Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (140 page)

She was not
Rom
.

She refused to be
Rom
.

And that was that.

D’Artagnan started cleaning himself – always
fastidious – and even the sight of his little darting tongue made
Lilith fidget.

She had definitely been alone too long.

What was keeping Sebastian?

Lilith picked up her deck of tarot cards,
shuffled and considered the riddle of what to do. She fanned the
cards across the table and plucked one from their midst, her heart
skipping a beat when she turned it over.

The Magician.

A card about making things happen. A card
for the creative and the powerful. A card hinting that it was time
things got done.

By her.

It was a card that demanded immediate
action.

Lilith considered it. Why was she just
waiting for Sebastian? In every other area of her life, she was the
one to take the initiative and make a difference. She had to admit
that it would be a lot more romantic if Sebastian just swept into
her life again on his own.

He had promised, after all.

Was his promise a lie?

No. She wouldn’t think along those lines.
She stood up and went to the mirror. One more time she looked
deeply into her own eyes and one more time, she caught no glimpse
of Sebastian. Obviously, her Gift didn’t extend to herself. Magick
was like that.

But maybe some of the things she had learned
over the centuries could help.

The thought had no sooner crossed her mind
than Lilith was on the way to her kitchen. She checked the calendar
and discovered that both sun and moon were right for a love
spell.

That had to be a sign that she was on the
right track.

Whether her actions provoked a response or
not, it was good just to be doing something. Lilith turned on the
radio and tuned into the oldies station. The first song made Lilith
smile and turn up the volume.

Love Potion Number Nine.

A potion it would be.

Lilith danced as she conjured, a reckless
glee making her feel decidedly younger than her many years. Her
cauldron was on the stove and the strongest love potion of all time
was rapidly being assembled.

If Sebastian was anywhere within the galaxy,
he’d get this message. When he showed up, Lilith had several
hundred years of creative thinking to put to good use.

Lilith felt her desire heat to a fever pitch
with every pinch of this and two petals of that cast into the brew.
Anticipation hummed beneath her skin and every passing second added
to her conviction that this spell would work. The mixture began to
boil and its earthy perfume filled the house.

The yearning was enough to make her knees go
weak.

Lilith changed softly before the simmering
brew.

“
Lover true, come to
me,

Through the air or across the sea.

Once we loved all night with style

Come back NOW…”

Lilith chuckled under her breath as she
thought of the perfect rhyme.

“
I’ll make it worth your
while.”

She ladled the bubbling green brew into her
coffee cup. The last chorus of the song bounced off the kitchen
walls. D’Artagnan lashed his tail as he watched from the doorway,
his eyes bright. The potion smelled vile.

Lilith held her nose. She closed her eyes.
She held her breath.

She took a sip.

*

Andrea sailed in at six, announcing that she
had a massive chocolate cake, of all things. Jen and Jason were
delighted. Mitch was not.

Junk food was an old issue between Andrea
and Mitch.

“
You have heard of the four
food groups, haven’t you?” he demanded by way of greeting. He felt
as grumpy as he sounded.

Andrea, as usual, was unruffled by his
attitude.

“
Of course! Chocolate,
sugar, fat and caffeine, right?” She threw him a wicked smile as
she strode toward the kitchen, the cake held high. Mitch rolled his
eyes and flicked the door shut with his fingertips before
following. “I thought the kids were a bit young for coffee, but
otherwise I’ve got it covered.”

Jen was already bouncing in
anticipation.

Mitch shoved a hand through his hair and
gave it up. Andrea had a heart of gold, even if she was chronically
late and more than a little disorganized. Mitch’s deceased father’s
second wife was the only family Mitch had left, other than his own
children. Despite their ongoing differences of opinion and style,
Mitch liked Andrea.

Maybe because of those differences of
opinion and style.

