Page 57 of Flare Up
“Like a dispatcher?”
“Kind of. Before the town had a dispatch system, there was a group of women who answered emergency calls and then had to notify all the firefighters when there was a fire. I’m pretty sure it was my mom’s stories about her that first made Grant want to be a firefighter.”
“She did it just to spite me,” Jill said. “That woman never did like me.”
Wren was startled, but when Grant and his dad laughed and she saw Jill’s smile, she realized this must be an old family joke.
“Mom would prefer I work as a test dummy in a bubble wrap factory,” Grant said, and his mom rolled her eyes, but didn’t deny it.
“I need to finish getting dinner ready,” Jill said. “Why don’t you take Wren and your bags upstairs and show her where she’ll be staying. I made up the guest room for her.”
Wren had to stifle a giggle as she followed Grant up the stairs. “I really wish you could remember what you said that night.”
* * *
Grant showed Wren to the guest room, which was at the opposite end of the second floor from his room. Or rather, the room that had been his and was now the guest room that didn’t have its own half bath. And they said chivalry was dead.
“So this is it,” he said. He wasn’t sure what else to say, since it was a bedroom. Double bed. Dresser. Nightstand. Quilt. It was pretty self-explanatory. “The bathroom’s that door, and that one’s the closet.”
“I’m glad you told me which is which,” she teased.
“Okay, I’m a little nervous,” he confessed. “It’s important to me that you’re comfortable here.”
“Relax.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “I think you’re more wound up than I am right now.”
“This helps.” He kissed her, running his hands down her back to the curve of her ass.
She nipped at his bottom lip. “None of that. You know the rules.”
“You’re, uh...curing that problem I had, so we need to get back downstairs before I get in trouble.”
“That wasn’t much of a challenge.” She laughed and let him go. “You go ahead. I’m going to use the bathroom and freshen up, and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Grant forced himself to walk out of the room because rising to the challenge didn’t mean he was going to get busy with Wren under his mother’s roof. He’d take the humiliation of that night to his grave.
He found his mom in the kitchen and a quick scan of the prep she was doing made him a very happy man. “Pork roast?”
“I haven’t made it in a while, and you coming home seems like a good excuse for it. Where’s Wren?”
“Freshening up. She’ll be down in a few minutes.”
She looked him over with her supermom emotional X-ray vision. “You look happier.”
He tried not to read too much into the happier instead of just happy. “I am.”
“I’ve been worried about you.”
“You don’t need to be.” Not that she would stop. Grant could barely pick up a fork without his mom worrying he was going to hurt himself with it. She’d cried herself to sleep the night he told her he was going to be a firefighter.
“Don’t you tell me I don’t need to worry,” she said in her sternest mom voice, punctuating her words by pointing the spatula at him. “I’m going to ask you a question and I know you might not answer it, but I’m going to ask it anyway.”
This wasn’t going to be good. “Go ahead and ask.”
“Wren lost everything at the same time she crossed paths with you again, and I just...” She trailed off, frowning. “I’m not sure how to frame the question.”
“Mom.” She didn’t have to. “The morning after the fire, I bought her breakfast. I took her shopping for a few essentials, and she paid for what she bought. She even insists on paying rent to Patty even though Patty fought her on it.”
“I’m not trying to insult her, honey. But I worry about you.”
