A Knights Bridge Christmas (5 page)

“Owen’s still under supervision.”

“But he’s six, not two.”

“Or sixteen,” Clare added with a smile. “I know what you’re getting at. I had a dozen different scenarios flash before me as Owen went off with the Sloan boys.”

“Did any of them end with happy, flushed faces and hot chocolate?”

She laughed, snipping another dead twig. “That’s a perfect image.”

“Gran’s probably got cocoa in a cupboard.”

“A plan for the day is developing.”

“And,” he said, entering the kitchen, “I found a good spot for your evergreens.”

He grabbed a knife and helped Clare trim the boughs. Once finished, they took them out to the porch and arranged them on the rail, tacking them down with string he’d found in a kitchen drawer.

“Not bad,” Logan said, appraising their initial handiwork. “It’s a start.”

“We can do more once we find out what all is available to us.”

“Gran says she stores Christmas decorations in the attic. Are you game?”

Clare nodded. “Sure.”

“You’re not thinking about what could go wrong in the attic of an old house, are you?”

“Are you suggesting I catastrophize, Dr. Farrell?”

“Sorry. I was out of line.”

“I guess you couldn’t be an ER doctor if you worried too much about other people’s feelings. You have to stay focused on what you’re doing.”

“It helps, but there’s no excuse for being an inconsiderate idiot.”

“Maybe, but I’d rather have a doctor with no bedside manner who’s good at medicine than a doctor with great bedside manner who’s not as good at medicine.”

“You can have both in the same person.”

“That’s the best-case scenario, of course.” Clare stopped herself before her mind could drift into the past. A Boston emergency department, rushing doctors and nurses and the worst news she could imagine. Aware of Logan’s scrutiny, she pulled open the front door. “I love old attics. Shall we?”

“After you.”

* * *

Logan led the way up to the second floor and then up steep, narrow stairs to a full attic under insulated eaves and heavy beams. Clare had expected an overstuffed jumble of dusty furniture and old trunks, but the attic, although jam-packed, was tidy, with cardboard and plastic boxes neatly stacked and labeled, two large trunks, four ladder-back chairs, a mahogany desk and several old bed frames.

Logan ran his fingers over the back of one of the chairs. “Grandpa was careful about fire hazards, and Gran’s told us for years she’s got the place in a ‘dying condition.’ Her words.”

“Practical,” Clare said. “She seems very organized.”

He smiled. “That’s Gran. Most of her books won’t be up here.”

“Logan, I don’t need her books—”

“She wants you to have them.” He squeezed between a stack of boxes. “She and my grandfather downsized their Christmas decorating once they hit their late seventies, and she did just the basics after he died. I doubt she’s opened most of the boxes with decorations in ages.”

Clare left him to search through the stacks of boxes and went to a window overlooking the common. She immediately picked out Owen on the ice, skating tentatively with Brandon Sloan. The rink was filling up, but the irrational surge of worry she’d experienced earlier had dissipated.

“Found them,” Logan said. He stood in a dark corner, in front of boxes stacked to his shoulders. “Looks like there are four boxes. We won’t need all of them.”

“But it could be fun to go through them, don’t you think? Maybe something will inspire our decorating.”

His eyes lit up, maybe more than he would be willing to admit. He handed her the top box—obviously the smallest and lightest—but she insisted he add a second one. She headed downstairs, navigating the steep steps one-by-one, aware of Logan close behind her.

They set the boxes on the floor in the upstairs hall. He stood straight. “I don’t have the attention span to dig through boxes and do all the decorating at once. What do you say we get this stuff into the kitchen and then take a walk?”

“Please don’t feel obligated to entertain me. I can stay at this while you take a walk.”

He grinned. “You don’t mind a little tedium?”

“Define ‘a little.’”

“Ha. Breaks are good. They keep you sharp, and we’ve been breathing attic dust. Time for some fresh air.”

