Midwinter Magic (12 page)

“What?” she gasped. Or meant to gasp. Nothing had come out of her mouth, not even air.

His eyes almost smiled. “If my daughter hadn’t found true love with a mortal, I might not have believed it possible. But now we think of the human as family. You deserve to spend your life with yours. If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to him now. We can discuss your benefits package on the way.”

Sarah’s heart beat so fast she was certain it would explode with joy and surprise and wonder. “Abram Junior, I. . . I don’t even know what to say. How can I ever thank you?”

“No need.” His wings unfurled as he held out his hand. “And you can call me A.J.”

J
ACK CRACKED
his eyes open carefully, and immediately squeezed them back shut.

Light. Too much light. Impossible light. Blindingly bright, as if he were surrounded by stars, or had somehow fallen inside of one and managed to stay alive long enough to go half-blind.

Wait. Alive?
The sinkhole.
The landslide.

“Am I dead?” he croaked.

“Yup,” came the suspiciously cheery reply, which sounded equally suspiciously as if it had come from Sarah.

A slight pressure to his palm indicated someone was holding his hand. He risked cracking his eyes back open, just a slit, just to see.

He smiled. Definitely Sarah.

With wings.

How the hell had she saved him? He could’ve sworn it was all over. When the ground had disappeared beneath him and the tree had fallen on top, shattering his ribs with the force of—

His ribs. They felt fine. They actually didn’t feel like anything, which was how they usually felt when they were fine.

His head didn’t hurt, either.

He distinctly remembered taking a tree branch to the cranium, right before he’d gotten a lungful of mud instead of oxygen. But his head didn’t hurt and his lungs weren’t crushed and. . . He could wiggle his toes. How bad off could he be if he could wiggle his toes?

Dead,
he reminded himself. That was pretty bad off. “Am I in Heaven?”

He expected an easy
yes
or
no
to that one, but it appeared to be a stumper. A heated discussion quickly arose around him.

“. . . Only on the technicality, but how far are we from the Palisade line?”

“. . . Okay, sure, it’s a suburb, but if all the angels live in the same suburb, couldn’t you agree that . . .”

“. . . But if
nobody
knows for certain, then you can’t say that it’s
not.
Am I right?”

That did it.

Jack opened his eyes.

He was immediately blinded by an overabundance of light, but within seconds, the dazzling brightness had given way to vague shapes, and the vague shapes shimmered into splotches of color, and the splotches of color finally sharpened into people. Three people.

Not people.
Angels
. All three of them had wings.

“I
am
in Heaven,” he breathed in wonder.

“Well. . .” Sarah wiggled her hand in a so-so gesture. “We couldn’t decide.”

He squinted past her. “Who’s ‘we’? I mean, obviously not
we
. I know who ‘we’ are. I mean—”

“Him? That’s A.J. He was my boss’s boss until yesterday, and now he’s my regular boss. He’s also the cofounder of the Heavenly Alliance of Guardian Angels. And no, it’s not you, that’s just how he looks. He doesn’t smile much. This is Arabella, his better half. She’s the High Chair of the Fairy Godmother Committee, and kind of a big deal. If their daughter weren’t an ex-tooth fairy, they might not have come to our rescue. Luckily, they’ve been down this road before.”

Jack tried to make sense of that. Couldn’t. Moved on. “I thought you were fired?”

“Well, I would’ve been. I mean, I was. I guess. On the other hand, it was more. . .”

“A lateral transfer,” Arabella-the-fairy-godmother put in helpfully.

“Exactly,” Sarah agreed. “Completely lateral. Finding my One True Love—that’s you, if you weren’t following—would’ve disqualified me anyway, even if I hadn’t used the Superman pose to fly the school bus to safety. I had to. It was iconic.”

Jack focused on the part he could understand. “DC Comics, issue number seven-oh-eight? The one with Diana?”

Sarah shook her head. “Superman the movie, circa 1978. The one with Christopher Reeve.”

Arabella wrinkled her nose. “You can’t look like Christopher Reeve while wearing an elf costume.”

“You weren’t there,” Sarah answered primly. “It was epic.”

Jack waved a hand between them. “Focus for a second. If you’re not a guardian angel anymore, what are you? You still have wings.”

Sarah and Arabella exchanged amused glances. A.J. remained expressionless.

“I’m a recruiter now,” Sarah explained with obvious pride. “For the Governing Council of Heavenly Beings. It’s
way
better than being a guardian angel. Er, sorry, A.J.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But it totally is. I have business cards and he doesn’t.”

Jack was starting to feel drunk. “What does a heavenly recruiter even do?”

“Recruits people,” she answered, as if it were the most obvious thing on earth. “And there’s been a major restructuring. Total overhaul. Instead of a one-to-one watcher-to-client ratio for guardian angels—which, as you yourself pointed out, led to uneven disbursement of miracle workers—the force has been reassigned to
zones
instead of individuals. Just like tooth fairies!”

Jack could think of nothing to add to any of that. Instead, he asked, “When do you start?”

“I already did. I assigned you to Bolivia. But that’s not the best part! They’re not going to separate us.
Nothing
can separate true love. You’re mine forever!”

He’d understood maybe two percent of anything she’d said so far, but
you’re mine forever
was clear as crystal, and exceptionally good news. Even if he didn’t quite grasp how it could be possible, it seemed like the sort of announcement that would deserve a kiss. He couldn’t imagine how he’d even managed to go this long without kissing her. He leaned upright and reached out his arms. . .

And felt an unfamiliar pull at his shoulder blades as a pair of snow-white wings unfurled from his back.

“What. The. F—”

Sarah swooped in to kiss him. “None of that, babe. You’re an angel now. Angels are pure of heart and soul and mouth.” She lowered her lips to his ear. “Just kidding. You can talk to me as dirty as you want as soon as my boss is out of earshot.”

“I’m an
angel
?” He was so dumbfounded, he could barely speak. “All this is really real? You’re mine, forever?”

“Forever,” she agreed with a sexy grin. “Till never ever do us part.”

He pulled her into his arms and held her so tight he was afraid he would break her. But she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed back even harder, as if she, too, couldn’t stand even a hairsbreadth of space between them, and an eternity of loving each other wouldn’t be nearly enough time.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it fast enough before. I felt it, though. From the beginning. I’ve always, always loved you.”

“I love you, too.” He buried his face in her neck, horrified at the sudden sting at the edges of his eyes. “Is it okay for a brand new, very manly angel to cry a tiny bit, if it’s tears of joy?”

She hiccup-laughed into his shoulder. “You can do whatever you want. It’s Christmas!”

Christmas. He’d almost forgotten. It was time to celebrate it right.

Jack claimed Sarah’s mouth with a highly unangelic kiss and then held her close to his heart, silently giving thanks to all the angels and fairy godmothers and Santa Clauses of the world for the most precious miracle of all.

True love.

~ THE END ~

T
HIS STORY
wouldn't exist my critique partners and BFFs, Darcy Burke, Emma Locke, and Janice Goodfellow. Thank you for everything.

Big thanks also go out to my fantabulous agent Lauren Abramo for her support, feedback, and general awesomeness, my multitalented editor Martha Trachtenberg, the inimitable Courtney Milan for a thousand and one moments of win, my mother Laura Stout, who didn't force me out of my writing cave even though she flew all the way down to Costa Rica to visit me, and to my friend Michelle Cloutier, who sometimes did.

You guys are perfect. Thank you all!