A Knights Bridge Christmas

by Carla Neggers

  “Thank you, Louise,” Clare said. “For the soup and for your story.”

  Once upstairs in her apartment, Clare put the soup in the refrigerator and stood at the window overlooking the millpond and falls. If Owen sneaked out here, he could get into real trouble, fast. She kept the downstairs and the apartment doors locked, but he could unlock them if he put his mind to it. What she had to do, she knew, was take appropriate precautions, keep an eye on him and trust him. Trust that she was teaching him well. He’d put on his boots before sneaking out that morning, right? And he hadn’t gone out to the road or run off to see the Sloan boys.

  She could put the brakes on turning into an overprotective, anxiety-driven mother.

  She wouldn’t go as far as Louise Frost had gone.

  Keeping an eye on Owen would be easier with two sets of eyes, but she was used to being an only parent. Her own parents—and his paternal grandparents—saw him often, giving her breaks. And giving Owen a break from her, too. But they were used to their lives together, just the two of them.

  Laundry, soup, reading. A perfect winter afternoon and evening.

  Clare pulled off her coat and hung it on one of a row of pegs by the door. She took her phone out of her pocket and turned it on before she remembered her impulsive text to Logan.

  He’d responded. I’ll be back this week. See you then.

  She tried not to read anything into it. He’d left a few things unfinished at his grandmother’s house. He had to wrap it all up. He would want Daisy to get on with putting the house up for sale, but he could help from Boston. Find someone to clear out anything she and the rest of the Farrell family didn’t want, clean, paint and stage the place. He could afford it, and delegating made sense given his busy life in Boston.

  She didn’t respond to his text. It’d been a couple of hours, and responding now wasn’t necessary and would look as if she were thinking up reasons to be in touch with him—and she wasn’t fourteen with a crush on a cute high school senior.

  She picked out The Night Before Christmas to read to Owen, then gathered up dirty linens and got him to bring his laundry to the stacked washer and dryer in the kitchen. This was her life now, she thought, and it was good.

  * * *

  Librarian that she was, Clare knew how to immerse herself in details and research, and by Friday, she had read a dozen local newspaper articles mentioning Tom Farrell and his work with the fire department. The man had enjoyed quite a career, and he was well respected for his pioneering work with small-town fire safety and firefighting. Daisy, his longtime wife, had been a homemaker, always at his side—and he at hers.

  Clare unearthed a notice of the Farrells’ wedding in 1948, when Daisy was eighteen and Tom was twenty. A small, grainy black-and-white photograph depicted the happy couple. Clare found herself staring at Daisy’s smile, her dark, neatly curled hair and her smooth, unwrinkled skin. She’d been so young. Did she remember anymore what she’d looked like then?

  Logan bore a strong resemblance to Tom Farrell, Clare thought as she’d stared at the wedding photo. Tom was a good fifteen years younger on his wedding day than his grandson was now, but the resemblance was unmistakable.

  She walked down South Main to the Farrell house. It wasn’t five o’clock but it was already dark, the days noticeably shorter as December took hold in southern New England. Seasonal lights twinkled cheerfully on the businesses, churches and houses on the common. Skaters, some of them arm-in-arm, glided across the ice, glowing under the multicolored lights on a trio of evergreens.

  As transfixed as she was by the beautiful New England scene, Clare felt tears rising in her eyes. She was an outsider in Knights Bridge and probably always would be. Logan hadn’t grown up in the small town, either, but he had roots here, a greater sense of belonging. Even if people had questions about him, they accepted him as one of their own.

  It was the lure and the challenge of a small town, wasn’t it? Part of the appeal of Knights Bridge was that sense of place, of home. But was it possible for a newcomer? Did having roots in one of the lost Quabbin towns make a difference?

  Overthinking.

  Clare smiled to herself. Overthinking was an alarm-bell word for her. It warned her she was propelling herself too far into the future and trying to read minds. She didn’t actually know what anyone in Knights Bridge thought of her or Logan.

