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Mimi felt her mouth open and close, open and close. If she had thought about it, she would have concluded she looked like a goldfish gasping bubbles in an aquarium. But she wasn’t thinking about what she looked like—she was thinking about the assumptions Gibson St. James was making.
There were a couple of possibilities and neither of them were good.
She was thinking about her own shock and outrage and how he had a way of looking at her that made her feel her clothes were already lying in a heap around her ankles.
“You...uh, you think I’m a stripper, don’t you?” she asked, deciding to tackle the least dangerous possibility first.
“Yeah, but I don’t think you’re doing such a good job if you’ve been in my house for ten minutes and you’ve still got every stitch on. That keep-or-toss gimmick was pretty cute though. But I should warn you that most men wouldn’t really appreciate its subtlety.”
“I am not a stripper!”
“Oh, I know, I know. The proper term is exotic dancer. Okay, I apologize for not showing proper respect for your profession.”
“I’m not an exotic dancer.”
“Are you going to try to persuade me this is performance art?”
“I’m not here to take off my clothes,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Really? Then just what are you here for?”
She stared heavenward. Counted to ten. Counted to twenty because counting to ten didn’t make her any less aggravated.
“I told you once, I’ll tell you again. The chief sent me. I tried out to be a firefighter but I failed the physical exam. He says if I get you back down to the station house, he’ll let me try again. Understand now?”
She waited for the apology.
It didn’t come.
Gibson’s reaction was swift and merciless. He laughed. And continued laughing even as Mimi thought the floor might reach up and swallow her whole.
“You? A firefighter? You’re kidding me, right?”
“You don’t have to be so amused.”
“The chief doesn’t believe in women firefighters,” Gibson said, sobering. “And besides, you don’t have a firefighter’s body.”
“And what exactly does a firefighter’s body look like?”
Gibson held up his hands to make a box.
“You would need to be a little wider muscle-wise... in places you’re not very wide. And you’d have to be smaller...in places you’re not very...”
Mimi followed his eyes to her breasts. Her very big breasts. For the zillionth time in her life, Mimi confronted the truth that her body type was more Dolly Parton than Kate Moss. She had plenty of unfashionably feminine curves and she had never apologized for her lack of supermodel angularity.
Mimi liked being a woman. Liked all the parts of womanhood that she supposed a more politically correct woman might reject.
She liked her lipstick—usually choosing a pink champagne that set off her pale complexion perfectly. She liked getting her nails done—regard—ing it as a luxury, particularly after a long day working at the diner.
She liked to play with new hairstyles, go shopping with girlfriends, try out makeovers from magazine pictures, giggle over the new soap-opera hunk, and leaf through bridal magazines on a rainy afternoon even though the closest she’d ever gotten to the altar was when she was her best friend’s maid of honor.
As a woman, Mimi was used to getting a lot of male attention, although she attributed this more to her job than her appearance.
She had been a waitress for five years at Boris’s, a diner that was on the cloverleaf intersection of highways that led to nowhere and everywhere and brought in customers, mostly truckers, from all over North America.
She had developed certain skills as a waitress: The ability to juggle five full dinner plates without losing a morsel of food. The talent of running nonstop for a two-hour lunch rush with a smile on her face. The skill of remembering coffee preferences for a full counter—coffee with cream, with half-and-half, with sugar, black, with sugar substitute.
And most importantly, she’d cultivated the full-fledged genius for deflecting unwanted flirtation. In a way that left a male customer smiling—but definitely put in his place.
She did it all the time.
And she did it now.
“Mr. St. James...”
“Gibson.”
“Gibson. I think before you ask me to take my clothes off one more time, you should call the chief first. Once he explains why I’m here, I’m sure you’ll be the one asking me to keep my clothes on.”
She could say this with complete confidence because she knew the chief. Knew him well. And not just his weakness for cream pies and his aversion to broccoli and lima beans.
Gibson narrowed his eyes.
“All right. I’ll call him. But in the meantime, you just stand right there and don’t—”
“But, Gibson, these dishes need washing!” she called cheerily from the kitchen. “Haven’t you had anybody in here to clean up since you left the rehab institute?”
