Page 4 of Burning Love (Looking For Love #7)

CHAIN OF EVENTS

“ C an I help you?”

Sitting in his office, Jace turned his head and leaned back in his chair to see if he could get a glimpse of who walked into the firehouse.

They rarely got visitors and he didn’t know if it was an emergency.

“Hi. I’m bringing cookies as a thank you for the team that was working on Tuesday. Or squad. I’m not sure what it’s called. I was very appreciative of the fast response time and that there was no damage to my house other than a lot of smoke.”

“Jace!” Landon yelled from the front desk.

He pushed back from his chair and stood, then walked out to greet the woman he assumed left the chicken in the oven thawing. He’d had four fire calls during his twenty-four-hour shift on Tuesday. Only one fit that criteria.

“Oh, hi. Are you part of the team that raced to my house a few days ago? My daughter was mortified over what happened.”

He put his hand out. “Yes. Jace Rigby.”

“What a nice firm handshake you’ve got. I’m Aileen Carlisle. It was completely my fault.”

He could appreciate Aileen trying to take the blame.

“Not completely. She should have checked the oven before turning it on.”

Aileen put her hand to the side of her mouth as if she was going to whisper, only she didn’t. “I told Talia that too. One thing I know about my children—you can’t tell them what to do once they hit fifteen. Then they think they know it all.”

“Your daughter is fifteen?” Talk about mortified! He’d had some pretty steamy thoughts of Talia in a towel.

“Oh goodness no,” Aileen said. “That was a general comment. She’s my baby of eight kids. They all hit that teenage phase and thought the world was wrong and they were right.”

He nodded. “I might have been there myself.”

She put the box on the counter. “As I was saying, I wanted to drop off cookies as a thank you.”

“We appreciate it. Did your daughter make these? She mentioned that she was craving cookies and that is what started the chain of events.”

“I made these this morning. Talia is working. She’s been on calls all morning.

She’d had a horrible travel day and can get grouchy when things don’t always go her way.

I can’t blame her. She gets it from me. But since she only got cookies delivered to her, I made these fresh this morning and thought I’d share them. ”

He found it funny that Talia took his advice to get her cookies delivered.

“Thank you.”

“Not that I wanted to have something like that happen at my house, but I have to say, I’m impressed with the response time and the professionalism. Talia told me that you helped her open the windows and turn the fans on. She was a little rattled by it all.”

“She didn’t appear that way.”

Not once had Talia looked to be upset or scared. She was annoyed, then embarrassed more than anything. But fear never entered the equation.

Or she was damn good at hiding it.

“The aftereffect,” Aileen said. “Once all that blood stops pumping. I’m sure you understand that.”

“We do.”

“I don’t want to keep you from your job,” Aileen said. “But my daughter runs a foundation for charitable donations.” Aileen waved her hand. “I’m not sure exactly all it entails, but if the fire department needs anything, please, reach out to her. I’m betting she could help.”

He accepted the card that Aileen handed to him without looking at it.

Talia had to be older than he’d first assumed if she had a job like that.

“Thanks,” he said again. “There are always more needs than the budget can cover. I’ll pass this onto the chief.”

He was happy to say that wasn’t part of his job.

“I’ll let you get on and enjoy the cookies. Again, great job and much appreciated.”

He watched the woman walk out the door. By then half his crew was standing around waiting for the sweet morsels they were given.

He opened the lid on the cookies and pulled one out for himself, then handed them off. “Here you go.”

“She looked just like her daughter, don’t you think?” Landon asked.

“I guess. I wasn’t paying too much attention.”

Landon snorted. “It was hard to look at her daughter’s face when she was dressed as she was. Or barely dressed. I get it.”

“Talia. That’s her name.” He didn’t want the guys talking about her that way. It wasn’t professional even if he was thinking it with them.

He looked at the card in his hand. She was the director of the Carlisle Foundation.

What the fuck?!

Noooooooooo.

“What’s going on?” Roger asked around a mouth full of cookie, then grabbed a second. “You look like someone brained you upside the head with a fire extinguisher.”

“Nothing.” Jace walked back to his office after he snagged another cookie. They were damn good.

He sat at his computer and pulled up Aileen’s address, then the tax records. It was in her name.

Then he did a quick internet search of West Carlisle’s parents and there it was: Aileen Carlisle.

He knew the billionaire was from this area. Everyone knew that.

But the surname was popular enough he didn’t think much of it.

He should have.

Son of a bitch.

Since he had it on his screen, he looked up Talia.

There she was with her siblings and more recently in some pictures for work.

Damn, when she wasn’t wearing a towel with dripping wet hair, she was fancy and put together.

He leaned back in his chair again. Those sexy thoughts of Talia would only be that. Thoughts.

Talk about someone being out of his league.

Maybe he thought he saw some attraction in her eyes before he left. Hard to say. It could have been appreciation.

No way someone with her background would give him the time of day.

He knew his worth.

He knew what he brought to women.

A good time because that was all he let himself give.

Too much in him had been broken to open up.

“There are only six cookies left,” Landon said, coming in. “Do you want another?”

“Jesus.” He reached for a third. “How the hell is that possible? There had to have been three dozen in there.”

“Probably more, but everyone took at least three and others are hoarding them for later. You know how it goes.”

“Yep.”

Landon’s eyes dropped to the card on his desk. “Are you going to give that to the chief? The Carlisles have enough money to pass along if we need anything. Might as well take advantage of it.”

“You know who that was, right?”

“Yeah,” Landon said. “I didn’t when she came in. I might not have when she gave her full name, but then I caught on when she talked about her daughter doing foundation work. That’s the billionaire’s mother and sister.”

“It is. I wasn’t positive until I looked it up.”

“You’re not from around here originally. Some knew the siblings in school if they were in the district. There are enough of them.”

“I didn’t go to school around here.” He didn’t talk much about his life prior to becoming Jace Rigby.

No one knew Jace Miller and it was best to keep it that way.