Page 75 of Burning Love
Normally Braylon would laugh if not smile. He was still stone-faced. “Talia. It’s not even that. Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? Do you know anything about him at all?” Braylon asked.
She frowned. “Of course I do. He’s a fireman. His father has a successful construction company in the area that he works for. What are you talking about? And I can’t believe Elias went running to you two after he met him on Sunday.”
“Elias met Jace?” West asked. Her oldest brother turned to Braylon. “Did you know that?”
“No,” Braylon said. “I know he’s got his hands full at the brewery for some event this week.”
She hadn’t known that. Which meant her mother must have put the pressure on Elias to come on Sunday because she couldn’t sit on the information any longer before she spread it like wildfire throughout the family.
“Mom,” she growled. “I should have known she couldn’t keep it quiet for long.”
Or that her mother ran down this morning and then took off faster than a jackrabbit with dogs on her heels. Her mother must have known about this call today.
“It’s no wonder you kept it quiet,” West said. “Not just for his age, which maybe I could get past.”
“It’s not up to you to get past,” she argued. “You’re not my father.”
She’d said this enough in her life, but no one wanted to listen to her. Least of all West.
“Someone has to be,” Braylon said. “Did you know he was in a calendar and voted the sexiest fireman in Fayetteville? He has one hell of a playboy reputation. What could you be thinking?”
She laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you mean to tell me that in this day and age, you haven’t tried to find any information on the guy you’re dating? Everyone does that,” West said.
She crossed her arms. “Abby didn’t do it to you when she had a fling with you in Aruba.”
Braylon elbowed her brother, grinning. “She has you there. And you appreciated that she hadn’t looked into you. Though it would have saved you the heartache of her finding out after she was back home and you wanted to continue to see her.”
“This isn’t about me and my wife,” West said.
“And did you look into Lily, Braylon? Because I remember a conversation I wasn’t supposed to know about that someone else looked into her and found out things about her childhood you didn’t know.”
Braylon’s smile dropped. “No, I didn’t. It was her past and didn’t concern us.”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding her head. “His past doesn’t concern me.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” West said. Her brother switched the screen and up popped a picture of the hot man that had been in her bed.
Her jaw dropped.
He was younger in the picture, his fireman’s jacket open, revealing a damp white T-shirt underneath that he’d sweated through. He had to have been a captain at the time because he was wearing a white T-shirt under his dress shirt. Firemen had navy T-shirts.
Soot smeared his cheek, his head turned away. His hair was wild and standing on end, sweat trickling down his temple. His suspenders hung loose around his waist, and his gear pants barely clung to him, threatening to slip.
Her lady parts were telling her to get up and go find him to strip him naked.
Which was what half the other women probably thought of when they saw this picture.
Damn it.
“That picture looks like it was taken at a fire, not for a calendar,” she argued. She wasn’t going to let Jace get the shaft from her brothers over a picture someone else took without his knowledge. You could see he’d clearly just gotten done busting his ass.
“It was,” West said. Another picture came up. It was the same shot of Jace, but in a calendar this time, next to it was another shot of Jace with his shirt off, an ax on his shoulder, his muscles flexing and a smile on his face.
Oh lord, that might be hotter than the other picture, but it was so staged.
No, the one of him working was much more effective.