Clare wasn’t accustomed to such a take-charge personality, but she didn’t have to deal with him forever. Logan Farrell would be back in Boston and his life there soon enough. He’d make the occasional visit to his grandmother and do his part to get her house sold as soon as possible. Clare didn’t think her assessment of him was unkind and premature so much as realistic. He was a busy physician used to a faster pace than what Knights Bridge had to offer. An hour into their decorating project, and he was already bored.

“Just because I don’t get bored easily doesn’t mean I’m boring,” she said, more to herself than to him. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her, but he paused, frowning at her. She waved a hand. “But that could be true for anyone.”

“What does tolerating tedium have to do with being boring?” He seemed truly mystified. “Never mind. We can wait to take a break.”

“I can tolerate tedium. That means I can go on for hours and hours without a break.”

“I deserved that,” he said, without any hint of remorse. “I’m not going to leave you here to work by yourself while I wander off. That would seal my reputation in town.”

“And your reputation would be—”

“Hotshot Boston doctor who neglects his grandmother.”

“So, not the best reputation.”

He angled her a look. “You don’t seem surprised or dismayed by my description of my reputation.”

“Is it what you think your reputation is or what you know it is?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“I’m new in town. I didn’t know you existed until the other day.”

“When you caught me being rude to a receptionist.”

“I guess you can rest your case, then,” Clare said with a smile.

“I
am
a jerk.” He grabbed a box and leaned toward her. “But I don’t neglect my grandmother.”

Clare laughed, but she couldn’t say whether he was half-serious or not serious at all. He trotted down the stairs with no apparent loss of energy after their trip to the attic. It wasn’t that he couldn’t go on for hours, she realized. He just didn’t want to—not when it came to decorating an old house for Christmas versus handling medical emergencies.

She followed him down to the kitchen, where he set his box on the table. She put hers next to it. She peered at the contents of his open box, noting carefully packed gold, red and orange ornaments. Buried under a plastic bag of mostly broken ornaments—suitable for what, she didn’t know—was a small tin box, intriguingly labeled
Christmas 1945
.

Clare lifted out the box and set it on the table. “The label’s not in the same handwriting as the other boxes,” she said.

Logan took a quick look. “That’s my grandfather’s writing.”

“It doesn’t look as if it’s been opened for years—maybe since 1945. What was special about that particular Christmas, do you know?”

“No idea. My grandparents were both still teenagers then.” Logan didn’t sound that interested. “Coat, hat, gloves and a walk?”

A here-and-now sort, Clare decided. She bundled up and joined him on the front porch. He wore a winter-weight leather jacket but hadn’t bothered with a hat or gloves. He’d get cold, but he was a doctor—presumably he knew the signs of hypothermia and frostbite and would get warm before either took hold.

Then again, he could take her hand and get warm that way, which he did as they walked up South Main toward the library. “It’s colder out than I thought,” he said with a smile. “Your hand is nice and warm.” He winked. “We can get little Knights Bridge talking.”

“Blow any stereotypes of their new library director?”

“I imagine you’ve done that on your own already, without warming the hand of Daisy Farrell’s city-doctor grandson.” He eased his hand from hers. “I have my own stereotypes to fight.”

“But you don’t care, do you?”

He shrugged. “Not really. Sometimes I find myself fitting the stereotype of the rude, impatient, busy urban ER doctor. Do you find yourself fitting the stereotype of the introverted, nose-in-a-book, afraid-of-life librarian?”

“Is that what the stereotype is?” Clare smiled. “I do love to read. I like time to myself, but I have to deal with people all the time in my job. Afraid of life? Well, life happens whether or not we’re afraid, doesn’t it?”

“Is that how you ended up widowed?”

“In a way. In another way, I ended up widowed because death happened. Stephen, my husband, was in a solo car accident. He lost control of his car on black ice. A hundred different ways he could have walked away that night, but none of them happened. One of the couple of ways he could have died happened.”

“He died at the scene?”

She shook her head. “No, he died in the hospital emergency room.”

Logan was silent a moment. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”

“It was. I didn’t get to say goodbye before he died. I was working at the library, my last week on the job before staying home ahead of Owen’s birth. I didn’t get to the ER in time. But that’s more than you need to know.” She stopped on the sidewalk, looking across South Main at the snow-covered common, hearing the laughter and chatter of the ice-skaters. “I don’t want to spoil your fun weekend in Knights Bridge.”

