A Knights Bridge Christmas

by Carla Neggers

  He gave a mock shudder. “Dancing.”

  “You don’t dance?”

  “Only if given no other choice.”

  “It’s good exercise, isn’t it?”

  “Excellent exercise,” he said.

  She sank into her seat and yawned. “Dancing could wake me up. I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.”

  “Because you’re having a good day,” Logan said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  When they arrived in the village, the white lights on their evergreen boughs were lit up against the darkening afternoon. “Not bad.” He parked in front of the house. “But I’ve had enough decorating for one day, haven’t you? Time for a walk and dinner.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Six

  “Spirit!” he cried... “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse... Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”... The kind hand trembled.

  —Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

  CLARE’S HEAD WAS spinning by early evening when she collected Owen at the Frosts’ house, not far from their mill and her apartment. A day of new experiences, to say the least.

  Randy pulled her aside as Owen belted himself into the backseat. “My wife suffered from severe anxiety for a while—for too long. It started after our daughters were in a car accident when they were teenagers. They were missing, trapped in the car, for a few hours. We couldn’t find them.” He bit the corner of his lip, clearly remembering. “It was tough. They weren’t physically injured, but the emotional scars—Louise got where she wouldn’t go out of town. She worried about every raindrop causing an accident. It crept up on her but she’s doing great now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Clare said.

  Randy narrowed his gaze on her. He didn’t seem to notice the bite of the night cold. “I understand you lost your husband in a car accident. Black ice.”

  Clare nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Had to be rough with Owen on the way. You’re raising a happy boy, Clare. If you ever want to talk to Louise, she’s here.”

  “Thank you. I’ve let...” She stopped, tried again. “The move affected me more than I realized. I don’t want to live my life in fear, or put that on Owen.”

  “Understood.” Randy grinned. “Now I’ll butt out and mind my own business.”

  He opened the driver’s door for her but she didn’t get in. “Thanks again for taking care of Owen,” she said, then smiled. “He’s going to start lobbying me for a truck, but he won’t win. I am not buying a truck.”

  Randy laughed. “Stick to your guns. Glad you got Daisy’s house decorated.”

  “I was happy to help. I was under the impression that people in town didn’t know Daisy’s grandson well.”

  “The good Dr. Farrell? We don’t.”

  “But you have an opinion about him?”

  “He’s a hell of a doctor.”

  Randy obviously didn’t intend to go further. Clare slid in behind the wheel, and he shut the door for her, saying good-night to Owen. As predicted, her son regaled her with his reasons for needing a truck as they headed back to their sawmill apartment. She couldn’t help but think of Logan alone at his grandmother’s house. He was so smart, driven and confident that she couldn’t imagine him worrying about ghosts. But Daisy had been born there, his father had grown up there and his grandfather had died there. As well as his grandmother’s move had gone, it was a huge change. Being alone in a house with such memories—such a history—had to affect even a man who saw what Logan saw every day in his work.

  Or not, Clare thought, following Owen up the steep stairs to their apartment. She’d left a light on in the living room. He was so tired he made no objection when she mentioned it was bedtime. As he yawned his way into the bathroom to brush his teeth, she pulled the cushions off the couch. She was tired, too—emotionally as well as physically.

  Her emotional fatigue took her by surprise but there was no denying it was due to being around Logan. He hadn’t looked particularly worried about ghosts or anything else over their simple dinner at Smith’s, within walking distance of the Farrell house. The restaurant, in a converted house off the town common, was relatively crowded on a Saturday night, all their fellow diners local that Clare could see. She and Logan were both outsiders. At best she was a newcomer, and his deep roots in the area didn’t matter since he’d never lived in town himself. Eric Sloan, Brandon’s older brother, a Knights Bridge police officer, was there with his girlfriend, a paramedic—they’d all exchanged a few pleasantries. Clare was patient. She’d known it would take time to get to know people in her adopted town.

