white paint!”
“No way!” said JFK. “I was going to recommend the Yak Hair Cenotaph they constructed on the site of the birth of the albino yak on this date 117 years ago. I mean, it would be amazing to be there on the exact date, but I can go some other time. I can’t miss Studies in White.”
“An entire cenotaph built of yak hair?” Justice looked at his watch, then up at Clover. “Driver! To the Contemporary Museum of Exhibition Institute Centre!” With a cheesy grin at JFK he added, “But don’t go far, because there’s a yak hair structure calling our name.”
JFK and Justice stood in unison and the audience picked up on the fact that the skit was over. They responded louder than they had all day. In the back corner, Mercy was on her feet, still laughing and wiping her eyes. Everything else aside, that made the skit a win in JFK’s book.
He turned to his co-star and saw him holding out a hand to shake. Pushing past the hand, JFK gave Justice a bear hug, picking him up off his feet and bouncing him up and down. When JFK set him down Justice was laughing along with the rest of the Jewells.
With a wave at the crowd, JFK jogged down the auditorium steps and up the side aisle toward where he’d seen Mercy. She was waiting for him at the top of the aisle, grinning brightly.
How did her beauty get him every time, even when he thought he was prepared for it?
She was smiling, but tentatively biting her lip and holding her hands together in front of her. The emcee was saying something from the stage, but JFK paid no attention, too busy trying to sort through his doubts about this woman as he climbed the final half dozen stairs. He felt many of the eyes of the people in the auditorium on them, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Mercy to look at them.
What should he say when he reached her? He wanted to say something about what a dork Justice was, or something insulting about the amateurish acts in the show, or, he didn’t know, just belch loudly or something worse to give her an excuse to push him away. It would be so much less painful than reaching out to her and having her shy away, or hitting him where it hurt when he was vulnerable. Just as she’d done after that kiss.
It wasn’t too late to run away. He could wave or make the phone sign with his hand toward Mercy, then duck out. That would be so much easier than taking a risk he’d never taken with anyone else.
But instead he drew on the wisdom that little Mrs. Wilson had given him about no one ever being good enough for their spouse. Another step and he thought about Clover hunting him down if he started doubting himself at this point. Two steps separated them but JFK had some momentum now, and thinking of how right Emily was about sabotaging himself got him up one more.
The last step loomed between them. And there stood Mercy, still grinning, but also a little unsure. As he had worked up courage to cross the final steps he’d thought the last one would be the hardest, but being so close, he had the best reason of all.
Mercy. She was enough, worth any risk. Why the perfect woman would be interested in him was beyond comprehension, but after keeping himself away from her for so long, he was suddenly basking in the glow of the sun after a month of cloudy days. Why had he ever doubted? What in the world could possibly make him not take the biggest risk ever for a chance with her?
JFK took the last step and spread his arms. Mercy leaned forward immediately into his embrace as if they’d rehearsed some cue.
She wanted him, too. Probably not as much as he wanted her, since that was impossible, but he suddenly forgot all those other reasons that had brought him back to her because the only reason he needed was her. And now that he was allowing himself to open up to her and actually touch her, he knew he’d made the right decision. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Learning manners and giving up his home brew felt like they were a million years ago and as inconsequential as losing a penny in the couch cushion.
He was hugging her. He was hugging her! And she was hugging him back, arms under his, softly rubbing his back.
JFK didn’t have a bad life. Not anymore. But it definitely wasn’t a life that made him feel blessed by any means. Until this moment. Holding Mercy so close, smelling her deep vanilla scent, feeling the softness of her body against him, being accepted and wanted … JFK was happier than he’d ever been in his life.
That day when he’d made his move and been pushed away was a million miles behind them as well. He still had no idea what had freaked her out that day, but he was ready to take the risk all over again.
So he did the next natural thing and turned his head as he leaned away from her, then closed his eyes and kissed her. The moment his lips met her soft, accepting lips, he felt his turn up in a smile and that life-highlight happy feeling expanded by a factor of a hundred.
The crowd went wild!
It took JFK a second to realize that the crowd wasn’t in his imagination. Mercy’s family was cheering and whistling.
As he pulled his face away from hers, he caught a glimpse of her mischievous smile. She hadn’t minded the public display of affection one bit.
