Secret Santa Mountain Man (Sexy Santa Christmas)

Chapter 1

Violet

I studied the tiny package on my desk. Then looked all around the office.

Who could have given it to me?

There was no name on the gift. No hint as to its sender.

Just a tiny present for me.

A thrill ran through me, and suddenly the cold, dreary winter day outside felt brighter.

I’d signed up for the Secret Santa gift exchange here at work, but that wasn’t happening for another week. So this was a mystery gift. And I loved mysteries.

Could it be from Peter? We’d worked on a big project together last month. But he didn’t seem likely. There’d been zero spark between us. Just friendly co-worker energy. Besides, I thought I remembered Nicole saying he had a long-term girlfriend.

Or maybe it was from Zach. I suppressed a tiny laugh at the idea. Zach was loud and outgoing, where I was quiet and reserved. We’d be a terrible match. I’d drive the poor man crazy wanting to stay in and snuggle on Friday nights instead of zooming around town for ten different social engagements.

Hm, it must be from one of the ladies in the office. Just a friendly little bauble.

Maybe I’ll wait to unwrap it later.

Oh, who was I kidding? This was the most exciting thing to happen to me since I’d moved here six months earlier.

I carefully started tugging at the tape, unwrapping the Christmas paper until I uncovered a tiny wooden box. It had a picture of a bird engraved on the lid, with some kind of tree behind it that had small oval berries. It looked handmade, and I could see whittling marks on the wood.

Huh. It was kind of darling. But did someone actually carve it for me? That would have been a lot of work. I couldn’t imagine any of my coworkers spending their evenings whittling a Christmas gift for me.

Although people here on Red Oak Mountain did seem to have more time on their hands than my friends back in the city.

Lifting the lid off the box, I pulled out a tiny business card that said Silver Pines Lodge Gift Shop. I’d seen that lodge. It was the fancy hotel in town, and the competition for my current employer, Von Renpel Enterprises. There was no note on the card or clues about the sender.

Looking inside the box, I saw a tiny hand-carved ornament sitting in a pile of tissue paper.

That’s when I started laughing.

It was a partridge in a pear tree.

“What is this, the first day of Christmas?” I asked myself quietly.

“Did you say something?” Lenore asked. She sat next to me here at work. She was a lovely older woman who’d taken me under her wing on my first day here. I’d be lost without her.

“Oh, no big deal. Just talking to myself,” I told her as I added the ornament to my tiny Christmas work tree. It looked perfect there. Completely darling. And I felt warm fuzzies for whoever had gone out of their way to gift it to me.

My entire desk looked like Christmas had taken steroids, then ran amok in a Winter Wonderland shop.

I was one of those people who went crazy for Christmas.

The more, the merrier.

The bigger, the better.

Plus, surrounding myself with the trappings of the holiday helped me feel less alone. So this year I’d been even more festive than usual.

Moving to a small town where I didn’t know anyone had been challenging. Especially since I wasn’t fast to make friends. Lately, my world had felt kind of lonely.

But looking at the ornament made me feel a little less alone.

I ran my finger along the edge of the engraved bird on the top of the box, already trying to figure out where I would display it.

Now that I’d seen the ornament, I realized the carving on the box was a partridge and the berries on the tree were actually supposed to be pears.

The box wasn’t as skillfully crafted as the ornament, but somehow I almost liked it even more.

You could feel the personal touch it had taken someone to make it.

The song that the gift was based on started playing in my head.

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree.”

This was the most thoughtful gift ever, but I didn’t know who to thank. I wished the business card had a note on it. It was the only clue as to the sender. And did they carve the whole thing themselves, or buy both pieces from the gift shop?

I touched the box again, even as I realized I needed to focus on work.

Someone had taken a lot of time to carve it for me. And it deserved to be out on display.

The box was the new crowning glory out of all my holiday decorations.