Page 37 of Lost and Found

She returned to the table. “Are there mom-and-pop shops?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Everyone-knows-everyone type place. The fast food is real food. A library next door to a little grocery store, and both have great selections.”

“Wow, who knew you lived in paradise?” She wanted to know if he lived alone in his mountain utopia. Then again, she shouldn’t care. Because…he was her coworker. One that flirted.

“I like my house,” he said. “It’s a bit of a bachelor pad, I guess. It has more room than I use, but the guys I work with all live nearby. The office isn’t far.”

He lived alone. Though, again, she didn’t care. Except she did. “Then you’re not married?” Of all the questions she could have asked, that shouldn’t have come out of her mouth. It was as if the logic in her brain and the flutter in her stomach had switched places.

“Uh, no.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “You thought I was?”

A blush heated her cheeks. “Just making conversation.” Ugh, or trying to. Wasn’t that what he’d said when he’d asked similar questions?

Matt called again.

“Give me a second,” Bailey called back, grateful for a moment to collect her thoughts.

When she reached her son, he’d paused the movie. “Is Wes still in the kitchen?”

“He is.”

“Did you ask him if he likes pizza?”

“I did, and he said he would eat dinner with us. Are you still good with that?” Bailey didn’t know why she was asking. She and Matt had eaten plenty of meals with people he didn’t know, and she’d never once asked his thoughts on the invitation. He’d never had a problem either. “Are you still excited to try your cookies later?”

He nodded and reached for the remote. “I’ll ask him if he wants one too. But he might want ice cream instead.”

She smiled. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Bailey waited on the couch with Matt until she was certain she’d answered his questions. She didn’t want to run away from her baby because she’d developed a crush. Finally, when she was sure he was totally immersed in the movie, she returned to the kitchen.

He held her gaze. “No wife. No girlfriend. No kids.”

Her pulse raced. She hesitated, schooling her features and reminding herself, for the millionth time, that he was her coworker, before taking her place near him. “No attachments. You must feel like you have all the time in the world.”

“I should.”

That wasn’t a yes.

“I stay busy,” he amended.

See? Coworker conversation wasn’t that hard. He didn’t even seem to notice that she couldn’t breathe in that moment. “Do you like your work? Vivian said your work focuses on protection details more than investigating.”

“It’s a very different career path than I ever envisioned for myself the last time we worked together, but Titan Group is a good fit. It’s interesting people. Interesting places.”

She couldn’t sit still and checked the timer. Two minutes left until she had to pull the pizzas out. “Who’d you protect before me?”

“A billionaire testifying before Congress.”

“Wow. Really?”

The corner of his smile pulled up. “Really.”

“And before that?”

“Jules Lowery had a movie premiere.”

“Jules Lowery?” Hadn’t Bailey seen something about the actress last year dealing with the fallout from a scandal? A breakup or an engagement? She didn’t pay much attention to celebrity news, but some stories were hard to miss.