Andrea was nearing sixty, her short hair
uniformly silver, her blue eyes invariably twinkling. Andrea could
afford to indulge herself, after outliving three comparatively
successful men, and indulge herself she did. Without apology. She
dressed her short and slightly plump figure both expensively and
exquisitely. She took lavish trips, often on impulse. She was
beyond generous to her friends.

And that generosity extended to Mitch’s
kids. Never having had children of her won, Andrea adored Jen and
Jason. The kids couldn’t have had a more indulgent grandmother.

Jen was still clapping her hands with
delight about the cake, while Jason surveyed it solemnly. Both
licked their lips while Andrea kissed them hello. Mitch noticed
that the cake’s icing was starting to melt.

To her credit, Jen was much happier since
Mitch had taken an hour to whack down a circle of grass and inflate
her pink wading pool. And the break he’d had to take to watch both
kids in the water hadn’t been that hard to bear either.

Never mind the cold beer he’d treated
himself to.

Of course, then it had been back to the
grind of moving. This day seemed as if it would never end. He
returned to the box he had been unpacking and wondered how he had
managed to accumulate so much apparently useless kitchen junk.

Andrea considered the cake. “I could get
mocha fudge next time, if you’d rather.”

Mitch gave his stepmother the Eye. Unlike
most people, she didn’t flinch. In fact, she smiled at him.
“They’ll be up half the night with the sugar buzz, which is that
last thing I need right now.”

“
Your problem is that you
want everything nice and neat,” Andrea informed him with a shake of
her finger. “One of these days, Mitch, you’re just going to have to
admit that the world isn’t always going to play by your
rules.”

“
And this was definitely in
my plan,” Mitch grumbled. Raising his kids alone was a far cry from
the ‘until death us do part’ that he’d always
envisioned.

Andrea took a deep breath, immediately
catching his meaning, “Mitch, the only two decent things that woman
ever did for you are sitting right – “

“
Hey!” Mitch straightened
and glared.

Andrea fell silent, although it was clear
she had plenty more to say.

Mitch glanced pointedly at the kids,
noticing that Jen was stretching one finger toward the icing. “We
agreed not to talk about that,” he said.

Andrea sighed, grimaced, then served up
massive portions of cake. The kids virtually dove in and soon were
wearing more icing than Mitch thought they had eaten. Cooley
circled, inhaling crumbs, his nose on full throttle.

Mitch watched his kids for a long moment and
decided they hadn’t understood Andrea’s comment. Fortunately, they
were still too young to pay a lot of attention to adult
innuendo.

That would change.

Mitch was dreading the day he wouldn’t be
able to protect them from everything nasty in the world, or make
everything come right with a hug and a Band-Aid.

“
You can’t ignore the truth
forever,” Andrea said, taking a bite of cake.

“
I can sure as hell try,”
Mitch growled. He dug determinedly for the coffeemaker. “And where
does it say that your interpretation of events is the
truth?”

Andrea rolled her eyes. “Let’s just agree to
disagree on the subject of Janice, shall we?” Mitch said nothing –
he thought they’d already agreed to that. She moved a box to the
floor and perched on a kitchen chair. “I like this place,” she
said, then ran a finger across the counter and grimaced. “Although
it could use a good cleaning.”

“
There’s a sponge in the
sink and cleanser in that box,” Mitch said.

Andrea laughed. ‘I don’t do windows.”

“
Nana makes cake,” Jen
confided around a mouthful of chocolate.

“
Nana buys cake,” Jason
corrected.

Andrea leaned forward, eyes shining and
Mitch sensed trouble. “Have you met your neighbors?” she asked, to
his surprise.

Mitch grinned and gestured to the chaos
around himself. “You missed the big social tea this afternoon. I
was up all night making watercress sandwiches. Cutting off those
crusts was really a pain.”

Andrea playfully threw a wad of packing
paper at him. “I never know when to believe you,” she complained,
then pointed to the house with the cat and the garden. “You have a
fortune teller for a neighbor.”

“
Go on. Here I thought this
was a good neighborhood.”

“
It’s quirky, dear. She has
the most darling little neon sign out front.”

