In the courtroom, he was notorious for being a quick thinker. He’d been captain of his debate team in high school. He drove Estrella nuts when they watched Jeopardy!, always saying the answers before the contestants did.

But staring at Mary standing in her stocking feet in his kitchen, glaring at him, John’s mind was completely blank. He had no idea how to respond to her utterly insane statement.

He settled on a second “What?”

Still glaring at him, she held up her fingers and listed the incriminating evidence. “You never look me up and down the way you do every other woman on earth. Besides last night you’ve never tried to kiss me, but we were drunk so that barely counts. And if we’d gotten naked this morning, you would have seen me all in the bright light, and you’d have to come face-to-face with my age. I... I couldn’t handle that. Not when you already think I’m too old for you.”

There were too many threads to grab hold of in what she’d just said, too many issues to address. He went for the most glaring one. “Too old for me? This is about what I said on our blind date? Mary, for God’s sake, are you ever going to let me live that down?” He stalked forward, his blood boiling in his veins.

“John, it was humiliating. I did my hair, chose an outfit, walked into that restaurant feeling like a million bucks. And ten seconds later, I felt about two inches tall.” She threw her arms into the air. “It would have been three inches, but I was so stooped with age.”