  As promised, Maggie Sloan was waiting on the Farrell front porch, sitting on the porch rail next to the evergreen boughs. She didn’t have her boys and Owen with her. Clare glanced around, but she was positive they weren’t there. She’d have heard them. “Maggie, aren’t you catering an event tonight? I can take the boys. Really, it’s not a problem. I can sort books while the boys play.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Sorting books can wait. Even if there’s a first edition tucked in one of Daisy’s boxes, it’s been there for a while. It’s not going anywhere.” She smiled as she eased off the porch rail. “I thought you could join me.”

  “Help you cater? I’d love to, but I’ve never done any catering.”

  “You don’t have to do a thing. You can ride out there with me in the van. No, I meant join me for the event. I’m catering but I’m also attending. It sounds more complicated than it is.”

  Clare wasn’t sure anything was too complicated for Maggie. “Are you sure? If I’m not invited...”

  “I’m inviting you. It’s at Carriage Hill. Girls’ night. Olivia, Jess Frost, Samantha Bennett, Heather Sloan, Adrienne Portale—who am I missing? My sisters can’t be there. Phoebe’s still off with Noah and the twins are in graduate school in New York. I’ll be there, of course. I insisted on catering because Heather wanted to cook.”

  “Your sister-in-law,” Clare said, trying to keep the names straight.

  Maggie grinned. “Give Heather a hammer and she’s fine. Don’t let her near a whisk and a mixing bowl. She’s a menace in the kitchen. If anyone deserves five older brothers, it’s Heather. You’ll love her. You’ve met Samantha, right?”

  “Treasure hunter and pirate expert. She stops by the library often.”

  “She and my brother-in-law Justin are engaged. Long story. On paper you’d never put them together. In real life, they’re perfect for each other. Adrienne is a wine enthusiast house-sitting for a retired diplomat. The Sloans are renovating his house on Echo Lake. You’ve met Olivia and Jessica. Olivia owns the Farm at Carriage Hill.”

  “And Jessica works at Frost Millworks and is married to Mark Flanagan, a local architect.”

  “You see? You fit right in. Dylan, Olivia’s fiancé, is vacating the premises for the evening. I think he and some of the guys are meeting at Justin’s old cider mill and building a bonfire.”

  “If Brandon wants to join them, I can take care of the boys.”

  Maggie shook her head. “He’s fine. There will be other bonfires. Those are his words.” She tilted her head back, scrutinizing Clare. “We both agree you need a night out and a chance to get to know people in town. Time to throttle back for an evening.”

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you that sorting through boxes of musty books is my idea of throttling back?”

  Maggie didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  They walked to her house around the corner. Brandon Sloan had the three boys making pizza. Owen loved the idea of staying with his friends for the evening. Pepperoni, tomato sauce, cheese, movies and masculine energy. What was not to like for a six-year-old boy?

  Maggie whisked Clare into her van, and off they went to the Farm at Carriage Hill. Olivia Frost’s 1803 center-chimney house was out of a storybook, tastefully decorated for Christmas. Maggie parked by a sign with the inn’s signature logo of blossoming chives, created by Olivia, a graphic designer.

  “Brandon keeps threatening to plan a guys’ night out that I can cater. It’d be easy. Beer, chips and salsa at a bonfire. They’d probably settle just for beer.”

  Clare laughed. “You could go all out and add guacamole.”

  �
��Brandon would say I’m underestimating him and his friends. Point is, they aren’t hard to please. It’s a quality I’ve come to appreciate more than I used to.” She started to push open her door. “Coming back home to Knights Bridge has been a fresh start for me. I don’t mean to be presumptuous—well, maybe I do—but I’ve had the impression that part of the reason you took the job at the library was to make a fresh start for yourself. You know. Draw a line under the past and find yourself a man.”

  “Maggie...”

