A Knights Bridge Christmas (6 page)

He winked—sexily, provocatively—and set to making lunch.

Clare discovered a stack of about a half-dozen boxes in the dining room. The top one was marked Mysteries. She lifted it and set it on the floor, opening it up to books by Rex Stout, P. D. James, Dorothy Sayers and Ross McDonald. A first edition would be a find, but all of the books would be snapped up in a library sale.

“I read P. D. James with a dictionary next to me,” Logan said, handing Clare a small baguette sandwich.

“She never underestimated her readers, did she?” Clare noted a paperback copy of
Fer-de-Lance
. “Nero Wolfe is a favorite with the seniors, and a teen book club just discovered him. He’s timeless and yet part of another time.”

Logan sat at the dining room table with his sandwich. “Did you become a librarian because you love to read?”

Clare sat across from him. “I’d love to read whether I’d become an accountant or a gardener.”

“Gran told me to make sure I always had something entertaining to read during medical school and my residency. It was good advice. I’d pull out a book on breaks and dive into another world, even if it was just for a few minutes. It was often hard to let myself believe I had the time, or that reading a paragraph of a thriller or biography here and there could make a difference.”

“What kind of difference?”

“Perspective,” he said, again without hesitation.

“To remind yourself that being a doctor doesn’t mean you’re all knowing? That kind of perspective?”

“That kind of perspective.” His eyes held hers. “Also that there’s life outside work.”

She ignored another flutter in her stomach. “It’s good just to get caught up in a story, isn’t it?”

“I don’t read as much as I’d like now.” He smiled. “Gran wouldn’t be pleased.”

“Do you always take her advice?”

“I always listen to her advice.”

“What advice didn’t you take?”

“Get married before I turned thirty-two.”

It wasn’t the answer Clare had expected. “Why thirty-two?”

“It was a compromise between thirty and thirty-five. One was too young for what Gran calls the modern world and the other too old for her comfort. She was married at eighteen.”

“You adore her,” Clare said.

“Yes, and I’m hoping nothing in here makes me blush.”

“Surely she’s gotten rid of anything that might.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking amused. “Are you implying my grandmother could have a secret life?”

“I’m not, but I am a librarian. I know that people are complicated.”

“Ah-ha. What the doctor doesn’t know about people, the librarian does.”

She laughed. “I’ll go along with that, but I doubt your grandmother has any secrets that would raise your eyebrows or mine.”

“It takes a lot to raise my eyebrows.”

* * *

Clare was on the front porch, fine-tuning the placement of the cardinal on the pinecone wreath, when Maggie Sloan delivered a tired, contented Owen. Logan, who’d brought out more strings of lights, opened the front door. “You can hang out in the front room,” he told Owen. “We’ll be in soon.”

“The boys had a great time,” Maggie said as Owen went inside. “We now have a family of snowmen in the yard to rival the family at the country store. The mother is wearing my best winter hat.
That
needs to change.”

“There are loads of hats here,” Logan said.

“If you can spare one that might not come back, that would be awesome. I can’t guarantee a neighborhood dog or wandering wild turkey won’t make off with it.”

“The hazards of life as a snowman,” Logan said, heading into the house.

Maggie appraised the decorations on the front porch, wisps of her red hair in her face as she turned to Clare. “You and Logan have worked miracles with this place already. Last year, Daisy barely managed a wreath.”

“What about candles in the windows?”

“It wouldn’t be Christmas in Knights Bridge without candles in the windows at the Farrell house.”

“Do you know why?” Clare asked.

“I always assumed it’s because Daisy liked them, but I don’t really know. I doubt Tom cared one way or the other, so long as she was happy. Why?”

“Daisy asked Logan to light a candle on Christmas Eve.”

“She and Tom switched to electric candles a long time ago. Maybe that’s what she meant.” Maggie sat on the porch rail next to the spruce boughs. “Tom would love that Logan is here.”

“Was Tom pleased his grandson became a doctor?”

