A Knights Bridge Christmas

“A pleasure, Mrs. Farrell,” Clare said.

“Same here,” the older woman said politely. “You’re not from town, are you?”

Clare shook her head. “My parents moved to Amherst after my sister and I went to college, but we grew up outside Boston. I lived in Boston until I relocated to Knights Bridge in November. My son’s in first grade.” She smiled. “We’re both adjusting.”

“Then you’re married?” Daisy Farrell asked. “What’s your husband do?”

“I’m widowed, Mrs. Farrell.”

Clare noticed Logan’s sharp look, as if he hadn’t considered such a thing.

“Oh, dear,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “You’re so young. A fresh start here will be good for you. Knights Bridge is a wonderful town—not that I’ve known any other. Well, until now. I lived in the same house all my life. I was born in an upstairs bedroom.”

Logan touched her elbow. “Here, have a seat, Gran. We’ll get your sampler hung. It’ll help this place feel more like home.”

“It will, but I’m not feeling sorry for myself. You and your father didn’t drag me kicking and spitting into seeing I had to move. I knew it had to be done.” She sank into a chair upholstered in a cheerful fabric. “Grace Webster says she’ll let me borrow her binoculars until I get a pair, so I can watch the birds, and Audrey Frost wants to sign me up for yoga. What do you think of that, Logan? Audrey’s younger than I am. Can I handle yoga?”

“I’ll check with your internist, but I don’t see why not, if it’s designed for seniors.”

“Well, I won’t be doing headstands, I can tell you that.”

“I just got you off a chair, Gran.”

She waved a hand. “Life is full of perils.”

Logan rolled his eyes, good-natured with his grandmother. “That’s not an excuse for being reckless.”

“Reckless.” Daisy snorted and turned to Clare. “I fell doing the dishes. I’ve done the dishes every day for the past eighty years. Fortunately I didn’t break anything when I fell. All’s well that ends well.” She leaned forward. “You can tell that to Dr. Farrell.”

Dr. Farrell? Clare glanced at him and decided she wasn’t surprised that he was a doctor.

“Dr. Farrell is glad you didn’t break your hip,” he said.

“I am, too. I’d have hated to have one of the Sloan brothers find me half-dead on the kitchen floor. I had them in to fix a leak in the cellar before winter set in.”

Owen would be playing with the sons of one of the five Sloan brothers by now, Clare thought. Sloan & Sons was an established, respected construction firm in town. She hadn’t figured out all their stories yet, but she did know that the sixth Sloan sibling was a woman and a main player in her family’s company.

Clare nodded to the sampler. “It’s lovely. Did you do the stitching yourself, Mrs. Farrell?”

“My mother did. I hung it in the kitchen where I could see it every morning.” She sighed, staring at the simple stitches, then seemed to force herself out of her drifting thoughts. “Logan, don’t you have more boxes to bring in from the car?”

“A couple more, Gran.”

“I can help,” Clare said without thinking, already moving into the hall.

“Thank you,” Logan said, catching up with her.

His car, of course, was the expensive one parked next to hers. He opened the back door. “I have everything out of the trunk. I had a delivery service do most of the big stuff. Gran had everything set to go.”

“She planned the move?”

“It was her idea.” He lifted a cardboard box out of the backseat. “She said she wanted to make it easier on us by making the decision to move herself.”

“That’s sweet.”

“That’s my gran.” He nodded to the box in his arms. “It’s some linens she wants here with her. It’s not heavy.”

“I’ll manage,” Clare said, taking the box. “I’m used to hauling books.”

He took a bigger, bulkier box from the backseat—clothes, he said—and they went back inside. “Let’s hope she’s not back up on that chair,” he said as he and Clare came to his grandmother’s apartment.

She was sitting in her chair, flipping through a small, obviously old photo album. “Here it is,” she said, lifting out a faded black-and-white photograph. “This is the house decorated for the first Christmas after the end of the war. World War II,” she added, as if Logan might not know. She handed the photograph to him. “I have one favor to ask, Logan. Can you decorate the house again, for one last Christmas before it’s sold?”

“Gran...you know you don’t have to sell the place.”

“We’ll talk about that later. You can decorate the house however you want, but if you look closely at the picture, you’ll see a candle in the front window.” She paused, touching the photograph. “Place a candle there, won’t you? In that same window?”

“Of course,” Logan said, clearly mystified by his grandmother’s request.

“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, within reason.

Owen was flushed with excitement, enjoying his new friends. As he put on his jacket, he and the two Sloan boys made plans on their own for a future get-together, as if their mothers weren’t standing there.

Maggie took the opportunity to lean in to Clare. “I heard you’re helping decorate the Farrell house.”

“News travels fast in this town.”

“Audrey Frost told her granddaughter, Olivia, who told me, one of her best friends. Daisy’s a peach. It’ll be great to see her house decorated one last time. I can’t imagine her not living there. I’m sure she’d love to have it stay in the family, but no interest there. It happens. People have their own lives.”

