Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (146 page)

Mitch caught his breath in surprise, Lilith
laughed, then she stepped away as Jason reappeared, lugging a pair
of pails. Her feet flashed under the hem of her skirt, the bare
soles slightly dirty.

She had called him handsome.

Mitch concentrated on hammering that nail
home, telling himself her comment just didn’t matter. It didn’t
matter that she really wanted him, it didn’t matter that she was so
sweet and helpful, it didn’t matter that her eyes twinkled in a way
that made him want to stare into them forever.

Lilith was a New Age nut, after all.

Although it was awfully hard to remember
that right now.

“
Well, consider it done,”
Mitch concluded in his most businesslike voice, unwilling to
examine why he wanted to snare Lilith’s attention again. “If you
want it different from the last one, just say the word. Taller,
shorter, lattice on top, whatever.”

“
Whatever you want to do.”
She laughed over her shoulder. “You know better what will stop that
freight train special of yours.”

Mitch grimaced. “Sinking the posts into
concrete for a start.”

“
Are you sure you should
start this weekend? You have so much to do at your
place.”

Mitch arched a skeptical brow and feigned
astonishment. “Is it that obvious?”

Lilith laughed aloud, the hearty sound
coaxing Mitch’s own grin. “Uh huh.”

“
Well, it’ll wait. Righting
wrongs is always first on the agenda.” Mitch picked up the next
section of fence and set it into position. He looked around for his
assistant, but Jason appeared to have found the toad. The boy was
hunkered down, the pots abandoned, his concentration fixed on a
dark shadow.

Mitch looked at Lilith. “Would you mind
holding that for a minute? I’ve just got to get a couple of nails
and I seem to have lost my helper.” He inclined his head toward
Jason and Lilith smiled.

She gripped the fence where he told her,
their hands brushing in the transaction. Mitch tingled, knowing he
didn’t imagine the luscious scent of her perfume.

Or the sweet undertone that had to be the
scent of Lilith’s own skin. Mitch was well aware of her gaze
following him as he bent over.

He really, really hoped he didn’t have
plumber’s butt.

“
We’re
nothing
compared to toads,” Lilith commented drily just as Mitch got a pair
of nails between his teeth. He nearly spit them in the grass as her
unexpected comment, and glanced back to find her
grinning.

His heart skipped a beat. Mitch let himself
forget for the moment that Lilith was bananas. Instead, he stood
beside her, nailing the fence into place, and let himself enjoy the
moment. The thing was, Mitch had a weakness for funny, clever, sexy
women and it wasn’t nearly often enough that one crossed his
path.

Even one who was convinced that she was a
real, live witch.

The section of fence stood on its own and
Mitch was trying to think of something clever to say when Jen’s
howl from the kitchen effectively ended the moment.

“
Daddy!”

And there was nothing else in Mitch’s world.
He dropped his hammer and bounded to the porch at one glimpse of
Jen’s tear-streaked face. Even Andrea looked alarmed, as well as
incapable of settling her tiny stricken charge.

Mitch scooped Jen into his arms, Bun and
all, and bounced her on his hip as he murmured to her. “It’s okay,
I’m right here.” Jen’s plump arms locked around his neck and she
sobbed as though her heart had been ripped in two. Her fair hair
curled against Mitch’s chin like soft down, her weeping made him
cringe.

“
It’s okay, we’re all right
here. See? There’s nothing to worry about.” Mitch sat on the step
and cuddled his daughter close, intent on consoling her. He should
never have left her sleeping. He should have guessed that she would
be frightened. Jen was always afraid of being left alone, left
behind, and Mitch knew exactly why.

Knowing it was all his fault never made him
feel any better.

“
We were right here,” Jason
said with five-year-old scorn. Jen ignored him as she sniffled and
peeked, taking silent inventory of everyone in attendance. Mitch
gently stroked her blond curls back from her brow. Meanwhile,
Andrea skillfully steered the little boy over to the buckets he had
dropped and the fallen plants, leaving Mitch to make everything
better.

As usual. Fortunately he’d gotten pretty
good at it.

