“What can I get you?” His booming voice is filled with cheer as he turns the menu in our direction.
“We’ll take the Naughty and Nice flight and a Candy Cane Velvet,” Stetson sounds extremely excited. “And maybe a dozen of those chocolate rolls your wife makes so well.”
“Coming right up!”
“A dozen?” I laugh at him. “I’m going to assume they’re small.”
He gives me a wolfish smile.
“I’m a growing boy.”
“I don’t know how much more growing you have to do,” I shake my head at him.
He smiles mischievously, “you know?—”
I cover his mouth with my hand.
“Don’t you dare!” I laugh at him, knowing full well I set myself up.
He kisses my hand and holds it against his lips for a minute longer making my heart race something fierce. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me up against his hard body. His other hand moves to cup my cheek and lift my face up to his.
He doesn’t lean down to kiss me like I want, he just stares at me.
“I dare anything, Charlie,” he whispers.
I’m sure he does.
My hands lay against his chest as we gaze into each other’s eyes.
When he looks at me like this, I feel like he can see me. Really see me. Charlie with all her flaws and gifts. The little girl whose heart was broken by mom and dad. The rebellious teenager, the outcast, who went down a dangerous road for a moment in time, just screaming for her parents to pay attention to her. The young lady in her twenties who was determined to become something and turn her life around.
But deep inside, where I keep my secrets…
The little girl dreaming of having her very own fairytale.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“This hot chocolate is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life,” I can’t help but blurt out as Stetson and I walk down Candy Cane Lane.
Armed with our spiked hot cocoas and a dozen enormous scrumptious chocolate rolls, I couldn’t be happier. In fact, this might be the most perfect place in the world and it only seems to get better and better.
By the way, Candy Cane Lane is exactly what one would imagine it’d be.
Giant candy cane lampposts line the snowy path and are striped red and white, twisting like peppermint sticks. Every few seconds one of them flickers and sends sparkling glitter into the air, making this place seem even more magical than it already is.
With every step I take I feel like I’m stepping further into a childhood dream only rather than ask Santa for all my gifts, I’m ready to strip him naked and wrap myself up as one.
“It’s the best in the world,” Stetson agrees as he takes a bite of one of the chocolate rolls. It’s the second one he’s had in less than five minutes. He closes his eyes in pleasure and the look of ecstasy on his faces makes me burst out laughing.
“I have never seen anyone look that happy over food!”
He smiles sheepishly. He looks like a young boy right now, guilty, but charming.
“I have a sweet tooth,” he admits.
I smile, remembering all the donuts he ate on the buggy.
“On brand,” I return.
