Christmas Presents Read online

  Christmas Presents Christmas Lumberjacks Book 2

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chapter1

  Jackson, December 2

  I look down the rows of Christmas trees and smile. It’s good to be outside today: blue sky, chill in the air, fresh breeze. The weekend is coming up, so we need to be ready for our heaviest business days of the year, with people wanting their fresh-cut trees and wreaths and garlands to decorate for the season. We’ll be open extra hours. It’s a great problem to have, when last year we weren’t sure if we could cover business expenses and also make enough money to pay ourselves for our labor.

  I have such great memories of being here on the tree farm with my grandfather, when my brothers and I were kids, and I’m really glad we’ve been able to keep it going. We still offer precut trees as well as what my sister-in-law, the general manager, started making us call the “Christmas Lumberjack Experience,” when we go out with chainsaw and ax and cut whatever tree the customer wants before bringing it back in our classic old red pickup.

  While I’m choosing and cutting trees, I’m getting pretty hot even in the cool air. I ditch my jacket and shirt and work just in my undershirt, feeling the sweat on my back. After I cut the last tree for the second truckload, I go even up the bottom cuts to make them stand straight when we get them upright on the stands at the shed. I text my brother Dakota to come help me load them.

  I neaten up the trees I’ve cut by buzzing off the scraggly branches at the bottom. Miss Nancy, the older lady who helps us get through Christmas season, uses these to make wreaths and garlands, so I gather them up and toss them in the pickup bed for later retrieval. I’m cool now, so I’m putting my shirt back on when Dakota shows up in the other pickup. “Hey, thanks.”

  “No prob. You know, there are some fine young ladies back there at the shed, looking for a lumberjack,” he informs me. “Sorority girls maybe—just your type. Thought you might want to hightail it back there and show off your pecs, baby bro.”

  I am surprised at the sinking feeling in my stomach. There was a time not so long ago that I would’ve jumped on that. I’ve pretty much spent the last several years chasing tail without commitment. I even got my own apartment close to the UT campus so I could pursue clubbing and frat parties and VSCO girls.

  But lately, it just bores me. I haven’t even been to a single frat party this semester. “Probably not, man. I think I’m outgrowing that shit.”

  He looks at me with his eyebrows up. Dakota’s the quiet one of us three brothers. He just wants us all to get along, and somehow he makes that happen. He’ll listen to me blather and complain, and he’ll listen to Adam fuss and worry, and then he’ll say something wise that makes us feel better. Now, he studies me and his face becomes serious. “I think I get you.”

  “It just seems so … pointless.”

  Dakota nods. “You’re tired of it not meaning anything. Which makes sense, now that Adam and Holly are doing that constant honeymoon thing in front of us all the time. They’re committed and they’re happy. Who wouldn’t want that?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly, thinking deliberately about a phenomenon that I must have noticed, without noticing that I was noticing it.

  Adam the autocrat has chilled out considerably. He’s been so happy since he got married that it really shows. Who doesn’t want to be happy? I sure do.

  I don’t know that I want to settle down and raise a ton of babies like Adam and Holly. But when I think about the future, there’s a woman at my side. A partner. I can’t picture her, but she’s there and I know she’d be awesome in every way I can think of. She’d be beautiful. Sexy. Smart. Fun. Someone to enjoy life with.

  We load the trees to take back to the lot for sale, and we go back together.

  Dakota helps me cut a tree for the sorority girls. He takes off his flannel jacket and long-sleeve shirt, winking at them. “Part of the service,” he says, and grins. I take the hint and pull mine off as well. We take turns chopping at the tree with axes, wearing just our thin undershirts. We’re sweating by the time we get the tree down and loaded in the pickup. As I expected, we get an invitation to their tree-decorating party, but I turn it down for both of us, saying that we’re busy, thanks. We get a ten-buck tip and lots of selfies taken with the girls, and for the first time I’m actually less interested in them than the satisfaction of having made their experience fun for them, not for me.

