Christmas Presents

by Carly Keene

  Dakota

  Early December

  Another December, another day selling Christmas trees.

  I finish my coffee and put my breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. I’m the only one living here, but I appreciate a nice clean house as much as anybody, so I keep things neat. It’s my house, this little cabin on the edge of the tree farm that I built last summer from a kit, and I love it. Got a great view of the Smokies off the back deck, and from the master bedroom upstairs, through that big picture window. It’s almost like sleeping outside.

  My grandfather, Sam Sledd—Poppy, we called him—would’ve loved this place. It has the same welcoming feel as his old farmhouse, but it’s more rustic and farther from the barns and shop, closer to the mountains. It’s so peaceful out here.

  Living here instead of at the farmhouse means I’ve got a longer commute than my brother Adam, but that’s still only five minutes. The tree farm is going great guns these days, only two years after Adam’s wife Holly took over and made it a year-round attraction, and we’ve even had to hire seasonal help to run the gift shop and cater the events in the converted horse barn. The Christmas Lumberjacks service, where we Sledd brothers help customers select their tree and cut it down for them, is so busy these days that we’re going to have to hire more employees for that. University of Tennessee, where I studied, has a great forestry program; I’ll mention it to Holly later for next fall’s recruiting.

  I take one more look around the cabin’s great room before heading out to my truck. It’s a little bare, but that’s okay, I don’t need much. Couch in front of the fire, big sheepskin rug on the floor. Coffee table I made myself. Nothing fancy at all, and that’s the way I like it.

  It is, however, a little lonely. I see how comfortable Adam is with Holly and their sweet little baby girl, and how my other brother Jackson is with his girlfriend Noelle, and I feel incomplete. Someday there’s going to be a woman in my life. I just haven’t found her yet.

  I sigh, and slam the truck door.

  Gotta go to work.

  Jackson and I get busy right away cutting and stacking Fraser firs and white pines to go to the precut lot, and before lunch Adam comes to help. He looks like he hasn’t slept well in a week, and he’s ordering us around. Jackson and me, we can’t help ragging on him a little bit. “Yo, Sleepy,” I say, “chainsaw needs oiling.”

  “Did you just call me Sleepy?” Adam says, incredulous. He reaches for the chainsaw anyway.

  “Like one of the seven dwarves,” Jackson says, and winks at me where Adam can’t see.

  “Who you callin’ a dwarf?” Adam shoots back. He’s got two inches on Jackson.

  “He didn’t call you a dwarf,” I tell him, and heave a six-foot pine onto the pickup. “I did. Little bro.” And I grin with satisfaction, because I’ve got two inches on him even though he’s two years older.

  “I am not a dwarf,” Adam says, and although he’s clearly cranky from lack of sleep, he gets a gleam in his eye. “And I am nobody’s little bro. Who signs y’all’s checks, anyway?”

  “Your wife does,” Jackson points out.

  “Not this week. This week,” and Adam stops to rub his hand over his face, “since Bella appears to be teething and is only sleeping like three hours a night, Holly has relinquished check-writing duties to me.”

  My eyebrows go up. “I thought five months was too early to start teething.”

  “Five and a half. And no, it’s not too early. Google says four to seven months is average.” Adam sets the chainsaw on the pickup bed and opens the oil reservoir.

  “Yikes,” Jackson. “Not gonna catch me having kids. I need my rest.”

  Adam smiles in his tired face. “It’s not all bad. We’re pretty sure she said ‘dada’ last night.”

  I sigh in pretend sympathy, and catch Jackson’s eye. “Well, I’m sorry we called you Sleepy.”

  “Yeah, we’re sorry,” Jackson tells him. “We should’ve called you Dopey instead.”

  Adam chases Jackson and tackles him between trees, scrubbing his knuckles through Jackson’s hair. I tackle both of them and we wind up in a pile of Sledd brothers on the ground. Adam gives me a noogie for good measure, and I let him do it because we did tease. It’s in the brother code.

  “Well, here we all are,” Jackson says. “Happy and stupid.”

  “Speak for yourself, not me,” I tell him.

  Instead of teasing back, they both turn and look at me. “Dak. Man, we know you’re not happy.” Jackson sits up. “We can tell. We just don’t know why.”

  I’m taken aback. It shows?

