Midwinter Magic Read Free Page B

with him, wanted to throw people against a wall with him, stood right by his side in every venture he’d ever made. . .
    And, until now, he’d never even known she existed.
    She set down her napkin and stifled a sigh. Face it. He still didn’t know she existed. Not the real Sarah, the one who squealed over every triumph and cried over every loss, knowing every setback would only make him try harder.
    All Jack saw was a pretend Sarah. An amalgamation of ideals, conjured automatically without a microsecond’s thought. She was almost as surprised as he had been at the outcome.
    Her face and hair and eyes and body—all that was the real Sarah. Minus the wings. But she’d wrapped herself beneath the disguise of past happy moments. From his life, of course. She didn’t have many moments of her own, so she’d subconsciously appropriated his.
    The jersey was easy to figure out. Jack was a Lakers super-fan. He had front-row season tickets and DVRed the games to watch again later. He had the entire franchise memorized. When they became the first team in NBA history to win three thousand regular season games, Jack had bought a round for the whole stadium. The crowd had gone wild.
    The yoga pants, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the Lakers. Those probably came from a conversation Jack had had with his financial advisor on the private terrace of a trendy Malibu bar. A handful of women had walked by in crop tops and yoga pants, and the men had commented that the government really ought to make a law stating that if you had the body for yoga pants, it was a crime not to wear them. (A similar comment had been made about Brazilian-style bikinis.)
    The stiletto sandals were life-endangering on downhill gravel roads, and Sarah well knew where they came from. She’d been there when Jack had bought them for his ex-girlfriend. Before she was an ex, of course. That day, he’d told her she’d make him the happiest man alive if she wore the stilettos for him that evening in bed. And maybe he was. . . for a few hours. The happiness ended when he discovered she was on his rival’s payroll, and he had been nothing more than an assignment. Seduce, spy, steal.
    Sarah swallowed. For her, he wasn’t just an assignment. Even though, contractually, that’s what he was supposed to be. But how could she spend thirty-five years with someone as amazing as Jack Morgan, and not develop feelings? That was why she had a fuchsia cupcake fascinator sticking out of her head. He’d bought one for his niece on her first trip to Disneyland, and told the little girl that she was what made it the most magical place on Earth. When she’d giggled delightedly and thrown herself into his arms, Jack had grinned—and held on tight.
    That was eight long months ago, and the last time Sarah had seen him smile. She wished she could give that moment back to him, over and over, for the rest of his life. He deserved some happiness. He was a good man, no matter what he believed.
    Right now, he was looking at her as if he believed her to be no better than the original owner of the golden stilettos and was already plotting how to force her to give up her secrets. She couldn’t let that happen.
    Which meant she had to end this charade, stat. She couldn’t just disappear when he wasn’t looking, however. Not now. Jack was too focused, too analytical, too. . . anal to let something like that go. Whether he believed her to be a spy, or whether he just believed her to be a mystery—where would a single woman without visible transportation disappear to in the middle of a third-world country? He wouldn’t rest until he found her. Not if he thought it possible she might be in need of rescue.
    And just try explaining, “I accidentally became my human assignment’s primary obsession” to the Governing Council of Heavenly Beings. No, thank you. They couldn’t take her wings—she’d been born with them—but they could, and would, take her position away. She’d be