by Erica Ridley
She slid her fingers into his, her voice almost too soft to hear. “I like to.”
The rush of pleasure at those three little words was more than he deserved.
To distract himself from the sweetness of her fingers and the subtle scent of her hair, he hammed his way up the hillside, dramatizing every step and every groan as if they were weary hikers on the final stretch up Mount Everest.
“I’m getting old,” he huffed, pulling a face. “I’m not sure these old bones can make it. What do you say, little lady?” He cast her an exaggerated leer. “Should we camp here for the night?”
That got a muffled laugh out of her. “Spare me. You’re thirty-five.”
“Exactly! And at our age—” He broke off as her true meaning sank in. Thirty-five would mean nothing to her. A hundred and thirty-five would be equally unimpressive. He was the billionaire playboy who’d never dated anyone out of her twenties, and she... “You’re older than me.”
It was a statement, not a question. By the look on her face, it was an observation she found much funnier than any of his attempts at charades.
“I’m older than everybody you know,” she pointed out. “I’m an angel.”
“How much older?” he found himself asking, although it patently didn’t matter. “Like, on your next birthday.”
The shadow that flickered across her pretty face immediately showed his mistake.
Either angels didn’t celebrate birthdays, or they did, except she didn’t get to, because she was down here with him.
“When’s the last time you were home?” he asked instead, more softly this time.
Her chin lifted, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Oh, all the time. Mandatory end-of-month debriefings, remember? Like clockwork. Every thirty days for almost a thousand years.”
“That’s not home. That’s a board meeting with your boss.” He tightened his hold on her hand. “When’s the last time you were home?”
A glossy sheen coated her eyes and she quickly glanced away. “I don’t have one. After a thousand years, you learn to think of ‘home’ as wherever you are, not where you’d like to be. Don’t pity me. I’m not sorry I chose this path. I’m only sorry I might not be able to keep it.”
“You’ll lose your job because of me?” he asked quietly.
“Not because of you. Because of me. I knew the rules, and I broke them. I thought it was the right thing to do, but that doesn’t make it legal.”
“They’ll know?”
“They’ll know. You can’t lie to the council of angels. If I’m lucky, maybe they’ll let me come back. If I’m not lucky…” She waved this away. “Don’t worry. Truly, I’ll be fine.”
“But if you won’t have a job and you don’t have a home,” his runaway mouth blurted out, despite his better judgment, “then where will you go?”
She didn’t answer. The tiniest, involuntary hitch to her breath indicated she wasn’t ignoring him. She didn’t answer because there was no answer.
After a thousand years, there’d be no place to go home to.
“Let’s not think about that,” he announced, horrified he’d been insensitive enough to even bring it up. “Think about this: It’s almost Christmas! A roof over our heads, Bolivian chilies in our bellies... we’ve got everything we could want. Except maybe a Christmas tree.”
“I can’t conjure one for you. That’s outside my purview.”
“I know,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”
He stopped in his tracks, pulled her to face him. Her eyes were dull with resignation. His mind blanked in surprise, and his silver tongue failed to utter a single word.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to him to beg her to miracle up some garish plastic tree, nor was he likely to criticize her if she refused to produce one. But how would she have known that? Here he was, trying to bring Christmas to the people who needed it most, and yet every time he interacted with Sarah, the only words that came out of his mouth were me, me, me. It was no surprise she expected him to ask for favors. He hadn’t given her any reason to believe he saw her as anything more than a source of potential miracles.
His whole world tilted. If she’d never celebrated her birthday, it stood to reason she’d never had an opportunity to celebrate Christmas. Or Valentine’s Day, or New Year’s, or a prom, or losing her first tooth, or bandaging a skinned knee the first time she tried to ride a bike without training wheels. The only thing she’d ever had was a backseat view of other people’s memories, while she remained confined to the shadows.
He couldn’t give her back a life she’d never had, but the one thing he could give her was a week to remember. He took a deep breath. Here, now, gazing into the depths of her incredibly sad eyes, that one simple task seemed like the most important thing he could possibly accomplish. Christmas wasn’t about getting, it was about giving. It was about family. It was about love. It was about home.
His guardian angel was the one person most in need of a miracle. And he would do anything in his power to make sure she got one.
Chapter 10
Sarah lay atop the sleeping bag and stared up into the shadows of the tent. Even if she’d been capable of sleep, she wouldn’t have managed to get any. Not after Javier had turned her safe, ordered, black-and-white world upside down with nothing more than a fleeting look of pity.
Until she’d climbed that hill hand in hand with transitory mortal Javier Rodriguez, Sarah had actually believed herself to be pretty damn special. Superior. Enviable. Chosen.
While other inhabitants of Nether-Netherland struggled to find meaning, floundered for a purpose, dreamt of discovering a hidden talent for performing magic, Sarah Phimm had never suffered a moment’s doubt as to her destiny or her place in the universe.
She’d been born with wings. She hadn’t had to earn them in some complicated four-year recruitment process, or limp along on foot as so many others did. She could perform miracles. Not magic. Miracles. Could there possibly be a cooler innate talent than that?
