Midwinter Magic by Katie Spark

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