A Knights Bridge Christmas. Carla Neggers
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with a hiss of impatience. How was he supposed to know if she was leveling with him? What had she done when he’d returned to Boston after his grandfather’s funeral? Had she been at peace, filled with gratitude, on dark nights alone in this place?
But “alone” was relative, wasn’t it? Knights Bridge, not just this house, was Daisy Farrell’s home.
Or was that just a rationalization on his part?
Maybe he was a heartless SOB.
He smiled to himself, shaking off his melancholy. Time to get down to business. He texted Clare Morgan.
9 a.m. start still all right with you?
He tucked his phone into his jacket pocket and went out to the car for his boots. If he needed them, he wanted them warm. Shoving his feet into cold boots wasn’t on the top of his list of fun things to do.
When he got back inside, Clare had responded. I’ll be there. Can I bring anything?
He couldn’t think of what. Glue? Fresh greens? A nail gun? Tape? He had no idea what was involved in decorating a village house for the holidays. He settled on a vague response. We can decide what we need when you get here.
Sounds good. See you then.
He didn’t detect anything tentative in her response but wouldn’t be surprised if she regretted agreeing to help. He supposed he’d taken advantage of her newness in town. It was natural for her to want to make a good impression. Helping decorate beloved Daisy Farrell’s house would be a plus. But that hadn’t been his intent. Logan wasn’t quite sure how to describe his intent, but it probably had something to do with not wanting Clare to think he was a jerk who’d browbeaten a receptionist and forced his grandmother into assisted living.
Then there was Clare Morgan herself. He doubted she’d expected to run into anyone under seventy, except for staff, when she’d carried her box of books into the assisted-living facility. How could he have not noticed the curve of her hip and her unmistakable annoyance when she’d overheard him?
He noticed a library newsletter on a table by the fireplace. It included a note from the chairman of the board of trustees welcoming their new library director.
Logan sat on the couch and read.
Clare Morgan comes to Knights Bridge from the Boston Public Library, our nation’s oldest public library. It’s been her fondest dream to work in a small-town library, and with family roots in the lost towns of the Swift River Valley, she’s pleased to be in our small town. Please take the time to welcome her and her son, Owen, to Knights Bridge.
“Well, well,” Logan said aloud.
So, the fair-haired, book-toting small-town librarian knew something of the big city herself. He wondered how long it would take him to find out what had happened to her husband, then dismissed the thought. He could push people and rules to the limit when it suited him, but he wasn’t crossing that line. If Clare wanted him to know, she could tell him.
Whatever her background, Logan figured he could do worse for decorating help. It could be Randy Frost showing up at nine o’clock tomorrow instead of pretty Clare Morgan.
* * *
Fruit, carrot sticks, cheese and a glass of wine sufficed for dinner. Soon after, Logan, bored, went upstairs to the back bedroom where he used to stay as a boy. It had been his father’s room and he doubted it had changed since then. It had two twin beds with a matching dresser and bookshelves. He found a biography of Abraham Lincoln and crawled under the covers in one of the beds. He’d made it up when he’d stayed over earlier in the week. Until then, he’d never slept in this house alone. He remembered his grandfather chasing a bat that had swooped down the attic stairs, but that had been in the summer. Logan wouldn’t have to deal with bats tonight.
Nightmares, maybe.
The pipes dinged and pinged with a rush of heat. Wind rattled the windows. A cat yowled in the backyard. Kids—teenagers, he thought—laughed and shouted at each other in the distance, presumably as the skating rink shut down for the night.
As an emergency physician, Logan had developed the skill for falling asleep anytime, anywhere, but he knew he had his work cut out for him tonight.
“The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“WE NEED A bigger house, Mom,” Owen announced over breakfast. He was still in his pajamas, seated across from Clare at the small table that had come with their apartment.
“You have your own room,” she said. She was still in her nightgown and bathrobe, enjoying the lazy winter morning.
Her son raised his gaze to her. “But you don’t have a room.”
“That’s why there’s a sofa bed. The living room turns into my bedroom.”
He looked dubious. He pointed his cereal spoon at her. “And I can hear the brook at night.”
“Even with the windows shut?”
“Uh-huh. It keeps me awake.”
“Some people find water soothing. The brook will probably freeze before long, and you won’t hear anything but the occasional trickle, if that.”
“There are bears and foxes in the woods. Aidan and Tyler said so.”
Probably true, Clare thought. “I saw three deer last night after you went to bed,” she said.
Her son’s face lit up. “Deer!”
“You’ll see them soon, too. Now let’s finish our breakfast and get dressed. We have a big day ahead of us.”
He dug his spoon into his cereal. “I want to go ice-skating.”
“I have something I need to do this morning. You can help me. Maybe we can go skating this afternoon.”
“Aidan and Tyler said I could go with them and their dad.”
“I want to be with you when you go out on this rink for the first time. It’s not like the indoor rinks you know. Maybe we can go later.”
“You said that last time.”
“Did I? All right. We’ll talk about it on the way into town. Hurry up.”
There were times when Owen so reminded her of his father. Like now, she thought. He had the Morgan scowl, and somehow it made her notice his Morgan chin more, too. He finished his cereal, needed a reminder to take his bowl to the sink and then was off into the sole bedroom. Their apartment was charming and worked well for the two of them, but it was small—even compared to their apartment in the city.
But she loved the atmosphere of the renovated nineteenth-century sawmill, still with its original dam on a rambling, rock-strewn stream. Once she was settled in to her job and had a better feel for the town, she would buy a house in Knights Bridge. Right now, thinking about such a major change—planting real roots here—made her heart race. Her sawmill apartment was fine at least through the winter.
Owen came out of his bedroom chattering about ice-skating. There’d be no talking him out of it, Clare knew. The boy had the bit in his teeth and wouldn’t let go. She had to find a way to make it happen that would satisfy him but reassure her. She hadn’t told him about the secondhand skates yet. She couldn’t place her finger on why skating made her nervous—perhaps because she couldn’t skate worth a hoot herself.
Randy Frost greeted them as he walked down from Frost Millworks, located in a modern building above the original sawmill. The small mill provided high-quality custom millwork for construction and renovations throughout the Northeast, focusing on older buildings. Clare didn’t know much about millwork,