“I’m sure he was but I’ve never given it any thought. Logan’s father left Knights Bridge for college and never came back here to live. No animosity—just life. He and his family would come to visit Daisy and Tom. Daisy and Tom would go visit them. Usual family stuff. I’ve always figured Logan got his grandfather’s adrenaline-junkie gene. Instead of becoming a firefighter, he became an ER doctor.” Maggie shrugged her slim shoulders. “That’s my take, anyway.”

“You must know everyone in Knights Bridge,” Clare said.

“Not everyone.” Maggie smiled. “But I know most everyone.”

Clare glanced at the door, not wanting Logan to catch them gossiping about his family when he returned with the hat. But hadn’t he just told her that life wasn’t always about resisting? Even if he hadn’t meant it—if he’d been flirting with her or teasing her to ease his boredom—it was a point well taken, something she often told herself when she let her
what if
s overwhelm her.

Such as what if he opened the door and caught her and Maggie talking about his family?

She became aware of Maggie frowning at her. “You okay, Clare?”

“Sorry. Lost in thought.”

“Don’t worry about talking about the Farrells.” She grinned, good-natured and unrepentant. “We all talk about everybody around here. Part of being a good neighbor, right? Anyway, I need to run. I’m catering a get-together at the Farm at Carriage Hill tonight. Have you been out there yet?”

“I have. The house looks so charming. I didn’t realize it was on a dead-end road. I turned around at the Quabbin gate and came back home.”

“Next time stop in and say hi. I’ll show you around if I’m there. Have you met Dylan and Olivia?”

Clare shook her head. “Not yet.”

“To think that less than a year ago, none of us knew Dylan’s father had bought Grace Webster’s old house up the road from Olivia’s place—never mind that she’s his birth mother. A real tragedy that he died a short time later, but at least he got to meet Grace.”

“I’m lost,” Clare said. “Grace had a son?”

“It’s one of the best stories ever around here,” Maggie said. “But it’s sad, too. Grace and a British flyer fell for each other just as she and her family were being forced out of their home in the valley to make way for Quabbin. He went back to England, never to return. He was killed early in the war.”

Clare recalled hearing bits and pieces of the story but hadn’t realized it involved elderly Grace Webster. “Now Dylan—Grace’s grandson—is marrying a local woman, and they’re building a house and a business together.”

“Several businesses at the rate Dylan’s going. He’s not one to stand still. Olivia, either. She and I have dipped a toe into making goat’s milk soaps. We use milk from my mother’s goats.” Maggie jumped down from the porch rail. “I should get rolling. That applesauce-spice cake isn’t going to bake itself. You’ll get up to speed on the goings-on in Knights Bridge. Just have to figure out how deep you want to dig.”

“Deep enough to do my job,” Clare said.

“And live here, too, I hope. You don’t plan to buy a house in another town, do you?”

“No plans to do anything right now, but Owen is lobbying me for a bigger house.”

“He says you sleep on the couch. Could do worse. When Brandon and I were in a rough patch last year, he slept in a tent.” Maggie waved a hand before Clare could register her confusion. “Long story with a happy ending.”

Logan came out onto the porch. “Perfect for a snowman,” he said, handing Maggie a green plaid beret.

“Much better than my merino-wool hat. Thanks, Logan.”

She trotted down the steps and out to South Main. Once she disappeared, Logan turned to Clare. “Owen fell asleep on the couch. What do you say we let him nap and open up a few more boxes?”

A Recipe for Applesauce Spice Cake with Maple Frosting or Cream Cheese Frosting

CAKE

2½ cups all-purpose flour or cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1½ teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon cloves

1¾ cups sugar (scant)

1½ cups unsweetened applesauce

½ cup water

½ cup unsalted butter

2 eggs

½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

¾ cup raisins (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8" or two 9" round cake pans or one 9"x13" pan.
   
2. Mix first 7 dry ingredients in medium bowl. Blend sugar, applesauce, butter, eggs and water in large bowl. Add dry ingredients and combine on low mixer speed just until blended. Turn mixer to high speed for about 3 minutes. Fold in optional walnuts and/or raisins by hand.
   