“
See? Everything’s just
fine.” Mitch tickled Jen under the chin. She squirmed and wiped her
tears with Bun’s blue ear. “Guess what I did this
morning?”

Jen flicked a glance at him and sniffed.

Mitch took that tiny hint of curiosity as
encouragement. “I made fruit salad,” he tapped the end of her nose,
“just for you.”

Jen’s eyes lit up at the mention of one of
her favorite foods – and the only one Mitch approved of – but she
pursed her lips. Negotiation was a good sign, to Mitch’s way of
thinking. “With grapes?”

“
Extra grapes,” Mitch
confirmed.

Her little lips tightened as she considered
him. “
Green
grapes?”

Mitch smiled, knowing how she loved the
green ones. “Lots of them.” He tickled her tummy. “Didn’t I say it
was special for you?”

The little girl’s expression turned coy in a
way that made Mitch dread the day she would become a teenager. Jen
tapped Bun on Mitch’s shoulder. “Can I have some? Now? And Bun
too?” She granted her daddy the gift of a smile.

“
Well, I don’t know,” Mitch
teased. “I thought you were going to sleep in this
morning.”

“
Woody the Woodpecker woke
me up,” Jen confided cheerfully, then tapped her finger on Mitch’s
chest. “Bang, bang, bang.”

Mitch mimicked the cartoon character’s laugh
and Jen giggled right on cue. He grinned with relief. “That’s not
the first time I’ve heard that complaint this morning,” he said,
then stood, intending to share the joke with Lilith.

But Lilith was gone. The screen door to her
kitchen swung slowly, but there was absolutely no sign of the
lady.

Mitch was honest enough with himself to
admit that he was disappointed.

*

Lilith had never experienced such a sense of
being desperately alone. But when Mitch scooped up his daughter,
his features drawn with concern, and the little girl clung to him
for solace, Lilith had fully understood, perhaps for the first
time, just how alone she was.

Immortal and alone. Lilith was effectively
frozen in time, locked forever in the moment when the elixir slid
through her veins. She would always be thirty-three years old.

Lilith stood still while time swirled around
her.

For the first time, Lilith didn’t think that
was such a good thing. She had lived in solitude for almost six
centuries. Even D’Artagnan was a recent concession. There had just
been her plants and countless houses and thousands upon thousands
of strangers with secrets of love hidden in their eyes. They went
on to find their lovers true, to have children, to grow old in the
circle of their love.

But Lilith stayed alone. Always alone. The
sight of Mitch and his daughter had made that point painfully
clear.

It had made Lilith suddenly want to cry.

So she had run, as much from the sight of
the closeness of Mitch’s family as from her realization. But inside
her house lurked the memory of the Empress card she had drawn this
very morning.

The
pregnant
Empress who governed
fertility and parenthood.

Lilith saw the card lying on her nightstand,
and she dropped to her bed and wept. It was not exactly a reminder
she needed right now. Lilith thought about little babies and faded
assumptions that she would rock untold numbers of her own children
in her arms.

Because Lilith could never have a child of
her own – her monthly cycles had ceased when she drank the potion.
That naïve expectation – now destined to remain unfulfilled – left
Lilith feeling barren and empty, cold despite the heat. She cried,
certain her womb had shriveled like an old piece of fruit.

Even though she had never let herself cry
since she had walked away from the
Rom kumpania
.

It must be the weather that was finally
getting to her. Or the anticipation of having Sebastian on the
periphery of her life again.

But Mitch had his own children. Although she
hadn’t expected them, maybe Lilith could live vicariously. She
certainly had enjoyed her first encounter with Jason.

That made her feel better. Lilith sniffed
and wiped away her foolish tears, determined to put this unwanted
emotion behind her. She wrapped her arms around herself and paced.
Lilith certainly had never been bothered by any of this before.

But no matter how fast she walked, Lilith
just couldn’t erase the image of Mitch’s daughter’s tears from her
mind. Even that tiny girl had someone to turn to when everything
seemed wrong.

Lilith had only herself and she would have
only herself until Mitch remembered their entwined destiny. It had
been that way for so long that she had almost forgotten life could
be any other way.

Almost, but not quite.