  I’m picking up my shirt to put it on again when I see her, and my heart immediately goes into overdrive.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Chapter 2

  Jackson

  She’s picking out a wreath and some locally-made cinnamon muffins, and chatting to Nancy. And this, as opposed to all those college girls with their samey-samey slender bodies, is a woman.

  Long caramel-colored hair pulled back in a half-up ponytail and the rest streaming down her back. Dark brown office-wear pants and sensible loafers, a white woolly coat that follows every cello-shaped curve. A real woman.

  I leave the shirt unbuttoned and step over to the sales shed. “Miss Nancy, you get those branches I cut for you?”

  Nancy turns her head to me, and gets this sly grin on her face. She’s something of a matchmaker, especially since Adam met Holly. I guess every grandmother, adopted or not, wants her grandchildren happy. “I did, thank you kindly. Well, Jackson, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, with those muscles all pumped up?”

  She, the woman, turns her head to look at me, and her eyes widen, just a little. Her eyes are deep hazel-green, fringed with long lashes, in a smooth light-olive complexion. I think of forest pools. I smile into those eyes.

  She smiles back.“You’ve been cutting trees?” she asks. “Christmas Lumberjack Experience?”

  For six seconds we stand there smiling at each other, and the world drops away from us. Then I recollect myself. “A-absolutely.” God, what am I, fourteen? I clear my throat. “Yes ma’am. Would you be interested, by any chance?”

  She shrugs a little, still smiling. “I’m thinking about it. But it’s just me in my apartment, and I’m probably going to have to work every day except Christmas.”

  “Maybe a small tree?” I offer.

  She shakes her head, but she hasn’t looked away from me. The long eye contact is what does it: my dick wakes up and starts throbbing in time with my heartbeat. Would this Real Woman smile into my eyes while we fucked? I can picture it. I catch my breath.

  “On the house,” I tell her.

  Adam’s voice jars me out of my secret contemplation. “I’ll just take the profits out of your paycheck, little bro.” He walks past and into the shed. “Miss Nancy, do you have everything you need? Let me count the garlands here.”

  I get hold of myself. “I can swing the profit on a little tree, Adam. It’s not like I’m broke.”

  He snorts. “Well, not anymore.”

  It is true that not driving to Knoxville and hitting nightclubs every weekend has done good things for my bank account.

  The real woman starts laughing, and her laugh is the damn sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. Throaty, deep, delicious. I want to make her laugh again. “Brothers, huh?” she says to me. “My brother picks on me like that too.” Then she holds her hand out to me. “I’m Noelle.”

  “Like Christmas in French?”

  “Mm-hm. With the -le on the end, very French. Noelle Fouché.”

  We shake hands, but it’s with gloves on, and thinking about her bare hand makes my dick jump in anticipation again. Damn, these jeans are starting to feel tight. “Jackson Sledd.”

  “I think I would like a small tree, Jackson. But I’ll pay for it. No need to get big brother all riled up.” She laughs, and holy shit, it’s just as sexy as it was before. “Can
I have the full lumberjack, please?” Her eyes are twinkling and they’re just so pretty.

  Full lumberjack? Day-amn. “Yes ma’am, you can have anything you want.”

  Nancy turns her back to us on the stool, ostensibly to talk to Adam, but her shoulders are shaking. Her voice, when she tells Adam that she thinks the garland inventory is good but she’s sold several wreaths today, is amused. Well, who cares?

  I offer my arm to Noelle, and she takes it, and we walk over to the pickup.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chapter 3

  Noelle

  I shrug on my coat and pick up my purse. “I’m leaving now. Lisa, can you walk me out to my car?” She nods. The rest of my coworkers still finishing their shifts at the PharmHouse wave, and I’m out the door and into my little Honda in no time. I’m glad my shift ended at 4 p.m. today, so I can go get a few holiday errands done. Lately, I’m not thrilled about working late.

  I shiver, remembering what happened last week when I was scheduled at the Sledds Run branch. Each of the PharmHouse locations is in a nice neighborhood or little town, but weirdos live everywhere, and sometimes they look normal.

