A Knights Bridge Christmas by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online Page B

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