The 6'2'', 200 Lb. Challenge

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.”