28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I’m so excited!” Squirming in the seat, Wyatt stared out the car window in the line of traffic we were in like a kid hopped up on too much sugar.

Grinning over at him, I said, “I can see that. Should I put the siren on to get us through the line faster?”

Turning his head so fast his neck cracked, he squeaked, “Can you do that?”

I shook his head, “No. I mean I could, but no. We’ll be there in like five minutes.”

We were attending the Sweet Alps Holiday Festival and Wyatt had been waiting for this night all week. He had texted me at least five times to let me know that today was going on forever, and the hands on the clock were not moving.

Looking over the flyer with the list of events on it for about the hundredth time–like he hadn’t had the thing memorized the first time he read it–he talked a mile a minute. “Quinn has a booth and he said he’ll have free cookies for us if we stop by. And there’s the tree walk, where we can see all the different decorated Christmas trees. Oh! And a bake sale tent. I want to stop by there, because it’s for the elementary school and we should support that.”

“Nothing to do with you having a sweet tooth?” I asked him seriously.

Blinking innocently at me, he primly reminded me, “It’s for a good cause, Sheriff.”

Jules babbled from her car seat in the back. “Your daughter agrees with me.”

“We’ll go wherever you want to go, sweetheart,” I told him as we inched up to the parking lot where we had to pay to park.

“You’d think they’d give us a special parking spot by the door or something,” he muttered, as I took my change and the high school kid directed us to the correct row, that had open spots.

“I’m not on duty, remember?” I reminded him, “I just wore my uniform shirt and badge so the high schoolers can think I’m on patrol.” It never hurt to help my deputies out, even if I was technically not working tonight. Not that I expected trouble, but kids tended to be kids, and seeing the sheriff looking official might make a few teens change their mind if they decided to act up tonight.

Snapping Jules’ car seat to her stroller, I made sure her blanket was tucked around her tightly and her hat covered her little ears. The snow had melted last week when we’d gotten some warmer weather for a couple of days, but it was back to being cold tonight.

Wyatt sniffed as we got closer to the entrance of the festival. The air smelled heavenly, with a mixture of different food vendors.

“It smells so good!” he was practically bouncing as he walked.

“Cotton candy or funnel cakes, I would guess.”

His face lit up, “Seriously! OMG, I need to try those.”

“Which one?” I pushed Jules slowly, smiling down at her when she gave me a toothless grin. She’d just started really smiling and it was one of my favorite things. Melted my heart every single time. Yep, I already knew that all she was going to have to do to get anything she wanted from me was to just smile sweetly.

“Both? Oh, there’s Quinn’s booth!” he exclaimed excitedly.

Goddess, if Wyatt ate everything he was planning to tonight, he was going to end up with a stomachache. But I loved seeing the light shining in his eyes, full of wonder and excitement. I wanted him to have these memories. He deserved to eat a funnel cake, and cotton candy, and anything else his heart desired. He deserved to have a night to act like the kid he’d never been allowed to be.

“Hi, Wyatt,” Quinn called when he saw my mate running up to his booth, “come for your free cookie?”

“Yes, please!”

Jules fussed, not happy that she couldn’t see all the goings on around her, so I unstrapped her and picked her up. She liked to people watch and didn’t like to think she was missing anything.

“We have my chocolate toffee chip ones and decorated Christmas sugar cookies,” Quinn waved his hand over the display.

“Oh, they’re so pretty!” Wyatt oohed over the cookies.

“Thanks,” Josh, Quinn’s assistant grinned, bumping shoulders with Quinn, “I had a good teacher.”

Wyatt bit his lip, deciding which cookie he wanted. “Can I have the chocolate toffee? And then we’ll buy a half dozen of the sugar cookies.”

“You got it. Any particular designs or is a mix okay?” Quinn handed him his cookie, and Wyatt happily munched on it.

“A mix, please,” he mumbled around his mouthful of cookie, “this is so good!”

“They’re kind of my signature cookie,” Quinn told him, bagging up the sweet treats.

