Smitten by Magic

by Erica Ridley

  Javier saw her shiver just as he drove the final stake. He was instantly at her side. “You’re cold. Of course you’re cold. Why are you standing outside? Here, get in the car. I’m going to put the other tent up far enough away to give them a little privacy. My tent isn’t as big as this one, but soon you’ll be warm. Or at least dry.”

  She nodded, and let him tuck her back into the passenger seat.

  As soon as she was safe from the elements, he dashed to Alvaro’s leaky house to usher the occupants into their new shelter. Her miracles might not be supposed to affect other people, but the children’s smiles and the look of utter gratitude in Alvaro’s eyes warmed her to her soul.

  Once the family was settled, Javier unhooked a small, two-person tent from the bottom of his backpack and had it staked and functional within seconds. He tossed her bag inside after his, and then motioned for her to join him. In a daze, she did.

  How many nights had she passed with him in this very tent? Careful to stay out of reach, yet close enough to watch over him as he slept? This time, it would be different.

  This time would be very, very different.

  He unrolled a thin mat and wadded up a pair of clean towels to use as pillows. The look he shot her was nothing short of sheepish. “It’s not a penthouse suite, but...”

  “It’s lovely.” She lay down beside him and stretched out her limbs as naturally as she could, which was undoubtedly as awkwardly and self-consciously as possible.

  She was lying. On a mat. With Javier Rodriguez.

  Her foot twitched. Then her arm twitched. Then her eye twitched. Her wings were tucked beneath her as tightly as possible but she could swear that even her feathers twitched. Every single inch of her body was completely on edge. Horribly, deliciously, hyperaware of the very strong, very male, very right-there-oh-my-God sexy human lying next to her in the tent.

  Every other woman who’d ever lain next to him had been a million times more jaded and experienced than Sarah ever would be. Much like driving a stick shift across a collapsing bridge in the middle of Bolivia, watching someone do something and doing it yourself were two totally different things. Not that there was any chance of romance. Which was lucky, since she’d never be able to live up to even the worst of his memories.

  In fact, Sarah couldn’t even think of a time Javier had spent the night with a woman he wasn’t romantically involved with. Making this completely new territory. For both of them. Unless he was thinking sharing a tent meant sharing their bodies... Her heartbeat reached supersonic speeds. She couldn’t take the pressure. The anticipation. The panic.

  She hoped he wouldn’t try anything.

  Oh, God, she hoped he would.

  She tilted her head, millimeter by millimeter, until she could see his face out of the corner of her eye.

  His eyes were closed. His lips, slightly parted. His breath, even. He was beautiful. He was... sleeping. Sleeping!

  Sarah swallowed hard and did her best not to reach out and touch his face. It was her duty to watch over him, not to let him in her heart. Or her arms.

  It was going to be a very long night.

  Chapter 5

  The 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 Javier 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. She sighed.

  Being “human” was even lousier than she’d thought. Not that Javier 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.

  Javier 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, Javier 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 even the mother of three in front of them in line.

  Javier believed he’d become a wildly successful business mogul due to the influence of his asshole father, but Sarah knew better. Javier became wildly successful because Javier was Javier. 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 Javier 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 Javier 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. Javier insisted on renting, not borrowing, which would surprise no one who knew him. Least of all Sarah. He’d had a complex about not causing a burden or expense 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.

  Javier’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 twice 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 Javier’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 pointed out.

  This was a true statement. Not because of the physics—although she was pretty sure math would support 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 corpore
al, 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 Javier might’ve used words as a weapon to manipulate his opponents, but the new Javier—this Javier—took his word very seriously indeed.

  “Good. Thank you.”

  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.

  Javier 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 Javier’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. Besides, no punishment would ever be as fierce as the prospect of unrelenting guilt for the rest of eternity. Sarah could never let that happen.

  Her one and only goal was keeping Javier 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, keeping it safe and steady as Javier 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 Javier 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.

  Until now. 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. Javier 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. Seeking permission.

  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.

  Bliss. 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.

  Chapter 6

  Javier 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 h
eadstrong.

  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 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 Bolivian jungle? 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 rolling up a towel for her to use as a pillow.

  Suave. Real suave.

  And yet kissing her had just seemed right. Holding her hand. Touching her cheek. Tasting 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 shoulders. 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.