“That’s not possible.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Trying to charm me, Dr. Farrell?”

“Is it working?”

“It might be.” She glanced around them at the small-town winter scene. “Can you picture your grandparents walking hand in hand on South Main as a young couple?”

“I can,” he said.

They went as far as the library before turning back. They carried down the rest of the Christmas boxes and opened one, discovering strings of indoor and outdoor lights—including a string of small outdoor white lights.

“They can’t be more than ten years old,” Logan said.

Clare lifted out a strand. “They’re perfect for our evergreen boughs.”

“Come on.” He slung an arm casually over her shoulders. “Let’s see what we can do.”

Four

“I have always thought of Christmas time...as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time...when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely...”

—Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol

LOGAN AND CLARE
both were all thumbs stringing the lights, but they got the job done by the time Owen and the Sloans returned. The four skaters, including Brandon, had pink cheeks and were at once sweating from exertion and shivering from the cold.

Owen proudly showed off a scraped wrist. “I only fell twice, Mom,” he said, obviously pleased with himself. “My mitten came off, but I got it back on before anyone skated on it.”

Brandon cuffed him on the shoulder. “You’re quick, Owen. Falling twice is good for the first time on a new rink and new skates. As far as I’m concerned, it’s good anytime on skates.”

“Dad fell,” Aidan said, giggling.

Clare enjoyed the easy banter between the Sloan boys and their father. She took a closer look at Owen’s wrist, trying not to embarrass him.

“He’s fine,” Brandon said. “There’s no swelling. Good sign, right, Doc?”

“Nothing hot chocolate won’t cure,” Logan said. “Shall we make some? My grandmother has Dutch cocoa, and I bought fresh milk this morning.”

Brandon had to get back to his house, but Clare volunteered to bring his two sons home after hot chocolate. They loved the idea, and Brandon agreed, reminding them to behave and be polite as he headed out.

Logan rummaged in the cupboards, unearthing a flowered teapot and ingredients for hot chocolate. The three boys wanted to know what was in the boxes on the table but didn’t seem impressed when they peeked into the one that was opened and saw the collection of inexpensive ornaments.

“Don’t tell Mom,” Tyler Sloan said, “but I’m making her a snowman for our tree.”

“That sounds great,” Clare said.

Tyler nodded in agreement. “It is.”

“Are you going to put up a tree?” Aidan asked, looking up at Logan.

“Here, you mean?” Logan shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure I’ll be in town for Christmas. Clare and I are decorating the outside of the house because my grandmother asked us to. I live in Boston.”

“We used to live in Boston,” Tyler said.

“Me, too,” Owen said, yawning now that he was warming up. “I miss Boston. There are a lot of trees here. But I like trees.”

“Can’t go wrong with trees,” Logan said.

But Aidan wasn’t done yet. “Will you have a Christmas tree at your house in Boston?”

“It’s an apartment, and I doubt I’ll have a tree. There’s a chance I’ll be working on Christmas.”

“Are you a carpenter like my dad?” Tyler asked.

Logan shook his head. “I’m a doctor.”

“He’ll stick you with a needle if you don’t behave,” Aidan whispered loudly to his brother.

“No needles today,” Logan said with a smile, holding up the tin of Dutch cocoa. “Just hot chocolate.”

The Sloan boys wanted marshmallows with their hot chocolate. There were none in the house that either Clare or Logan could find, but Logan got the boys to agree to whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles. She didn’t know how old the sprinkles in Daisy’s cupboard were, but Logan didn’t seem concerned. The cream was fresh, since he’d bought it himself for his coffee.

Soon, the kitchen smelled of chocolate and sweaty little boys.

With renewed energy, Aidan and Tyler donned their coats, hats and mittens and shot out the back door. Clare pulled on her coat to walk the boys back to their house. She assumed Owen would curl up somewhere with a book or beg her for her iPad, but he grabbed his coat, too.