Stepping forward, I pulled out my debit card and handed it to Quinn. Wyatt gave me a frown and I shook my head at him, cutting off any protests he might be about to voice. “Tonight is my treat.”

He gave me a cookie crumb covered kiss on my cheek, then wiped it with his fingers. Grinning at him, I stole a quick kiss, tasting the sugar on his lips.

“What the fuck is happening to your face?” Quinn snarked, “Is that a…smile?”

“What is happening?” Josh asked, snapping a quick picture with his phone, “Needed to get a picture because no one is going to believe this. Becks is actually smiling. I didn’t think his face did that.”

Flipping them off behind Jules’ back, I snarled, “Zip it!”

Quinn handed the bag of cookies to Wyatt, then over his shoulder instructed Josh, “Send that to me. No one is going to believe this. It’s like we spotted Bigfoot.”

Rolling my eyes at them, I growled, “I smile all the time.”

It was Quinn’s turn to roll his emerald green eyes back at me, “You and I have vastly different ideas of what makes up a smile. What you do is stare people down until they do what you want them to do, all while very much not smiling.”

Wyatt, who was not coming to my defense at all, wiped the crumbs from his fingers, “Send that to me too, please.”

“Oh, I’m sending it to the group chat,” Quinn assured him, “and then I’m sending it to Lachlan, and Jamie. Probably everyone we know. It’s like a Christmas miracle.”

“Fuck off, all of you,” I growled, glaring at them and walking away with Jules, pushing her empty stroller with one hand. “I smile!”

“Thanks for the cookies!” Wyatt called, hurrying to catch up with me, “He laughs too! He’s actually pretty funny! And, he has dimples!”

“The fuck he does!” Quinn yelled and I couldn’t help but laugh at their ridiculousness.

Putting an arm around Wyatt’s waist, I asked, “Where to next? Craft booths, tree walk, bake sale, or Santa?”

“I want to do it all,” Wyatt looked around with wide eyes, “Let’s do the tree walk, and make our way back.”

We spent about twenty minutes looking at all the decorated trees, then stopped at a couple of craft booths that caught our eye. Miss Rose had a booth full of knitted and crocheted items, and Wyatt snuck over while I was talking to a couple of my deputies and showing off Jules.

He came back with a gorgeous knitted scarf of the softest material and wrapped it around my neck. “Don’t think I haven’t figured out your favorite color is red.”

He had a matching one in green for himself, and a cute rainbow cap for Jules, with a poofy white ball on top.

We stopped by the bake sale and after looking over everything, finally decided on a chocolate peppermint bundt cake. It had thick ganache dripping down the sides and pieces of crushed peppermint sprinkled across the top of it. Since Jules strongly refused to ride in her stroller, we used it like a wagon to hold all our purchases.

Witnessing Wyatt taste his first funnel cake was a true test of my willpower. At the first bite of the fried dough and powdered sugar his eyes rolled back, and he made a sound I only heard him make when I had my cock buried deep inside him. Discretely adjusting my hard dick, I suddenly understood what food porn was all about.

Finally, we made our way to the line for Santa, and after Jules screamed bloody murder each time we tried to sit her on Santa’s lap, I ended up holding her while Wyatt and I both got in the picture too. I tried to talk him into sitting on Santa’s lap, but he wasn’t having it.

“Why are we buying so many pictures with Santa,” I asked him, reminding myself all of this was for a good cause and worth the exorbitant price.

He ticked his fingers off, “Miss Rose, Gigi, the Mama M’s, us, and I guess one for my parents. Though they’ll likely shove it in a drawer. We don’t really do presents, but I’ll say it’s from Julianna anyway.”

Tucking the receipt in my wallet, I smiled, “I’m sure they’ll love it. And I know the other ladies will.”

Glancing at my watch, I hurried him along, “We need to go so we’re not late.”

He frowned at me, “Late for what?”

“It’s a surprise.”

I walked over to a booth selling street tacos and ordered a dozen, making sure at least three were chicken. Because tacos made everything better, and while it wasn’t on Wyatt’s list, I would bet money he hadn’t ever had street tacos before. “Let’s go.”

