The Firefighter's Match (16 page)

Doing right by Max had become far more than a corporate goal for Alex. It was becoming dangerously close to obsession—and Doc did not hesitate to express his concern. Doc’s worries quieted down, however, when Alex admitted to his affections for JJ.

“She is not who I would have expected to steal your heart,” Doc said, his dark eyes crinkling with amusement. “But then again, that is how it always goes, mmm? She is a fickle thing, love.” Doc could get away with saying corny stuff like that in his thick Italian accent, but then again, Doc could always see into Alex in ways even Sam never could.

“Has she stolen your heart, Alexander?” Doc had asked as they’d packed up the AG offices to downsize to smaller, more frugal quarters. “Tell me, has it finally happened?” Doc was also the first to chide Alex for his endless string of shallow relationships, so the Italian was rooting for JJ, it was clear.

“I think so.” It felt both alarming and easy to admit his feelings out loud. Alex had always been passionate about life, but he felt close to very few people and never got particularly invested in any women. They were an amusement, a diversion, but never an essential. He’d never experienced the consuming yearning he felt for JJ, a craving that had only doubled since the phone call and gone straight off the charts with her email. “Only I don’t know if I’m alone in this, Doc. I think I’ve won her over, but I’m not at all sure.”

“Then it is good you are going back to Chicago,” Doc had said. “There is no other way to be sure. That kind of assurance can only be found in a woman’s eyes—not in her emails.”

Alex had only rolled his eyes. He himself would have never gotten away with that kind of talk—not even with Doc’s accent.

Chapter Seventeen

A
s he pushed through the doors of Max’s apartment building in Chicago—he’d been able to move out of the rehabilitation facility to a nearby residential unit operated by the hospital as a halfway house of sorts—Alex thought of the last time he’d seen the man. The scorn in Max Jones’s eyes at the press conference had never left his memory. He pressed the button for the apartment marked Jones, praying that God would grant him favor. He needed this. In ways he still didn’t entirely understand.

Alex knew JJ would be there, but that foreknowledge didn’t dilute the rush of pleasure he felt at seeing her face. The breath fled his lungs as she pulled open the door and her smile set off sparks under his ribs. A completely inappropriate craving to kiss her right then and there blinded him for a moment or two, rendering him speechless.

“Hi.” Her voice was soft and a bit unsteady. Did seeing him send the same rush through her?

“Cushman,” Max’s deep voice came from behind JJ as the young man wheeled into view. He was using a high-tech, lightweight wheelchair, not the clumsy, generic hospital one Alex had seen at the press conference.

“Nice touch.” Alex laughed as he pointed to the flames Max had painted onto the wheel panels. The outrageous modification suited Max perfectly.

Max managed a hint of a crooked grin. “Birthday present from a friend who paints cars. He offered to put a dual chrome exhaust on the back, but I thought that was going a bit far.”

JJ rolled her eyes. Alex had so missed how she did that.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I can peel out of the driveway or anything.” It had taken only a split second for the darkness to return to Max’s eyes.

Alex obviously had a lot of work to do. “I like it,” he offered to Max. “It’s exactly the kind of spirit I want Adventure Access to have.”

“So you decided on a name?” JJ jumped on the chance to move the conversation forward, motioning both men into the apartment.

Alex shrugged. “It seemed the best combination of old and new. We’re still about adventure—just different kinds of adventure. And I’d like to think that someday much of the old Adventure Gear will come back into being.”

“Yeah, well, we all know about how plans can change,” Max grunted, spinning competently around to face them as Alex and JJ took seats in the apartment’s living room.

“How do you feel your rehab is coming?”

Max rolled his eyes—the same gesture as JJ, only nowhere near as endearing. “Everything takes twelve times longer than I want. And I only get half as far as I planned.”

Alex knew that feeling. “Rehabilitating a broken company doesn’t feel much better right now, I assure you.”

It had been the wrong thing to say. “I doubt that,” Max growled. “Not even close.”

“We ordered Max’s adapted car yesterday.” JJ forced brightness into her voice.

“Cost a fortune,” her brother added. “I could have gotten a top-of-the-line Mustang for what we’ll be dishing out for that dumb-looking thing.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you became the man to commission the world’s first adaptive muscle car,” Alex replied, refusing to let Max’s digs get to him. When Max gave him a sour “as if” look in response, Alex put his packet of papers down on the coffee table. “Maybe today isn’t the right day for this conversation. I’ll just leave the details with you and come back later.” Leaving JJ’s company felt rather like walking away from the fire on an Arctic expedition, but it was clear the chances of him getting anywhere with Max were thinning fast and it was making him crazy to see her so strained over Max’s sour disposition.