“I could use some air myself,” Logan said. “It must be ten years since I’ve had hot chocolate. It’s making me sleepy.”

All three boys ran out to the sidewalk. Clare resisted reminding Owen not to get too far ahead of her. He was past the age when he might dart out in front of a car—and there were no cars.

“Moving is one of life’s big stressors,” Logan said.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Your grandmother seems to be adjusting well—”

“I’m not talking about Gran.”

“Ah. I see. Owen’s doing well. Knights Bridge is a big change from what he’s used to, but he likes it. He says so, anyway.” Clare glanced sideways at Logan. “You haven’t noticed anything off, have you? Sometimes it’s hard to see when you’re so close to a situation.”

“He seems like a normal, healthy six-year-old to me. It’s his mother I wonder about.”

She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Me?”

“Yes, you, Clare. You’re jumpy. It’s normal to keep watch over Owen. Not only is he adjusting to a move, but he’s starting to be more independent. That can be tough on a mother, especially one in your circumstances.”

“A single mother, you mean.”

He shrugged without comment.

“Point taken.” Clare smiled at him. “Making hot chocolate and decorating your grandmother’s house for Christmas aren’t what you’re used to, either, are they?”

“Not even close.”

“Are you restless away from the high adrenaline of your life and work in Boston, or is Knights Bridge a welcome break for you?”

“Am I climbing the walls, you mean?” He eased in closer to her. “Having the new town librarian to figure out helps.”

“There’s not that much to figure out,” Clare said, ignoring a flutter in her stomach.

“We’ll see.”

They came to the Sloan house. Aidan and Tyler wanted to build a snowman and invited Owen to join them. Clare instinctively worried about her son overstaying his welcome, but Maggie and Brandon, joining their sons outside, encouraged her to let Owen stay. “I have four brothers and one pesky sister,” Brandon said with a grin. “I’m used to a crowd. The more the merrier.”

“I have your cell phone number,” Maggie said. “I’ll call when the boys have petered out. How’s the decorating?”

“We’ve barely started,” Clare said.

“I can only imagine what Daisy has collected after all these years. It’s hard to picture anyone else living in the house.” Maggie sighed, squinting against the bright sun. “Can’t expect things to stay the same. I can remember Tom Farrell working on the skating rink. It was his idea to have one on the common. Hard to believe he’s gone. He was such a presence in town.”

But Aidan had lost a mitten in the snow and was blaming his brother, and Maggie was off. Clare started back to South Main with Logan. She noticed he’d said little. Maybe making hot chocolate had wrung all the small-town sociability out of him, but she suspected Maggie’s talk of his grandparents had gotten to him, even if he didn’t fully realize it.

“It’s Gran’s choice to sell the house,” he said finally. “She doesn’t have to for financial reasons. She’s hoping someone else will have the desire and means to restore it.”

“It’s a beautiful place.”

“It needs work.”

“There are people in town who specialize in working on old houses. The Sloans as carpenters, Mark Flanagan as an architect, the Frosts for any custom millwork. They can transform your grandparents’ house for its next century on Knights Bridge common.”

Logan shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “Maggie’s right. It’s hard to imagine anyone else living there.”

“Maybe that’s one reason your grandmother moved out,” Clare said. “To help people start imagining someone else living there.”

Logan glanced at her. “You can be wise when you’re not jumping out of your skin, worrying your son might fall on the ice.”

“Thank you. I think. Am I that obviously a worrywart mother?”

“Yes.”

“You could have hesitated.”

He grinned. “I know but I didn’t.”

They came to his grandmother’s house. Even from the outside, it obviously needed work. New paint, loose floorboards on the porch repaired, shutters straightened, windowpanes replaced. She wouldn’t be surprised if it needed a new roof. Inside—plumbing, electricity, heat, on top of cosmetic work.

It could all get expensive fast.

She smiled at Logan. “Our boughs look pretty good, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.” He slipped an arm around her. “Let’s go see what’s in that
Christmas 1945
box.”