“How many children does she have?”

“Just the son. Two grandchildren—a grandson and a granddaughter in Boston.”

“I met Logan today,” Clare said, keeping her voice neutral.

“That’s what I hear. ER doctor in Boston. I’m surprised he helped Daisy move, but he’s probably anxious to get her house on the market—not for the money, I don’t mean that. Just to be done with it. I’ve run into him a few times when he’s visited his grandparents. He strikes me as very efficient, the sort you want in an emergency if not for a heart-to-heart chat.”

“Not strong on bedside manner?”

“You’ve met him,” Maggie said knowingly. “What do you think?”

Clare considered a moment. “I think he’s the sort of man who knows how to get what he wants.”

“Daisy knows how to get what she wants, too. Trust me, if she hadn’t wanted to make this move, she’d still be living around the corner. But I think her fall scared even her, and she hates to be a bother.” Maggie peeled off her apron and tossed it onto the back of a chair. “If you need any help with decorating, you know where to find me.”

Clare thanked her and left with Owen. She turned her attention to his day, but as they drove out to their small apartment in a converted nineteenth-century sawmill, she thought of the faded photograph of Daisy Farrell’s house decorated for Christmas so long ago. For whatever reason, she’d latched onto the candle in the window. That, for sure, Clare thought, she and Logan could manage.

Two

“Bah,” said Scrooge, “Humbug.”

—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

LOGAN ARRIVED AT his apartment in a high-rise in Boston’s Copley Square in time to get ready to meet friends for dinner. He pulled off his overcoat and headed into his bedroom. A quick change of clothes, and he’d be off to a hip, expensive restaurant. It wouldn’t be a late night. He had to be at the hospital early. But as he pulled off his clothes, he felt dusty and tired, not from hauling boxes—from the emotions of the day.

Not like him, he thought.

He’d run the Boston Marathon. He’d survived the long hours and hard work to become a physician specializing in emergency medicine. Physical and mental fatigue he knew how to manage. Emotional fatigue...

He shook off the thought of it and forced himself not to give in to the mess of emotions that had been swirling around in his head since he’d arrived in Knights Bridge last night. He put on fresh clothes and headed out, walking over to Newbury Street and the trendy restaurant where his friends already had a table.

“How is sleepy Knights Bridge?” Paul, another ER doctor, asked when Logan joined him and his wife, Josie, a pediatrician.

Logan couldn’t help but think of his grandmother spending her first night in her new apartment. Was she lonely? Disoriented? Immersing herself in memories of her home on the town common?

“Logan?” Paul shook his head. “That sleepy, huh? You’re zoned out.”

“Sorry. Long day.”

“How’s your grandmother?” Josie asked.

“Settling in. She’s putting on a brave face, but it can’t be easy moving into a new place after all this time.”

“But she’s thought about it,” Paul said. “She’s known this day could come.”

“Not one for denial, you Farrells,” Josie added with a smile.

“That’s true. Gran’s one of those people you think will always be around. She’s in her eighties, and I know better—I know there are more days behind her than ahead...” Logan didn’t allow himself to go far down that road. “I like to think she’s genuinely excited about her move into assisted living.”

“It needed to be done,” Paul said.

Josie rolled her eyes. “Mr. Sensitivity.”

“What? It’s true, isn’t it, Logan?”

“We could have arranged for her to stay at home. She needs assistance. She knows that. She says moving into assisted living allows her to be independent and still get the help she needs at this season in her life.”

“You sound like a brochure for the place,” Paul said. “Martini?”

Logan smiled, pushing past his melancholy. “That sounds perfect.”

But his mind drifted to Clare Morgan, the new Knights Bridge librarian, with her pale blond hair, blue eyes, freckles and shapely body beneath her winter layers. He’d observed a distinct back-and-forth in her between a spine of steel and a heart of gold. She’d pegged him straight off as an SOB. Not that he hadn’t contributed to her opinion, but he suspected there was more to it than his impatient exchange with the receptionist—for which he’d apologized, again, before leaving his grandmother. The receptionist had taken his impatience in stride. He suspected she’d seen a lot in her work, but that didn’t excuse his rudeness.

He tuned back in to the conversation with his friends. He ended up enjoying the evening—the martini, Paul’s irreverence and Josie’s sense of humor helped—but when he walked home, he noticed the festive lights and decorations celebrating the season and realized he hadn’t paid attention until now. He’d yet to put up a tree in his apartment. He doubted he would bother. What was the point? He didn’t entertain there, and he had no woman in his life. He remembered going out to the old Farrell farm on the outskirts of Knights Bridge as a boy with his grandfather. They’d go out into the fields and cut a Christmas tree. His own life had been in suburban Boston, not in Knights Bridge. He’d loved his grandfather, but when he’d died two years ago, Logan had realized how little he knew about Tom Farrell’s life. His father had left Knights Bridge for college and life as a lawyer in the Boston suburbs. No one had been more surprised than Logan when his parents had decided to retire to the Farrell farm—just not right away. They were presently on a Christmas Market cruise in Europe.