  In any case, she’d been focused on Logan Farrell. If they’d signed up for a dating service, she was positive the computer would never have put their names together. Did she want to date a doctor? Absolutely not. Was she drawn to driven, high-achieving types? No. Was she interested in athletic men who couldn’t sit still for five minutes? No. A man who knew he was sexy? No.

  What kind of man did she want?

  She pulled out the sofa bed, still made up from that morning, and got her pillows out of the front closet. She paused, listening, but she could hear water running in the bathroom. She doubted Owen was getting into mischief.

  She’d fallen head over heels for Stephen Morgan. Intelligent, ambitious, a lawyer who could handle himself in a courtroom but also knew how to fix things around the house. He’d been so excited about having a child. They’d known before he’d died they’d be having a baby boy.

  Her family and friends had given her a year before encouraging her to start dating again. She’d tried an online dating service but had abandoned it after a month. Get a social life, Clare, have some fun, her friends would tell her. By fun they didn’t necessarily mean sex, but they didn’t necessarily not mean sex, either.

  She sat on the thin mattress of her sofa bed. An image of herself in bed with Logan flashed in her mind. She shuddered, feeling a surge of warmth. Where had that come from? But she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like with all his energy and drive focused on her, or at least on having sex with her.

  She could do worse for a night or two.

  But her attempt at humor—at dismissing her unbidden image—didn’t work very well, and she was relieved when Owen came in, his shirt soaked and spattered with toothpaste. He grinned, and she could see the tooth she’d thought earlier in the week looked loose was, indeed, loose. Skating with the Sloan boys and checking out bird feeders with Randy Frost no doubt had helped.

  “Come on,” Clare said. “Hop up here. Let’s read a story.”

  No more thinking about sex with Logan Farrell, at least not until the lights were out.

  * * *

  At 82 South Main Street on the Knights Bridge town common, Logan was awakening from the nightmare of his life. He leaped out of bed, heart racing, sweat pouring. His mind was filled with haunting images. He didn’t know what, exactly, they were. Ghosts, maybe.

  He swore he smelled smoke. Thick, black, acrid smoke.

  He paused, standing on a hand-hooked rug. He didn’t hear smoke alarms.

  There’s no damn smoke.

  He breathed deeply, fully awake now. The smoke must have been part of his nightmare.

  If he’d had Clare Morgan in bed with him, he wouldn’t have had a nightmare.

  He switched on the lamp on his bedside table. He looked around his father’s old room at the matching bed frames, the bookcase, the prints of Boston and Cape Cod. His grandmother hadn’t packed up any of the books. His father’s old yearbooks; biographies of a few of the founding fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams; more biographies of sports figures like Muhammad Ali, Lou Gehrig, a couple of race-car drivers Logan didn’t recognize; and a row of classic novels, from Sherlock Holmes to The Man in the Iron Mask and Where the Red Fern Grows.

  Logan hadn’t paid attention to the furnishin
gs or the contents of the room when he’d stayed here as a kid. He’d always been ready to go off with his grandfather to cut wood, plant the garden, sit in the fire trucks and talk to the firefighters. Tom Farrell hadn’t been one to sit still, either.

  But this room...

  Logan felt his throat tighten with emotion. This was the room young Tom and Daisy Farrell had decorated for their son, now an aging man himself. They hadn’t left the room as a shrine to him. They’d just never bothered changing it. New sheets and a fresh coat of paint every now and then, and it was set for guests—for their grandson. Logan’s sister had stayed in another bedroom.

  Everything would go soon, and new owners would do as they saw fit with the place.

  His gaze settled on a framed photograph on the top shelf of the bookcase. It was taken at the Farrell farm, his father at around ten with his parents, the three of them standing in front of an apple tree laden with ripe fruit.

  Another time, another life.

  Logan went into the hall. He could see Clare with her slim hips and fair curls as she’d carried boxes down from the attic. Did she even know how pretty she was?

