Midwinter Magic (5 page)

It was going to be a very long night.

T
HE NEXT
morning, Sarah made a huge production out of stretching and yawning and “waking up.” Playing pretend was way better than the alternative, which would be admitting she’d gotten an eyeful of morning wood as Jack crawled over her to unzip the tent.

Face flaming, she waited until he was gone before conjuring up a fresh set of clothes.

And then immediately unconjured them.

Damn.

Passing as human meant she couldn’t just
be
clean and groomed and dressed. She’d have to drag her bag into Alvaro’s bathroom and stand under the makeshift shower for ten minutes, or at least until her hair got wet.

Being “human” was even lousier than she’d thought. Not that Jack showed any signs of flagging.

After a breakfast of fresh coffee and handmade tortillas cooked over an open flame, he was ready to conquer the day. Sarah hadn’t been able to avoid breakfast altogether, but had managed to only take a few sips of her heavily-sugared coffee. Partly because she had no idea how her angel stomach would react to human comestibles. But mostly because,
coffee,
bleh, gross. It smelled
so
much better than it tasted.

As soon as they’d washed their cups, they were back on the road, heading toward the last hardware store they remembered passing, some twenty kilometers away. Which meant crossing the death bridge again. Jack seemed to have regained full trust in the bridge’s structural integrity. Not for the first time, Sarah wished she could make his confidence a reality. But rules were rules, and the last thing she wanted to do was lose her position and not be there to protect him.

While they gassed up the SUV, Jack made friends with the service station attendants. During a spending frenzy at the hardware store, he made friends with the entire family who owned it. When they ducked into the grocery store to load up on more supplies, he charmed the cashiers and the stock boy and the mother of three in front of them in line.

Jack believed he’d become a wildly successful business mogul due to the influence of his asshole father, but Sarah knew better. Jack became wildly successful because Jack was
Jack
. His sincerity shone in his face. His smile sparkled in his eyes. His unfailing eagerness and well-deserved confidence infused every word, every tone, every gesture.

If Jack said the villagers would be safe and dry by Christmas, then by God, the villagers would be safe and dry by Christmas. He’d follow through or die trying.

He’d already sweet-talked the school around the corner into agreeing to take on the village kids. It was too far to walk, of course, but if Jack could come up with transportation, they could find desks for everyone.

Within seconds, he was on his cellphone, ordering up a bus.

The mechanic across the street agreed to loan his trailer to the cause. Jack insisted on renting, not borrowing, which would surprise no one who knew him. Least of all Sarah. He’d had a complex about not being an expense or a burden ever since the government had put his life into stark perspective.

He affixed the trailer to the SUV’s towing hitch and started loading up. In less than an hour, the once nondescript vehicle more closely resembled the Grinch’s overflowing sleigh as he pulled away from Whoville with stolen Christmas cheer.

Maybe she should tie an antler to her head to fit in.

Jack’s mood stayed jaunty and buoyant until the headlights beamed onto the one detail he’d forgotten during his Bob-Vila-of-the-jungle shopping spree.

The bridge.

The SUV had made it across with no problem, but now it was stacked to the ceiling and they were towing another umpteen pounds. Much trickier.

Sarah
hadn’t forgotten. Sarah was busy wishing her miracles included the ability to usurp free will, so that she could erase this and all other harebrained hero-complex schemes from Jack’s thick skull once and for all.

“Maybe you should get out and walk across,” he suggested in a low voice. “I’ll follow with the trailer.”

Like hell.

“My weight isn’t going to make a difference to whether those slats can support a trillion-ton trailer,” she said flatly.

This was a true statement. Not because of the physics—although she was pretty sure those supported her theory that
nothing
had any business crossing this bridge—but because she was going to miracle-up safe passage for both of them.

“But you have to promise me,” she continued seriously. “If we make it across alive, you
will not
take that risk ever again, or allow anyone else to do so. You’ve already made friends with everyone in the province. They can haul individual parts across piecemeal if they have to. No more heavy trailers.”

She was forbidden from directly interfering with human lives, but
God
had she needed to get that off her chest. She’d been dying to talk sense into the man since he first learned to talk. Now that she was corporeal, there was no way she was letting him do something this stupid without giving him a reality check.

Whether he listened or not was another story.

He nodded slowly. “Okay. I can live with that. You make a good point.”

