A Knights Bridge Christmas (13 page)

Twelve

He had never dreamed that any walk—that any thing—could give him so much happiness.

—Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol

CLARE FINISHED DECORATING
the tree and enlisted Owen’s help to stack the decoration boxes, glad there was plenty to do with Logan and Maggie checking on Pete Sloan. She had the ancient vacuum out when they returned an hour later. “How is he?” she asked, unwinding the heavy vacuum cord and flopping it onto the floor.

“He’s on his way to the hospital,” Logan said.

Maggie unzipped her jacket. “That’s the understatement of the year. Our Dr. Farrell just saved Pete from a massive stroke or heart attack—whether tonight or a month from now, who knows. It’s in the works. Logan also got through Pete’s thick Sloan head that he needed to go to the ER and get checked out.” She grinned suddenly. “That’s the layman’s version.”

“It works,” Logan said, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on a chair. “Olivia and Dylan are building quite a place, but it blends in with the land out there. He seems excited about getting his adventure-travel business off the ground.”

“Brandon’s excited, too,” Maggie said. “He’s helping out part-time. He knows he needs to go in for regular physicals but today with his uncle will be a wakeup call. I don’t want him nailing his hand twenty or thirty years from now because he refused to see a doctor. Not that I’m blaming Pete for having an accident, mind you, but if there are things you can do to stay healthy, I’m all for doing them.”

“Pete’s healthy,” Logan said. “People make mistakes.”

“Yeah. We’re all human. That’s why we have hospital emergency departments and doctors who specialize in emergency medicine.” Maggie gasped, spinning around to Clare. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I can’t believe I said that. It was terribly insensitive of me. I don’t do well with blood and sickness. I never have. It obviously made me stupid.”

Clare stepped back from the vacuum. “You’re not stupid, and you’re entitled to speak your mind. You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”

Maggie shuddered. “I’m still an idiot. You’re nicer than I deserve.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Logan took the vacuum cord and plugged it into a socket.

“Look, I have to run,” Maggie said. “Pete’s accident ate up the free time I had. Rain check on the books?”

“Of course,” Clare said.

“A mea culpa bottle of wine later?”

“I’ll split a bottle of wine with you anytime, Maggie. It doesn’t need to involve a mea culpa
.
”

Maggie relaxed, clearly putting her faux pas behind her. She wasn’t one to dwell on her mistakes, Clare thought. Recognize it, own it, apologize and move on. Maggie O’Dunn Sloan wasn’t a ruminator. She turned to Logan. “Thank you for your help.”

“Not a problem.”

“Do you get many nail-gun accidents in Boston?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be, since Brandon and I lived there for a few years. We love the city, but we decided to come back to Knights Bridge to raise our boys.” She smiled, her turquoise eyes brightening. “That’s the short version. See you both later.”

She flew out the front door, racing down the steps and out to her van.

“Her energy amazes me,” Clare said with a smile.

“She’s had a jolt of adrenaline, too,” Logan said. “I can do the vacuuming.”

“Thanks. Owen’s investigating the rest of the toy drawer in the dining room. I’ll organize the books and stage the boxes for quick transport when I get a chance to bring them to the library.”

“On second thought, vacuuming can wait and I can help you with the books.” Logan stood straight, winking at her. “In my world, vacuuming can always wait.”

Clare laughed. “Funny, I say the same thing.”

They hauled the boxes out to the porch. Logan seemed tireless, and he showed no concern about what books were in the boxes. “Library’s free to have them,” he said. “I’m glad to have them put to good use. They’d just be collecting dust here.”

“I have no idea what will sell,” she said, following Logan down the stairs with a box. “Vera tells me there’s no predicting. Have you ever been to one of the library’s book sales?”

“I haven’t, no.”

She stood straight, brushing strands of stray hair out of her face. “I’m looking forward to my first. It will include a bake sale.”

Logan caught one last hair and tucked it behind her ear. “I have about two dozen of Gran’s molasses cookies left,” he said.

“They’d be a hit.”

Justin Sloan pulled up in front of the house in his truck. From his look as he got out, Clare didn’t think he was bringing bad news. He thumped up the porch steps. “Thought you’d want to know Pete’s going to be fine. They’re running some tests. He might need a stent or two, but most likely whatever’s going on with him can be treated with medication.” He nodded to Logan. “Thanks for stepping in.”