  “That’s not why I came back, you understand. I already had a man. I was just incredibly mad at him.” She smiled, her turquoise eyes shining. “All water over the dam.”

  Clare bit her lip. “Does everyone in town think I’m here to find a man?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked everyone. I haven’t asked anyone, actually. But am I wrong?”

  “I wanted to move out of the city with Owen, and Knights Bridge is close to my parents.”

  “Right.” Maggie sounded dubious. “It’s a practical choice.”

  “For one kind of fresh start. There are more single men in Boston. If that was my priority, I’d have stayed, wouldn’t I?”

  “Not if you needed to escape memories in order to start dating again. Look, I’m sorry. I’m being really, really blunt and I haven’t even had a glass of wine—which is my quota when I’m driving. You, however, aren’t driving. Kick back, relax and have a good time tonight.” Maggie smiled cheerfully. “You’re among friends.”

  They went into the house through the main door and entered a living room with a roaring fire in the center-chimney fireplace. Maggie made introductions as they all helped get the food out of the van and set it up in the dining room. Adrienne Portale poured wine, and the evening got underway.

  Great food, drinks, a beautiful home on the edge of the Quabbin wilderness and new women friends. Clare smiled as she sipped a lovely merlot.

  What was not to like for a thirty-two-year-old widow?

  Eight

  Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return...if the Ghost had given him time.

  —Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

  THE BOYS WERE still up, but barely, when Maggie and Clare returned. Brandon had set out sleeping bags on the living room floor, and the boys were tucked in, watching a movie as they fought to stay awake. Clare tiptoed into the living room to say good-night to her son.

  “Mom,” Owen whispered, snuggled into his sleeping bag, “guess who else is here.”

  “Who?” she asked, matching his whisper.

  His eyes widened with excitement. “Logan.”

  Brandon was standing in the doorway. “Logan stopped by before dinner. I told him he could join us for pizza if he didn’t badger me about putting broccoli or avocados or something on it.”

  Clare tried to conceal her surprise. “He’s in town?”

  “He’s in the kitchen.”

  “Clare’s had wine,” Maggie said.

  Brandon came into the living room. “No driving?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Not a good idea.”

  “I’m not...” Clare glanced at Owen, then looked back at Brandon and Maggie. “Two and a half glasses of a Kendrick Winery merlot, plus far too much of Maggie’s excellent cooking. I could have eaten all the molasses cookies by myself.”

  “It’s a recipe I got from Daisy Farrell,” Maggie said. “’Tis the season for cookies.”

  “’Tis the season for a lot of indulgences, apparently,” Brandon said.

  Logan entered the living room from the wide, open doorway to the dining room. “You two have a house full,” he said, addressing Maggie and Brandon. “There’s lots of room at my grandmother’s house. Clare can stay there.”

  Her head was spinning and not just with wine. Owen yawned, clearly settled in for the evening. Aidan and Tyler were both almost asleep. Maggie, too, was done in for the night, leaning against her husband, his arm over her shoulders. The polite option, Clare knew, was to make her exit. But Maggie was right about her capacity to drive.

  It was hard enough to think straight around Logan even when she hadn’t had wine. He collected his jacket off the back of a chair and steered her outside as they both said good-night to Maggie, Brandon and the boys.

  The cold air jolted Clare into at least stopping herself from sinking into Logan as they walked up Maggie and Brandon’s quiet street to South Main. She tried to formulate a coherent thought. It wasn’t just the merlot muddling her. It was fatigue, the energy of the women at Carriage Hill, the proximity of this man—this hard-driving, perplexing man.

  “I could pass a sobriety test,” she said, defiant.

  “Ah-ha.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  “More than skeptical, I hope. Want to try walking a straight line?”

  “No. I want to get warm.”

  “That we can do.”

  There was something in his voice that reminded her he wasn’t a married neighbor or a brother or uncle. She felt safe with him but that didn’t mean she needed to be talking about getting warm.

