23

“I had no idea you’re so old,” I murmur lazily as he runs his finger up and down my arm from my wrist to my shoulder as I lie snuggled naked against him, enfolded by his wings, my head resting in the crook of his arm.

“I didn’t want to scare you off by revealing my true age,” he replies, his breath stirring my hair, “but I did tell you, age means nothing to me. No complaints, surely?” He murmurs, his tone sending tingles down my spine.

“God no,” ‘ as long as I live, I’ll never forget this night ,’ “no complaints at all. Do you? Have complaints, I mean?”

“You’re perfect, Merri, in every conceivable way.”

“Oh, c’mon,” I scoff. “Given your age you must have slept with thousands of women. I couldn’t possibly compare.”

“Merri, in all my long years I’ve never slept with a human woman. You’re my first.”

“Your long years,” I murmur as I process what he’s just said. “Wait, does this mean angels live forever?”

“No, not forever. We live far longer than humans, but we procreate rarely, so the balance is kept.”

“Huh.”

My mind races with all the questions I still have for him, darting from one topic to the next.

“How are you going to explain yourself to all those people you rescued?”

“I’m not,” he shrugs. “There were only about thirty, mostly small people.”

“Children,” I smirk.

“Yeah. I don’t want to sound glib, but given human nature, most people will dismiss any word of an other-worldly creature rescuing them as a mass hallucination due to hypothermia. Some will believe until their dying day. Some will turn to religion for answers. Others will eventually conclude they imagined seeing me. The children will simply forget.”

I think over his summation. I’d read about many supernatural encounters over the years, and I realise now they were probably all true — and he’s right. No one will believe a story about a guardian angel. For myself, I don’t know how anyone could possibly forget being held in the arms of such a beautiful, supernatural creature. If he hadn’t had others to rescue, and if my teeth hadn’t been chattering so hard I thought they might shatter, I would have asked him to fly me forever.

“It’s a shame about Joeline, though,” I murmur. “She could do with some faith in the supernatural. She doesn’t even believe in Santa any longer; she’s so young, yet so jaded. It’s sad.

“Yes,” he murmurs, “young and jaded is sad.”

I smirk and look up at him.

“I was talking about a child.”

“Yes,” he smiles, kissing me on the nose, “you were.”

“Anyway, how are you going to act when she, or anyone for that matter, points you out in the restaurant or on the slopes as the angel who rescued them?”

“Well,” he grins, “the lodge has room service. We might need to stay indoors for a few days…”

“That wouldn’t be a hardship,” I giggle.

“Oh, it’ll be hard.”

I feel his body respond to emphasise his point and his wings tighten around me, but not before I see a quick flash of pain in his eyes.

“How bad is it? Your wing?”

“It’s just strained. I think it’s mostly healed. I wouldn’t have been able to fly otherwise. But,” his eyes twinkle, “a little more physical therapy might be in order.”

“Is that what you call it?” I raise my eyebrows, pressing tighter against him.

“Something like that. If I’d known making love with a human could be so mind-blowing, I would have fallen through your roof years ago.”

“But you wouldn’t have found me so receptive then.”

“Why would you say that?” He raises himself on one elbow and peers down into my eyes, frowning as I move slightly away.

“Oh, nothing,” I blush.

“What could you possibly say to me now that you would be embarrassed by?” He shakes his head, “after the night we’ve just spent.”

“Well,” I sigh. “It’s just that human women go through a change. We call it the change of life, when we get to our late forties or early fifties. I know that’s part of the reason James had his affair. I’m partly to blame.”

“How so?” He frowns.

“Things change,” I wriggle slightly away, uncomfortable with the conversation. “We don’t have the libido we once had. We have mood swings and fluctuations in our temperature, and personality changes. But for me there was a perfect storm. Roger moved out of the house and out of the state leaving me grappling with being an empty-nester, and then a month or so later, my parents died. I can’t really explain it, but I kind of withdrew into myself for a while, retreated I guess, from James, from society, from who I was. I just wanted to be by myself, to figure out who I really was now, and mourn. And then right on top of that the change of life hit me like a tonne of bricks. I couldn’t concentrate for months at a time. My creativity kind of disappeared, and so did my need or desire for intimacy. I guess James was forced to look elsewhere for what I couldn’t give him.”

“No,” he shakes his head, pulling me back in tight against him. “Any man who truly loves his woman would understand this.”

“It’s hard to understand something your wife is going through when she doesn’t really understand it herself,” I murmur. “It took me almost two years to become me again. And by the time I wanted us to recapture what we’d lost, we’d grown too far apart, or rather, he’d fallen for someone else.”

“You didn’t lose yourself, or your marriage,” he shakes his head, “it was just on hiatus. James is a fool for not waiting for you, a fool for not supporting you through your change. Look at you now. It’s his loss.”

“Chris,” I shake my head. “I’m not saying he was right to cheat. Or that I don’t wish things had been different. It’s just that I accept some responsibility for what happened.”

“Mmm,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss me gently on the forehead. “We’ll agree to disagree. In the meantime, I hear you have a patient requiring therapy, and some catching up to do…”

“Three years worth,” I whisper, “could take some doing.”

“Then we’d best get started,” he smirks as he rolls back on top of me and claims my lips.