“No problem. I appreciate the update, and I’m glad he’s getting any underlying issues addressed.”

Justin grunted. “He’d haunt me for sure if he died on the job.”

The Sloan humor. Clare was still getting accustomed to it herself.

Logan grinned. “This town’s filled with ghosts.”

Justin grinned back at him. “Don’t you forget it.” He glanced around at the decorated porch. “The place looks good. You’d never know no one was living here. Let me know if you need help with anything.” He pointed at the stack of boxes. “Getting rid of these?”

“They’re books Daisy is donating to the library,” Clare said.

“I’ll give you a hand.”

Having Justin’s help would speed up the job. He suggested they use his truck to transport the books to the library. They had the boxes loaded into the back in a few trips. Neither man broke a sweat that Clare could see, but she didn’t mind admitting she could feel perspiration on the back of her neck. She’d been running around since she’d gotten out of bed that morning. Owen was still playing in the dining room. He’d had a big couple of days and seemed to appreciate some quiet time.

“I’ll unload the truck when I get to the library,” Justin said as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. “Any particular place you want them?”

“By the stage would work,” Clare said. “I can help—”

“I’ll be done before you get there. My front seat’s loaded with boxes of screws or I’d offer you a ride.”

“Thank you, Justin.”

He shrugged. “Anytime.”

He climbed in his truck and was gone, heading up South Main the short distance to the library.

Clare turned to Logan. “I should get over there. I’ll grab Owen. We can walk. I could use some air after decorating and hauling books.”

“Why don’t I walk with you? I could use some air, too.”

“Because of the musty boxes and balsam fir needles or because of saving Pete Sloan with his nephews watching you?”

“Talk about pressure,” Logan said with a grin, skimming a curved finger along her lower jaw. “I’d like to walk with you. That’s all.”

“You’re looking for a way out of vacuuming balsam fir needles off the rug?”

“I never procrastinate.”

“If I believe that, will you tell me next that Santa Claus is for real?”

“I don’t know about Santa Claus, but Dickens’ Christmas ghosts damn sure are for real.”

“Another one paid you a visit?”

“Marley. Scary old bastard. At least it wasn’t one of the Christmas spirits.”

Owen wasn’t thrilled about taking a walk but he got into it once he found out they were going to the library. When they started up South Main, sunlight was sparkling on the snow on the common and in yards. A fresh dusting from last night added to the winter-wonderland quality of Knights Bridge village. Clare couldn’t imagine a prettier place to spend Christmas.

When they reached the library, Justin Sloan was carrying the last box of books up the steps. Not a man to waste time. He set it in the entry, muttered he had to get rolling and climbed back in his truck, waving as he shut the door and drove off.

Owen raced into the children’s room. The library wasn’t open—Clare hadn’t even thought about giving Justin a key, but he obviously had one. Another thing she had to figure out: who had keys to the place.

Logan pulled the smallest box off the top of the stack and opened it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said half under his breath, holding up an old edition of
A Christmas Carol
. “I swear I’m being haunted.”

Clare laughed, but when he handed her the book, she saw that it was a
very
old edition. She opened it, and a yellowed, folded note fell out. She caught it and handed it to Logan.

He unfolded it. She saw his eyes tear up when he read it. He obviously couldn’t speak and handed it to her. The handwriting wasn’t neat, but it was legible.

Christmas Day, 1945

To Daisy,

I will always remember my Christmases past with Angus, but I am glad we’re together this Christmas. I hope we will be together for many Christmases yet to come.

Tom

“That’s so sweet,” Clare said. “Who is Angus?”

“My great-uncle. Angus Farrell.”

“Your grandfather’s older brother who was killed in World War II?”

Logan nodded and tucked the note back into the book. “My grandfather never talked about him. Not to me.” He cleared his throat. “And I never asked.”

“This book obviously meant something to your grandfather, and probably to your grandmother, too.”

“It could be a valuable edition, couldn’t it?”

“Possibly. George Sanderson donated his book collection to the library. It contained some rare books. This could have been one of them, only no one realized it and it went into one of the library sales. They’ve been going on for decades.”

Logan shut the book. “Let’s go see my grandmother. Would you join me?”

