Midwinter Magic by Katie Spark Page B

choked in disbelief as orange-flavored saccharine coated his tongue.
    Sticky wetness dripped from his fingers, splashing his khaki pants with pale orange drops. He jerked his head toward the fountain. It now brimmed with translucent orange liquid. Not a speck of dirt or grime in sight. He didn’t have to take another sip to recognize the flavor.
    He cast his angel an incredulous stare. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
    “What?” she asked innocently. “You like orange Tang.”
    “I did when I was eight!”
    She shrugged and lifted a palm. “ They’re eight.”
    “I thought you were just going to purify it.”
    “It’s purified.”
    “I thought it would still be water. ”
    The edge of her lips quirked. “What’s wrong with a little flavor?”
    “What’s wrong with a nice Chianti?” he countered.
    “No vitamin C,” she pointed out. “Think of the children.”
    “I always do,” he said quietly. “Are they safe?”
    “Never been healthier. I neutralized every virus and germ in a ten-yard radius.”
    His shoulders sagged in relief. He looked over at the kids. They were crowded around the fountain, jostling and laughing, the moment of terror forgotten.
    She’d saved them, despite the rules.
    Not just that, he realized slowly, as the cascading towers of orange Tang glistened in the sunlight. The bigger miracle here wasn’t that she’d saved the day, but how she’d saved the day. She’d hadn’t just twitchy-eyed some clean water. His serious, rule-following guardian angel had actually had some fun with it. She’d done something playful .
    He stared at her in astonishment. . . and love.
    He should probably take her temperature, or check her for a concussion. He kissed her instead. Twice. And then another time for good measure.
    The father who’d driven the children’s bus stepped out of the row of shops and waved to let Jack know the presents were done being giftwrapped.
    Jack glanced over his shoulder, trying to come up with a rational explanation for why the crumbling water fountain was now flowing with orange Tang, and blinked to discover that it wasn’t.
    Water flowed from all three levels, splashing into the basin below. Safe, clean, pure water.
    “Tang you very much,” he whispered.
    She elbowed him. “Don’t you have a chimney to slide down?”
    Right.
    He sent the kids into the church so they wouldn’t see the presents being loaded into the SUV. And loaded. And loaded. There would barely be enough room to shoehorn him and Sarah inside.
    He couldn’t have been more pleased.
    As soon as they were back in the car, he kissed the tip of Sarah’s nose and turned the wheel toward the river. They had a solid four or five hours until the children would get back to the village, but Jack wanted to set things up sooner rather than later. Over the past week, the rain had gone from intermittent drizzle to an almost constant downpour, and the sky was once again turning dark and swollen. He wanted to get the presents safely situated before the heavens opened up and drowned them.
    He glanced at Sarah and grinned to himself at her trick with the fountain. As soon as they’d decked the tree, he had some tricks of his own he’d like to show her. Preferably horizontally. And nakedly. Definitely nakedly.
    Wait. . . what was he thinking? His fingers tightened on the wheel as a sudden doubt snaked down his spine. He has the one-in-a-million luck to get sent a guardian angel, and the first thought that occurs to him is boning her?
    Not his first thought, he reminded himself piously. His first thought had been saving the children. His second thought had been taking the angel to heaven.
    He downshifted over some rough terrain. Probably there was a special place in hell for people like him. A special room called “Egocentric Assholes Who Performed Unholy Acts with Guardian Angels.” Probably guys like him were exactly why Heaven was so stingy with assigning angels in the first place. Probably just the fantasy