3. Pour batter into pans and bake. Plan on about 30–35 minutes for 9-inch layers and a bit longer for 8-inch layers; 50 to 60 minutes for a rectangular pan. A toothpick or tip of a sharp knife inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean.
   
4. When the cake is cool, frost with maple frosting or cream-cheese frosting.
   

MAPLE FROSTING

4 tablespoons butter (preferably unsalted)

¼ to ⅓ cup pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2½ cups confectioner’s sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons milk (preferably whole)

Blend together butter, syrup, vanilla and about a third of the sugar. Alternate milk and sugar. Use as much milk as needed for consistency. If necessary, refrigerate cake before serving to set frosting.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

8 oz. cream cheese, softened (preferably full fat)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2½ to 3 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla (or a bit more to taste)

Blend together cream cheese and butter with enough confectioner’s sugar for good spreading consistency. Stir in vanilla. Refrigerate frosted cake before serving.

Five

Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air...

–Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol

CLARE MORGAN WAS
under his skin.

Logan acknowledged that fact with the clarity and briskness he was accustomed to exercising in his work. Knights Bridge wasn’t a hospital emergency room, and Clare wasn’t a patient or the family member of a patient. But he couldn’t dance around the reality in front of him—staring him in the face.

He filled two water glasses at the sink. He and Clare had checked the last of the stack of book boxes in the dining room, and she was back at the kitchen table, her fair hair out of its pins, her sweater askew, her face flushed. He noticed the curve of her hip, the shape of her breasts, the blue-green of her eyes...

It wasn’t good, this attraction to the new town librarian.

Owen had awakened and was sorting through a small box containing a crèche Logan had forgotten his grandparents had owned. Clare and her six-year-old had already discussed the difference between a donkey and a mule. The wise men now had Owen’s attention.

Logan knew he should leave the Morgans and run out to see his grandmother. They could find their way home. He would say thanks for the help and get back to his life. Staying here, letting his attraction take hold, was like hanging his toes off the edge of a cliff—tempting fate. He’d buried himself in work and now had a chance to have a good time with an attractive woman. Why play it safe?

Safe, however, was what Clare wanted and needed.

His grandmother would expect him not to cause trouble in her hometown. Help her get settled and decorate her house. Be nice to people. Then go home and come back to visit when he could. She had her full faculties and would see to selling the place.

If he gave in to the urge to kiss Clare Morgan he risked stirring up trouble.

Maybe that was why he wanted to do it. He was bored and restless, and he needed a distraction. If there wasn’t a fire for him to put out, then he’d start one. His grandfather used to tell him that his own low tolerance for boredom was what had prompted him to become a firefighter. He didn’t wish anything upon anyone, but he knew if the worst happened, he had the constitution to deal with it.
You remind me of myself at your age
,
he’d told Logan. He’d figured out early on in his training that he was suited to emergency medicine.

He did what had to be done. People counted on him for that. It was his job.

It was
not
his job to mix it up with Clare Morgan.

His hard-driving personality worked well in his chosen profession. It worked less well in his personal life. He needed to behave himself in Knights Bridge. He wasn’t going to have everyone in town peg him as a cad. His grandmother especially.

He wasn’t going to
be
a cad.

Such a great word, he thought with a smile.
Cad
. To him a cad was a man who used a woman for his own needs, without regard to anything else. Here he was, decorating his grandparents’ home for Christmas, a season to ask more, not less, of himself. He owed it to Daisy and Tom Farrell to hold himself to a higher standard.

And if Clare would rather he didn’t? What if a bit of a cad would do her life good right now?

He shook off the thought and set the water glasses on the table for Clare and her son. “I’d like to check on my grandmother,” he said. “I want to see if she needs me to bring anything else for her new apartment. Care to join me?”

Clare drank some water. He noticed her full mouth, the slender hands. Not helpful, but what could he do? If she noticed his reaction to her, she gave no sign of it as she set her glass on the table. “I’d love to join you.”

“Is this the place with the old people?” Owen asked.