“Haven’t wanted anybody,” he muttered.
“Stripper?” the chief shrieked. “You called Mrs. Pickford’s granddaughter a stripper?”
“I didn’t actually call her a stripper until after I asked her to take off her clothes and she refused,” Gibson explained, casting a quick glance in the direction of the kitchen. He could hear running water, banging cabinet doors and Mimi’s annoying rendition of a popular love song.
It wasn’t that she was off-key. No, she had perfect pitch.
It wasn’t that the song was bad. Whoever wrote it had done a dandy job.
It was that she was so darned cheerful!
“You asked Mrs. Pickford’s granddaughter to take her clothes off? In front of you?”
“That’s how strippers usually do it.”
The chief bellowed over the phone so loudly that Gibson had to hold the receiver away from his ear.
“Who is Mrs. Pickford?” Gibson asked when the chief’s voice had dissolved into a whimper.
“She was my high-school English teacher. Everybody’s high-school teacher. Clearly you don’t remember her. When did you move down to Chicago?”
“Ten years ago.”
“She might have already retired by then, but still, I’m surprised you never heard the stories about her.”
“So the woman you sent me is the granddaughter of a former English teacher. I don’t see the problem.”
“Mrs. Pickford was the most extraordinary disciplinarian. If she knew that I put her only granddaughter in the position of having her honor impugned, she would...she would...”
“Give you a week’s worth of detention?” Gibson interrupted the chief’s sputtering.
“Please, Gibson, this is a serious matter,” the chief said, sighing mightily. “I didn’t send Mimi Pickford to your house to take off her clothes for you. I sent her there to take care of you. I’m worried about you. I need you back on the force.”
“I’m none of your business anymore,” Gibson said with surprising amiability. “I resigned. And why does she want to do this anyhow?”
“She took the physical exam for recruiting.”
“You set her up on the obstacle course?” Gibson asked, thinking of the thirty-minute test he had taken to join up.
He had aced it, of course, but he had been a firefighter in Chicago for ten years and that was a tougher job on a slow Monday than anything the chief could cook up.
And Gibson had worked out every day—running, weight-training, jumping rope—knowing that every drop of sweat was worth it.
But no one could get through that obstacle course without training. Especially a petite woman with soft curves better suited to...
He groaned as he thought of his mistake. There was scant comfort in the notion that any other man would have thought the same thing.
“I should have talked her out of it, but she was the only one to come in,” the chief said. “She failed, of course, but she’s just like her grandmother.”
“An extraordinary disciplinarian?”
“No, Gibson, she’s strong-willed. Both of those Pickford women are. If Mimi wants something, a man better cooperate or get out of her way. She wants to be a firefighter. Although the town of Grace Bay’s gonna lose a great waitress.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Gibson said dryly. “I’ve never been in Boris’s.”
“Then you’re missing something. You can walk in there at the end of a long, hard day and somehow with just a smile she’ll make a solitary meal seem like a party. And, if you apologize, she might talk to you if you need it. And Gibson—? You might need it.”
Gibson closed his eyes.
“I told her that if she got you back here, in ship-shape condition, I’d give her a second shot at the physical,” the chief continued. “I don’t think her talents are in firefighting, but maybe she’ll see what she’s good at—helping people. And I’ll get you back.”
“I gave you my letter of resignation.”
“Goodbye, Gibson,” the chief said. “Oh, and by the way, please apologize to Mimi for your misunderstanding. If you don’t, I’m going to get a call from Mrs. Pickford. And I don’t have to tell you that such a call will not make me happy.”
The chief hung up before Gibson could tell him, yet again, that he wasn’t coming back. No, no, never coming back.
Gibson stared at the bachelor mess that was his house. He had once, before the big fire. been rather proud of the way he managed. He’d kept it clean. He’d kept it neat. He’d taken pride in his home. Now, it was a disaster area. He rubbed the two-day—three-day? could it be four-day? —stubble on his jaw.
Now he was a disaster area.
He sighed heavily and felt it. In his ribs. He touched the tenderness. He shifted his weight, ignoring the howling of his nerve endings, and sat up. Tried to put his weight on his leg.