“It’s library business. Part of its history.”

“I meant for my sake,” he said quietly.

* * *

They dropped Owen off with Maggie and drove out to Rivendell in Logan’s car.

Daisy was awake, watching her favorite soap opera and doing a crossword puzzle, relaxing after a senior yoga class with Audrey Frost. “You should see Grace doing the cobra, and she’s even older than I am.”

Logan smiled. “Nice and limber now, Gran?”

“I feel good, whatever the reason.”

“We were going through books and found this one.” He handed her the copy of
A Christmas Carol
.

“Oh, my. I knew it was there somewhere. Tom...” She smiled, touching the worn cover with her age-spotted hands. “He was late with a book report on Charles Dickens and chose to read this because it was short.”

“Gran, he mentions his brother,” Logan said. “Does what happened to Angus have something to do with the candle?”

“Have a seat. I’ll tell you.”

Thirteen

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”

—Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol

December 1945

AFTER TOM’S VISIT
with the candle, Daisy’s father relented about decorating the house for Christmas and apologized to her and her mother for being such a Scrooge. He drove them out to the Farrell farm, on Tom’s invitation, and they collected pinecones and princess pine. At home, they found a bit of red ribbon and made a simple wreath. But Daisy could tell her father still didn’t have his heart in Christmas.

After church on Christmas Eve, she placed Tom’s candle on a small, flat stone in the living room window and lit the blackened wick. Her father sat in his chair by the fire and stared at the flame, not saying a word.

Daisy was about to head upstairs to bed when she heard singing.

She went to a window and peered out into the darkness, and she could see Tom, his father and a dozen carolers from town gathered in front of the house, each holding a small, lit candle.

They sang “Silent Night.”

Her father got up from his chair. Her mother wandered in from the kitchen. He put his arm around her, and they stood at the window where Tom’s candle burned.

Daisy wasn’t sure they noticed her slip outside. She wasn’t wearing a coat but didn’t notice the cold as she eased next to Tom. She joined in, singing “White Christmas,” although she wasn’t sure she hit any of the right notes. To her surprise, Tom hit all the notes. He had a deep, beautiful voice.

When the song ended and carolers started on to the next house, he squeezed her hand. “Merry Christmas, Daisy,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

It wasn’t until after Tom and the rest of the carolers had gone that his mother came to the house. Daisy’s father was the first to notice Betty Farrell standing outside, alone. Daisy went out with him, but he asked her to stay on the porch.

“It’s just a candle,” Betty said when he stood next to her. “It’ll burn out.”

He put an arm around her. “It’s been hard coming home when so many others didn’t. I’ve felt...guilty. This candle—Betty, I know...I
know
it made a difference to your son.”

“I miss him.”

“Like no one else can.”

She stared at the burning candle in the window. “I’m glad you came home safe. We can’t live in the past, you and I, but I think of Angus...” Her voice faltered. “He loved Christmas.”

“I remember, Betty.”

“It’s almost Christmas Day. We’re on our way to midnight service at church. Keep the candle, won’t you? Burn it every Christmas Eve, for as long as it lasts. Then when it’s gone...” She bit on her lower lip and didn’t continue.

“We’ll make another,” Tom said, walking across from the common, joining his mother. “Better yet, buy one. You almost burned down the house making the last batch of candles. Hot wax is highly flammable.”

“Go on with you, Tom.”

Daisy walked down from the porch and stood beside her father as they watched Betty Farrell and her surviving son walk across the common together.
I’m going to marry Tom Farrell one day
,
she thought.

Then she noticed her father looking at her, and she wondered if she’d thought aloud. But he smiled at her, kissed her on the top of the head and went inside with her.

They kept the candle burning until the stroke of midnight, then blew it out, until the next Christmas Eve.

Present day

When Daisy finished her story, she was aware the room had gone silent. She noticed with shock the deep lines and brown spots on her hands. For a moment, she’d been fifteen again, falling in love with a boy who missed his brother lost to war, and always would.

She touched the simple cover of
A Christmas Carol
in her lap. “Tom gave me this book on Christmas Day. He said he bought it at a library sale. He was so pleased with himself.” She smiled up at her grandson. “He said we helped him and his mother think about Christmases yet to come, and not just Christmases past.”