Logan smiled at the boy. “Yes, it is. Do you have grandparents, Owen?”

“I have
lots
of grandparents.”

“My grandmother is learning about birds. We can have a look at the bird feeders she and her friends have set up for the winter.”

“Aidan knows everything about raptors. They’re birds of prey.” Owen paused, very serious now. “They eat baby birds.”

Clare looked slightly horrified, but Logan grinned. “I doubt we’ll see any owls and hawks at the bird feeders, and no baby birds are up here this time of year.”

The boy allowed that was likely the case. They grabbed their coats and agreed to Logan’s suggestion they go in his car, Clare explaining she and Owen would have to come back to town, anyway, given where they lived. “We live in a
sawmill
,” Owen said, climbing into Logan’s backseat. “It’s on a waterfall. It’s cool but Mom has to sleep in the living room.”

“It’s not a problem,” Clare said. “It’s temporary—until we decide where we want to live.”

“I want to live in Knights Bridge,” Owen said, slightly panicked. “We’re not moving again, are we? I have friends here.”

“I meant where to live in Knights Bridge,” Clare amended, pulling on her seat belt.

Owen relaxed. “Oh. Okay.”

When they arrived at Rivendell, all was quiet. One of the dining room workers was outside, drinking coffee and checking her phone. She waved as Logan, Clare and Owen got out of the car. “Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?” she said with a smile. “Have to enjoy above-freezing temperatures when we have them.”

Logan didn’t have the heart to tell her the temperature had again dipped below freezing. Technically, it had gone above thirty-two degrees that afternoon but he doubted it had been for more than an hour. Winter was arriving in New England. The weather would get worse before it got better, but he had to admit he loved this time of year. Clare seemed content, bundled up against the cold. She unzipped her jacket as they went inside. Owen had refused to zip his jacket. Logan supposed he’d been oblivious to the cold at six, too.

They found his grandmother in the sunroom with her longtime friend Grace Webster, a retired schoolteacher in her nineties. Grace’s grandson, Dylan McCaffrey, the only child of the baby boy she’d borne secretly in her late teens and allowed to be adopted, was funding an updated technology room and expanded gardens for the facility.

Frail but otherwise in good physical and mental health, Grace was pointing out where an intrepid, clever squirrel had gotten into one of the feeders outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. “We think it’s only one squirrel,” she said. “He’s diabolical.”

“Would a raptor eat him?” Owen asked.

Clare inhaled at her son’s blunt question, but Grace motioned for him to come closer to her. She then launched into an explanation of squirrels and winter bird feeding, her decades of teaching in evidence. She commanded Owen’s full attention, especially when she told him she’d seen bald eagles now that they’d returned to the area, given the protected Quabbin wilderness.

Using just her cane—no walker today—Daisy got to her feet. “What a sweet boy,” she said, addressing Clare. “How’s he adjusting to Knights Bridge?”

“Very well, thanks,” Clare said.

“My friends and I used to swim out at the old sawmill, before it was turned into an apartment. I still have the scar on my knee where I slipped on the rocks. I dived right back in, blood and all. Nowadays I suppose someone would have used their cell phone and called an ambulance.”

“You probably could have used stitches,” Logan said.

She waved a thin hand. “I’ve never had stitches in my life. Well, I suppose I did when I had my gallbladder out. But that’s—what do the kids say now? TMI? Too much information? Or isn’t that a current phrase anymore?” She didn’t wait for a response, instead smiling at her grandson and taking his hand. “It’s good to see you. How’s the decorating?”

“It’s almost done. Clare’s been helping.”

“Oh, good. Decorating needs a woman’s touch, especially if a Farrell man is involved.”

Randy Frost entered the sunroom with his mother, Audrey, another of Daisy’s friends. They joined Grace’s bird discussion. Owen was clearly enthralled, and Randy offered to look after him while Clare and Logan went with his grandmother back to her apartment. Randy gave Logan what he could only describe as a suspicious look—it was more than appraising or neutral but a notch below hostile. The sort of look that forced Logan to consider his reputation in Knights Bridge.