It wasn’t going to work.
He’d have to crawl. Like he always did. But he wasn’t going to do it in front of her.
“Ms. Pickford, could you come here?”
“Yes, Gibson?” she said, waltzing into the living room with a dish towel thrown over her shoulder, holding up the dirty grill from his stove burner with a smidgen of distaste. “You can call me Mimi, by the way. Since we’re going to be together a lot.”
“I’ll call you Mimi this once. Because it’s going to be the only time. Because you’re leaving. Now. But I wanted to apologize to you before you go. I was wrong. You’re not a stripper or an exotic dancer or any number of other things I assumed, and it was wrong of me to think the chief had sent you to me for the purpose of taking off your clothes. Don’t let your grandmother know I made this mistake.”
“Oh, I won’t. But I’m not leaving.”
“I’ll call the police.” .
“What are you going to tell them?” she demanded, putting one hand on her hip. “That I’m breaking and entering and scouring your filthy kitchen sink?”
“Get out!” Gibson shouted, Suddenly dropping all pretense of civilized behavior. It hurt his ribs to shout, but it felt good nonetheless to lay down the law to this relentlessly cheerful woman. “Party’s over. Get out of my house!”
“I won’t go. I want to be a firefighter and this is what I have to do to make it happen.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“And I’m not laughing. I’m serious about this, more serious than you are about anything.”
They stared at each other, two strong-willed people who were used to getting their way. And now one of them would have to back down.
It won’t be me, Gibson thought sourly.
It won’t be me, Mimi thought, biting her lower lip.
“Why the hell would you want to be a firefighter?”
“Because it’s better than what I’m doing now.”
“Chief thinks you’re some kind of genius at being a waitress. Why don’t you stick with that?”
“Because I’m just getting by. Because I want to do something more with my life. Because I’m twenty-five years old and there aren’t a lot of opportunities for a single woman in a small town like Grace Bay.”
“Move to the city. Get married. I’ll bet one of those is what all your girlfriends do.”
“You’re right. Most of them have already gotten married or left town. But I’ve got my grandmother.”
“The English teacher?”
“You’ve heard of her?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard an earful. You seem like a pretty hardheaded person. Why don’t you just tell her you’re moving and that’s that?”
“It’s not that simple. She’s sick, just in the way older people can be. Nothing very specific, nothing that can’t be handled—with some help. I’m the only one here for her. If I leave, she’d have to go to the retirement center. She wouldn’t be happy.”
“And you think being a firefighter is going to make your life better,” he said derisively.
“I want to do more with my life. Don’t get me wrong. Waitressing is an honorable profession. I’ve done it for years and I’m proud of my work. But I want something else. Also...I saw you that night.”
“What night?”
“The night of the fire at the apartment house. I saw it on television and I knew you were a hero and—”
“Don’t ever, ever call me a hero,” he said softly but darkly. And with enough force that both of them knew she would never mention the word again.
He took a deep breath, ignoring the pain in his ribs. “Listen, Little Miss Sunshine, being a firefighter isn’t what you think. It’s long, dull hours punctuated by moments of stark terror. And for a woman like you—beautiful and all—there would be a lot of hassling from the guys.”
“That doesn’t sound much different from working the day shift at Boris’s,” Mimi said pointedly. “Long hours with no customers and nothing much to do. A two-hour lunch rush with everyone wanting everything at once. And plenty of guys hitting on me.”
“You’re not listening to me. I’m telling you, don’t do this. Don’t try to be a firefighter.”
“And I’m saying you’re entitled to your opinion but I’m staying.”
“Why, I oughta pick you up, throw you over my shoulder and dump you out on the front lawn!”
“Yeah, but you can’t,” she said with a triumphant smile. “I’ll be in the kitchen. I don’t know what you did to that burner panel on your stove, but it’s going to take a lot of elbow grease. So settle back and think about what you want me to make for dinner.”
Gibson growled. If there were any way he could get up, he would. If there were any way he could get her out of his house, he would.
But as he tested his capacity to stand one more time, the pain shooting through his body reminded him of the humiliating truth: He couldn’t do a darned thing about Mimi Pickford.