*

Lilith jumped hours later when there was a
rap on her kitchen door.

“
Hellooooooo!” Someone
called from the back porch and Lilith recognized Andrea’s voice
with relief. She was more than ready for a bit of
company.

Lilith stepped quickly through the kitchen
and summoned a smile. “Hello, Andrea. Come on in!”

Andrea did as she was bidden, her gaze
quickly trailing over Lilith’s spotless red-and-white kitchen. “Oh,
this is lovely! We’ll have to show Mitch – he’s been muttering
about potential and cursing realtors all day long.” Her eyes
twinkled. “I honestly don’t think the man knows where to
start.”

Lilith’s smile broadened. “You have to have
a vision of what you want the house to be.”

“
Well!” Andrea heaved a
sigh and glanced over the kitchen once more. “You clearly have an
eye for such things.”

Lilith warmed to the older woman, not
because of her praise but simply because she said what she thought.
“I enjoy it.”

Andrea smiled. “I can tell.”

Lilith bit her lip in sudden recollection
and had to ask. “Is your granddaughter all right? She seemed quite
upset this morning.”

Andrea sobered immediately. “Oh, Jen. She’s
such a sweetie but she really doesn’t handle change well at all.
Mitch worries so much about her.”

Lilith’s heart contracted for both father
and daughter. “What about her mother?”

Andrea snorted. “There’s a story and a half
there, that’s for certain.” She dropped her voice to a
conspiratorial whisper. “Mitch has sworn that he’ll hunt me down
and hurt me if I ever breathe a word of what happened to anyone.
Unfortunately” – she winked, a disclaimer if ever there was one –
“I believe him.”

“
Surely it can’t be that
bad.”

Andrea waved off the comment. “Mitch just
doesn’t want those two little angels ever to hear anything bad
about their mom. I can’t blame him for a little
over-protectiveness.” Andrea shrugged and a wicked twinkle glinted
in her eye. “Even if there isn’t much good to say about her.”

Lilith was so shocked by this comment that
she didn’t have time to hide her response. “Andrea!”

“
It’s true,” the older
woman declared unrepentantly. “She never knew what she had – God
bless us for small mercies – otherwise, she’d still be here.”
Andrea rolled her eyes in silent assessment of that. “Suffice to
say, the man blames himself, but then he was always too quick to
take responsibility for the woes of this world.”

Andrea straightened with a sudden primness,
as though she had just realized she’d said too much. “But that’s
all I have to say about that.”

Andrea’s words were certainly consistent
with Mitch’s tight-lipped response about not being married anymore.
Something nasty had happened, unless Lilith missed her guess.

“
Well, I’m glad your
granddaughter is all right.”

Andrea smiled again. “More than all right,
although Mitch is fretting up a storm. He’s a regular old mother
hen. He’s asked me to stay a few days so Jen doesn’t have to go to
a new day care tomorrow.”

“
That might be a good
idea,” Lilith conceded, touched by his concern for the little
girl’s fears.

Andrea grinned. “Oh, it is. I think Mitch’s
exact words were that it could be a seriously ugly proposition to
make her go.” She arched a brow. “But just because he’s right
doesn’t mean I won’t tease him about being such a worrywart.”

The two women exchanged a warm smile and
Lilith decided it was time for a change of subject. “Why don’t you
come into the front room?” she suggested. “That’s where I usually
read.”

Andrea turned in the direction Lilith
gestured. “Oh, this is so exciting. I just can’t wait. You know, I
have the strongest feeling about you, Lilith. As soon as I saw your
sign, I knew you would have something to tell me.” She flicked a
pert glance over her shoulder. “Do you think that’s crazy?”

Lilith shook her head. “No.”

She didn’t think it was crazy quite simply
because it was true. The portent of Andrea’s future love was right
there in her eyes. Lilith had seen it immediately. A person just
had to know where and how to look.

Too late, Lilith wished she’d had a better
look into Mitch’s eyes.

A reassured Andrea danced ahead,
anticipation in every line of her figure. Her gaze roved openly
over the furnishings of the front room. Lilith trailed behind her,
granting her the opportunity to look.