This time the package was larger.
I’d looked up the lyrics to the Twelve Days of Christmas song, and I realized it was going to get harder and harder for whoever was doing this to keep up with the theme.
Today’s gift, if the trend was continuing, should be three French hens. And I knew no chickens would fit in this box. Plus, my landlord might have something to say about that. In fact, there were a lot of bird gifts coming my way if my secret gift-giver kept this up.
I tore into the package, a little less carefully than before, too excited to find out what my mystery gifter had gotten me.
A tiny laugh burst out as I pulled out the cross-stitch box.
It was a locally made cross-stitch kit from a place called Beaux Arts. The enclosed card promised that they had the best art classes on Red Oak Mountain, but there was still no note from the sender.
The craft kit design had three chickens wearing berets. The Eiffel Tower stood in the background with a Christmas wreath slung over the top of it.
It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life!
I instantly made plans for where it would go once I’d finished it. I had a Christmas pillow collection. I’d do the cross-stitch, then turn it into a pillow for my couch at home.
Lenore leaned over. “What’s going on over here, Violet? Who keeps giving you stuff every day?”
With a tiny flush on my cheeks, I told her, “I have no idea. I kind of thought it was you. It’s not?”
She shook her head, then studied the cross-stitch kit. “That’s a weird gift.”
“Not really. I think whoever’s doing this is following the Twelve Days of Christmas song.”
“The one with the geese?”
“And the pipers piping.”
“And the milking maidens?”
We both started laughing, and I whispered to her, “I have no idea how they’re going to pull that one off.”
The gifts had me thinking, though. Whoever was giving them to me must like me. But the only man I had eyes for was Easton. After last night, it had cemented in place.
He wasn’t just a big serving of mountain man eye candy. He was also areallynice guy.
Easton was quieter than some men, slower to share his words. But also funny. He had a hidden wit about him. And I liked the silence I’d felt in between our conversation last night. I’d driven out to the lodge, and he’d shown me the row of vanities, each with a marble sink.
Then we’d wandered through the empty lodge. He’d given me a tour and shown me the work that he’d done and the projects that were still in the planning phase.
My work was always in front of a computer monitor. I handled accounts for construction projects all around the country, but I’d never set foot on a job site before. It was nice to see the reality of what I was accomplishing with my job.
But Easton, he was the man doing therealwork. I could order items within budget, and track projects, but it was men like him swinging hammers who made the finished result happen.
I thought back to the way our hands had brushed for a moment at the lodge, and a shiver of desire shot through me, just like it had last night. And then when he’d put his hand on my back? I’d almost had a full-body orgasm right there in the lobby. Easton was a dreamboat, and I’d fallenhard.
Lenore’s voice broke me out of my reverie. “Tim’s coming. We better get back to work.”
Tim was our boss, and I knew better than to daydream on the clock in front of him. I buried my head in the computer, getting started on the next task for the day.
Day four of my mystery gifts was a postcard with four crows in a phone booth. I chuckled.
Calling birds.My Secret Santa definitely had a sense of humor.
And on day five, when I opened the outer cardboard box containing my latest gift, I laughed loud enough to accidentally draw some attention.
Inside there wereonion rings. I pulled out one soggy ring after the other, five in total.
