Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (176 page)

It was only thing in the room that looked
sloppy, besides the rumpled bed. Sometime during the night, Mitch
had even hung up his trousers.

Lilith’s lips quirked with the realization
that she was getting a man who was already trained.

She eyed the piece of paper, unable to
decide why that dangling corner bothered her as much as it did.
Lilith wasn’t that much of a neat freak, after all.

She looked away and tried to forget it, but
when she looked back, it seemed to be hanging out even further. It
seemed to be wiggling at her, daring her to come and stuff it back
into the drawer before it fell right on the floor.

That was enough!

Lilith rolled out of bed and crossed the
room. She pulled open the drawer, meaning to just stuff the paper
further in, but it fluttered to the floor. And when she bent to
pick it up, the first few words jumped out at her.

Lilith hadn’t meant to read it, she
certainly didn’t intend to pry. But why did Mitch have a list of
psychologists in his drawer? And why was this doctor specializing
in emotional trauma circled?

Lilith sat down on the edge of the bed with
a thump. Was Jen more scarred by Janice’s departure than Mitch had
already admitted?

What could she do to help?

*

Mitch was in a rip-roaring good mood. In
fact, he couldn’t remember feeling so incredible in the morning, or
having such anticipation of the day ahead.

Hell, of the
life
ahead.

He popped his favorite cartoon tape into the
VCR and set to work dicing fruit as Michigan Frog was discovered in
a box outside a construction site. He didn’t mind the kids watching
cartoons but one morning with Jason in front of the television had
convinced Mitch that you never knew what kids were going to see
these days. Warner Brothers’ work hadn’t hurt Mitch any, so he’d
gone out and bought a posse of tapes.

They were the only things the kids were
allowed to watch on their own, although there were no complaints.
Jen and Jason loved Bugs Bunny and all the other characters, even
though they practically had the tapes memorized.

Jason ran to turn up the volume, then came
back to perch on a stool and wash fruit.

“
Wash it really well,”
Mitch counseled.

“
Can you say fat-soluble
pesticides?” Jason parroted Mitch’s usual advice, clearly without
any understanding of what it meant. They said it again using
Sylvester the cat’s characteristic lisp and laughed together at
their own silliness.

Mitch scooped up Jen and perched her on the
counter, giving her a job, too. She picked the green grapes off
their stems once they were clean and made more than a few of them
disappear.

Cooley waited, eternally patient, for
something to fall.

And when the frog started to sing, they all
knew the words. Both kids kicked their feet in a rendition of the
frog’s dancing and they belted out the tune, two sopranos and a
baritone.

Mitch tossed a grape into the air and caught
it in his mouth. The kids immediately had to try this, too, and
Cooley soon had more grapes than even he wanted.

In the midst of all this, Lilith cleared her
throat from the doorway. Mitch spun and grinned at her, catching a
grape with a flourish.

It was only then that Mitch noticed that
Lilith wasn’t smiling. She turned a piece of paper in her hands, a
worried frown drawing her brows together. A question lurked in her
eyes and Mitch looked again to the paper she held.

When Mitch recognized it, he had a very bad
feeling.

Damage control time.

“
Can you peel this orange?”
Mitch said almost absently to Jason, then crossed the room with
quick strides. “Let’s talk in the other room,” he suggested,
capturing Lilith’s elbow in one smooth move and turning her away
from the children.

Mitch knew he had to talk fast if he was
going to save this situation.

Let alone his butt.

Too bad he didn’t have a clue how to
start.

“
Mitch, why do you have
this list of psychologists? And this trauma specialist?” Lilith’s
concern was obvious. “Is it Jen? Is she more upset than you told
me?”

“
No, not Jen.” Mitch
swallowed, hating that words chose this moment to desert
him.

“
Who, then?” She clutched
his arm. “Not Jason?”

“
No, Lilith, no.” Mitch
frowned. “Lilith, it’s not for the kids.”

“
Andrea?”

