Page 22 of Burning Love (Looking For Love #7)

STATING FACTS

J ace turned his truck into the driveway of Aileen Carlisle’s house the following Sunday.

He’d said he’d be willing to meet her but hadn’t expected it this soon.

Then again, he hadn’t expected to be sweating gallons of water out of his body during a fire, only to remove his gear and see Talia standing there watching him while he worked.

Even from the distance, he’d seen the fear in her eyes.

She hadn’t run up to him to talk, hadn’t even done more than nod her head, let out a gush of air, and then climb in her car and drive away.

He’d seen her mother in the car with her and fully expected a text when he was at the firehouse.

It hadn’t happened.

She texted him the next day when she thought he’d be up like she’d been doing and never once mentioned she watched him fight that fire.

He didn’t know what to think of that. When she’d come over for dinner on Tuesday, she briefly explained she’d gone shopping and saw the smoke on the way home, and that was the only reason she stopped.

She didn’t want to leave until she knew he was fine and the fire was out.

If he wanted to ask her how she felt about it, something inside him said not to go down that road.

There were already enough obstacles in their way. She knew what he did for a living. She’d watched him at it twice now, if he counted her house.

She kept coming back to him so she had to be fine with it.

Why else ask if he could come to dinner today?

Not just to see her mother again, but meet Elias. Who was already here judging by the truck in the driveway.

He got out and walked to the front door, but it opened before he made it to the stairs.

“Oh, thank God you didn’t bring your motorcycle.”

He appreciated that she hadn’t asked him not to, but he remembered that she’d said before her mother would throw a fit if she knew Jace had one and that Talia might have ridden on it.

They went for a ride each weekend. He’d never dated a woman who actually enjoyed a quiet trip on country roads like Talia did.

If he expected Talia to be more like someone who wanted to hit the nightclubs, he’d been way off.

Not once had it come up to do that.

“It would have announced my arrival.”

She leaned up to give him a kiss. “It would have and I would have gotten even more lectures, so I appreciate that being saved for another time. Elias showed up with Phoebe.”

“His girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

He knew Phoebe Kelly was an attorney originally from Charlotte. What he’d been stunned to hear was that her brother, Ben, was the head brewmaster for Fierce. One of his go-to beers when he ran out of Fifth Kid.

“I should have asked this the other day. What does he know about me?”

“That you’re a fireman and also work construction with your father when you aren’t working on your house.”

He’d taken a break from the work on his house. He’d put in more money than he thought he would in the past six months and could use to build his savings back up.

What better way than work a few days a week with his father.

He nodded and followed her back into the house. “Do I get to see where you live while I’m here?”

“Sure. I didn’t know you wanted to.”

“You haven’t offered.”

He thought it was because her mother was home and she’d been hiding the fact they’d been dating.

Though her mother was aware for the past almost two weeks, it still hadn’t come up for him to stop over.

He wasn’t sure why that bothered him when in the past he would have welcomed it.

She worked during the day as he had too. They’d only seen each other Tuesday night for a few hours. Friday he was at the firehouse, then yesterday she came over in the afternoon once he was up and they went for a ride and had dinner.

It felt like all they did was that—fall into bed whenever they saw each other. He wanted to believe there was something more between them, something deeper. But part of him wondered why he even thought that, especially after being so clear he wasn’t looking for anything serious.

“I didn’t think you’d want to come here, but now you are. You can stop over any time you want. My mother will most likely extend that invitation. Don’t be surprised if it comes with a lot of questions you might not want to answer.”

“Ahhh.”

“She’s nosy that way. I told you that. Be prepared. You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.”

“I don’t plan on it.” But he wouldn’t be rude.

“Talia, don’t stand out here prepping Jace.”

He turned to see Aileen behind Talia in the hallway of the home, her arms crossed, her foot tapping.

“You got called out,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not the first time. Give me a kiss before we go back there. You might be too annoyed to give me one later.”

“I doubt that.”

He followed her into the house and toward the back where the kitchen was.

“It smells better in here than it did the first time you came,” Aileen said. “No smoke.”

“That’s good to know.”

“We are having chicken though,” Talia said. “My mother thought that would be ironic, but she’s grilling it. Jace Rigby, this is my brother, Elias, and his girlfriend, Phoebe Kelly. You’ve met my mother already.”

“Nice to see you again,” he said to Aileen, then walked over and shook Elias’s and Phoebe’s hands.

Her brother was a big dude, about his height at a few inches over six foot. There was more muscle on Elias than Jace had, and since he’d seen pictures online of the entire family, it seemed all the brothers were around the same height. Some built more than others though.

Talia and her sister got their size from their mother.

“Talia hasn’t said a lot about you,” Elias said. “Other than you like my beer.”

“I love it,” he said. “Not that I drink it a lot. I can’t with my job and work schedule.”

“Elias brought you more,” Aileen said. “If you pass muster today.”

“Mom!” Talia said. “You told me you weren’t going to do that.”

“It’s fine. I can handle it.”

At least he thought he could.

“I’ve been the one to knock heads together with the boys that Talia has brought home for years,” Elias said.

“I’m not a boy,” he said.

“So I see,” Elias said, eying him.

This could be blamed on Talia for not mentioning he was older than her. Though he knew Aileen was aware.

“Is there a problem with me not being twenty-four?” he asked.