No mind-deadening work at the pixie dust factory for her. Straight to the top. First day out of Uni, and she was already a guardian angel. Like any organization, the Heavenly Council had its red tape and its hierarchies, but Sarah had begun near the top. No internship, no apprenticeship—she was too good for that. Too special. Just bam, welcome to Earth, here’s a helpless mortal baby. The next seventy years of its life are in your hands.
As a calling, guardian angelship was revered. Even among magical creatures. It trumped sandmen, dragon slayers, fairy godmothers. It was the highest position she could have possibly achieved, and it had been hers for almost a thousand years.
And for the very, very first time... she felt more than a little duped for having taken the job.
What if she wasn’t the envied, exalted person she’d always imagined herself to be? How would she even know? As Javier had so world-shatteringly pointed out, her only interaction with others was during her end-of-month debriefing. A two-hour-long one-way conversation, wherein the only topic was Sarah.
Not exactly a global worldview.
What if the people she’d always looked down upon—the dreamcatchers, the tooth fairies, the license renewal clerks for magic carpet services—what if they looked down on her? What if they went home at night, to their families, their comfy chairs, their children, and looked at each other and said, “Poor old Sarah Phimm, stuck in that dead-end job. No friends. No home. Sure am glad I punch a time clock five days a week. Would sure suck to be on duty as some invisible ghost for the rest of eternity.”
Or… what if they didn’t say that? What if they didn’t even remember her at all?
Maybe her superiors didn’t remember who she was either, if her file wasn’t right in front of their faces. After all, she was a guardian angel, not the only guardian angel. There might not be enough to go around for all seven billion of Earth’s human inhabitants, but there were plenty enough to clog up the Heavenly Council’s bureaucracy with meetings and TP
S reports.
There had to be a better way. For her, and for every other angel out there, flying a mile in her feathers. She loved her job—she’d do it for an infinity of eternities if she could—but that didn’t mean the system was perfect. Or that she was in any sort of position to do anything about it.
“Hey,” came a soft voice from the pillow next to hers. “What are you thinking about?”
“Oh, you know,” she answered blithely. “Weight of the world, impending apocalypse. The usual.”
“None of that, missy. It’s almost Christmas!” Javier got to his feet and pulled her with him. “Less than three days to go, and we don’t have a tree.”
“We have lots of trees. We’re in a rainforest.”
“But they’re not Christmas trees.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re not decorated.” He lowered his lips to her ear. “The first rule of Christmas tree is: ‘Thou shalt decorate the Christmas tree.’”
“That’s the rule?”
“‘Right after coffee.’ That’s the other part of the rule.”
“Christmas depends on your coffee intake?”
“Everything I do depends on my coffee intake.” His smile widened and the air in the tent seemed to disappear. “Well, almost everything.”
Sarah held her breath, unable to tear her gaze from his. She thought maybe he was going to kiss her. She hoped maybe he was going to kiss her.
But then he threaded his fingers with hers and tugged her out into the warm glimmer of breaking dawn.
Once he’d replaced his blood with caffeine and had his morning shower, he gathered up a pack of supplies and dragged her deeper into the jungle.
“Palm, kapok, brazil nut...” he muttered as they ducked vines and leapt over leaf-cutter ants.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, after the hike had stretched on for more than an hour.
“A tree! Aren’t you helping? I thought your job was to pay attention.”
“My job is to not let anything kill you. I’m not required to listen to botany monologues.”
“A Christmas tree, Scrooge McAngel.” He turned in a circle. “I’m going to have to give up on finding an evergreen, but I’m not giving up on St. Nick. You and the villagers are going to have a great Christmas, like it or not.”
He turned and headed back the way they’d come.
Sarah hurried after him. “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to cut down a tree?”
“No point, if there’s no pine trees. These are the same kinds as over by the village. Might as well pick something that’s already right there, if we’re going to be stringing tinsel on palm trees.”
“Are we going to be stringing tinsel on palm trees?”
“Somebody has to.”
“Do Bolivians even decorate Christmas trees?” she asked.
“Not outside of the big cities,” he admitted. “But that’ll be a lot easier than whittling an entire nativity scene out of tree trunks. Especially since I don’t know how to whittle. Now stop being a spoilsport. We have work to do.”
They broke clear of the jungle canopy. Javier marched straight into the village—and then right out the other side. Sarah kept pace, mystified.
“Now where are we going? I thought you wanted a tree close to the villagers.”
“Within sight of the villagers,” he corrected as he came to a sudden stop. “Here. This is perfect.”
“It... is?”
Javier stood before a flowerless deciduous tree with droopy green leaves and rough gray bark. Sarah had seen better-looking trees on animated Charlie Brown specials.
“Verawood?” she asked doubtfully.
