Chapter 18

AJ sighed with resignation as she made off with one of his favorite shirts. What was it with women and men's shirts? Not that it wasn't as sexy as hell to have the woman he loved running around the house wearing just his shirt, but he made a mental note to ask Sarah why she did it.

As he pulled on a pair of jeans and buttoned them, he thought of the women in his past and realized the three relationships that ended in disaster were with the three women who'd been too 'dignified' to wear his shirts. The first had been Marcella, 'a Mayor's daughter didn't do those kinds of things!', then Sydney Walden, 'a doctor was to mature for that silliness!', and finally there had been Meredith, 'ewww it's dirty!'.

Laura Delaney had liked wearing his shirts and over the years he could recall one or two others that he had brief relationships with that did. Now there was Sarah! Maybe that should have been his rule of thumb rather than letting his heart decide things! But none of that mattered now, he was finally with the woman that had filled his dreams for nearly a decade and he knew they had a happy future ahead of them.

Passing through the living room on the way to the kitchen he could see that things weren't going as smoothly as Mac had hoped they would with Harm. If the look on her face was anything to go by, they would have to make their own arrangements for the coming weekend.

Mac had dialed Harm's home number from memory. He'd been at the same apartment for as long as she had known him, even though there had been talk of buying a house for Mattie and him, it just never seemed to happen. She wondered, as his phone rang, if he would continue the plans to look for a house in London or now that she was no longer a part of the picture he would settle for another apartment for the two of them. "Harm it's Mac," she said to his 'Hello.'

"Well…hello Mac! I didn't think I'd be hearing from you today. I thought you'd still be with Chegwidden or didn't things go as planned? Did you find that he couldn't keep you happy after all and now you want to come crawling back to me?"

"Thank you for your deep and abiding concern Harm, but AJ and I are perfectly happy with each other. The reason I'm calling is to find out if you would mind if AJ and I used the arrangements we made for next weekend?"

"Let me make sure I understand this…first you dump me a week before our wedding to go to someone else, and now you want to know if I MIND letting the two of you use OUR wedding plans?"

"Yes, that's about it in a nutshell. I take it from your reaction that you object?"

There was a long pause during which AJ passed through the living room and she couldn't help but sigh at the sexy picture he made. He was shirtless, she grinned and fingered the collar of the shirt she'd stolen from him, his button fly jeans fit him like a second skin and he was barefoot. Mac had never seen him so relaxed and casual before, it was very enlightening. She guessed this was just one of the many things they would learn about each other.

Harm's voice startled her back to the phone in her hand, "Nah, go ahead and do it, Mac. Wasn't Chegwidden going to walk you down the aisle when you were going to marry Buggme? Maybe since you've put him in my place you'd like me to be in his? Do you want me to give you away to him Mac, or do you even want me there?"

"I'd like it if both you and Mattie could be there, Harm. Can you come as my friend? Or have you stopped feeling that way about me?"

"FRIEND!? Mac, we were getting married!"

To be continued….