Hannah's List (Blossom Street #7)(55)

Sighing, Macy plopped down on the lawn next to Harvey and fanned out her skirt. The grass felt damp and cool against her skin. Sammy ambled over to lie beside her, resting his chin on her thigh.

"So, what's the problem with your boyfriend?" Harvey persisted.

"He most definitely is not my boyfriend," Macy said, frowning. "You know what he did?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

Harvey rarely showed even this much interest in any topic. She paused and regarded him suspiciously. Maybe he was feeling sick again, trying to distract her.

"What's the problem now?" he challenged.

"You. You're acting too friendly."

"Count your blessings."

Macy couldn't figure out what to make of this change in attitude. "You're not feeling well, are you?"

"I'm perfectly fine."

"No, you aren't." She wondered how long he'd been sitting in his chair.

"Don't tell me how I feel," he snapped.

Macy's fears lifted. "That's more like it," she said cheerfully.

"Leave an old man alone and take that mongrel with you."

"Sammy's yours now." She considered herself his coowner, or more accurately, one of his guardians. But Sammy's principal role was to be Harvey's companion.

"I don't want him."

"Too bad, he's part of the family."

"I thought you were looking for his owners. Seems to me you should've found 'em by now."

"No one claimed him."

"If he was mine, I wouldn't have claimed him, either," Harvey remarked.

"Harvey!" she cried, covering Sammy's ears. "You'll hurt his feelings. Everyone needs to be loved."

"Including you." He gave her a sly look. "I got a feeling about you and this doctor fellow."

"Me? Oh, please! We were talking about Sammy." And Harvey, too, but she dared not say that aloud.

"Yes, you," he said. "Here you are, complaining about the only man you've mentioned in months."

"He doesn't like me."

"I don't like you, either," Harvey muttered, "but that doesn't stop you from making a pest of yourself."

"With you I'm doing it for show."

"Are not," he insisted. "Now, tell me why you think this doctor isn't completely smitten with you."

"Smitten," she repeated and smiled just saying the word. "Well, for one thing, he asked me not to hum. I like show tunes, so I hum when I paint, but he says it gets on his nerves."

"Seems to me you stirred him up."

She rolled her eyes. "We were supposed to get together tonight," she elaborated, wanting Harvey to understand how far off base he was. "Just as friends, you know. But now Michael has another...appointment."

"Didn't you say he was coming over on Wednesday?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"He probably has something important this evening. Doctors are busy people."

"He's got a date," Macy informed him primly. "I heard him talking to her. He asked if dinner was still on for tonight."

Harvey was undaunted. "Who said the dinner was with a woman?"

"I don't know many men named Leanne."

"Don't take it personally. He's seeing you on Wednesday."

"I still don't like him." She grinned. "Guess you'll have to marry me instead."

"Don't want to. Give him another chance."

"Don't want to," she echoed.

"So this doctor's playing the field. Good for him. If I was sixty years younger I would, too."

"Oh, Harvey. I told you--we're just friends." Even that was a stretch, but she didn't want Harvey questioning why she'd invite a man she didn't like.

"Nope, I know the signs. You think I lived this long without kicking up my heels once in a while? I was quite the ladies' man in my younger days."

Smiling, Macy plucked a blade of grass. "I bet you were."

"Don't you get discouraged now, you hear me?"

"I'm not discouraged."

"Good. This doctor has the hots for you."

"The hots?" Macy laughed out loud. "Wait till you meet him. Then you'll see for yourself how wrong you are."

"Wanna bet? He sounds like exactly the right kind of man for you."

"We'd make a terrible couple. He's so...stuffy."

"Then he needs you." He turned and glared at her. "And you need him."

Macy shook her head. Even if she was attracted to Michael--and she wasn't admitting that at all--they were completely unsuited. Total opposites.

Just to take one example, she liked to hum and he liked to frown.

Chapter Twenty-One

I stopped at a wine "boutique" and picked up a bottle of champagne for dinner with Leanne. She'd be making either crispy pork chops or, more likely, something Italian. I was wandering around the store, trying to decide if I should bring red or white wine. The clerk, who came around the counter to offer assistance, suggested champagne.

"It isn't just for weddings, you know," he told me. "Champagne goes with everything." He recommended Drappier. I'd never heard of the brand, but I took him at his word and purchased the bottle.