“
Eenie meenie jelly
beanie, the spirits are about to speak.”
Mitch wiggled his
eyebrows and the kids giggled, recognizing the line from the
classic cartoons they all watched together.

“
But are they friendly?”
Jason asked.

“
Just listen!” the kids
crowed together.

Andrea rolled her eyes and shook her
head.

Jen took a chocolate hit on her chest and
pulled up her bathing suit to lick it off. Cooley sniffed with
disappointment, and she dropped her spoon for him. She went after
the rest of her cake with both hands.

Mitch didn’t have it in him to argue with
her. Too bad they didn’t’ make a spin cycle just for kids.

“
Lilith’s
Lovematches
is what it says,” Andrea said. “Isn’t that lovely?
So romantic!”

“
Visa and Mastercard
accepted,’ Mitch said. The coffeemaker wasn’t in the box he’d just
emptied so he opened another. He was going to need it in the
morning. Might as well find it now and make life easier.

“
Don’t be silly,” Andrea
chided. “I’m sure it’s not really like that.”

Mitch didn’t bother to hide his skepticism.
“You mean she does it for free?”

“
Of course not!”

Mitch shook his head and dug beneath
spatulas.

“
Do you think she’d do a
reading for me?” Andrea asked.

“
Andrea!” Mitch spun to
face his stepmother, wishing yet again that she wasn’t so trusting.
“How many times have I told you that all of that stuff is
garbage?”

“
It’s not.”

“
It
is
. These people
are all charlatans looking to make a quick buck.”

“
You don’t even know
her.”

“
I don’t have
to.”

“
And where’s that open mind
of yours?”

“
These operations are a
cover for opportunism, if not more. I don’t even know how many
frauds have been uncovered.” Mitch shook a pair of tongs at his
stepmother. “You should be more careful about going to these
places, let alone about giving them your credit card
numbers.”

Andrea folded her arms across her chest, the
glint in her eye revealing that she was digging in her heels.
“Nonsense. There’s bad in every kind, but lots of these people have
a genuine gift. You should go and meet this woman, just to prove
yourself wrong.”

“
Because I have nothing
else to do?”

“
Because she’s your
neighbor.”

“
Cooley’s going to eat her
cat any day now, so even a remote acquaintance is doomed to
failure.”

Andrea laughed. ‘You’re just afraid you
could be wrong.”

Mitch’s head snapped up. “I am not!”

Andrea smiled at him.

No. She smirked, a dare in her eyes.

“
Daddy’s not afraid of
nothing,” Jen declared. She tapped her chocolate-smeared fingers on
Andrea’s wrist with a confidential air she’d obviously copied from
that woman. “Nana, we went swimming.”

“
Did you, dear?” Andrea’s
gaze never wavered from Mitch’s. “I’ll bet you’ve never even talked
to a psychic.”

“
There’s a yawning hole in
my life. You probably haven’t ever talked to a real one either.”
Mitch spied his prey at the bottom of the box, beneath a collection
of faded Tupperware. “Ha!” He set the coffeemaker on the counter
triumphantly.

Could he possibly be so organized as to have
packed the filters in the same box?

“
Some investigative
reporter,” Andrea scoffed. “I thought journalists were supposed to
base their conclusions on
facts
.”

That statement caught Mitch’s attention as
surely as it was meant to do. There was nothing he held more sacred
than his journalistic integrity.

Except maybe his natural ability to hone in
on the truth. Mitch was a damn good reporter and he knew it.

But Andrea had found a telling niche in his
armor. He
knew
that all this paranormal stuff was bunk, but
he’d never actually proved it.

That was not a welcome realization.

“
Are you insinuating that
I’m making a biased judgment?” he asked.

“
No.” Andrea smiled. “I’m
saying you are.” She held his gaze. “Afraid to find out you’re
wrong, Mr. Hotshot Reporter?”

“
I’m not wrong,” Mitch
said. His low tone should have warned Andrea that she was on
dangerous ground.