When they’d been at the bar and she’d been trying to shake off his friend Hogan, John had read her eye contact exquisitely. He did the same thing now, his eyes searching her face. He nodded curtly and plunked down in the chair next to her, across from his father.

Jack cleared his throat. “I would have made the reservation for three if I’d have known...”

John waved his hand through the air. “It was unexpected for us as well.”

Us. His hand on her back through the restaurant. John wasn’t doing a very good job of explaining to his father that they weren’t, in fact, together. The thought was giving Mary underboob sweat.

The restaurant was semi-fancy. It had golden lights and big-leafed ceiling fans spinning lazily. There was a river view out the back windows, and Mary’s eyes followed a barge as it plodded its way downstream, the city fanning out beyond it. She wasn’t sure if it was the heat, or the hell of a thirty-six hours she’d had, or the memory of her hand laced with John’s, but Mary felt slightly dizzy.

She needed a second.

“I’m going to run to the restroom real quick.”

She smiled at both men, pushed her chair back and moved quickly, and she hoped, gracefully to the restroom. She grabbed a paper towel, wet it and stepped into an open stall. Mary slapped it over the back of her neck and took a deep breath.

What a strange world. On a normal Saturday morning, she’d just be opening up her shop right now. Instead, she’d slept at John’s house and was having brunch with his father. She looked for a second at her hands. Almost indulgently, she laced her own fingers together, the way she had with John on the train. He’d more than held her hand. He’d gripped her with one hand and sheltered her from the world with his other hand.

And touching was such a slippery slope, wasn’t it? Because only moments later, he’d put one of those warm, calm palms at the small of her back. And moments after that, she’d slid her hand back into his, guided him down to his chair.

This was getting out of hand.

It was confusing to sleep in a man’s bed and hold his hand and meet his father. And Mary wasn’t even letting herself think about the two hugs they’d shared in her kitchen. She hadn’t, even in the deepest parts of last night, allowed herself to mull over how it had felt to look up from her conversation with the detective to see John unexpectedly standing there, looking as curmudgeonly as always.

Talk about slippery slopes. Mary could practically feel herself clicking into skis, adjusting her goggles, pushing off down a black diamond.