Pulling onto the football field at the high school, I parked next to another car, facing the wide screen that was currently black.

Wyatt glanced around suspiciously, while I fiddled with the radio dial, setting it to the proper channel. “What’s going on? This wasn’t on the flyer’s itinerary.”

“It was added last minute.” Handing him a napkin, I reached in the back and pulled the plastic bag out I’d placed on the floorboard earlier. Jule’s car seat hid it well. Handing him a sturdy paper plate, I divided the tacos up.

When I’d seen this on Wyatt’s list, I had made some calls to see if it was possible. The Sinclair Foundation was one of the biggest sponsors of the holiday festival, and Lachlan ran the foundation. What I had really needed was Wade’s help, and since he was Lachlan’s personal assistant I had asked for assistance from both of them.

When Wade had found out I wanted to do this for Wyatt, he’d taken over and here we were. When Wade Sinclair set his mind to something, he got things done. It had taken a few more people, but they had all been willing to help. In the short amount of time he had been in Sweet Alps, Wyatt had come to mean a lot to quite a few people in this town, and everyone had wanted to pitch in.

Wyatt bit into the chicken taco, smiling at the mix of grilled meat, onions and cilantro, “This is good. Really good.”

“Tacos are comfort food,” I agreed, “at least for me.”

Cars continued to find spots on the field, until it was more than half full. Suddenly the huge screen that they used on game day lit up, the opening credits of the movie playing through my car radio.

I knew the minute he figured out what was happening. “Oh my goddess! Is this a…are we at a drive-in movie?”

“Sort of,” I swallowed the bite of carne asada taco, and took a drink out of my bottle of water. “A makeshift one, obviously.”

He bounced in his seat, “What are they showing? OMG I can’t believe this! I’ve always wanted to go to a drive-in, but they’re hard to find nowadays.”

“I think The Santa Clause. It’s an oldie but it holds up well, and it’s a good choice for kids.”

His eyes were so bright they looked like they had stars shining in them. “I’ve never seen it! This is so great!”

Jules started fussing, awake from the impromptu car nap she had fallen into. “I got her. You watch the movie.”

He grinned at me, and happily munched on his tacos, while I brought the baby up front with us and fed her a bottle.

When the movie was over, and we were headed home, Wyatt leaned his head against the window, a dreamy smile on his face. “This was the best night. Thanks for taking us.”

Smiling over at him, I took his hand and kissed his palm. “It was my pleasure. I’m just glad we got the logistics of the movie worked out.”

Wyatt stared at me, then whispered disbelievingly, “Wait. Did you…did you set the movie up for me?”

I’d realized my blunder as soon as the words were out of my mouth, but I was caught up in the high of the night and the happy waves strumming across our bond, coming from Wyatt.

“Yeah,” I admitted, “well, I asked Lachlan if I could borrow Wade and his expertise for getting things done, and he did the rest. He knows people who know people, and voila, a makeshift drive-in on the football field. We tried to keep it a secret from you, so all the vendors of the festival spread the word to people, as did the high school.”

Wyatt was silent, and then I heard a quiet sniffle. Whipping my head to look at him, I squeezed his hand. “Are you crying? Don’t cry! Please, don’t cry. I’m seriously no good with tears,” I begged, “unless theyre Jules’. Those are the only tears I can handle.”

He shook his head and fanned his face. “These are good tears,” he sniffled, giving me a watery smile. “No one has ever done anything like that for me, Grayson. Thank you.”

“It was on your list,” I said by way of an explanation, “so was eating a funnel cake. And I know the holiday festival wasn’t a fair but I figured it was close enough.”

He sniffled again, his voice shaky with emotion, “It was. This really was the best night. I lo–” my eyes found his in the darkness, and I waited for him to finish his sentence, “you make me really happy.”

My heart hammered, knowing that wasn’t what he had been about to say at all. But if I had learned anything the past few months, it was that I couldn’t push Wyatt. I had to be patient and wait until he was ready to say those three little words.

Kissing his palm again, I whispered, “You make me really happy too, Wyatt.”