Logan stood in his living room and looked out at the city lights. When his phone rang, he was surprised to see it was his father. “Is it snowing?” he asked when Logan picked up.

“Not at the moment.”

“We have just enough snow here to keep things festive.”

“It’s six hours later there. What are you doing up?”

“I’m somewhere between East Coast and Austrian time. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help your grandmother move. I called at eight. She said she was about to tuck herself into bed. She seems content.”

“I think so.” They chatted for a few minutes about the move. Logan remembered the photograph his grandmother had pinpointed in the album. “Do you know if the Christmas of 1945 has any particular meaning for Gran?”

“It was the end of the war. Her father survived. He served in the Atlantic in the navy. He died when I was twelve, but he never talked about his war years—I’m not sure he would have with me, since I was just a kid. He and my grandmother lived with us. She died a couple of years after he did. The war...”

“A long time ago,” Logan said.

“For us. For Mom, it must feel like the blink of an eye.”

Logan stepped back from the window and its familiar view. “The local librarian is going to help me decorate the house.”

“Good, because one thing we Farrell men have in common—Pop, you and me—is not having an eye for decorating. You’ll need the help.”

“Do you ever wish you’d become a firefighter?”

“Many times. Pop was proud when I decided to go into the law—Mom, too. They said they understood I needed to be in Boston, but I’m sure they secretly wished I’d opened up a practice in Knights Bridge.” He chuckled. “Well, in Mom’s case, not so secretly, but she got over it.”

“No regrets?”

His father was silent a moment. “Not when I see you and your sister, no. You’ve taken on a demanding career. The burnout rate for emergency physicians is pretty high. Take time to have a life, son. The work is good, but it will always be there. My pop used to tell me that. I wish I’d done a better job of listening.”

Logan shifted the subject to his parents’ cruise, but it was obvious his father was fading. After they disconnected, Logan took a shower, which he wouldn’t have time for in the morning, his head swimming with memories. His grandfather’s funeral, the church overflowing with well-wishers, Gran stoic but ever so sad. She was doing fine health wise, but given her advanced age, anything could happen anytime. She knew it, too. But she would tell him every day mattered, regardless of one’s age.

By the time he collapsed into bed, he was happy that he had three twelve-hour shifts before his return to Knights Bridge.

* * *

Friday arrived faster than Logan had anticipated. He’d left clothes and toiletries at his grandmother’s house and only stopped at his apartment long enough to grab a pair of winter boots. He didn’t know why he’d need boots to visit his grandmother and decorate her house, but it seemed like a good idea to have them for a December weekend in Knights Bridge. He hadn’t checked the forecast. For all he knew, they could be in for a blizzard.

The drive west was uneventful, with reasonable traffic and no snow or the dreaded “wintry mix.” By the time he wound his way into Knights Bridge, the stars were out. Every house and business on the common was lit up for the holidays—except his grandmother’s house. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed before that it wasn’t decorated. He’d been preoccupied with the practicalities of her move, he supposed.

A few people—both adults and children—were skating on the rink on the south end of the common, their graceful and not-so-graceful moves silhouetted under portable lights. He’d gone skating with his grandfather a few times, never his parents or his grandmother. He couldn’t remember the last time he and his old grandpa had hit the ice together, but Tom Farrell had skated until his last two years of life. Bundled up, Daisy would sit on a bench on the rink and watch him, her own skating days having ended in her early seventies.

“Eighty and out skating, Grandpa,” Logan said aloud as he pulled into the driveway next to the house. “Not bad.”

The house was as cold as a tomb—not the best image but it was in his head before he could stop it. Before he’d left town earlier in the week, he’d turned down the heat as far as he could without risking frozen pipes. Turning up the thermostat was the first order of business. While the heat kicked on, he unloaded the car.

A middle-aged man walked across the street from the common. “Hello, Logan. Randy Frost. I worked with your grandfather as a volunteer firefighter when he was chief. I just retired myself.”

“It’s good to see you, Randy,” Logan said.

“Wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

“Your mother is Audrey Frost. She’s encouraging my grandmother to do yoga.”

“She and Daisy are tight. Kind of the way it is here. In most small towns, I expect. Need any help getting Daisy settled?”

“I think I got most everything, thanks.”

“Always feel free to ask for help. We’d all do anything for her.”

The implication, however unintended, was that her own family had neglected her. Logan felt an urge to defend himself with the usual protestations about the demands of his profession, but Randy Frost wouldn’t care and it was nineteen degrees out.

Randy didn’t look as if he cared about the cold temperature, either.

Logan thanked him for his offer to help. “Were you ice-skating?”

“Me? No. I stopped by to watch Dylan McCaffrey skate with my daughter. They’re getting married on Christmas Eve. He played professional hockey for a few years. Grew up in Los Angeles and ends up in the NHL. Go figure. You a hockey fan, Logan?”