A Knights Bridge Christmas. Carla Neggers
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“A real candle. Then light it on Christmas Eve, or get someone to light it.”
He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I will, Gran, and we’ll light it together on Christmas Eve. They do let you out of here, you know.”
“You’ll be in town for Christmas?”
He smiled. “I will now.”
“But your work...” She frowned at him. “There are always a lot of accidents in Boston at Christmas. I don’t want you to miss helping someone because you feel sorry for me.”
“If I’m not at the hospital, Gran, another doctor will be. The emergency department has more than one qualified doctor.”
“But you’re their best,” Daisy said.
Logan stood straight. “That’s kind of you to say, Gran.”
She shifted to Clare. “If I were in an accident, I would want Logan in the ER to stop the bleeding.”
He changed the subject, asking her if she wanted him to unload the two boxes. Clare quickly set hers on a dresser. An ER. An accident. Winter...Christmas...
She noticed Logan narrowing his eyes on her with obvious concern and realized she was breathing rapidly. It was as if the exchange between him and his grandmother had transported her into her own past.
She’d had years of practice coping with such moments, and she pulled herself out of the spiral and forced herself to smile as she mumbled a goodbye and fled. As she got into her car, she told herself she could relax. She needn’t be embarrassed or concerned she would have to explain her reaction. She’d known men like Logan Farrell when she’d lived in Boston, and she doubted she would run into him again. He’d get his grandmother settled, hire someone to decorate her house for Christmas and put her out of his mind once he was back in the city.
* * *
Vera Galeski, in her early sixties, was explaining to Clare the long-standing Knights Bridge tradition of singing carols in the village on Christmas Eve when Logan Farrell entered the library. Clare couldn’t believe her eyes. He made no move to take off his black wool overcoat, a sign he didn’t plan to stay long. He walked straight to her desk—again the brisk, efficient ER doctor more than the sensitive, loving grandson.
With raised eyebrows, Vera retreated to the children’s room in the front of the library.
“I can’t decorate Gran’s house by myself,” Logan said. “I get hives thinking about it.”
He didn’t look as if he were about to break out in anxiety-driven hives. Clare couldn’t hide her amusement. “Really, Dr. Farrell?”
“Logan. Please. All right, hives is an exaggeration, but it’s close. I don’t want to disappoint my grandmother. This move...” He paused, grimacing. “You help me decorate her house for Christmas, and the library can have first crack at her collection of books. Take what you want and I’ll get rid of the rest. She’s a pack rat. She could have valuable first editions.”
“And your grandmother has agreed to this arrangement?”
“She proposed it.”
Clare smiled. “Did you tell her about your hives?”
An unexpected smile played at the corners of his mouth. “She said, ‘Logan, you look as if you’re about to break out in hives.’” But he glanced at the library entrance, as if he was in a hurry and already had stayed longer than he’d meant to. He looked back at Clare, again the busy ER doctor. “You’ll do it?”
The odds she would discover a hidden treasure buried in Daisy Farrell’s house were slim to none, but the library did raise money from periodic book sales and could always use donations.
Logan shoved his hands in his overcoat pockets, an obvious attempt to hide his impatience. “I don’t see a downside,” he said.
You, Clare thought, but she tried to keep her reaction from entering itself into her expression. “I want to be sure I have the time. I’m still getting used to life in Knights Bridge, and I have a first-grader—”
“He can help. Kids love to decorate. I’ll buy him a present. What does he like?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You like to get your way, don’t you?”
“I’m trying to help my grandmother.”
“You’re trying to fob off helping your grandmother onto me.”
“I said I’d help.”
“When?”
“I’m off this weekend.”
Clare lowered her arms to her sides. “You don’t have any plans to be in Knights Bridge on Christmas Eve, do you?”
“I don’t have plans for Christmas right now. Clare—Mrs. Morgan—”
“Clare is fine, and of course I’ll help decorate your grandmother’s house—as a favor to her. She doesn’t need to donate anything to the library.”
“Not going to be bribed, are you?”
“I have a feeling you and Mrs. Farrell are both good at getting people to do what you want them to do.”
“I’m an amateur compared to Gran.” He sighed in obvious relief. “Thank you.”
Clare expected him to bolt out of there now that he’d gotten his way, but he didn’t move. He eyed her, his knowing gaze somehow reminding her he was an emergency physician. “Gran’s mention of accidents at Christmas got to you,” he said finally.
“I don’t know why it did. I hope it didn’t make her feel awkward.”
“She’s lived a long life. She’s had her share of hardships and tragedies.” Logan left it at that and stood straight. “We can start on Saturday, then?”
Clare nodded. “I have the weekend off.”
“Good. It shouldn’t take long to decorate the place. Let’s meet at the house at nine. Will that suit you?”
“That works for me.”
“Good. I’ll see you then,” he added, already on his way toward the front door.
When the door thudded shut behind him, Clare sank into the chair at her desk and breathed.
What had she just done?
Nothing dramatic or insane, she told herself. She’d agreed to help decorate a house with an intense, good-looking, out-of-town ER doctor who wanted to please his grandmother. Any romantic implications were in her head—not that she was thinking along those lines, or, certainly, that he was.
“Seriously,” she told herself.
She was simply a means to an end for Logan Farrell.
* * *
It was dark when Clare left the library. She drove the short distance to Maggie and Brandon Sloan’s fixer-upper “gingerbread house” off South Main. Maggie was a local caterer with enough energy for ten people. Putting bits and pieces of their conversations together, Clare had concluded that Maggie and her carpenter husband, childhood sweethearts, had come through a rough patch in their marriage.
Maggie had on a chef’s apron covered in flour, some of it in her red curls. “It’s pandemonium in here,” she said cheerfully.
She wasn’t exaggerating. Aidan, Tyler and Owen had transformed the living room into a pirate island.
“Brandon’s brother is engaged to an actual pirate expert,” Maggie said. “She’s a good sport about the boys’ idea of pirates. They just finished a treasure hunt, so your timing is perfect. All’s well. No fights, no stitches.” She didn’t sound as if either would be out of the ordinary, or bother her,