Harrison must have been watching for me, because he was waiting by the back door of his little house when I got out of the truck.
I stomped the snow off my boots, stepped inside and gave him a hug. “You look good,” I said, stepping back to check him out.
As always, to me he looked like Santa Claus. The first time I’d met Harrison was when I discovered him in my backyard with Owen and Hercules while his son was mowing the lawn. For a moment I’d thought St. Nick was holding court in my blue Adirondack chair. Actually, Harry Senior reminded me of my favorite incarnation of Santa Claus, Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street. Harrison had the same fluffy beard and the same warm gleam in his eyes.
Those eyes were smiling at me now.
“And if I looked like a steaming pile of horse manure, would you tell me?” he asked.
I made a face and shook my head. “No, but I probably wouldn’t stand so close to you.”
He laughed. The old man might have been in his eighties, but his laugh was deep and strong.
I felt a wet nose nudge my hand. I turned to see Boris beside me, looking up with his chocolaty velvet eyes.
“Hello, boy,” I said, bending over to scratch behind his ears.
“Let me take your coat,” Harrison said. He touched the dog’s back. “Give Kathleen a minute to take off her things and catch her breath.”
Boris immediately sat down. I gave Harry my jacket and he hung it over a hook by the back door. I put my purse over the top, stepped out of my boots and handed over the brown paper bag holding the two tallboys.
“You didn’t have to bring anything,” he said.
I smiled. “I know.”
He unfolded the top of the bag and looked inside. Then he grinned at me. “Can’t say I’m sorry you did, though.”
“I’m not going to be in trouble with Harry, am I?” I asked as we stepped into the kitchen.
“That depends,” a voice said behind me.
I turned to see Harry Junior standing by the woodstove.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Nothing that’s any of your business,” his father said.
“How many tallboys are in that bag?” Harry asked me.
“You don’t have to answer that, Kathleen,” Harrison said as he moved toward the refrigerator.
I held up two fingers.
“Are you planning on sharing?” Harry asked his father.
“I might be,” he said, setting the two cans inside his refrigerator. He turned around. “Then again, I might not.”
I didn’t even bother trying to stifle a smile.
Harrison made a shooing motion with one hand. “Take a seat,” he said.
I sat down in the chair next to his, across from the fire burning and snapping in the woodstove. I couldn’t help reaching one hand out to the flames. My hands had been cold all afternoon.
“Nothing’s as warm as wood heat,” Harrison said, easing down into his own chair.
I stuck out my other hand toward the fire.
“Cold hands?” he asked.
I nodded. “A little. Mary’s making a pair of double-knit mittens for me. She says they’ll keep my fingers warm.”
Harrison nodded. “I have a pair of those. Hands are never cold when I wear them.”
“That’s because you wear them to church and you’re so busy flirting one of your hands could be cut off with a chain saw and you wouldn’t notice,” his son said dryly.
“Ignore him, Kathleen,” the old man said. “He’s just jealous because he doesn’t have a quarter of my appeal to the opposite sex.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I heard Harry mutter.
Boris had come to sit beside me. He laid his chin on my knee and I began to scratch behind his ears. He gave an audible sigh and closed his eyes.
Harrison reached over and picked up an envelope that was on the small table beside his chair. I recognized the return address in a boxy black font in the upper left corner. It was from Henderson Holdings.
“Got this in the mail this morning,” he said.
It had to be the refund for the fundraiser tickets. “Good,” I said.
The old man gave me a look. “No, not good. Why in the name of all that’s holy is Lita giving people their money back? I bought those tickets to help kids learn to read so they can go out and make something of themselves. Where I come from, when you have a fundraiser you don’t give the money back. The end.”
Boris lifted his head, looked over at Harrison for a moment and then went back to leaning on my leg again.
“Where I come from, when you don’t deliver what you promised you give the money back. The end,” I countered.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Harry Junior leaning back in his chair, an amused expression playing across his face.
“So what you’re saying is you’re not taking the check back?” Harrison had one hand on his cane and I half expected him to bang it on the floor to make his point.
“No, I’m not,” I said.
To my surprise he smiled at me. “I guess I know you pretty well,” he said. “So I pretty much knew that’s what you’d say.”
“Does that mean we’re not going to argue about this?” I shifted my leg a little, which got me a look from the big German shepherd still leaning on me.
“It most decidedly does, seeing as how this envelope is empty.” He waved it at me. “I took that check back down to Everett’s office this afternoon and told him where to put it.”
I glanced over at Harry, who had given up trying to stifle his smile.
“You’re a sneaky old man.” I mock-glared at Harrison.
“Guilty as charged,” he agreed, struggling to get to his feet.
I made a move to stand up myself, but he waved me back down. “Sit,” he said. “You’re a guest.”
He looked across at his son. “You’re not.”
The younger Taylor got to his feet. “Welcome to my world,” he said softly as he passed me. The delicious aroma of apples, cinnamon and nutmeg filled the air as he opened the oven door and took a look inside.
“You’re letting all the heat out,” Harrison grumbled.
“Do I smell apple crisp?” I asked, leaning on the arm of my chair so I could see what they were doing.
“That you do,” Harrison said, putting a blue glass pitcher of ice water on the table. “Mary Lowe’s apple crisp.” He smiled at me. “She likes me.”
“That’s because you flirt with her like the two of you are sixteen,” Harry countered, using a kitchen towel to lift a heavy blue-and-white casserole dish out of the oven.
“Like I told you before, it’s not my fault women find me irresistible,” his father said, winking at me.
Harry just shook his head.
Harrison opened the fridge door again, studied the two cans of beer for a moment and then took them out and set them on the counter. He reached up into the cupboard next to the sink and lifted down two tall glasses.
“You don’t have to use glasses on my account,” I said.
“I’m not.” He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “None of us were born in a barn. And we’ve got perfectly good glasses. No reason not to use them.”
He poured the beer into the glasses and set one at his place and one at his son’s.
“Kathleen, my son needs a woman,” the old man said as he moved around the table.
Harry’s head came up and he looked over at his father.
“If I hadn’t invited him over tonight, he would probably have had just a peanut butter sandwich for supper. When the kids are out he doesn’t cook.” He jerked his head in the direction of his son. “He thinks I don’t know that.”
Since I wasn’t sure what to say, I didn’t say anything.
“So do you have any suggestions?” the old man asked.
“I’ll find my own woman, thank you very much,” Harry said.
Harrison raised one eyebrow and gave me a conspiratorial grin. “We’ll talk later,” he said.