“Seventy-one. That’s too old.”

Stopping at the open door, Heath saw Annabelle standing in the middle of a cheery blue-and-yellow room that seemed to serve as her reception area. She wore a short white T-shirt, a pair of low-slung jeans, and rainbow flip-flops. She’d caught her hair up on top of her head in a curly little whale spout that made her look like Pebbles Flintstone, except with a better body.

A bald, elderly man with bushy eyebrows glowered down at her. “I told you I wanted a lady in her thirties.”

“Mr. Bronicki, most women in their thirties are looking for a man who’s a little closer to their own age.”

“That shows what you know. Women like older men. They know that’s where the money is.”

Heath smiled, enjoying himself for the first time all day. As he stepped over the threshold, Annabelle spotted him. Her honey-colored eyes widened as if a big bad dinosaur had shown up at the door of the Flintstones’ cave. “Heath? What are you doing here?”

“You don’t seem to be answering your phone.”

“That’s because she’s been trying to dodge me,” the elderly man interjected.

Annabelle’s whale spout hairdo twitched indignantly. “I wasn’t trying to dodge you. Look, Mr. Bronicki, I need to talk with Mr. Champion. You and I can discuss this some other time.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Mr. Bronicki crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re just trying to weasel out of that contract.”

Heath made an open-handed, accommodating gesture. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and watch.”

She shot him an exasperated look. He drew in the corners of his mouth and moved closer to the couch, which improved his view of her clingy white T-shirt. His eyes drifted down a trim pair of legs to her feet and then her toes, which were painted a sparkly grape with white polka dots. Pebbles had her own sense of style.

She returned her attention to her elderly visitor. “I don’t weasel,” she said hotly. “Mrs. Valerio happens to be a lovely woman, and you two have a lot in common.”

“She’s too old,” the man shot back. “Satisfaction guaranteed, remember? That’s what the contract said, and my nephew’s a lawyer.”

“So you’ve mentioned before.”

“A good one, too. He went to a real good law school.”

The steely glint that appeared in Annabelle’s eyes didn’t bode well for poor Mr. Bronicki. “As good as Harvard?” she said triumphantly. “Because that’s where Mr. Champion went to school, and”—she zeroed in on him—“he’s my lawyer.”

Heath lifted an eyebrow.

The old man studied him suspiciously, and Annabelle’s cheeks plumped in a kitten-ate-the-cream smile. “Mr. Bronicki, this is Heath Champion, otherwise known as the Python, but don’t let that worry you. He hardly ever sends seniors to prison. Heath, Mr. Bronicki is one of my grandmother’s former clients.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mr. Bronicki blinked but quickly recovered. “If you’re her lawyer, maybe you’d better tell her how a contract works.”

Annabelle bristled all over again. “Mr. Bronicki is under the impression that a contract he signed with my grandmother in 1986 is still valid and that I should honor it.”