  Mr. Miller seemed nice enough the first time I talked to him at the East Knoxville branch several months ago, over the counter when he was picking up his mother’s medications: older, maybe in his 50s, thinning hair, a little solid around the middle the way older men get, nondescript but certainly not ugly. As a pharmacy technician, I always try to be friendly with customers; I treated him any other person. I told him it was nice of him to look after his mama, and he said it was what he’d always done. I smiled, he smiled, he left.

  After that first conversation, though, he kept coming back when he didn’t have a sensible reason. He’d come in and buy cough drops or tissues or something innocuous—but he’d want to pay at the pharmacy counter, not at the front cash register. Once he even hovered around the back part of the store for half an hour, waiting until the other tech went on break and I took over the counter. I think that’s when it started getting weird.

  From then on, every time he came in, he’d ask for me. And his eyes would be all over me, lingering. I didn’t want to complain—after all, he hadn’t actually done anything—but I requested to be posted as the pharm tech floater for the four branches, so that I wouldn’t always be in the East Knoxville branch.

  So then he started showing up at each location I was scheduled to work. He wouldn’t stay long, he’d come in and buy his soda or his aspirin, and he’d try to touch my hand or something. And he’d look me up and down, like I was a chocolate-glazed doughnut and he had a sweet tooth. It got to where I couldn’t stand the smell of eucalyptus cough drops, because he always smelled like them.

  A month ago, I started seeing his black Oldsmobile in the parking lot everywhere. If I went to work, the car was there. If I went to the grocery store, it was there. Starbucks, Panda Express, the mall, Jenny’s Diner in Sledds Run … black Olds. I started feeling really grateful for the gate outside my apartment complex, because you had to either have the keychain device or the guest code. I never saw his car near my home.

  Last week, when I was leaving the Sledds Run branch after closing the pharmacy, he got out of his car and approached me.

  “Stop right there!” I pulled out my cell phone, finger poised over the emergency dial button. “Mr. Miller, you need to leave me alone.”

  He stopped walking, but he was standing in a place that would block me from getting to my car. “Sweetheart,” he said. “Be reasonable. You know we’re meant to be together.”

  I was trembling, but I stood my ground. The pharmacist, Mr. Worrell, would be out very soon with the store manager. “I’m not interested in dating you. We are not going to be together. I’m asking you one more time to leave me alone before I call the cops.”

  He looked confused and disappointed. “But you like me.”

  “I’m only polite to you, sir. I am not your sweetheart and I’m not going to date you. Stop following me.” Right then, Mr. Worrell and Ms. Jameson came out the side door, and I took a deep breath of relief. I said it again, so they could hear me, “Mr. Miller, this is the last time I’m telling you to leave me alone. If you’re not gone in sixty seconds, I’m calling 9-1-1.”

  My coworkers came right to me, standing behind me for support. “That you, Jeff?” Mr. Worrell asks. “I think you heard Ms. Fouché. You need to go now.”

  Mr. Miller’s face contorted, in embarrassment or anger, and he got back into his car, slamming the door. He peeled out of the parking lot, and my knees nearly collapsed in relief.

  After I explained everything, my branch manager insisted that I call the police to report the stalking. Mr. Worrell agreed, and so I spent the rest of the evening being interviewed and filling out court forms. I spent the next morning in court obtaining a temporary order of protection, and Mr. Miller is now prohibited from being any closer than 100 feet from me. The formal hearing is next week, and I haven’t seen his car since that day.

  Ms. Jameson made sure that the head office knows about the order, and all staff are aware that nobody should divulge any information about work schedules. So I know my coworkers are looking out for me, which is awesome. Somebody always walks me to my car, and Lisa always texts me to message her when I get home. I upgraded the locks at my apartment, and I feel relatively safe now.

  Still, there’s always this worry that something else will happen. So I’m glad to be out in the cool December afternoon, picking out a Christmas wreath at Sledds’ winter festival place and finding some goodies to share with my coworkers. There are customers around, everyone laughing and having a good time, and it seems like a secure place.