Chapter Three
Gibson’s mouth watered at the sight of the tray Mimi set down on the coffee table, two hours—and four unendurably boring re-runs—later.
It was the first food he’d seen in at least a week that didn’t come from a flat, white cardboard box delivered by the pimply-faced teenager Stan, who got a five-dollar bonus if he disposed of the previous evening’s box on his way out the door.
Seven if he took the day’s newspapers with him.
Mimi’s temptation was two slices of meat loaf with a barbecue-style sauce, a mountain of mashed potatoes with a single square of butter melting at its peak and green beans. Peach cobbler on the side. And iced tea.
All of it served on the china and glassware he had inherited from his mother. With a fork, knife and spoon that weren’t white plastic, but silver.
Or at least silverplate.
And with a single yellow tulip in a sparkling crystal water glass.
“Here’s a napkin,” she said, handing him a folded linen cloth.
He allowed himself one deep satisfying sniff. And then said, “I won’t eat it, Ms. Pickford, so you can take the tray away.”
“You don’t have to throw a snit. It’s just food. I made it for you.”
“Did the chief tell you that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
“No, but I’m not interested in your heart. I’m interested in your walking into that station house and my getting my second shot at the obstacle course.”
“Put the tray in the kitchen,” he said, turning his head away. “I’m not eating any of it.”
“Oh, no, I’m leaving it right here.”
“Why? I’m not going to eat it.”
“I’m leaving it because I hate the idea of a grown man crawling.”
“Who said I’m going to crawl?”
“I did. You’re too proud to admit that you want the food and I know you won’t eat it ’til I’m gone,” she said, and she crossed her arms over her chest, daring him to disagree. “I’m leaving for work and over the next few hours—minutes, even—you’re going to get more and more hungry.”
“So?”
“So, eventually, hunger will win out over your foolish male pride. If I put the tray in the kitchen, you’ll have to go get it yourself. And that means only one thing—crawling. You don’t even have a wheelchair. I heard you’re too proud—limped right out of the rehab center on the cabbie’s arm, didn’t you?”
Her eyes had that prim “gotcha” that he found acutely annoying.
But she was right.
He probably would be reduced to crawling.
The food just smelled too darned good, looked too darned tempting.
And a man could take only so many nights of delivered pizza.
“Fine, suit yourself, leave it there on the coffee table,” he conceded sharply. “Makes no difference to me.”
“I’m leaving now,” she said, having the good sense not to dwell on her victory. “Don’t you think I did a good job on the house?”
He opened his mouth to tell her not to press her luck. But he looked around the living room and through the dining room to the door of the kitchen. The house was immaculate—the hardwood floors gleaming, the dining room table cleared, the stacks of newspapers neatly tied with twine in the recycling bins.
She had worked a miracle in two hours with nothing more than a bottle of scrubbing bubbles, some dishwashing detergent, and a lot of muscle.
Her hair had pulled loose from its chignon in damp tendrils. Her face was rosebud pink and moist with sweat. But she hadn’t lost a bit of the perkiness that made her both a wonder and an annoyance.
Her smile was still enough to make a man believe in angels.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Yeah, I guess the house looks pretty good.”
“You could say thank you.”
“I could.”
Silence.
He wasn’t going to give that extra inch.
She sighed.
“I have to go to work now, but I’ll stop in and check on you later tonight.”
“Don’t bother. I won’t...”
“You won’t what? You won’t be here? You’ll be out dancing? Out playing a few rounds of golf? Out getting a five-mile run in? Forget it, Gibson, you’ll be here. And I’ll check on you.”
“I might be asleep,” he pointed out.
“That’s okay. You won’t have to get the door and I promise to be quiet. I picked out one of your house keys from the odds-and-ends drawer in the kitchen.”
He glared murderously, but said nothing. It was like the chief said. When Mimi Pickford wanted something...well, he comforted himself with the notion that he, Gibson St. James, might be the first thing in her life that didn’t roll over and play dead to her cheerleader-like enthusiasm.
Still, the tray was very distracting.
