A Knights Bridge Christmas. Carla Neggers

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      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. СКАЧАТЬ