  When was the last time she’d slept with a man?

  He pushed that thought aside, but at least thinking about her had helped him shake off his nightmare.

  Smoke and gunfire—and crying. He knew there’d been crying.

  He grimaced and headed downstairs. His grandmother was a teetotaler, but his grandfather had imbibed every now and then. Logan smiled when he found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the dining room. He was normally a Scotch drinker, but a good sour-mash whiskey would do fine after a nightmare and imagining himself in bed with Clare Morgan.

  He splashed some of the whiskey in a glass and took it into the living room. He sat by the unlit fireplace and held up his glass. “Cheers, Grandpa. I miss you.”

  An hour later, when a colleague and friend at the ER called, Logan was all too eager to answer his phone. He answered questions about a patient he’d seen during the week and then waited for the expected shoe to drop. “We need you in here in the morning, Logan. Can you do it?”

  “What time?”

  “Ten. Eleven at the latest.”

  He looked at the shadows in the living room. “Yeah,” he said. “I can be there.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m hanging out with the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  His friend made no comment.

  After Logan disconnected, he checked his whiskey glass. He’d had something like eight sips. He wasn’t drunk. He wouldn’t be hungover in the morning—which, he decided, couldn’t come soon enough.

  He wasn’t going back to his bedroom.

  “Hell, no.”

  He found an afghan one of Gran’s friends had given her—she wasn’t a knitter—and stretched out on the couch, wishing he’d found a way to have Clare with him. It was selfish and shallow of him, maybe, but he’d have made it worth her while.

  Downright arrogant of him, he knew, but there it was.

  He was in a kind of survival mode, and a good-hearted, attractive blonde would have kept the nightmares and ghosts at bay, at least for tonight.

  * * *

  By daylight, Logan had shrugged off his bad night. Since he had to be on his way as soon as possible, he drove rather than walked to Smith’s, open early for breakfast. Yesterday’s relatively balmy temperatures had fallen off the table overnight. According to his phone, it was nine degrees. In his world, that was cold. Among the Sloans, it probably wasn’t bad. Three of them were gathered at a table, coffees already in front of them and their breakfasts ordered.

  Christopher Sloan, one of two full-time Knights Bridge firefighters and the youngest of the five brothers, motioned to an empty chair. “Feel free to join us, Dr. Farrell.”

  “Logan,” he said, taking a seat, if only because it seemed rude to turn down the invitation and sit alone. “Morning. Cold out there.”

  “It’s December,” Justin said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. He was the second eldest, the ostensible heir to running Sloan & Sons, the family’s construction business.

  “Either way,” Logan said, “coffee is in order.”

  Eric, the eldest Sloan and a police officer, called over the waitress. “Our good doctor needs coffee. Know what you’re having for breakfast, Logan?”

  “I thought I’d try the oat waffles—with blackberry preserves on the side, please. No syrup.”

  Eric made a face. “Waffles without syrup. Suit yourself.”

  Logan put in his order. The waitress, a local woman, delivered his coffee in a heavy diner-style mug. The Sloans asked him about decorating his grandmother’s house and her move into assisted living. He quickly realized they knew far more about what was going on in his life than he did about their lives.

  He also realized they didn’t approve of him. It wasn’t anything overt—not as it had been yesterday with Randy Frost. But it was there, the whiff of “we know you’re a heartless bastard.” Logan figured their judgment, fair or unfair, had more to do with their ideas about doctors, city doctors, people who lived in the city—any or all of the above. That didn’t bother him so much, since they didn’t know him well and he was what he was. What got to him—and took him by surprise—was the Sloans’ faint but unmistakable suspicion of his motives for being in their town, helping his grandmother.

  “Daisy’s beloved in town,” Christopher said. “Every firefighter who’s served in the town fire department as a professional or a volunteer would do anything for her. A lot of firefighters from neighboring towns would, too.”