“
No, Andrea’s about the
most well-adjusted person I’ve ever met.”

Lilith eyed him. “Has something happened to
you?”

“
No.” Mitch shoved a hand
through his hair, knowing that at this rate, she was going to get
to the truth before he could come up with a reasonable
explanation.

Lilith drew back slightly and frowned. “I
don’t understand, then.”

There was no easy way to say this. Mitch
took a deep breath and just plunged in. “Lilith, I researched the
list for you.”

His words seemed to stun her. “Me? But
why?”

“
Well, yeah. You see, when
you told me about the whole Gypsy thing and being an outcast and
your true lover leaving you, I thought the story might be a way of
dealing with a trauma in your life.”

Lilith straightened, her expression puzzled.
“The trauma in my life was seeing you killed.” Her tone told Mitch
that he was on shaky ground. He caught her shoulders in his hands,
unable to quell a sense that she was poised to flee. He tried to
explain himself.

Fast.

“
But you do know, Lilith,
that people don’t live for six hundred years? It just isn’t
possible – in fact, you mentioned as much yourself.”

“
I told you I was
immortal…”

Mitch spoke gently. “Lilith, there aren’t
any immortals and we both know that.” He looked deeply into her
eyes and saw disbelief dawn there in the same moment that she
gasped. “Now, it doesn’t matter…”

“
It certainly does matter,”
she interrupted and pulled out of his grip. “You think I liked to
you!”

But Mitch was still trying to save the
situation. His words came fast and low, his tone as gentle ass he
could make it. “Not exactly a lie, Lilith. I think you’re trying to
protect yourself, that the mind does incredible things to deal with
trauma, but…”

Lilith backed away, her eyes snapping
angrily. “You don’t believe me! You think I lied to you.”

“
Well…” Mitch couldn’t
think of a good way to explain himself nearly fast
enough.

“
You think I made it all
up!” Lilith spun and marched to the other side of the room,
pivoting only at the window.

Then she stared at him, consideration bright
in her eyes. “But wait – if you don’t believe me, then how could
you have remembered anything about being Sebastian? If you
remembered, you’d know I was telling the truth.”

“
I never said I
remembered!”

Lilith strode across the room, determination
in her every step. She waved a finger under Mitch’s nose. “You said
you didn’t remember nearly enough. I remember that quite
clearly.”

He had said that, although Mitch couldn’t
exactly remembered why it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
He looked at his feet and frowned when no ready explanation came to
his lips.

“
You implied,” Lilith
continued coldly, “that you remembered something and that you
wanted to remember more.”

Mitch heaved a sigh. ‘Lilith, I’m sorry. I
made a mistake. I was concerned for Andrea.”

“
So you deceived me.”
Lilith’s eyes flashed. “You pretended that you did remember
something when you didn’t. And you think the fact that you believed
I was a criminal preying on other people makes that all
right!”

“
Lilith, I was just trying
to help…”

But Lilith poked a finger hard into Mitch’s
chest. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. “I don’t need to be
helped. I don’t need to be
fixed
.” Her voice rose slightly
and Mitch realized she was very, very angry.

So, maybe he hadn’t handled this too well.
If only she would give him more time to explain. “But Lilith, I
wasn’t going to give you the list. I don’t care whether you ever
sort all that out.”

She sniffed, clearly unimpressed. “How
gracious of you to accept damaged goods.” She pointed her finger at
him again. “But there’s not a single thing wrong with me, Mitch
Davison, except that I’m different from you. I’m starting to think
that’s an awfully good thing!”

“
Lilith! Can we just talk
about this?”

“
There’s nothing to talk
about. If you really loved me, you’d accept me as I am. You
wouldn’t conclude that I was crazy. You’d believe what I told and
you wouldn’t mislead me.”

“
But Lilith…”

“
Mitch, this hasn’t been
easy.” Lilith drew in a sharp breath and straightened to her full
height. “You’ve fought me and destiny every step of the way here. I
understand that things haven’t always been easy for you, and I’ve
tried to be understanding, but I’m tired of doing all the work.’
She fixed him with a look. “Do you remember being Sebastian or
not?”

