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"No, it's mine!"
Stiles winced at the pitch of the shriek. Ah, the dulcet tones of the fruit of his loins. He debated sprinting for the parking lot, but instead turned toward the pumpkin patch and Mandy's screech. Better see what terrible fate had befallen his 8-year-old.
He jogged down the row of hay bales and pumpkins, dodging some other parents and kids, and found his own daughter two rows over, her skinny arms locked around a pumpkin three times the size of her head. Unfortunately, Mandy was not the only one with a claim on the pumpkin, the other being a scrawny boy with a shock of black hair and ears that poked straight out from his head.
"I had it first!" the boy said.
Mandy gave fairly impressive wrench backward, but neither the boy nor the pumpkin budged. "No, it's mine!"
Stiles really didn't want to step in, but one of them had to be the adult and, legally, that was him. "What's going on here?"
"Daddy!" Mandy's eyes lit up with a gleam Stiles had learned to fear. "Daddy, he's trying to take my pumpkin! Make him stop!"
"I told you, I had it first!" the boy yelled back.
Mandy made a face. "My daddy's a deputy and he's going to arrest you for being mean!"
Ah crap. Stiles wiped his hand over his face. "Mandy, I'm not arresting anyone. Just let the kid have the pumpkin, we'll find another one."
"No!" Mandy's lower lip trembled. "This one was mine! I saw it first! It's the perfect pumpkin!"
"Brandon! What the he--heck is going on?" a new voice called.
Stiles looked up to see another parent--well, presumably--jogging down the row toward them. He was about Stiles's height, with thick black hair and a dark beard flecked with grey and biceps that had Stiles thinking some very inappropriate thoughts for a children's pumpkin patch.
Holy shit, Brandon's dad was hot.
"I'm so sorry," the DILF said, coming to a stop beside them. "I got caught up talking to his mom. What's going on?"
"She's trying to steal my pumpkin, Uncle Derek!" Brandon said.
"He's trying to steal mine!" Mandy yelled at a pitch that would have broken glass if they were indoors.
Uncle Derek looked up at Stiles apologetically, an expression Stiles recognized as one he himself wore almost daily. Mandy was just like him, which was both a blessing and a curse.
"Brandon," Uncle Derek the DILF began.
Brandon scrambled for a better grip on the pumpkin. "I'm not giving it to her!"
"Okay," Stiles said in his best dad/deputy/my-dad's-the-sheriff-don't-fuck-with-me voice. It was a very useful and versatile voice. "Both of you, let go of it. Now. Yes, that means you, Mandy."
Mandy continued to give him a mutinous glare, but she slowly let go of the pumpkin.
"You too, Brandon," Uncle Derek said.
Brandon looked equally mutinous, but he finally set the pumpkin on the ground.
Stiles hefted it up--holy shit, it was so much heavier than it had looked--and glanced around for the first adult he could find. A harried woman walked by, and Stiles held the pumpkin out to her. "Hey, you want this one?"
The woman grabbed the pumpkin with an eagerness that was a little intimidating. "Oh my God, yes, thank you."
Stiles saluted her. "Just doing my civic duty. Enjoy!"
"No!" Mandy and Brandon shouted in unison.
Mandy stomped the ground. "Daddy, you're mean."
Stiles crouched down so he was on her eye level. "Hey. We had this conversation before we came to the pumpkin patch. What did I say?"
Mandy looked at the grass and mumbled, "If I threw a tantrum, I wouldn't get a pumpkin at all."
Stiles nodded. "And are you throwing a tantrum?"
Mandy shook her head violently.
Stiles stood back up. "Good, then we don't have to leave."
"But that's not fair!" Brandon said. "We found it first."
Uncle Derek rolled his eyes. "It's perfectly fair. And there are hundreds of other pumpkins around. You can find another one just as good as that one."
"No, that one was perfect," Mandy said.
Brandon nodded vigorously. "It was."
"Well, at least you two agree on something," Stiles said. "But Uncle Derek's right. Just go find another one. I'm sure there's another perfect pumpkin or two out there."
"I'm going to find it first!" Mandy shouted, and darted off.
Brandon was after her like a shot. "Nuh-uh!"
Stiles watched them scamper down the row, searching through the pumpkins. Well, nothing like a little friendly competition to keep the kids occupied. He debated trailing after them, but really, he would hear it from the other county if anything went terribly wrong. Mandy was many things, but "quiet" wasn't one of them.
"That was pretty ingenious," Uncle Derek said. "Giving the pumpkin away."
His heart fluttered at the compliment, and Stiles grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, thank you, Uncle Derek."
Uncle Derek flushed, his cheeks turning adorably pink under his dark beard. "It's just Derek, really. Brandon's my older sister's kid, and I agreed to come with them out to the pumpkin patch today."
"That was nice of you," Stiles says. "I'm sorry about Mandy. She's too much like me for her own good. Then again, her mom's not much less stubborn so the poor kid really didn't have a chance."
Derek looked around. "Oh? Is her mom here?"
"Nah." Stiles waved his hand. "She's on the other side of the country, being a stupidly in-demand physicist. Lyds and I aren't together anymore--we were always better as friends--and I was more than happy to take custody of Mandy."
"Oh," Derek said again, but this one sounded...happy?
Stiles would think later about what deity had smiled upon him, that this most beautiful and bashful specimen of a man might actually be into him, but for now, he was determined to wrangle at least a few more minutes in Derek's company.
"You know, there's a really good booth over there with cider and snacks." Stiles gestured to a yellow stand on the other side of the patch. "Why don't I buy you a cup, and we can make bets on which of our kids will give the other a black eye? Or, you know, just chat while we wait for them to find another perfect pumpkin."
Derek ducked his head and smiled, like he was some blushing maiden from a Jane Austen novel. "I'd like that."
Stiles's heart did a full-out triple somersault. Seriously, he was going to die before getting this man's number because he could not physically take this level of both hot and fucking adorable. "Well then." Stiles held out his hand. "Shall we?"
Derek grinned and took his hand, threading their fingers together. Stiles felt the warmth of it down to his toes.
Screw the pumpkins. He'd found his own perfect match.