  Besides, it has an undeniable appeal. Rows of Christmas trees stretching out across the fields. Brisk air, blue sky. Festive decorations everywhere and cheery holiday music coming from the speakers. Hot chocolate. Free popcorn. Three good-looking guys with chainsaws and axes.

  I’m paying for my wreath and talking to the nice older lady at the cash register about all the cool holiday stuff when one of the cute lumberjacks wanders by. He addresses the older lady first, and she says something with teasing admiration about his muscles. So of course I turn to look.

  And he’s gorgeous. Brown hair and blue eyes, a dimple, a wide smile, and—yes—those muscles. The term “Christmas lumberjacks” starts making sense. We introduce ourselves. He stares into my eyes; I stare into his. Everything pauses for a moment. Warmth floods into my chest, and I almost shiver with the pleasure of being attracted to a man for the first time in months.

  He offers to get me a tree for free, and gets some immediate good-natured teasing from one of the other Sledd boys. That makes me relax. It feels nothing like getting hit on by a random lonely guy out of the blue. Just to check, I say I can pay for the Christmas tree that I hadn’t planned to buy, and he says it’s whatever I think best. That’s even better. I mean, I like a guy who’s strong enough to take care of me; I just don’t want a guy who takes over no matter what I prefer.

  His name is Jackson, and his eyes are soft blue like a chambray shirt, and that smile warms me down to my toes. In the farm truck, we talk about our childhood Christmases: his here on the farm with his grandparents and parents and brothers, mine spent at a different Army base every two years. We talk about the mountains, and the funny flat-I vowel of East Tennessee. He’s got that accent, but I don’t mind. It’s cute. We’re flirting back and forth across the bench seat of that old red pickup, and my day is getting better by the minute.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chapter 4

  Noelle

  It takes a while, because I’m enjoying the chat with Jackson, but finally I pick out a small but beautifully-shaped Fraser fir, already planning what I’ll decorate it with. My childhood ornaments are in storage somewhere in Missouri at my parents’ house, but candy canes are cheap and popcorn is practically free. I can stop back by the pharmacy and get a few things to decorate it.

 
Jackson pulls the chainsaw out of the back, and then he gives me a flirty sidelong glance. “Chainsaw or ax?” While I’m trying to figure out why it would matter, he adds, “Chainsaw’s quicker. Ax is more work . . . but more of a lumberjack vibe, too.” He grins. “If I get too hot, I might have to shuck my shirt.”

  My cheeks get hot. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m not shy, I’m really not, but the idea of seeing this man shirtless is taking my brain further than that—what would he be like in bed?

  From somebody else, that grin might be arrogant and annoying. On him, the way his eyes are twinkling at me, it’s adorable.

  “Ax it is,” he says, and ditches his jacket, then the flannel shirt. I repress a shiver. God, he’s gorgeous. One more flash of those baby blues at me, and then he gets to work with that ax.

  Hot damn. The undershirt clings to his amazing abs, and stretches across those wide shoulders, and his biceps are strong and hard. I’d never much thought of myself as being so susceptible to looks, but I think maybe with this guy, it’s that everything is part of the package: the blue eyes, the grin, the hint of dimple in his cheek. The flirt, the charm, the tight ass and the manly thighs and the flawlessly masculine torso. The considerateness. The ease of our conversation.

  My little tree is on the ground in no time, with Jackson hauling it onto the bed of the pickup by himself, with another delightful grin at me.

  “I should have helped,” I say, feeling helpless in the face of my desperate attraction to him.

  “No ma’am,” he says firmly. “You just stand there and be gorgeous, and let me impress you with my feats of strength.”

  “Strength, is it?” I say, almost breathless. He thinks I’m gorgeous.

  “And agility,” he adds, and jumps down from the pickup. Up close, I can feel the heat radiating off his skin. My hands curl into the shapes they would take clinging to his broad shoulders. “Noelle?”