“No,” JJ said as she shot her brother an almost maternal look that silently shouted
you promised to behave.
“Please don’t leave. I really want Max to hear this from you.”

“Daxon says meeting you is a monumental mistake.” Max threw the assessment out like a dare.

“I don’t doubt that.” Alex sat back in his chair. “If all you want from us is a boatload of money, it probably is. If you choose to drain every bit of AG’s capital in a whopping settlement, that’s your right. You’ll undoubtedly win and AG will most likely go under and, well, I’ll live with it.”

“Just like I’m living with this?” Max slapped one of his legs alarmingly hard. “I’d flinch if I could feel it, but, well...” It was a stunt for shock value. It worked; Alex gulped.

“Max.” JJ had gone from annoyed to mortified. “Could we try to do this like adults?”

“Okay, Cushman,” Max sat back and crossed his arms. “Win me over.”

It was an uphill battle the whole afternoon. Alex found himself exhausted from trying to keep enthusiasm and optimism for Adventure Access in the face of Max’s steady resentment. Really, could he blame the man? No matter how one looked at it, poor decisions by Adventure Gear had resulted in Max’s injuries. What Alex was asking Max to consider demanded no small amount of maturity, forethought and downright forgiveness. How many men could do that at any age, much less Max’s reckless young years?

When JJ suggested a coffee break, Alex was grateful. It was torture being in the same room with JJ and yet unable to speak everything he’d come to Chicago to say. This visit was as much about winning over JJ as it was about gaining Max’s partnership—in his heart, convincing JJ was even more important. He’d never jumped at the chance to go brew a pot of coffee with more speed.

Just as they ducked into the alcove that formed Max’s kitchen, the apartment’s front door opened and Mrs. Jones called a hello. So much for any time alone with JJ. Mrs. Jones headed straight into the kitchen with a pile of fluffy somethings filling up her arms. “Look!”

JJ smiled even as Alex peered at the pile. Sweaters in August? Why would anyone take such delight about sweaters in the middle of the summer?

“The prayer shawls!” JJ ducked over and pulled a red thing from the top of the pile. “Melba found me a red one just like she said.” She poked her head around the room divider to call to Max. “Oh, little brother, wait until you see the one Violet made for you—Melba told me all about it. You’ll just die when you see it.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes!” Mrs. Jones giggled. Evidently she’d seen the whatever-it-was already and found it as amusing as JJ promised. The glimpse of the three of them acting so much like a family—the kidding and hugs and love away from the urgent stress of the hospital rooms—tugged at Alex. His family looked nothing like that now. He wasn’t sure it ever had looked anything like this little trio of affection.

Max wheeled into the room, his mouth dropping open when Mrs. Jones unfurled a black knit rectangle with flames licking up from either end—exactly like his wheelchair.

“That is flat-out awesome!” Max marveled, holding out his hands for the thing. “Who made this?”

JJ bent closer to examine the amazing thing, which looked like a cross between a massive black knitted scarf and a hot-rod afghan. “One of the ladies from my friend Melba’s Bible study at Gordon Falls Community Church. I told Melba about the paint job on your wheelchair and one of the women came up with the idea. I think they call it a wrap or an afghan when it’s for a guy—you’d never use anything called a shawl, that’s for sure.”

JJ wrapped herself up in the fluffy red shawl and Alex watched the color light up her eyes. She looked so happy. It felt like he never got the chance to see her truly happy. It changed her face in ways that melted his heart and broke it at the same time.

Max was running his fingers through the black, red and orange fringe that trimmed either end of the wrap, as if the flames had grown multicolored tails. “Why’d they do this?”

“Volunteers make them and pray over them.” JJ’s voice changed to a soft tone Alex hadn’t heard in a long time. “The church gives them out to people who need care or comfort or healing. They come in lots of colors, but, Max, I’m pretty sure yours was a custom job.”

“People there care about you, Max,” said Mrs. Jones, her voice thick with a mother’s love. “They all want to see you come back.”

Alex could see that Gordon Falls didn’t just care about Max Jones. Whether or not JJ had realized it, Gordon Falls had become her home, too. He’d come here, ready to sweep JJ off her feet, to convince her and Max to come to Denver. He’d selfishly made all kinds of plans to graft JJ into his life, forgetting that JJ had made a wonderful new life of her own in Gordon Falls. Now everything was tangled; after watching this, he didn’t think he had the heart to ask JJ to consider moving away from Max should he reject the offer. AG was in Denver and Adventure Access could only be in Denver, but it was becoming clear the Jones family shouldn’t be uprooted from Gordon Falls. Hadn’t he felt the same sense of community even for his short stay there? Could he live with himself if he pulled JJ from the place that had played such an important role in her return to life?