“C’mon,” she whispered in his ear, practically turning his legs into jelly with her mere breath. “Let’s continue this somewhere more private.”
JFK thought his face might catch fire from blushing so hard as Mercy took him by the hand and led him from the auditorium.
The catcalls that followed them out only made him blush harder.
Chapter
Mercy couldn’t believe that her studly fire guy was actually here. Her Tarzan, her Iron Chef, her Knight in Shining Armor. He’d kissed her right there in front of the entire Jewell clan! Something had changed with him. Again. And oh boy did she like it. She’d never known someone so full of unexpected changes for the better.
That kiss had made her knees weak. Where in the world had that come from? She wanted more, so much more, but first she had to break the news.
Well, eventually she had to break the news to him. For a few minutes she could just enjoy being with him, and him finally being open to her.
She stopped just outside the door and turned to face him. When he’d been up on stage, she had noticed that he’d either dropped a little more weight or picked up more muscle because he was looking better than ever. Even through the jersey he was wearing, his broad shoulders were bulky in all the right places and his arms looked strong enough to rip a couple phone books in half. Now, after kissing her in front of the entire family and rushing out to the cheering and the whispers, there was pink on his cheeks; he was blushing!
She wanted to kiss his handsome face some more, but instead she settled on teasing him. “You’re going to make a lot of people mad.”
“What?” His eyes shot open.
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone who isn’t a member of the family has taken home Best Talent before.”
He visibly relaxed and grinned at her. “Well they should bring it if they don’t want to be shown up by a rookie. What’s your talent?”
“I was going to knit a yak-hair sweater, but I think the yak jokes are used up for this year.”
“Let me guess, your backup plan was to do a live painting using only white paint?”
“How’d you know?” asked Mercy. “I was going to do an abstract interpretation of Grandpa and Grandma Jewell on their first date at the drive-in.”
For a while they just kind of grinned at each other like silly teenagers. Everything felt so different with him than it had with anyone else. He was no saint or even a choir boy, in fact one of the things that had originally attracted him to her was his bad-boy attitude, but still it felt so pure and special with him.
Too bad the timing had to be so utterly crappy.
“I thought you had plenty of friends,” she said.
“Oh, that.” He thought for a second. “Yeah, and it turns out I needed all of them to get me here. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I’ve never had a girlfriend. So I’m kind of an idiot about how to do it.”
“Girlfriend,” she muttered. “You big dummy.”
“What? I … didn’t …”
“Why couldn’t you say that two weeks ago?” She was a little bit angry and knew it came out in her tone. “Or even two days ago?”
“What?”
“Stop just saying ‘what’. How long have you been planning this? Why didn’t you just text me.” It wasn’t fair to take it out on him, but the situation made her want to go get a drink.
“Tell me what’s up,” said JFK. “I can fix this.”
That was the problem—she knew he’d do everything he could to fix it, but there was nothing he could do this time. She sat on bench and hung her head. “I got a job offer in Seattle. It’s perfect.” It had been perfect, until he’d dropped the girlfriend bomb on her. Not only was the organization growing like crazy and recruiting her heavily, but it had given her a way to stop thinking about her studly fire guy.
He stood there staring down at her as if she’d just frozen him in place with a spell.
“You look like a fish,” she said, moving on from her anger to gloom. “Sit down.”
He did, and she took his hand. It was such an intimate connection. Even through her sordid past and all the unimaginable things she’d done during her addiction, little gestures like this were never part of the … relationship. She loved his hands so much—so strong, but never pushy. For all he said about not knowing anything about girls, he gave her the space she needed physically to develop a healthy relationship with him.
“Mercy, I don’t know if I should have just come to you when I realized … everything, but it seemed like the point I really started to screw things up was around the day we went to church.”
“That was the day I …” She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to admit that she’d seen he was perfect for her the day he’d told off her brother in front of everyone who was important to him, then dumped her on her driveway and driven off.
He went on. “I wanted to fix things where they started, which was with your family. I still know almost nothing about manners and I know even less about relationships, but it made sense to fix things where I thought I’d broken them.” He shrugged and added, “Clover actually helped me see it.”
Maybe that argument made sense, but it wasn’t Mercy’s brain and logic that was hurting, it was her heart. It had hurt to be dumped and hurt to be dumped for longer than necessary. Obviously he’d decided to give her a chance more than an hour or two ago. Based on the involvement of Clover and Justice, it had been days at least.