“Gran.” Logan was having difficulty speaking. “I knew he’d lost a brother in the war, but I never—I’ve never considered what it must have been like for him and his family, or for you.”

“Angus was killed in Holland in September, 1944. He was the only serviceman from Knights Bridge who was killed in the war, but the Farrells weren’t alone. So many people lost loved ones. It’s easy to forget that the names on war monuments are of real people.”

“And the candle we found,” Clare said. “It’s the one your mother-in-law made?”

Daisy nodded. “Tom and I continued the tradition of lighting a candle in the front window at Christmas. We kept that one going for a few years, but he got to where he thought it would set the house on fire, it was so old. I didn’t realize he’d saved it, or if I did, I forgot. He was usually so unsentimental.”

“It was in its own box inside another box,” Logan said.

“The book was in a small box, too,” Clare said. “It’s obviously a family heirloom that wasn’t intended for the sale.”

Daisy touched a finger to the gold lettering on the cover. “Our first real conversation was over Tom’s book report on
A Christmas Carol
. He wasn’t much of a student.” She cleared her throat, looked up at the two young people. “We had a good life together. He loved you so much, Logan. Angus was a medic. I think he’d have been a doctor if he could have, but he planned to come back to the farm.”

“Did he leave behind a girlfriend or a fiancée?” Logan asked.

“We always thought he was sweet on Grace Webster.”

Grace, who’d been living with a secret only recently revealed to anyone else in town. Had Angus guessed? Daisy hadn’t asked Grace, and never would. She looked at Clare. “Tom loved buying books and then donating them to the library after we’d read them, but I was a pack rat and kept a lot of them.”

Clare nodded, but she was breathing rapidly, overcome with emotion.

Daisy hadn’t expected that. “Are you all right?” she asked the young woman.

Another nod. “I should get going. Owen and I...” She waved a hand toward the door. “We have a few errands we need to do.”

“I hope I didn’t upset you,” Daisy said, alarmed.

“No, no. I’m fine. Thank you for telling your story. Having me here.”

“Your husband—he wasn’t in the military, was he?”

Clare shook her head. “He died in a car accident,” she mumbled, then pointed again, vaguely. “I’ll go now. I’ll find my way back to town. Thank you both.”

“Cookies,” Logan said, jumping up. “It’s time for molasses cookies. I swear I’m never going to run out. Gran, you okay—”

“I’ll be fine sitting right here.”

She handed him the book. He was already on the move. That was Logan, she thought affectionately, sinking into her chair. She closed her eyes, remembering when Tom Farrell knocked on her front door on Christmas Day during her senior year in high school. He wanted to take her ice-skating on Echo Lake. He had graduated and was already a firefighter, and it was their first real date...but she’d been in love with him since he’d helped turn her father away from bitterness and his mother away from sadness and loss by the simple act of lighting a candle.

It was reading
A Christmas Carol
with its transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge that had given him the idea—and the courage—to bring the candle into town and see what he could do.

I hated every second of writing that book report, though.

Daisy smiled at the memory. He’d always expected to go first and had wanted her to be ready, but how could she ever be ready?

She got up, slowly, carefully, and headed into the hall, figuring she’d run into someone she knew.

Grace was in the sunroom, watching her birds and reading a book.

“Do you remember Angus Farrell?” Daisy asked, sitting in a chair next to her longtime friend.

“Angus? Of course. He was so full of life...” Grace sighed. “I don’t think any of us ever imagined he wouldn’t survive the war. Of all those who went, Angus seemed one of the most likely to come home.”

“Tom’s mother used to fantasize Angus was wandering around Belgium or Holland with a head injury and couldn’t remember who he was.”

“But you and Tom visited his grave, didn’t you?”

“In Holland, yes. His mother had died by then. She knew Angus had been killed. Picturing him drinking beer at a Dutch café was a little fantasy she allowed herself sometimes.”

Grace seemed unconvinced. “I suppose.”

Daisy smiled. “You’ve always had your feet firmly planted in reality, haven’t you, Grace?”

“This you ask of someone rereading
The Scarlet Pimpernel
for at least the twentieth time.” She pointed at the feeders. “It’s quiet today. Let’s sit a moment, shall we, and see if our cardinal shows up?”