“Bulnesia, if you want to get technical. Palo Santo in Spanish.” Arms akimbo, he beamed at the thin-branched tree. “I’ll have to fashion some sort of rain-proof platform for the gifts, of course, but we couldn’t ask for a better location.” He pointed back toward the village. “Perfect view from any of the houses.” He swiveled ninety degrees to point in the direction of the bridge. “And perfect view for anyone entering the area. All we need now are some decorations. And some elves.”
Now she knew he’d lost it. “Elves?”
“Not elf-elves. Obviously I mean children.” His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “It wasn’t obvious? Are you saying there really are elves? Are there orcs? And hobbits?”
She sang out, “I’ll never tell!” and raced him back into the village for supplies. In no time at all, they returned to the tree with two ladders, plenty of string, and every one of the children.
Javier pulled a long strand of silver-bell garland out of his backpack and let the kids lace it around the tree. He and the children sang carols as he helped them tie colored ribbons and brightly painted husks to the branches.
Sarah didn’t sing along. She didn’t know the words to “Burrito Sabanero.” She didn’t even know Javier knew the words to “Burrito Sabanero.” That was another downside to watching someone listen to their iPod. Who knew what else she’d missed over the years.
Catching her melancholy expression out of the corner of his eye, Javier motioned to the closest children and whispered in their ears.
Sarah narrowed her eyes.
The children guffawed with delight and ran off in opposite directions, pink-cheeked and giggling.
Sarah’s eyes narrowed further.
Javier flashed her a comically innocent smile and went back to work creating a mud-free platform out of bits of wood.
Not buying it, she crossed to where he knelt beneath the tree. “What did you just tell them?”
“I told them the story of mistletoe.”
“That’s why they were giggling?”
“They were giggling because I sent them off to find some.”
“Does Bolivia even have mistletoe?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he answered solemnly. “At Christmas, it’s the thought that counts.”
“What kind of—”
He pointed overhead. A little boy who couldn’t be a day over six lay draped over the closest branch, a purple-berried twig dangling from his tiny hands.
Sarah couldn’t stifle her laughter. “That’s açaí, not mistletoe.”
“Christmas,” Javier reminded her.
She smiled. “It’s the thought that counts?”
“Absolutely.”
He put down his tools and cupped her face with his warm, calloused hands. He lowered his head until his lips were barely a breath from hers. “Merry day before the night before Christmas, Sarah Phimm.”
She slid her fingers into his hair and brushed her parted lips against his. “Back atcha, No Way José.”
His mouth covered hers. The tree disappeared, the forest disappeared, the entire world disappeared. All that existed, all that mattered, was her and him, their mouths together, their hearts and breath as one.
The children’s whoops of delighted laughter brought her back to reality.
She pulled away, cheeks flaming, lips tingling. “Build your fireplace mantel, Santa.”
He grinned and went back to work on the small wooden platform. The raised base would keep the presents a safe distance from the ground, and the round-the-trunk design ensured the gifts would be visible from all angles.
She sat at the foot of a different tree to watch.
A split second of giggling was the only warning she got before an overhead branch dipped and another twig of dark-purple berries dangled over her forehead.
Javier immediately rose to his feet, as if he took this sacred duty very seriously indeed, and strode over to crouch beneath the giggling, trembling bough.
“This isn’t even how mistletoe works,” she grumbled with mock Scroogery.
He kissed her anyway.
Even when he was done with the lower platform and had moved on to rain-proofing the top and wind-proofing the sides, he abandoned his tools and tasks and carols mid-word every time a handful of berries appeared anywhere near Sarah’s head.
She suspected he already knew.
The more he built up the makeshift mantel, the more he tore away at the walls around her heart.
How could she possibly leave this man? Her stomach clenched as an even worse thought occurred to her. Even if hell froze over and her rule-cleaving superiors somehow gave her another chance if she vowed to follow the rules, how could she possibly go back to living invisibly, silently, robotically, now that she knew what it was like to truly live?
Perhaps this was the real reason why the Heavenly Council never doled out second chances. Not because they held their angels to an impossible standard of perfection. But because no one would want it, after experiencing the wonders of imperfection.
She gazed at Javier. Love was everything she’d feared it would be. She blushed beneath his every heated glance and melted at the barest brush of his lips. He was silly and flawed and joyous and sincere and thoughtful and bullheaded and everything she could ever possibly want...
And could never have.
Chapter 11
The next day, Javier rounded up Sarah and all of the village children. He bundled the kids into the bus he’d procured for them—driven by one of the parents—and followed behind with Sarah, in the SUV.
Being as it was Christmastime, there’d be no classes until next year. Being as it was noche buena, this was his one and only opportunity to get presents under the tree before showtime. Especially since here, Christmas began on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day.
Thanks to evening mass, the kids wouldn’t be back until after ten. Javier intended to have the town tree overflowing with presents long before their arrival. He dragged the kids into every storefront the small pueblo had to offer, gauging their interest in various toys and measuring clothes against their small frames.
They had to stop earlier than he expected. Not because they ran out of time or money. They’d run out of stores. He’d bought every toy and item of clothing even remotely suitable, and he was done shopping because there wasn’t anything left to buy.
