Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (144 page)

He’d certainly had better mornings.

The cat watched Mitch from its perch on the
fence, its tail waving as though it taunted him to come and shoo it
away. Something in its expression was eerily assessing. Then the
cat looked down at Cooley and hissed in open antagonism.

The dog went wild.

Cooley barked and jumped on the fence,
thoroughly ignoring Mitch’s commands for silence or sitting. The
wolfhound’s considerable weight made the fence wobble dangerously.
Mitch realized with horror just how old that fence was and saw what
was going to happen.

Right before it did.

“
Cooley!
No!
Get
down!” he roared, forgetting his own demands for quiet in the heat
of the moment. He sprinted across the remaining distance and got
one hand on the dog’s collar.

But it was too late.

The rotten fence posts gave out with a moan
and a creak. The fence went down with a bang - right into Lilith’s
crop of sunflowers - the cat yowled in astonishment, then ran like
hell.

Cooley shook off Mitch’s grip, bounded over
the debris and gave chase, barking all the while. The pair cut a
swath of destruction through Lilith’s yard, the dog clearly trying
to gobble up the cat, the cat running for its life.

In a heartbeat, they had wrought havoc.

One glance was enough to tell Mitch that
Lilith treasured this garden. It was all blooms, little pathways
lined with nodding flowers Mitch couldn’t name, a horticultural
haven like the ones in glossy magazines.

And his dog was trashing it.

Mitch wasn’t doing a very good job of
stopping him. He bellowed, but to no avail. He darted after the
pair but couldn’t get a grip on Cooley.

Suddenly, the cat scrambled up a trellis. It
perched on the roof, looking daggers at the dog, as its tail lashed
angrily.

Cooley had his front paws up on the house,
his back paws planted in flattened flowers, while he barked fit to
beat the band.

“
Cooley!” Mitch shouted,
certain every single one of his neighbors was all awake by
now.

Maybe they were entertained.

Either way, it was a hell of an entry into
the neighborhood.

The dog, his prey clearly out of range,
stopped barking. He looked at Mitch and seemed to suddenly
understand that he was in Deep Trouble. The wolfhound sat back on
his haunches, right in the middle of something with a lot of
crushed orange flowers, and looked as sheepish as a big hairy dog
can look.

Mitch surveyed the damage and felt sick.
Flowers were broken, tomatoes lay bleeding on the pathways,
sunflower stalks were snapped. He didn’t know a lot about gardens,
but he guessed that this one wouldn’t recover this summer.

Mitch met the dog’s gaze, snapped his
fingers and pointed imperatively to his own yard. Cooley skulked
across Lilith’s garden, steering a wide path from Mitch. The huge
dog was trying so hard to make himself small that Mitch might have
laughed under other circumstances.

But there was nothing funny about this.
Mitch owed his neighbor, however nutty she might be, another
apology. Another biggie.

“
Well done,” he commented
to Cooley, who lay down in the furthest corner of the yard to sulk.
“We’re making a great impression here. Thanks a lot for doing your
part.”

The wolfhound dropped his nose to his paws -
no doubt a bid to look pathetic - but Mitch wasn’t interested in
making up just yet.

He shook a warning finger at the dog. “Cat
or no cat, don’t even
think
about crossing that fence line
again.”

Cooley inched further back into the corner,
as though acknowledging the command, his big brown eyes so sad that
he looked like he might weep.

Mitch heaved a sigh and winced as he looked
at the damage one more time. It was too damn early for this kind of
stuff. Even the birds were still quiet. Lilith would be asleep and
Mitch wasn’t going to wake her up early for this.

How was he going to make this come right? He
shook his head and went back in the house. At least Mitch knew
where the coffeemaker was. He’d treat himself to a cup of brew.
Maybe that would help him come up with brilliant solution by the
time Lilith woke up.

What a way to start the day.

*

Lilith awakened to the sound of
hammering.

D’Artagnan was on the foot of the bed,
looking smug. She sat up, eying the cat warily.