  “I know you don’t have to be falling-down drunk to be unfit to drive,” she said, fighting a yawn. “I am fit to walk, though. You won’t have to carry me.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I mean—” She stopped herself. “Never mind.”

  They came to his grandmother’s house. He’d turned on the lights they’d strung, adding to the festive feel as well as lighting their way on the walk and steps up to the porch. “You did a great job with the window boxes,” he said as he opened the door. “Thank you.”

  “Owen helped.”

  “He’s a great kid.”

  The house was warm, a floor lamp on by the fireplace in the front room adding a romantic glow. Or maybe it was the merlot making everything seem romantic, Clare thought. Logan helped her with her coat. The brush of his hand on the back of her neck felt romantic, too. When had she allowed herself to have such reactions? Romance was for other people. It was no longer for her.

  And it was dangerous, especially with a man like Logan Farrell.

  She didn’t want to be his latest adrenaline rush. The “mustn’t touch” widow and single mother. The new library director in his family’s hometown. He already had a reputation in Knights Bridge. Why not push it to its limits? She wasn’t a Sloan, a Frost or an O’Dunn, but people in town wouldn’t want her hurt by a man like Logan. By any man, really.

  “Gran left lemon-chamomile tea,” he said, breaking through her fog of thoughts.

  She stared at him blankly. “Tea?”

  He smiled. “I’ll put on the kettle.”

  She did not walk a straight line into the kitchen. It wasn’t just the wine—it was being here, with Logan Farrell making her tea. And it was fatigue. She didn’t know if she’d last through tea.

  “Chamomile tea will help settle your stomach and relax you,” he said as he stood at the sink and ran water into a stainless-steel kettle. “The tea bags look reasonably fresh.”

  “I never would have expected your grandmother to have herbal teas.”

  “People can surprise you.”

  Clare smiled, sinking onto a chair at the table. “Yes, they can. I know that from my work.”

  He set the kettle on the stove and turned on the heat under it. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was heading into town. I finished my shift and got out of town.”

  “You don’t owe me advance notice.”

  “Imagine if you’d come back ten minutes later and decided to sleep here for the same reasons you’re here now. Wine, night out on the town, full house at the Sloans’.” He opened a canister on the counter. “You could have walked in and found me dozing on the couch or chasing ghosts in the attic.”

  Clare tried not to picture herself walking in on him. “It would have been presumptuous of me to spend the night here without your permission.”

  “
Practical,” he said, examining a tea bag. “Anyway, what’s wrong with being presumptuous under the circumstances? Better than camping out with six-year-olds.”

  “Maggie or Brandon would have given me a ride home.”

  “This is more fun, isn’t it?” He set a tea bag into each of two mugs. “I’m not criticizing you.”

  “Just being hospitable?”

  “Trying. You haven’t slipped between Gran’s guest sheets yet. They’re like sandpaper.”

  “Not like your 500-thread-count sheets at home?”

  He glanced back at her with a grin. “Mock me, Clare Morgan. Wait until your delicate skin and Gran’s sheets make contact.”

  “You’re assuming I sleep in the nude, when in fact...” She jolted upright, almost falling off her chair. “I didn’t just say that, did I?”

  “That I assume you sleep in the nude? No, you didn’t. I try not to make too many assumptions, at least unfounded ones. I didn’t see you walk in here with an overnight bag.” He reached for the kettle. “If you have head-to-toe flannel pajamas, they’re not here, are they?”

  “I don’t have head-to-toe flannel pajamas.” She smiled, recovering herself. “I have a head-to-toe flannel nightgown.”

  “There’s a range of flannel. Everything from lightweight, flowing flannel to your basic Paul Bunyan nightshirt.”

  “Think the Grinch in his red nightshirt.”

  “You don’t make that easy.”

  “Scrooge?”

  Logan shuddered. “Don’t mention Scrooge.”

  “Why, have you had a visit from the ghost of Jacob Marley in his leg irons and chains?”