* * *

A candle.

An old, dusty, blackened, half-melted pillar candle.

It was the only item in the small box marked
Christmas 1945
.

“Well, that’s anticlimactic,” Logan said, plopping into a chair at the kitchen table.

Clare didn’t disagree. “It looks homemade.” She turned on the faucet, running hot water on the hot-chocolate dishes. “Do you think your grandmother made it herself?”

“If she did, it was the only candle she ever made in her life.” He examined it without taking it out of the box. “A sorry-looking thing, isn’t it? I suppose it could be Gran’s work, but she was never that crafty. Cooking, organizing and volunteering, yes. Making things, not so much.”

“Would she know how to make candles, given her age and upbringing?”

“No idea. It wouldn’t surprise me if she does. This place was wired for electricity early on, so I doubt she grew up with candles. More likely she’d have used kerosene lamps, anyway.”

“It could be a decorative candle, even if it’s not that festive-looking to our eyes.”

Logan touched a finger to the label. “The war had ended by Christmas of 1945.”

“Was your grandfather in the war?”

Logan shook his head. “Too young. His older brother was killed in the war. I don’t know much about him. My great-grandfather—Gran’s father—was in the navy. I don’t know much about his service, either.”

“Do you remember him or did he die before you were born?”

“I never knew him.”

“There’s a lot of history in this house,” Clare said softly.

He pushed back his chair and stood up. “The label could be misleading. Gran might have stuck the candle in the box without noticing the label.”

“That doesn’t sound like her. Look around here. Everything is in order. She might be a pack rat, but she’s precise and very organized.” Clare quickly switched off the faucet, realizing what she’d said. “I’m sorry, Logan. Of course you know your grandmother better than I do. I’m only starting to get to know the people in Knights Bridge.”

“But you’re observant,” he said, clearly not offended. “If there aren’t medical symptoms involved, I can be oblivious.”

“Do you want to ask her about the candle?”

“I’ll play it by ear. She’s a strong woman who’s seen a lot of life, but I’m not convinced she’s not lying through her teeth about how ready she is for assisted living.”

He tore open another box filled with decorations. Clare went through each of the boxes, picking and choosing what would work for the exterior and meet with Daisy Farrell’s approval. Logan worked quickly, efficiently, not lingering on anything that looked, at least to Clare, as if it might call up memories. Either he wasn’t one for nostalgia or wasn’t opening himself up to letting it creep in. She suspected he wasn’t one for it. He’d promised his grandmother he’d decorate her house for Christmas. Time to get the job done.

Clare discovered a pinecone wreath at the bottom of a box and decided she could refresh it. She cleaned the pinecones and added a red-ribbon bow and a faux cardinal she’d found in another box.

“I’m impressed,” Logan said. “I thought for sure the pinecones were only good for mulch.”

“If you don’t look closely, you won’t notice they’ve seen better days.”

They took the wreath out to the porch and hung it on the front door, on a hook presumably there from previous Christmases.

“Window boxes,” he said, pointing at the front windows. “I didn’t think of it until now, but Gran used to decorate the window boxes for Christmas. Shall we give it a shot?”

“Sure, why not?”

She was aware of Logan eyeing her. “I suppose I should feed you first,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

“I can manage the window boxes.”

“You can manage them better after a sandwich.”

“Do you have sandwich fixings? We can always walk over to the country store and see what they have.”

“I’ve already been to the store. We have ham, cheese, tomatoes, pickles, onion and a baguette. Does that suit you? Otherwise it’s a can of soup from 1998.”

Clare wasn’t sure he was exaggerating about the date. “Suits me fine.”

They returned to the kitchen, which still smelled faintly of chocolate. Her phone dinged with a text from Maggie Sloan:
I’m feeding the boys.

Clare answered.
Great, thanks.

She slipped her phone back in her jacket and relayed the message to Logan. “Maggie’s a caterer, did you know? She did coffee hour for her book club at the library. She made an applesauce spice cake that I still dream about. I didn’t resist.”

Logan leaned in close to her. “Life can’t always be about resisting.”