“Gibson, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
Silence.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, reaching out to touch his cheek.
He felt a stirring, and then blamed his reaction on having been without a woman for so long. Too long. He wondered if he was down so low that he would call one of the women from his past. He had had a few. And although he had always been the one to leave, he’d made sure never to leave a woman angry.
He could make a few calls.
Just for the company.
No, not yet.
He was not that low yet.
“It’s been a delight, Mimi, but really, you don’t have to come back.”
“Tomorrow I really need to give you a shave,” she said, ignoring him. “And a shower. And we’ve gotta change your clothes.”
He muttered an obscenity, one he ordinarily wouldn’t say in front of a woman, one that was common around the firehouse and more politely translated in this particular context to “No, you won’t give me a shave. Or a shower. Or change my clothes, thank you very much.”
“Now, Gibson, that is no way to talk in front of me,” Mimi scolded. “If my grandmother knew what kind of language I was being exposed to, I’m sure she’d be on the phone with the chief in an instant. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, Gibson?”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “But I can do all that stuff myself. I just don’t want to.”
“You can’t get out of this chair without help because your leg is broken,” she corrected. “You can’t put on and take off a shirt because you can’t raise your arms over your head. And you can’t shave because you’re right-handed and your right hand is still in a cast.”
“I don’t need you.”
“I know that, Gibson,” she said, rising to her feet, taking the scent of vanilla and talcum powder with her. “I know you don’t need me. Don’t need me at all. You’re a strong man and I don’t doubt you can get along just dandy without me. It just requires a significant lowering of your household and personal hygiene standards.”
“I’m prepared to lower them,” he growled. “Now why don’t you just butt out?”
“Because I need you. I’m selfish. And that’s why I’ll be back. Goodbye, Gibson.”
She locked the door behind her and Gibson was alone. Very alone. He reached for the remote. Turned on a game show and was instantly irritated by the screeching of winners and the forehead-smacking of losers. Switched to a talk show where perfectly ordinary people were confessing to perfectly extraordinary predilections in front of an audience of total strangers. He turned off the television in disgust. Funny, he hadn’t minded those shows before.
He tried very hard to ignore the tray of food set before him.
But he’d always had a weakness for good home cooking. American-style cooking. Simple food. Regular people food. And this was man-sized portions of what he liked.
How did she know his favorites?
If he didn’t let her back in the house, she’d never know he ate. He’d have to call Stan at the pizza joint and tell him he didn’t need dinner for tonight.
He wondered if he could get somebody to come out this late to change the locks on the doors, but decided he didn’t want anyone else to see how far he had fallen.
But he didn’t worry.
He didn’t fret.
Didn’t consider himself beat by the five-foot-four dynamo.
He was a resourceful man.
Smart, too.
He’d think of something to get rid of Mimi Pickford.
As he took a fork to the meat loaf—just for a little taste—Gibson reflected that if he had met Mimi before the fire, he would have been charming to her. In that rakish sort of way that had never failed him with women. She would have found him irresistible. He would have used his smile to great advantage. They would have made love. Maybe even before they knew each other’s last names. And she would have been his for as long or for as little a time as he wanted.
But now he didn’t think of himself as that much of a man.
Just as he didn’t think of himself as that much of a hero.
The last customer left Boris’s at midnight, an hour later than closing time. But Mimi had had to refill the sugar bowls and saltshakers on the tables and had promised Boris that she’d clean the grill for him tonight—he had to leave early because his wife’s brother was in town. So Mimi didn’t mind Barbara lingering over a cup of coffee as she despaired over her relationship with her husband.
“Sometimes I lose my temper,” Barbara explained, although she didn’t really have to. She had told this story to Mimi before. “And then I say things I don’t really mean.”
“We all do that,” Mimi said gently. “I’m sure Gary understands.”
“I was so tired from work and I let him have it about which one of us would do the laundry. But you know? It’s like you said, we could do it together. Oh, Mimi, I would go home and apologize but I’m too embarrassed.”
“Sometimes our pride gets in the way, doesn’t it?” Mimi said, in a way that made it clear that everyone, Mimi included, made the same mistakes Barbara made.