  “Good to know,” Logan said.

  Christopher wasn’t done yet. “Your grandfather’s a legend in the area. I don’t know if he saved as many lives as you have in the ER, but he saved quite a number during his years with the department. He also prevented injuries and deaths with inspections, education, drills. He wasn’t a hot dog who got a rise out of fighting a big fire.”

  “It’s good to know he’s well remembered,” Logan said, drinking some of his coffee.

  “He stayed active after he retired,” Eric said. “Right up until the end. Losing him was hard on Daisy. She didn’t want to give him up.”

  “I know she didn’t,” Logan said. “None of us did.”

  “The two of them had a good run,” Justin added.

  Logan nodded. “They did. I’m glad you three think so well of her. She likes company. I’m sure she’d welcome visitors.”

  “Tom never wanted to go into assisted living,” Christopher said.

  The Sloan breakfasts arrived. Eggs, bacon, a mound of home fries, toast dripping with butter. They’d probably burn it off before noon. Logan thought he was beginning to understand their ambivalence toward him. “It was her idea to move,” he said. “She was lonely at home, and the house became too much for her, even with assistance. She wants to sell it. We want her to be content and safe, and to respect her wishes, of course.”

  “So it was her decision to move,” Eric said, obviously skeptical.

  “Yes, and it’s one we all support. That it’s a choice instead of a necessity helps.” Logan’s breakfast arrived—even a short stack of waffles was more than he would eat in one sitting. “My grandfather isn’t here. I wish he were. Gran has to make her own decisions.”

  “He didn’t make decisions for her,” Christopher said. “He wasn’t that kind of guy.”

  “I know. They made their decisions together. But we’re all aware she’d never have gone into assisted living if he were still alive, and we’d have found a way to make that happen if at all possible.”

  “Our grandmother’s still on her own,” Justin said. “She says she’ll walk into the woods on a cold night and go to sleep before she’ll move into assisted living.”

  “She has a bad attitude,” Eric said with a grin.

  “I get where you’re coming from,” Logan said, spreading a glob of melting butter over his waffles. In for a penny, in for a
pound, he thought. “You all live in town. You know my grandmother and knew my grandfather well. In some ways, better than I ever could, since I’ve never lived in Knights Bridge.”

  “You don’t come around much,” Christopher said.

  “Not in recent years, no.”

  “Are you sure Daisy isn’t telling you what you want to hear?”

  “There’s no way to know for certain. I am sure she is clear on her options and has chosen the one she believes is best for her.”

  Eric dipped a fork into his eggs. “That’s a careful answer.”

  “I’m not asking you to trust me,” Logan said, keeping any edge out of his tone. “Talk to her yourself if you’d like.”

  Justin leaned back in his chair. “Didn’t we throw you into the Frosts’ millpond once or twice?”

  Logan picked up the small dish of blackberry preserves. “Once,” he said. “It was some sort of game, as I recall.”

  Justin grinned. “Beating up on the city boy.”

  Logan grinned back at him. “That must have been it. The water was damn cold.”

  “Always is,” Eric said.

  “That was before my time,” Christopher said, softening slightly. “Tom was proud of you, Logan. His grandson, the doctor.”

  Logan stuffed a forkful of waffles in his mouth, hoping it kept the Sloans from noticing he had a lump in his throat. His nightmare came back at him with its screams and smell of smoke. Had he somehow channeled his grandfather—fires he’d fought, chaos and fears he’d endured?

  The Sloans were watching him. Logan spread the preserves on his waffles.

  “Oh, man,” Eric said, “I don’t think I can watch.”

  Justin and Christopher grinned and teased their eldest brother about what a wimp he was, and Logan relaxed. These were men who were accustomed to teasing and confrontation. Their suspicion could die down as quickly as it had flared up.

  “I appreciate your concern for my grandmother,” Logan said.

  “No problem,” Eric said. “We do our best to look out for her.”