JJ swirled the powder-blue shawl around her mother’s shoulders. They looked so much alike, standing next to each other like that, wrapped in all those fluffy colors. “Aren’t they wonderful?” she asked Alex.

The lump in his throat held him as tight as SpiderSilk. He could only nod.

* * *

“I’ll be back after I have dinner with Alex, Mom.” JJ pulled the door to Max’s apartment shut and exhaled. The afternoon had been both satisfying and exhausting. Max had waffled from intrigued to defensive to annoyed and just about everything in between.

Alex was trying so hard to engage her brother. The fierceness of his efforts pierced her heart. Alex had nearly broken into a sweat toward the end, focusing every ounce of energy he had into lighting some kind of spark in Max that wasn’t just about revenge. Here was the Alex Cushman everyone talked about: the passionate visionary, the man determined to take people to a higher place, a greater adventure. He was nothing short of magnetic, and part of her wanted to take Max and shake him into agreement. A partnership with someone like Alex could change Max’s life.

By the end of the afternoon, JJ believed that what Alex proposed could indeed redeem the tragedy that had taken Max’s legs away from him. She could actually allow herself to dream that a “Max on Wheels”—as he called himself in his brighter moments—could be a better man than the Max who had walked.

JJ took a moment to stare at her reflection in the polished elevator doors. The woman who looked back at her was so different than the one who stepped off an army transport months ago. This woman was starting to believe in hope. This woman was beginning to believe—in a part of her soul that had been dark and dried up—that Alex Cushman was a gift to her life. The man was such a surging fountain of faith and optimism, it was as if she couldn’t help but get doused by what splashed over from his life. It was as true as it was surprising: Alex was a gift from a God she’d convinced herself no longer watched over the Jones family.

The eyes in her reflection said it clearly:
I’ve lost my heart to Alex Cushman.
It had begun with the impassioned speech way back at Karl’s in Gordon Falls. It had grown over the past weeks in the dozens of emails and the delivery of chocolate bars. He’d sent his affections in phone calls, text messages and packages containing AG T-shirts and CDs of ukulele music. A DVD of
White Christmas
that had arrived on her doorstep. Pizzas that appeared on her shifts at the fire department. For a man on the verge of losing his financial footing, he was pulling out all the stops to woo her. In a host of grand and tiny gestures, Alex Cushman had won her heart.

The elevator door slid open to reveal a very impatient Alex. He stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking for all the world like a small boy about to find out whether or not he’d made the varsity team that year.

She didn’t know what to tell him. Her emotions—real as they were—were only a small part of a big and complex picture. Denver was far away and Max still needed lots of support. If Max declined Alex’s offer, JJ knew she couldn’t leave him to fend for himself. Nor could she ignore that Gordon Falls was winning her affections, too. Melba had become a real friend—how long had it been since she’d had true friendships? And what about the guys? GFVFD was becoming a circle of support for her, too. As much as she was coming to feel for Alex, she wasn’t yet ready to leave all that behind. Besides, they hadn’t even talked about a future together yet. It was far too early for such plans.

“Hello, Bing.” The nod to their first meeting wasn’t anything she’d planned; it just sort of slipped from the tumble of emotions.

“Hello, Rosemary.” She’d half expected some grand Alex-style gesture. Red roses, a ukulele serenade, a snowmaking machine set up on Michigan Avenue to give her Christmas in August. He’d been so persuasive from afar, she’d expected to be swept off their feet once they were in the same room. He’d certainly stared at her during the afternoon’s “presentation.” Even Max had made some comment about mixed motives. What woman wouldn’t be flattered by having someone of Alex’s charisma so clearly smitten over her? She’d never seen herself as having that kind of effect on people. Still, he hardly moved. It took her a few seconds for her to realize he was waiting, letting her set the tone.

The man was nearly irresistible, standing there empty-handed and fidgeting like that. Somehow his doubt was more engaging that any dramatic display. “Alex.” She sent his name across the air between them, an offering.

His smile was relief and affection and nerves all rolled into one engaging grin. “JJ.” Then, shrugging, he tilted his chin up in the direction of Max’s apartment. “How’d I do?”

She knew he’d ask. It was clear he’d wanted to bowl Max over, to walk out of there with Max enthusiastic and signed on. She’d wanted it for him, for Max and maybe even for her, but she was more realistic than that. This might wrap itself up into a happy ending someday, but it wouldn’t be simple and it wouldn’t be soon. “He didn’t toss you out. He’s still angry at AG, at
WWW,
pretty much at everyone. I don’t know that we could have hoped for much more today.”

He
had
hoped for much more—she could see the disappointment in his eyes. “I hadn’t realized he was still so angry. I suppose we deserve every bit of it, but wow, a couple of his remarks were like gut punches up there.”