  “Dakota needs a girl,” Adam says to Jackson. “We’re flaunting shacked-up happiness in front of him, and he’s got nobody to play house with.”

  “I could have somebody to play with if I wanted,” I snap back, nettled. “Y’all ain’t the only guys who can land a female. Just gotta find the right one.”

  Adam frowns. “I don’t think that’s all,” Jackson says.

  It’s not.

  I’ve been happy to keep Poppy’s dream alive and help the tree farm survive. It means a lot to me for the land to stay in the family, and I especially love seeing the trees dot each hill in satisfying rows. It’s just that Adam doesn’t need me anymore. I passed up a promotion with the Forest Service a couple of years ago, knowing that I couldn’t commit to the time required and help my brothers keep Sledd’s running.

  I’d rather be out in the park, in the Smokies, taking care of real forest. That’s where my heart lies.

  And yeah, my heart is lonely too. I’ve been looking for the right girl for a long time, and I’ve been looking harder since both my brothers have found their life mates. No luck yet.

  I get up. “I’m fine, y’all. We got work to do.”

  Behind my back, I see my brothers exchange worried glances. I keep working.

  That’s what I do, I keep working.

  As afternoon stretches into evening, I’m watching the sun get low and the sky get dim, and somewhere at the back of my mind I’m thinking that every December of my life is going to be like this, dimmer and dimmer and lonelier and lonelier. I sigh.

  A big white Lexus pulls up in the gravel parking lot while I’m selling a six-foot precut white pine to a millennial guy in skinny jeans, and I wonder who the hell would bring a luxury car to transport a Christmas tree. You’d scratch the paint, tying the tree down, for one thing, and there are probably a thousand other reasons not to do something that stupid.

  Adam calls me over, once I’ve sent skinny-jeans guy to go see Miss Nancy at the cash register. He’s standing by the white Lexus, talking to a woman in a pink suede coat and cream toboggan hat. “Hey,” he says, “can you take this lady out to pick out a really big tree? At least twelve feet. I gotta go catch that church youth group coming in to pick up the ten-foot fir.” He scoots off.

  I’m still eyeing the Lexus. Idiot woman. “Sure. One that big, though, ma’am, you might have to leave it here and pick it up in a different vehicle later.”

  “Well,” the woman says, in a voice soft and sweet as cotton candy, “my daddy owns Montgomery Construction. He might have a truck big enough. Unless you deliver?”

  “We don’t,” I say, and then I get a good look at her, and I can’t talk at all.

  She’s tall for a woman—maybe 5’9”, six inches shorter than me—and proportional, with a deep bosom and womanly hips. Like a classical statue come to life, but in Ugg boots. She’s young, though, maybe early twenties, with not one wrinkle on her face at all, and it’s a beautiful face, with full lips, all soft pink and kissable. Delicate straight nose, lovely cheekbones, gorgeous crystal-green eyes. People probably tell her all the time, “You should lose some weight, you have such a pretty face,” and that’s complete bullshit because she’s perfect the way she is.

  She holds out her mittened hand to me, those pale green eyes as sweet and earnest as the rest of her face. “I’m Angelina.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THANK
YOU

  Thank you so much for reading!

  I hope you liked Christmas Presents. You, the person who read this book, are my hero. You make it all worthwhile for me, and you can make such a huge impact.

  How? One word: review. One small review on this book’s Amazon page, two minutes of your time, would be so appreciated. I’d be enormously grateful! You can jump right to that page here.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  COMING SOON

  The Christmas Lumberjacks series continues! The third book in this series is available for pre-order now.

  The first book, Holly Dreams, focuses on eldest Sledd brother Adam and his dream girl, Holly. Click here to read it.

  Christmas Angel Wishes is the story of middle brother Dakota and shy, sweet Angelina. Click here to pre-order it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Carly Keene is a small-town girl who loves to write stories about sexy, assertive men, and the women they fall irrevocably in love with. Happy endings are a must for her! She lives in Virginia with the love of her life and a crazy goofball dog.

  If you’d like to join the group of wonderful, loyal readers who are interested in short sweet sexy romance, you can join her mailing list and receive cool secret-handshake stuff like cover reveals and release dates for future publications, maybe even a recipe or a fun poll.

  Connect with Carly on social media at the links below and at carlykeene.com!

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