“
We have a deal,” she
reminded him. “No jumping on the counters, no sneaking on to my
bed.”

The cat didn’t even blink.

Nor did he move. Honestly, he was getting
too cocky for his own good! Lilith moved her foot under the sheets
and he bounded away, his nose in the air as though he was
insulted.

That was hardly anything new.

Lilith took a deep breath, not liking the
humidity in the air. The sun was streaming through her sheer
draperies, but not a whisper of breeze lifted them away from the
open window. It was stuffy and still, even so early in the day.

So much for hoping it would rain and clear
the air. Lilith rubbed her eyes and knew she hadn’t slept that
well. She reached for the deck of tarot cards beside her bed and
drew a card, as she often did in the morning, to give her counsel
for the day.

The Empress.
Lilith rolled her eyes.
A card of productivity, of getting things done, of harvesting what
has been sown, of finding a glimmer of the divine in the mundane
through simple labor.

Well, someone was being productive, there
was no doubt about that, despite the hour. That hammering sounded
close. And it just didn’t quit. Lilith frowned in irritation,
wondering who would be building something so early in the
morning.

Couldn’t they give it a rest?

Lilith’s window faced the back of the house
and she loved to look out at her garden in the morning. It
delighted her to see the sunlight glint off the dew, to watch the
bumblebees meander through the flowers. It would ease her
irritation this morning. She rose with a smile of anticipation,
tugged back the drapes and gasped.

Because this morning, her perfect garden was
a perfect disaster.

Lilith stared in horror at the damage.
Everything along the fence line was smashed flat. Her sunflowers
were broken, her columbines were trodden down, several zucchini’s
were pureed on the garden path. There were leaves and petals from
the roses cast on the ground, several beds were crushed beyond
recognition.

A very grim Mitch was hammering a section of
their common fence back into place. His shirt was off, a glimmer of
sweat shone on his tanned skin. The other three sections of the
fence lay on the ground in Mitch’s yard, obviously having been
moved off her plants.

Mitch’s massive dog cowered guiltily against
the garage in the far corner of his yard and Lilith recognized a
prime mover when she saw it.

But big dogs didn’t just suddenly take it
into their heads to be destructive. The dog’s current manner
indicated that he had forgotten himself in the heat of the
moment.

Lilith made a very good guess as to exactly
what that particular moment had been.

“
D’Artagnan!” She dropped
the curtain and turned to confront the cat. D’Artagnan strove to
look innocent, as sure a sign as there could be of his guilt. “You
had something to do with this. Don’t think I don’t know
it.”

The cat bolted so fast that he was no more
than a silver blur in the hall. Lilith rolled her eyes, knowing she
had all the answers she needed.

But her garden!

She turned back and found herself watching
Mitch instead of looking at her once vigorous flowers. There was
something about the sight of a handsome man out fixing things in
her yard that made Lilith catch her breath.

Not just any handsome man either. Her one
true love.

Whether he knew it or not.

Although this was hardly the kind of
interaction she had hoped for the night before, Lilith had learned
long ago that the great forces could be playful. A can-do kind of
witch worked with what she had.

What Lilith had was a half-naked, grumpy
Mitch fixing her fence.

She’d have to make that work.

Later, she’d deal with the darned cat.

*

Jason was feeling pretty important. He liked
helping his dad just about best of all, even better than catching
tadpoles. Dad had said they’d have lots to fix in this new house
and he’d been right.

They were fixing the fence already.

Dad put out his hand for a nail. Jason
picked one out of the old olive jar in Dad’s toolbox. He liked
Dad’s toolbox. It was kind of a mess, but there were lots of
interesting things in there, if you looked close. All sorts of bits
and ends, things that Dad could put together to fix just about
anything.

Like the fence.

Dad winked as he took the nail. “Thanks,
sport. Don’t know how I’d get this done without you.” Jason grinned
as his dad hammered that nail into the old fence.