She let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. He’d listened, and he’d agreed. And she trusted him. The old Jack might’ve used words as a weapon to manipulate his opponents, but the new Jack—
this
Jack—took his word very seriously indeed.

They eased across the bridge.

Sarah kept them safe, but drove the point home with augmented volume on every creak and groan of rotted wood. Plenty of dislodged debris tumbled into the rocks below for effect.

She wasn’t adding these things. She was merely done hiding them.

He was white-knuckled when they reached the other side. He checked the rearview mirror three times in a row, as if he couldn’t quite believe the bridge was still standing.

Good. Maybe he would think twice from now on. Thinking twice was an excellent survival skill.

When they reached the village, all the able-bodied villagers—and several who didn’t quite qualify, but were determined to help out anyway—met the SUV and immediately began helping unload the trailer.

Sarah was glad for the extra hands. She didn’t want to seem unhelpful, but she also didn’t want to leave Jack’s side for even a second to go fetch this tool or measure those dimensions. He might not cross the bridge with a heavy trailer ever again, but there was plenty of other trouble he could get into the moment she turned her back.

That was how “accidents” happened. If an assigned human appeared at the Pearly Gates prior to their scheduled arrival, it was the fault of the guardian angel, not the unprotected mortal. And no punishment would ever be as fierce as the prospect of unrelenting guilt for the rest of eternity. She could never let that happen.

Her one and only goal was keeping Jack safe. By hook or by crook. Come hell or high water. No matter the cost. He would be the
picture
of health on his seventieth birthday, dammit. Well, except for the impending coronary.

She was not going to think about what would come after. Nope, she was definitely not going to think about how her chosen path doomed her to spend year after year keeping someone safe only to have them die anyway. And then be assigned someone else, some other lovable baby who would grow into a strong, complex adult whose end days were already marked on her calendar.

Sometimes being a guardian angel sucked.

Maybe most of the time.

The sky darkened, and before long it began to drizzle. Everyone kept working. Sarah stood at the foot of a ladder, holding it safe and steady as Jack climbed around Alvaro’s roof like a spider monkey. She’d loved all her mortal assignments in their own way, but none had touched her heart the way Jack did. What he saw when he looked in the mirror and what she saw from up above were such totally different perspectives. He didn’t think of himself as worthy or deserving. And yet he was one of the best men she’d ever had the privilege of knowing.

After centuries of watching over humans, that was saying a lot.

He poked his head over the edge of the roof and grinned down at her. She grinned back involuntarily. With a wink, he was gone again.

Okay, yes. Plus he was cute. He was certainly the first human she’d ever fantasized about kissing. But even then, she’d been well aware of the impossibility of interaction. She was a thousand-year-old virgin who had seen it all. And he’d never even known she existed.

She shivered. After decades of literally being invisible to him, it was very heady for her to actually be seen. She felt exposed. . . and yet not. He could see her, but he couldn’t see
her
. He didn’t know the real Sarah. And never would.

Not that that stopped her from wishing.

By dusk, three of the worst roofs were patched. All the fresh food and dry blankets had been distributed. Jack had been invited to dinner in so many houses, she was afraid the overabundance of rice would burst his stomach.

After they said their good-byes to the last of the happy families, he looped his fingers with hers as they walked back to their tent. He was talking a mile a minute about everything they’d done and everything they still had yet to do, and probably hadn’t even noticed they were walking hand in hand.

Sarah, for her part, couldn’t hear a single word he said. She didn’t see him, didn’t hear him, didn’t smell him, didn’t recognize any aspect of the environment around them, because her entire world had shrunk until all it included was the tactile sensation of her hand in his.

His hand was warm, his fingers strong and slightly calloused from wielding hammers. Her hand felt tiny and soft and. . . safe, wrapped up in his.

Safe. What a wonderful, ridiculous feeling for a guardian angel to have.

She was the one who kept others safe. She was the angel. She was immortal. She performed miracles. There was absolutely nothing a human could give her that she wasn’t perfectly capable of providing for herself.

Except. . .
this
.

Companionship. Joy. A shared moment.

His footsteps slowed. She wasn’t certain when he’d stopped talking, but he was silent now. He took her other hand in his. They were alone beneath the light of the stars, only a sliver of moon to catch the edge of his features and illuminate him staring down at her the same way she was staring up at him.

The rain had stopped, and the soft breeze rustling amongst the leaves sounded like the fluttering of a thousand angel wings.

