A Knights Bridge Christmas (15 page)
Read A Knights Bridge Christmas Online
Authors: Carla Neggers
A Recipe for Baked Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Sweet potatoes, apples, butter and apple cider are all handy staples. Combined, they’re irresistible. Old-fashioned cider mills like the one Justin Sloan plans to renovate dot the New England countryside. Some are still in use, producing fresh apple cider.
3 medium sweet potatoes
2 apples
¾ cup apple cider
4 tablespoons butter, cut in pieces
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Parboil sweet potatoes, then drain, cool, peel and slice about ¼" thick into buttered casserole, alternating with apples, also sliced about ¼" thick. Pour cider over all and dot with butter. Bake until apples and sweet potatoes are soft, about 45 minutes.
- For added sweetness, add about ½ cup of brown sugar to the cider. For added spiciness, add ½ teaspoon each of ground nutmeg and allspice to the cider.
A Recipe for Chive-and-Parsley Butter
Chives and parsley are easy to grow in pots through the winter, and fresh herbs are readily available in supermarkets. Herb butters have many uses, from adding to mashed potatoes to melting atop grilled or baked salmon.
1 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Mix all ingredients together and chill for at least 2 hours to blend flavors. May be frozen for up to a month.
Epilogue
... And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
—Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol
Almost four months later
APRIL SHOWERS MIGHT
bring May flowers, Logan thought, but they also brought mud. He’d at least had the sense to change into his running shoes before leaving Boston. His emergency department had dealt with a mass casualty incident—a multiple-car pileup on Storrow Drive—and he was bone tired. But he couldn’t imagine anywhere he wanted to be more than Knights Bridge.
He entered his grandmother’s house. The Christmas decorations were long put away, and the tree and boughs ground up for mulch. He could continue to divide his time between here and Boston, but he had options in emergency medicine closer to Knights Bridge.
Closer to home.
Clare would be at the library, getting ready for the spring book sale. The appraisal of
A Christmas Carol
had come back, and it was, indeed, a first edition. It almost certainly had come from George Sanderson’s collection. It was worth a great deal, and it helped that Tom Farrell had written his note to his sweetheart separately and not on the pages of the old copy of the Dickens classic he’d grabbed for his book report.
He smiled when he went into the front room and discovered stacks of swatches and paint chips on the coffee table. Clare’s doing, with the help of her Knights Bridge friends. The house wasn’t going on the market. It was staying in the Farrell family, and he couldn’t be more pleased—but no one was happier than Daisy Farrell.
The place needed infrastructure work—a new furnace, updated wiring, a new roof—but Clare was far more interested in the cosmetic changes. In addition to her friends, she was getting advice from Daisy, Audrey, Grace and a few other elderly women at Rivendell. There was a lot of wisdom in that facility, if also a lot of wrinkles.
Logan was staying out of the decorating. Clare could decide to paint every room purple and he wouldn’t care.
Well, maybe purple would be going too far.
He had hired Mark Flanagan, the local architect married to Randy and Louise Frost’s younger daughter. Logan wasn’t worried about extensive work on the house getting started. He and Clare would have her little sawmill apartment when needed.
He had it all planned out in his head, this new life of his.
But when he heard Clare running up the porch steps, he realized his palms were sweating and his heart was beating rapidly, a rarity for him even during his medical school days.
She came inside, smiling as she greeted him.
“Marry me,” he said. “Clare... Clare, Clare, Clare. I love you. I had this big speech planned, but that’s all there is to it. I love you, and I want you to be my wife.”
She put her hand over her mouth, clearly speechless.
They’d declared their love numerous times since Christmas, but this was different. This wasn’t just about sex and the emotions of the moment. This was about commitment. About their lives together.
And about Owen. The little boy was already lobbying for a little sister or brother.
Clare and I can make that happen
,
Logan thought.
He took her fingers into his and kissed them. “Let’s try that again. Clare Morgan, will you marry me?”
She nodded, tears in her eyes. “Yes, Logan Farrell, I will marry you.” She slipped her arms around him. “I love you. I love you so much.”
* * *
Clare had promised to help Maggie lead a candle-making workshop at Rivendell. The story of Daisy’s candle had inspired the seniors. Logan just hoped they didn’t set the place on fire, but they’d taken proper precautions.
Daisy and her friends had gathered in a small meeting room, and Maggie had set up for the workshop. Instead of seeing geriatric issues—aging organs, forgetfulness, chronic disease—Logan focused on the smiles and laughter. The past, present and future had come together in that small room.
He stood back as Clare, confident and still a bit red-cheeked from his proposal, announced that she and Logan were engaged. No one seemed surprised, only happy. Love and weddings were in the air lately in Knights Bridge.
As they got on with their candle making, Logan swore he saw the Farrell brothers laughing in the corner, together again as they watched the girls they’d loved, now old women.
But maybe it was just the spring sunshine and shadows.
The nub of a candle was still in the front window on South Main. It had been his idea to leave it there. He and Clare would light it tonight, one last time before they had new candles to light.
His eyes connected with hers, and she smiled. He smiled back, with a love that would take them through many Christmases yet to come...and was forever.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from
ECHO LAKE
by Carla Neggers.
Author Note
EVERY DECEMBER, WE
watch
A Christmas Carol
. There are many great adaptations, but our favorite is the 1951 version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge. But we also love the Muppet version. Who can forget Rizzo the Rat?
Candles are a big part of our Christmas celebrations, but we leave the candle making to others. I remember one Christmas when the power went out, and we gathered around the woodstove to stay warm and lit candles as we sang carols.
A Knights Bridge Christmas
is part of my Swift River Valley series. The story takes place the same Christmas as Olivia Frost and Dylan McCaffrey’s wedding, which is featured in my enovella,
Christmas at Carriage Hill
. It is also the same winter that
Heather Sloan meets her match in Brody Hancock in
Echo Lake.
In my upcoming
The
Spring at Moss Hill
, reclusive Kylie Shaw has a secret that relentless private investigator Russ Colton is determined to find out.
For more information about the Swift River Valley series and all my books, please visit my website and sign up for my newsletter, and join me on Facebook and Twitter.
Merry Christmas!
Carla
“Neggers does the near impossible: she brings a small-town, family-loving heroine and a footloose hero together in an engaging romance that has its fair share of surprises.”
—
Library Journal
on
Echo Lake
Looking for more small-town tales of family, friendship and love from
New York Times
bestselling author Carla Neggers? Return to Swift River Valley, where unexpected romance could be just around the next corner...
Christmas at Carriage Hill
(novella)
“Neggers captures readers’ attention with her usual flair and brilliance and gives us a romance, a mystery and a lesson in history.”
—
RT Book Reviews
, Top Pick, on
Secrets of the Lost Summer
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