“Has a next step in mind for his career.”

Ah. That was where this was heading. Compliments to this other guy’s career were apparently digs on John’s career. John didn’t even bother responding.

Mary cleared her throat, finally drawing the men’s attention away from one another and back to her. “Did it surprise you when John went to law school?”

Jack’s eyes slid back to John. “No. But it surprised me when he decided to become a defense attorney.”

John’s loose confidence from moments before was dissolving into stiff-backed reserve. Mary intimately recognized the pose. It was what children did to block the judgment of their parents.

“And here we are again,” John sighed in a near-sour tone.

“Why would it surprise you that he wanted to be a public defender?” Mary asked. To her, it made perfect sense that he’d land in that arena of the law.

“It wouldn’t surprise me now that he wanted to do that,” Jack told her, swirling his coffee in his cup. “But back then, I’d thought he might want to follow a little more closely in my footsteps. There were quite a lot of open doors he turned his back on.”

“Jack,” John muttered exasperatedly.

“John doesn’t like open doors,” Jack informed Mary cattily. “He gets pleasure from slamming them closed.”

Mary looked back and forth between them, cataloging everything about Jack that she’d known prior to this brunch and everything she was learning at an alarmingly fast pace. She tilted her head to one side and took a sip of coffee, measuring Jack. What he was really saying hit her like a bolt of electricity.

“Hold on, you think John became a public defender just to spite you?” Mary asked incredulously, her amazement winning out over her propriety. Perhaps she’d only known John for half a summer, but she already knew just how ridiculously off base that assessment was.

Jack’s eyebrows flipped upward at her tone. His mouth twitched with a slight smile that Mary wasn’t sure was altogether good-natured. He said nothing.

“There’s no way that’s true,” she insisted. She felt John shift beside her and she glanced at him but couldn’t interpret his expression. She’d expected his eyes to be on his father, but instead they were fairly well glued to her. Mary studied him for a second, attempting to gauge if she was making things better or worse. She couldn’t tell. John looked just as mixed-up as she felt.