Jason was getting another nail out of the
jar when the lady came out of her house next door. She looked at
where the fence had landed on her plants and looked really sad.
Jason felt bad that her flowers got smushed and felt a bit guilty
that he had been so excited to see her yard when he got up
today.

He’d been peeking through the fence the day
before. Jason just knew she had better bugs over there and he had
kind of been hoping to have a chance to look at them.

His dad stopped hammering. “Lilith, I
thought you’d still be asleep.” It sounded as though Dad felt
really bad too.

The lady looked at Dad. “Some hammering woke
me up,” she said quietly. She had a nice voice, kind of low. And
she was really pretty. She had her hair in a ponytail, but it was
all dark and curly. It looked soft. She had a long dress on, like a
princess, and it was blue like Jen’s Bun.

“
I was hoping to get it
fixed before you got up.” Dad’s ears got red. “I’m really sorry
about the fence, Lilith, especially about your garden.”

She looked at the flowers, Dad fidgeted like
he didn’t usually do. “I don’t know a lot about gardens,” Dad said
quietly. He was looking really hard at the lady. “So, Lilith,
please tell me what to do to make this come right.”

The lady stepped off her porch into the
garden. She wandered along, touching a sunflower, then dropped to
one knee beside Jason. She picked up a red flower that was broken
right off and looked like she might cry.

Dad looked really worried.

Jason wanted to help. “That’s pretty,” he
said.

The lady looked up at him, then very slowly
she smiled. Jason smiled back. “And who are you?” she asked
quietly.

“
Jason.”

“
My son,” Dad
said.

The lady looked at Dad. “I didn’t know you
were married.”

Dad got That Look, the one he got whenever
Nana started talking about stuff that made Dad go
shhh!
“I’m
not. Not anymore.”

“
Oh.” The lady smiled at
Jason again. “Hello, Jason. I’m Lilith.”

“
Hi.”

“
Do you have any brothers
and sisters?”

“
Just Jen. She’s
little.”

“
How little?”

“
Only three.”

Lilith smiled, then wrinkled her nose. Jason
felt like she understood him. “Much littler than you.” She looked
down at the flower again and her smile went away.

It was like the sun going behind a cloud.
Jason wanted to make her smile again.

Good thing he had an idea.

“
We could put it back on
the plant,” he suggested. “We’ve got nails and duck tape and
everything. Dad can fix anything.”

She did smile, but she shook her head. “That
won’t work, Jason. You see, plants are different from fences.
They’re more like people.”

“
Oh.” Jason didn’t know
what to do.

He didn’t think his dad did either.

The lady turned the flower in her hand.
Suddenly, something fluttered through the air. Jason couldn’t see
what it was, at least not until it paused in the air right in front
of Lilith.

Then, she smiled, really smiled, as she
hadn’t yet.

“
Hello, Ralph,” she said
softly.

It was a little bird, Jason realized, but
its wings moved so fast that he could hardly see them. He thought
he could hear a hum coming from its wings. It was grey or dark
green with a white tummy and a little red mark at its throat. The
bird seemed to hang in the air, its long beak just a bit away from
the flower Lilith held.

She looked at Jason and winked. “He wouldn’t
tell me his name, so I gave him one.”

That made perfect sense to Jason. The bird
moved forward and put his beak into the end of the red flower.
Jason saw that it was actually a bunch of little red flowers all
growing together. They were long and skinny, but the bird’s beak
fit right into one.

Ralph moved to the next flower and the next,
and Lilith held the flower very still.

“
He comes every day,”
Lilith whispered.

Jason was awed. “For the flowers?”

“
For the nectar that’s in
them. It’s like juice. That’s what Ralph eats and he knows he can
find them here.”

Jason thought about that and wished he could
see the little bird better. He didn’t want to move and scare it,
though.

As though she knew what he was thinking,
Lilith beckoned with her free hand. “Bring the honeysuckle,” she
whispered and pointed to an orange and yellow flower on the ground
beside him. It had the same kind of pointy shape as the ones she
held. “And move very slowly.”