“No,” Phoebe said. “Right, Elias? We talked about this.”

So he did know. “What did you talk about?” Talia asked. “There is no reason to keep things from me. I thought I’ve proven that I’m not a baby or a child anymore.”

“You’re not,” Phoebe said. “Elias, are you going to answer your sister?”

Jace found it funny that Phoebe had to keep prompting Talia’s older brother.

“I can’t say that it thrills me that you’re thirteen years older than Talia, but maybe she needs that. I don’t know. It’s not for me to say.”

“That’s right,” Talia argued. “It’s for no one to say. And it’s rude to talk about it.”

Jace lifted an eyebrow. He expected them to give him a hard time about fitting into their social dynamic.

Not having the wealth that they did. Not even close.

Instead they were focusing on the one thing that couldn’t be changed.

“We aren’t being rude,” Aileen said. “Just stating facts. You’ve never dated anyone older than you. Or not this old. I don’t think it’s a big deal. I for one think maybe you need to be grounded by someone more mature.”

He looked at Talia and saw her flush. “Mom, you’re getting ahead of yourself. What did I tell you?”

“He’s here, Talia. Give me a break. You’re both just fooling yourselves, but whatever. I’ll go check on dinner.”

“Let me show you my apartment,” she said, grabbing his hand.

Jace was happy she was doing that because he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“What did your mother mean with her comment?” he asked when they got to the bottom of the stairs.

She turned into her living room and he realized the place was much bigger than he thought. It appeared to be about the same size as the first level.

“I told my mother where our relationship stood.” She’d held her fingers up and put air quotes around the word relationship.

He couldn’t dispute it because he was clueless about what they had also. His uncertainty of what he even wanted scared him enough to play the coward and put his head in the sand.

“Okay. What are we fooling ourselves about then?”

“She thinks if it was only sex then you wouldn’t have come here today.”

He frowned. “I never once led you to believe it was only sex between us, have I?”

“No. I told her that too, but she had to get her opinion in there one way or another. That’s my mother.”

“Did you not want me to come today?” he asked, still frowning. If that was the case, he could have saved himself some nervous jitters he’d never admit to anyone.

“I wanted you here,” she argued. “I told you that. I will admit I’m surprised you came.”

She didn’t help his case any. Maybe she did think the same as her mother, that it was only sex.

Which could mean that she could be turning the corner to thinking it was more too.

“I’m not sure why. I said I would. I even said I wouldn’t have a problem if your brother was here. Though he better not think of knocking my head.”

“He wouldn’t dare. Elias is more bark than bite. I think he has to do that in front of my mother so he doesn’t get her on his case.”

“It looks like he’s got Phoebe to contend with for doing it.”

Which he found funny. More so when Elias looked confused and unsure of how to answer.

“Yep,” she said, smirking. “He’s learning. I love Phoebe. She’s very independent, but she had two older brothers who were a bit protective of her at times too.”

“Two is nothing to you, right?”

“Elias is the one who did the most. When he was at college, that left Rowan and Nelson. I was in school with Nelson for all but my last two years. By then most knew what to expect if they dated me.”

“That had to be annoying.”

“It was. You were an only child back then. You didn’t have that issue.”

He wouldn’t say his mother was always asking questions and wanting to meet the girls he dated. He’d brought a few home and wanted her approval.

Until she lied to him.

Then he never got a chance to get her approval for anything in life again.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t. Show me around.”

There was no reason to hash this out and he didn’t want to talk about his mother either.

He rarely did.

He couldn’t change what he’d done to her at the end. Or the guilt he carried.

But he also couldn’t forgive what she’d done to him.

“My living room, as you can see. There are two bedrooms down here and a full bath. When Nelson moved down here, Rowan would stay too when he visited, but I turned the second bedroom into my office.”

He moved to the hall off the living room to see three doors.

He popped his head into where she worked, then her bathroom next to it, and the last bedroom at the end.

“This is your room?”

“It is. The bed isn’t as big as yours.”

It was a queen, he had a king. “There is still a lot of space here and natural light.”

The only light in the living room came through the massive glass doors that walked out to the backyard, but there were windows in the bedrooms. Escape routes in case of a fire.

“It works for me,” she said. “I’ve got my own laundry right here.”

She opened a hall closet door to reveal a stackable washer and dryer unit.

“Your kitchen is smaller down here too.”

There was a galley style at the back of the living room with a table off of the side.

The kitchen took up one wall with a smaller scale oven, fridge, sink and dishwasher. There were only four cabinets that probably held snacks and then three open shelves that had plates, bowls and glasses on them.

It was a neatly organized space.

“It works. But you can see why I’d want to bake cookies upstairs. I don’t have a lot of counter space. I have to make most everything on the table.”

There was one counter with two cabinets under the three open shelves on a small wall. Not a lot of storage for things.

But it wasn’t meant for someone to live here as much as a space to escape from the rest of the house and give some privacy.

He would have loved it at twenty-four and wasn’t surprised she still lived at home.

“Just don’t burn anything down here,” he said. “My guys would make a mess coming down the stairs with hoses and it’s too hard to go around fences to get to those glass doors in the back.”

“Very funny,” she said, moving into his arms. “Give me a kiss. I think we both need it to get through the rest of this day.”

“You’re making more out of it than it is.

“Yeah, sure, we’ll go with that.”