He lifted her hands to his shoulders and she immediately twined them around his neck. He was so close. Larger than life. She wasn’t sure whether he leaned down or she stretched up, but the distance closed between them until the only stars she could see were the ones reflected in his eyes.

His mouth brushed against hers. Gentle. Hesitant.

Her lips parted. When his mouth brushed hers for a second time, she was ready. She held him as tight as she’d ever dreamed, as tight as she dared, and swept her tongue into his mouth to taste him.

Jack
. He was everything she’d ever imagined. More than she’d ever hoped for. His hands were in her hair, holding her to him as if afraid she might let go. As if she would
ever
let go. She clung to him, opening her mouth and her heart, recognizing this moment for the miracle it was. A taste of something that could never be hers.

She loved him, but she couldn’t have him. Had never had him. He didn’t truly know who he was kissing. And she couldn’t tell him any more than she could keep him.

All she had was this moment. This man, beneath her fingertips. This heart, beating against hers. This breeze and this starlight, encircling them with magic.

This memory, to cherish forever.

J
ACK WENT
to bed with the worst case of blue balls he’d ever experienced in his life.

Knowing Sarah was right beside him, giving an equally Oscar-worthy performance of Faking Sleep, did not help matters. Just saying her name in his head made his heart beat faster.

He shouldn’t have kissed her.

He hadn’t
meant
to kiss her. He hadn’t kissed anyone since becoming a professional nomad. He hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t felt worthy of anyone’s affection, and he certainly hadn’t felt like he deserved to experience anything as elusive as happiness.

And then—Sarah.

Everything about her surprised him. Not just her bizarre outfits, although the acid-washed denim romper and hot pink jelly shoes were a sight to behold. He hadn’t seen jelly shoes since 1985, when his sister had chucked a similar pair out her bedroom window, claiming her entire foot had scabbed over from chafing against inflexible plastic.

The thing about Sarah was that she seemed to actually understand him. To
believe
in him. Not in a sycophantic or lemming sort of way, either. She certainly wasn’t shy about making her opinions known when she disagreed with his decisions or accused him of being headstrong.

That, too, was refreshing. He’d already gone from the mogul who could do no wrong to the villain who could do no right. Having someone view him fairly and objectively and still choose to support him was something he’d never anticipated experiencing again.

And how was it possible she’d be willing to spend Christmas repairing tin roofs in the mountains of Bolivia? In the past, he’d never spent time with a woman without providing chauffeured transportation and luxury accommodations. And here he was, borrowing Sarah’s five-star wheels and sharing a tent whose primary extravagance was mosquito netting. Not exactly living the fairy tale. His sole claim to chivalry was gallantly balling up a towel for her to use as a pillow.

Suave. Real suave.

And yet it had just seemed right. Holding her hand. Touching her cheek. Kissing her lips.

Not that there was any future in it, of course. He’d sworn that he would never again put his happiness above anyone else’s. His crusade to fix the world would consume every waking hour for the rest of his life. That’s how it had to be. No one could be expected to willingly join him in such an undertaking. And falling for a woman would make her both a liability to and a distraction from his cause, neither of which he could afford.

But, man. He sure wished he was still kissing her.

No, not even that. At least, not necessarily that. He’d be happy just curling up beside her, one arm around her waist and the other going slowly numb, trapped beneath her. Snuggled tight. The pins and needles would be worth it, just to have held her in his arms.

He rubbed his face and groaned. At this rate, he was never going to fall asleep.

He gave in to one of his desires and rolled onto his side, facing her. He didn’t sling an arm over her hips or touch her in any way—it wouldn’t be fair to either of them to start something doomed to go nowhere—but at least, from this angle, he could smell her hair. She always smelled freshly-showered, no matter what they’d been doing. It wasn’t a flowery scent or a citrusy scent or any other scent he could put into words. She just smelled like Sarah. Perfect.

He fell asleep smiling.

In his dream, he floated out of the tent. He was still with Sarah, but not on the hard ground in the mountains. They were somewhere soft, somewhere heavenly, suspended in a luxurious feather bed overlooking the sea.

He opened his eyes. It was morning. He was still on his side, still in the tent, still on the ground. Although he was awake, the sensation of reclining on a feather bed still remained.

Sarah was awake, too.

He smiled at her. She grimaced back at him. His smile widened. Maybe she wasn’t a morning person. He used to think he wasn’t, either, but his dad had forced him out of bed every morning at dawn until habit kicked in, and now to do otherwise would be unthinkable. Maybe she just needed some practice.