Then again, maybe Randy had simply detected Logan’s war with himself over his attraction to Clare. Since she was renting an apartment from the Frosts, the older man would naturally feel protective of her. Logan didn’t know Randy Frost well. It was possible he often looked suspicious.

Logan knew better than to offer his grandmother help as they walked down the hall to her apartment. Not only didn’t she want his help, it was good for her to manage on her own. One of the attractions of assisted living, she’d told him, was being able to see people and do things she couldn’t do at home—like chat about birds and go to yoga class with her friends.

“A pair of cardinals stay here all winter,” she said. “I haven’t spotted them yet. The bright red of the male will be something to see against the white snow. I hated giving up my bird feeders at home.”

“You had plenty to do,” Logan said.

“That’s true. I’ve never been bored—not even since Tom died. Lonesome, but that’s different.”

She pointed out apartments of people she knew. Most of the doors were decorated for the season with indoor wreaths, Santa Clauses and tiny reindeer and sleighs. Logan noticed his grandmother’s door was bare and saw that Clare noticed, too. “Would you like us to bring you some decorations from your house?” she asked once they were inside the small apartment.

“That would be lovely,” Daisy said, easing onto her chair. She put her cane aside. “I don’t need anything elaborate. Just a little something to remind me it’s Christmas.”

“Owen collected the pieces to a crèche we found,” Clare said.

“That would be perfect. We got that when Logan’s father was a little boy. I’d love to have it here.”

“And something for the door,” Clare added. “A small indoor wreath made of some of your Christmas decorations? I think we could pull that off.”

“I’d love it.”

“I’ll see to it,” Logan said.

“The office has a list of restrictions. It’s what you’d expect in a building full of senior citizens. Common sense.” Daisy smiled and leaned toward Clare, a conspiratorial glint in her aged eyes. “They don’t want us having anything highly flammable.”

Logan smiled. “As you say, common sense.”

“Speaking of flammable,” Clare said. “We found a small box labeled
Christmas 1945
. Its only contents is a candle. It looks homemade. I was wondering—”

“A candle?”

Logan eyed his grandmother with concern. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, and she clutched her shirt at her chest as she stared up at Clare.

Clare went still. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.”

But Logan could see that his grandmother wasn’t hearing her. She was lost in her own thoughts—something triggered by the mention of the candle. “A candle,” she repeated. “Yes... I... I...”

“Gran.” Logan spoke sharply but gently. He knelt on one knee in front of her and took her hand. “Gran, it’s okay. Breathe normally.”

She gulped in air, fast, clearly hyperventilating.

“What can I do to help?” Clare asked.

“Nothing. She’s fine.” He took his grandmother’s hand, checking her pulse. “Gran, hold your breath for a second or I’m going to throw a paper bag over your head.”

She nodded, shutting her eyes, calming herself. Her breathing returned to normal. She squeezed Logan’s hand. “I’m all right.”

Clare stood next to him, shivering. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m so sorry.”

Before he could reassure her, she about-faced and fled from the apartment.

“Oh, dear,” his grandmother said, already stronger. “Now look what I’ve done.”

“You didn’t do anything, Gran.”

“You’ll see to her?”

“Once I know you’re not going to pass out on the floor.”

“Would it be okay if I pass out in my chair? Honestly, Logan, has anyone ever talked to you about your bedside manner?”

He grinned. “Often.”

“You remind me of your grandfather,” she said, sinking back into her chair. “It was a bit of a shock, that’s all. That candle...” She closed her eyes. “Go see to Clare.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Logan said.

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

Logan found Clare on a patio outside the front entrance, pacing, clearly upset. “My grandmother is fine,” he said. “She hyperventilated, that’s all. It could happen to any of us.”

“But at her age—”

“It looks worse at her age. Everything does. She gripes about it all the time. At Thanksgiving she told me that if she gets a piece of popcorn stuck in her teeth people panic, thinking she’s about to keel over.”

“She is very elderly, Logan.”