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 Ilovedmysteries.
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 mancrazy 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 actuallycarveit for me? That would have been a lot of work. I couldn’t imagineanyof 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 lookedperfectthere. 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 wentcrazyfor 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.