“You can get up first,” he murmured. “I’ll let you have first dibs on the bathroom.”

“I can’t,” she said quietly. “You go ahead.”

He grinned, a flash of stubbornness goading him to keep teasing her. “Oh no, I insist. Ladies first.”

“I
can’t,
” she said through gritted teeth. She turned her face away, but it sounded almost as though she’d muttered something like, “You’re on my wing.”

He’d reflexively rolled away before his mind processed her words. “I’m on your what?”

“Nothing.” She sprang to her feet far too energetically, even for a morning person. “I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re all fine.”

He shook his head, certain he was right. “Did you say I was on your
wing
? Why would you say I was on your wing?”

She glared at him, clearly exasperated, and then let out a low sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you. They’ll wipe your memory anyway after the end-of-month debriefing. I’m your guardian angel and you were lying on one of my wings. I don’t think we should sleep together anymore. And probably no more kissing.”

“The who what?” he stammered, certain he’d misheard her after all. He bolted upright as the fog cleared. “I’m sorry, did you just claim to be an
angel
?”

Her shoulders slumped resignedly. “I don’t know why I thought I could fool you for more than a few hours in the first place. It’s too much work to be human. I’m tired of pretending to eat and sleep. And as cute as you are, it was no picnic having my wing pinned to the ground all night. I’m going to be sore for days.”

Um, wow.

Jack stared at her wordlessly. To say he was suffering the first inkling of doubt as to her sanity would be putting it mildly. He was a logical man. Angels did not wear cupcake headbands and drive stick shifts. Therefore, his dream girl was either a total schizo, or. . . okay, yeah. She was schizo.

Of course, she was still hot and still otherwise awesome, so perhaps he shouldn’t be too hasty. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s girlfriend Zelda had been a card-carrying nutcase, and he’d married her. A few delusions weren’t the end of the world.

Er, as long as she took her meds. Which maybe she wasn’t on. How far did this fantasy go?

“You’re an angel,” he repeated slowly. Questioningly.

She nodded. “A guardian angel. Your guardian angel.”

“So. . . you do miracles?”

Her eyes narrowed as if she suspected a trap. “When necessary.”

“Well, do one now.”

“Do one what?”

“A miracle. Prove you have the power.”

“I’m your guardian angel, not your monkey. I don’t have to prove anything. You’re not even supposed to know I exist. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get fired for this. It’s a very exclusive guild.”

“I see.” He tapped his chin. “How exactly does one become part of the angel guild?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. Eventually, she muttered, “You’re either born or chosen. Or the third way.”

Huh? Was that supposed to make sense? He waited, but that seemed to be the extent of the explanation. “Well, that was enlightening.”

“I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“I can see why.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can we move past this?”

“I just want to understand how it works. Are you supposed to save me if I fall out of an airplane or get hit by a bus or something?”

“I can’t undo death.” The bleakness in her tone and the seriousness in her eyes were unnervingly genuine. “I’m an angel, not God.”

“So. . . you guard me from bad things before they happen?”

“I try to keep you out of danger, yes.”

Something in her voice, in her face, had him almost believing her. Did that make him just as crazy as she was? He needed something that would settle the argument one way or the other. Something empirical. Inarguable.

He glanced around the tent, looking for something an alleged guardian angel might be able to protect him from. His gaze landed on a spare tent spike. That should be heavy enough to constitute “danger.” He picked up the spike and held it over his bare foot. He turned it sideways, so as to minimize impact. “So. . . you’ll keep me safe from this?”

He let go of the spike before she answered.

The flat side crashed into the top of his foot, sending a lightning bolt of shooting pain up his leg.

“Ow!” The spike rolled to a stop a few inches away. Sarah hadn’t moved a millimeter. His foot was already starting to bruise. “You didn’t save me from
that
.”

She lifted a shoulder. “My job is to guard you from death, not from your own stupidity.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his injured foot throbbing. Then he burst out laughing.

She was having him on.
Obviously
she was having him on. There were no guardian angels, just gullible travelers. She’d even gotten him to drop a metal spike on his own foot to prove her wrong. Next time, he wouldn’t face her in a battle of wits until after he’d had a double shot of caffeine.

Still shaking his head at how easily he’d been had, he pushed to his feet and held out his hand. “Come on, Zelda. Let’s go get some coffee.”