What if she thinks this is all too much?
I could see myself getting hauled into a meeting with HR.
But it was too late to back out now. I’d already bought all the gifts for her. And that night when I’d given her a tour of the Bear Creek Lodge, I’d felt something peeking through that might have been interest on her part.
I just needed to figure out how to take the next step. I’d contemplated and discarded a dozen different first date ideas. None of them felt right.
Once I figured out how I wanted to razzle-dazzle her,thenI’d ask her out.
I wasn’t deflecting. IswearI wasn’t.
Dating Leann had been easy. We’d been friends for years first, then accidentally fell into a kiss one night while we were stargazing for a class assignment. Our faces had collided as we’d both tried to look through the telescope at the same time. And that had been all it took. We’d been inseparable after that moment.
Maybe I should invite her stargazing.
Nope. That thought got tossed aside as soon as it entered my mind. Maybe I’d stargaze with Violet someday, but it couldn’t be the thing that brought us together.
Then I thought about the song she’d been dancing to when I spotted her the other night,Brand new key. It had been about a couple going roller skating. There was still an old-fashioned skating rink in Fernwood, the big town an hour north of here.
Hm, maybe I could take her roller skating.
Nowthatwas a possibility! Although I couldn’t imagine Violet on wheels. She was a little bit clumsy on the best of days.
That’s when I grinned. It wasperfect. I’d be there to catch her when she started to fall.
Now I just had to find the right words. That was sometimes harder to do. I couldn’t grunt my way through a first date invitation. I’d have to practice what I’d say.
With a little extra pep in my step, I grabbed my list for the day and headed back out, locking the office door behind me.
Chapter 9
Violet
The crowd around me had grown.
I studied all the faces, trying to determine if my Secret Santa was in this group, watching me.
But I’d never been good at reading people. And all of my co-workers looked just as intrigued as I was.
“What’s today’s gift supposed to be?” my boss, Tim, asked.
“Uh, seven swans-a-swimming. But I don’t think there are any swans in this envelope.”
Today’s gift was wrapped in the same Christmas goat paper as all the other gifts. But there was just a small envelope inside the box once I opened it.
I almost didn’t want the crowd watching. What if the gift was personal?
“Come on, open it. I can’t stand the wait any longer,” Lenore shrieked out. She was almost giddy with excitement. This might have been the most exciting thing to happen in her life recently, too. She’d told me that she and her husband were a little set in their ways now that their kids had flown the coop.
I was excited too, but lately I’d started to feel a little anxious about the whole thing.
There was one universal truth in my life. I didn’t like being the center of attention. I was the quiet one who drifted through life, hardly making a stir.
And this whole thing was shining a giant spotlight right on me. I wished I could go back in time and not tellanyoneabout the gifts.
Carefully, I opened the envelope and found two tickets to somewhere called Where The Wild Things Are along with a note.
I tucked the note into the palm of my hand, hoping no one would notice it. It was potentially my first communication with whoever was doing this, and I wanted to read it in privacy.