Mercy still hadn’t made nice with Justice to his face, but Night had. That would make it easier for Mercy and Justice to heal. And the skit was really funny. She couldn’t believe they had convinced Justice to play along. Ever since he’d been forced to grow up too fast because of Mercy, he hadn’t found much humor in life. He hadn’t found any humor in life. That made Mercy tear up because she knew it had been her sins that forced Justice to be the big brother in the family and set the good example and do everything humanly possible to keep the other eight kids from following in Mercy’s footsteps.
Did this studly almost-boyfriend of hers reaching out to Justice and getting him to lighten up help heal what was broken between Mercy and her brother, since Mercy and her kind of boyfriend were sort of together now? Did that make amends somehow for all she’d done to Justice? Probably not, especially since she and her Tarzan Night were about to live a thousand miles apart.
But she was still happy Justice had lightened up a bit, and she had to wipe tears from the corners of both eyes. After the skit she’d seen Clover’s brother Lotus—who was the emcee this year—rush up and do a silly handshake they hadn’t done for years. Justice and Lotus had been inseparable as teens up until Justice felt like he was forced to grow up and be the adult. But the funny, silly side of Justice had moved Lotus today. There was no way to fully explain the importance of what Night and Clover had pulled off with her brother.
“What’s wrong,” asked Night, leaning forward to look into her face.
How did she explain it? “What you did today for my brother ….” She had to stop and compose herself. “I can’t even tell you how much that means. It’s so much better even than what you did for my car.”
“So … those are good tears.”
Mercy nodded. “You really are a knight, you know that.”
He shook his head. “Don’t start that. I’m not comfortable accepting praise like that.”
“I don’t care, Night.” said Mercy. “Tarzan. Iron Chef Fireman. Don’t be so perfect if you don’t want me going ga-ga over you.”
He laughed so suddenly he started to choke. “Sounded like you just said my name and perfect in the same sentence.”
“You’re the best person in the world.” She said it in all seriousness, but he just rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to be sick if I don’t change the topic. Seattle, huh?”
“Yeah.” That sobered her up quick.
“I don’t think Seattle Fire takes transfers. Toaltin Valley in Oregon is always hiring, but that’s way too far from Seattle.”
Was he considering leaving Park City Fire Department to follow her? He was too good to be true, but if he kept on doing everything in the world that was important to her, she was going to start feeling like she’d always be in his debt. Not to mention, it was a little early in the relationship.
She asked, “Can firefighters just transfer lik
e that?”
“No. It’d be starting over. I’m only talking out loud here because PCFD is the only thing keeping me in Utah now that you’re leaving.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” she told him.
“Wait, it’s a really big deal,” he said. “Tell me all about the job. It’s just what you wanted, right?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. All she wanted to do was put her head on his shoulder and keep holding his hand, and for a few minutes they sat like that as if they’d never have to move.
Eventually he stood and helped her to her feet, then turned to face her and put his hands on her hips. She had to rethink her thoughts of just holding hands because now she wanted to eat him up.
“You know what I want?” she asked, still not completely sure. She wanted to talk and to come up with a solution. She wanted to stare at his handsome face. She wanted to stay in Utah, but she also wanted to get paid real money for working in her chosen field.
“What, Mercy? What do you want?”
“I want …” How could she tell him if she didn’t even know? “Just .... Just freaking kiss me.”
Like the perfect ending of a dream when she could forget all her stress and just enjoy the moment, he lowered his lips, his full, strong lips to hers.
Mercy couldn’t contain the electricity running through her veins. She raised up on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer. She couldn’t get enough of his plump lips and she found herself nibbling playfully on his bottom lip.
He responded by deepening the kiss and Mercy was in heaven. If they kept it up much longer, it would be obvious to the entire family what they’d been doing out here. And Mercy didn’t care.
But he broke it off and for a second she caught her breath.
“You said, ‘Just Freaking Kiss me.’”
“JFK,” she uttered.
In breathless answer he said, “I think you just found a nickname for me.”
“Oh, JFK.”
“Oh, Mercy.”
She’d never loved the sound of her name so much. Somehow she had to find a way to be with this man.
Rescue and Redemption: Park City Firefighter Romance Page 14
