Sounds of sirens and wedding bells

Deepa Bharath

Alex Amat’s voice was shaking in anticipation of that moment.

The Newport Beach firefighter had the day off Friday, but he was

in full gear.

At about 1:30 p.m., as lunch time was winding down at the El

Torito Grill in Fashion Island, Amat arrived in a fire truck. A loud

siren blared. All heads turned toward the door.

In bolted Amat -- suit, helmet and all -- with a dozen red roses

gripped tightly in his hands. He walked quickly toward the

restaurant’s patio and toward the blond girl sitting at the head of

the table.

No one heard a word after that.

Amat gave the roses to the girl and dropped on one knee.

He was shaking.

The fireman’s muscular hands trembled and he pulled out a small,

ivory-colored box from the pocket of his yellow suit.

“Will you marry me?” Amat asked his girlfriend of 11 months.

Jennifer McKeown burst into tears. No words came out of her mouth.

Amat slipped the ring onto her finger as she laughed and nodded,

tears streaming down her face. They hugged and kissed.

A woman sitting at a table nearby gasped.

“How sweet!” she exclaimed to her lunch companion.

McKeown was at the restaurant with family and friends on Friday

afternoon to celebrate her graduation from the police academy.

“I had no idea,” she said. “I had no idea it was going to be now,

today.”

She said she did wonder after Amat gave her a handmade scrapbook,

at the end of which he wrote that he wanted to spend the rest of his

life with her. The couple recently bought a home in Yorba Linda.

“What I see ahead for us is a never-ending experience,” Amat said,

as he held his fiancee’s hand. “My hope is for both of us to have

safe careers and come back home after each shift.”

“I see a life full of happiness,” McKeown said, grinning.

Amat had always dreamed about proposing to the love of his life on

a fire truck. Friday’s proposal came pretty close.

It was something he planned carefully. Two months ago, he took

McKeown’s parents to lunch and asked them if he could marry their

daughter.

“Alex is a very traditional guy,” said Jennifer’s father, Kevin

McKeown. “He was as nervous that day as he was today, but we agreed

right away. Alex is a good guy. He’s responsible and committed and I

know he loves my daughter and she loves him.”

Amat’s mother, Elisabel Santana, believes they are “perfect for

each other.”

“Alex is always on the go and always in a hurry,” she said. “And

Jennifer is more calm, and she calms him down and balances things

between them. They’re a perfect fit.”

Their romantic journey began at the gym.

“Believe me, neither of us went to the gym to meet people,” Amat

said. “We were pretty serious about working out.”

But one day, they were destined to let their guards down, he said.

“We got talking and realized we had a lot in common,” he said.

It all happened quickly, but Jennifer McKeown says she is

“comfortable with it.”

“It feels right,” she said. “It feels perfect.”