Kissed By Christmas. Jamie Pope

were done. It was that other twenty percent that stayed with him. An innocent person getting struck by violence, a car accident that left the vehicle and the people inside of it unrecognizable. Last week Asa had gone through another one of those events that he just couldn’t get off his mind.

      They had responded to a catastrophic crane collapse last week that had made New York City look like a war zone. Some people didn’t make it. Death was an unfortunate part of the job. He should be used to it by now but last week the loss had hit him harder than usual. Maybe it was the time of the year and knowing that a man wouldn’t be with his family during the holidays. Maybe it was the fact that he felt that his time with his family was growing shorter and shorter.

      The longer he did this job, the more important his family became to him.

      They pulled up at the scene in front of Wheatly Academy to see a horde of worried teenagers surrounding a woman on the ground.

      “Clear a path, guys,” he ordered as they rolled the gurney toward her. “We’re here to help her.” He took in the woman’s appearance and noticed two things. The first was that she definitely wasn’t dressed for winter in her brown high-heeled boots and her thin trench coat. The second was that she looked incredibly familiar. But he couldn’t place her at the moment. “Does anyone know her name?” he asked the kids.

      “She’s our English teacher, Miss Roberts,” a girl told him. “Hallie is her first name, I think.”

      “Yeah, it is,” a boy confirmed. “We remember it because we say that she’s like Halle Berry, but sweeter. Is she going to be okay? She hit her head, really hard.”

      Asa knelt down to the unconscious woman and touched her cold cheek with the back of his hand. Brain injury was a common effect of a slip and fall. “Hallie?” He called her name and she opened her eyes, looking up at him, and it kind of jolted him. He knew in his gut he had seen this woman before. Seen that beautiful shade of brown skin, seen those large, almond-shaped deep brown eyes with what seemed like a million lashes look up at him.

      “Am I dead?” Her voice was soft; there was wonder in it. “Are you an angel? Am I dead?”

      “No.” He smiled at her. He didn’t usually find injured people cute, but this one was exceedingly so. “You slipped on the ice and hit your head. We’re going to take you to the hospital to get you checked out.”

      “Miss, are you okay?” One of the girls asked as she stepped forward.

      “No. I’m not.” She shut her eyes again. “I remember walking toward you because you and Tiana looked like you were about to engage in World War Three and that’s when I slipped.” Her voice was much stronger this time. “I blame you two for this fall and that means thirty years of detention for both of you.”

      “Thirty years!”

      “Yup. That’s how long I’ll be embarrassed about this. I’m not sure I’ll survive it.”

      “But, Miss Roberts! We were just talking about that poem you assigned us last night. I think it’s about a boy wanting his mother’s approval. Liza thinks it’s about romantic love, but clearly she’s wrong and takes everything literally because that’s how basic she is.”

      The other girl turned around so quickly Asa was surprised that she didn’t have whiplash. “Who are you calling basic?”

      “Girls!” Those pretty brown eyes flew open again. “If you don’t stop arguing you’re both going to be feeling basic when I keep you after school for the next two weeks alphabetizing my book collection by genre. And if you don’t think it’s that many books, I will gladly go out and get more to keep you busy until prom season.”

      The girls clamped their mouths shut.

      “Well, the good news is that your teacher is lucid, kids,” Miguel said stepping forward so that he could stabilize her neck. “The bad news is, she going to be on a war path if you don’t give her some space.”

      “Get to class,” she said as her eyes drifted shut briefly, before she opened one of them to survey the crowd. “I’ll know if you didn’t show up. I’ll be checking in, and your papers are still due at the end of the week. You will email them to me.”

      “Really?” one of the boys asked.

      “If you don’t believe me, you’ll find out what happens if they are late.”

      The kids scattered. Asa would have, too. Her tone told everyone she wasn’t playing. He was surprised that someone who looked so adorable, with her doe eyes and head full of springy black curls, could get a bunch of high schoolers to obey without talking back. His retired military father would have admired that.

      “Are they gone?” she asked, looking to Asa again. “My head hurts so much I’m not sure I can see straight.”

      He nodded. “Ran out of here like they were on fire. Can you tell me what else hurts? Your neck, or back?”

      “Just my head.” She grabbed his hand and buried it in her hair. “It hurts here.”

      “That’s because you have an epic knot.”

      “Darn, and I was planning to shave my head this week.”

      He smiled down at her. “It’ll have to wait till after Christmas.”

      “I don’t want them to worry.” She looked truly distressed then, and he could see the pain etched into her face. “I have to be tough with them or they’ll worry.”

      “Your students?”

      “Yes. They think they are grown, but they are still kids and they’ll worry about me. I love them, you know. They are the only reason I stay in this stupid, cold, icy city.”

      “You’re a good teacher,” he told her.

      “And you’re really hot,” she said to him. “I like the way your voice sounds. Gentle but strong. Are you sure you’re not some sort of jacked angel?”

      “He’s not,” Miguel said. “But he gets that a lot.”

      Asa shook his head, but he had to admit he was a little flattered. “We’re going to take you to the hospital now.”

      “Okay. Stay with me, Mr. Hot Paramedic.”

      “I will. I’m not going anywhere.”

       Chapter 2

      The gorgeous man who was sitting by her side as she rode to the hospital had told her that she wasn’t dreaming, but she had a hard time believing it. This had to be a dream. They didn’t make men who looked like him. Big, beefy, chocolate-colored angels with large hands and beautiful smiles. Or if they did, they weren’t walking around like normal people with normal jobs. In fact she was pretty sure she had seen this one on the cover of a fitness magazine. She knew she had seen him before. It was probably the head trauma that made him walk off the pages of a magazine and into her life.

      The paramedic was really probably some short, balding middle-aged man with a potbelly, but it didn’t matter because he was so lovely. He made busting her behind in public kind of nice.

      “You still with me, Hallie?” he asked in his deep, soothing voice as he touched her hand.

      “I am. What’s your name? I’m feeling a little loopy. Did I ask you that already? I’m not sure what I’ve been saying.”

      “You didn’t ask. My name is Asa. Do you know where you are going?”

      Hallie gasped. “Healer.” Now she knew she must be hallucinating. “I’m with a healer on my way to the hospital.”

      He looked truly surprised. “You know the meaning of my name?”

      She nodded but it hurt her head and she shut her eyes. “Your name is