Mitch sighed, but held her gaze. “No.”

Lilith’s lips tightened and she turned
away.

“
But I love you. I never
lied about that.”

Lilith looked Mitch right in the eye. “That
doesn’t give you the right to hurt me,” she said softly. “And it
doesn’t give you the right to assume you know best.” Lilith licked
her lips, then words fell quickly. “You’ve got to do some thinking.
You’ve got to make some choices, and you’ve got to come to terms
with the truth – even if it doesn’t meet your expectations.”

And with that, she walked out of his
house.

Mitch blinked. He couldn’t believe she was
just leaving.

He couldn’t believe that no one had thrown
dishes, or had a showy tantrum or made enormous demands. There had
been no ultimatum.

Lilith just asked for his faith, told him
what she wanted from him and walked away, leaving him time to think
about it. She’d been angry, but she hadn’t taken it too far.

He already agreed with her.

The situation was so completely different
from how things had been with Janice that Mitch was momentarily
stunned.

By the time he acknowledged how different
Lilith was, she was gone.

But Mitch couldn’t let this argument end
here. He couldn’t let Lilith walk out of his life. She was right –
he would have called his kids on the carpet for even an almost-lie
like the one he had made.

Mitch had to apologize. He had to fix this.
He told the kids he’d be back in two and raced out the back door.
Mitch leapt through the gate, catching a glimpse of Lilith’s skirts
from her front porch.

“
Lilith! Wait!” Mitch raced
down the path between the two houses, vaulted onto her porch, and
tried the door.

It was already closed and locked.

Mitch rang the bell, but no one answered. It
didn’t take him long to realize that Lilith wasn’t going to answer
anytime soon.

Screwed up again, Davison,
Mitch
congratulated himself. He shoved his hands into his pockets and
glared at the door, not yet ready to take no for an answer.

He might not be a star at relationships, but
he was damn well going to try to give this his best shot before he
gave up trying. There had to be a way to work through all their
various hurts and misconceptions and get back to the place where
they had spent the night.

Mitch wasn’t afraid to work for it.

*

Lilith came home at lightning speed, ripped
open her front door and slammed it shut behind her, still seething.
She heard Mitch behind her but was too disappointed to face him
now.

How could he have misled her?

And how dare he not believe their story? It
was such a stunning breach of faith that Lilith wouldn’t have
believed it possible, if she hadn’t heard the truth from Mitch’s
own lips.

He thought she was traumatized and making up
stories! She wanted to fling her hands toward the sky and scream.
Men
! Lilith was so irked with Mitch that she wouldn’t have
been surprised to find smoke curling out of her ears.

What she did find was an unfamiliar man
lounging in her living room, toying with her tarot cards.

Lilith froze in the hall and stared. She had
locked the door, she knew it. How had he gotten in here? And why
was he sitting so calmly in her living room? The intruder had dark
hair and dark eyes and dressed with a flamboyance that made her
Gift whisper in the back of her mind.

Before Lilith could summon a word, he looked
up and grinned. “Lilith!” Her heart hammered that he knew her name.
“Took you long enough, baby. How about a kiss for an old
friend?”

And he flicked a card from his fingertips to
land on the floor at her feet.

It was The Fool, from Lilith’s old deck.

“
Sebastian,” she whispered,
barely daring to believe. Lilith sank into a chair, so shocked that
she was certain her legs wouldn’t continue to support
her.

“
The very same,” he
confirmed and grinned, clearing enjoying her surprise. “Miss
me?”

Lilith stared at him and fought against the
truth. Her destined lover was the man sitting right in front of
her.

Not the one banging on her door, demanding
admission.

Uh oh.

*

Suddenly Mitch’s confusion made a whole lot
more sense to Lilith. Because Mitch wasn’t her destiny, after all.
Lilith exhaled weakly and tried to wrap her mind around the
concept.