I took a sip of water to hide the flicker of emotion, keeping my tone light. “So, Ben of the Smoldering Lakeside Kisses, what exactlydoyou do back in Florida when you’re not fending off innkeepers?”
He glanced at me sideways, almost smiling again. “I work in law.”
“Legal secretary? Paralegal? Judge?”
He snorted. “Attorney.”
I let that sink in. “So, you’re the guy who’s always buried by books and papers?”
“Something like that,” he said, amused.
I raised a brow. “So you’re helping people.”
He looked down at the sandwich in his lap. “Yeah. I guess so. Sometimes.”
A moment of quiet slipped between us, and I ventured, “Big family?”
The shift in him was almost imperceptible, but it was there.
His jaw tightened slightly. His gaze flicked up, then down. “Not really.”
I waited, gently, but he didn’t elaborate.
Instead, he reached over and unzipped his pack, pulling out his phone.
No bars.
Not even one faint ghost of a signal.
He frowned.
I tried to lighten the mood. “Of course there’s no service. We’re basically off the grid. You’re lucky the beaver doesn’t have property rights.”
He didn’t laugh.
In fact, the tension that had eased over the last hour started to creep back into his shoulders. He shoved the phone back in the bag without a word.
And just like that, I was left wondering, was it the signal drop that soured his mood or the fact that I’d asked about his family?
Either way, something had shifted.
And I didn’t know how to reach him through it.
Yet.
But I wanted to try.
Ireallydid.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ben
I was doing it again.
I could feel it happening like a damn movie reel I’d watched too many times. The tug in my gut, the slow withdrawal, and the tightening of everything good just beneath the surface because it felt easier and safer to put up the wall than admit something was getting under my skin.
And Fifi?
