Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (143 page)

Lilith’s gaze never wavered, the
intelligence he saw there never flickered.

Mitch cleared his throat and came up with
his best reporter voice. “Are you implying that you’re six
hundred
years old?”

“
No, I’m saying it.” Lilith
winked. “Frankly, I don’t think I look a day over
thirty.”

Mitch stared as the words sank in. That was
crazy, plain and simple. Trust him to find a wacko so attractive -
it fit perfectly with every other incident in his romantic
history!

Mitch was out of there.

“
Right!” he called with
false cheer from the safety of his own porch. He waved, then ducked
into his door, feeling decidedly at-odds.

His gorgeous, passionate, clever neighbor
thought she was an immortal. She was completely nuts - and he liked
her.

Oh, Mitch could pick ‘em, that was for
sure.

“
Tell your stepmother to
drop over for a free reading anytime,” Lilith called. “I’d be
delighted!”

“
I’ll just bet,” Mitch
muttered and stormed toward the kitchen without
answering.

He reminded himself that he didn’t like
people - like fortune-tellers - who preyed on others. It wasn’t
right. It wasn’t fair. But even knowing that, his gut response to
Lilith wasn’t readily dismissed.

He
liked
her, strange assertions and
all. He was tempted to believe her.

Which was almost as insane as Lilith
thinking she were six hundred years old. Mitch’s gut instinct was
always right, it had been honed to a fine edge of journalistic
integrity.

But obviously, it had just been fooled.

Mitch felt all jumbled up inside: guilty
over losing his self-control, confused by Lilith’s easy acceptance
of what had happened, frustrated by her crazy claims and itching
with a desire that had been safely in cold storage for years.

Women. He hadn’t missed them at all.

Mitch growled at the chocolate icing
adorning the kitchen. He could hear the kids’ voices upstairs, but
needed a minute to collect himself. Andrea trotted down the stairs,
and trailed him into the kitchen.

Mitch rummaged in the fridge and ignored
her. He needed a beer. He
deserved
a beer.

And he wasn’t going to even consider that
some guy named Sebastian had Lilith waiting for him. Mitch
certainly wasn’t going to wish on any level that he could have been
this Sebastian. Now or ever. It was all a bunch of baloney.

The beer, to his delight, was wonderfully
cold.

“
Did she say a
free
reading?” Andrea demanded with evident excitement. Mitch turned to
find her hands clasped together like a child on Christmas
morning.

“
I don’t want to talk about
it,” Mitch retorted. He shook a heavy finger at Andrea. “And don’t
even
think
about going over there. Don’t you go over there.
Don’t let the kids go over there. Period.”

“
Why not?”

Mitch indicated the window facing Lilith’s
house with his beer bottle. “Because she’s
nuts
.”

And that, to Mitch Davison’s mind, was
that.

He should have known better, of course.

*

Lilith shut her front door and leaned
against it with a frown. It certainly wasn’t very convenient that
Sebastian had forgotten everything about her, no less his pledge to
return.

It was going to make living happily ever
after a little bit more difficult than Lilith had planned.

But they were destined to be together.
Surely everything would work itself out?

Leaving such important matters to the whim
of the Fates wasn’t a very encouraging possibility after what
they’d endured before. But what should she do?

Lilith stepped away from the door and
remembered that her sign was still on. She grimaced, headed for the
switch in the living room, then froze halfway at the sight of
something on the floor.

It was one of her tarot cards. It was on the
floor, face down, the rest of the deck still wrapped in silk on the
table where she had left it.

She couldn’t have dropped it. Lilith was not
careless with her cards. They could taste disrespect and they would
punish anyone who treated them poorly. The cards were vengeful and
mischievous.

Mischievous
. Lilith shivered suddenly
as she stared at the card. It couldn’t have pulled itself from the
deck.

Could it? She frowned and stepped closer,
her eyes widening as she picked up the card.

The High Priestess. A card of intuition, of
trusting your gut, of going with what you know. A card counseling
belief in your own convictions. A card that opened the path between
conscious knowledge and unconscious belief.

Lilith turned the card in her hands
thoughtfully, well aware of her instincts in the matter of
Sebastian. So what if Mitch just didn’t remember his past life? It
would hardly be a first. In fact, some people insisted that
reincarnation routinely wiped away all past life memories.

Lilith remembered an ancient priestess
telling her that the indent between the nose and the upper lip was
the mark of an archangel’s kiss, a kiss that swept memory of all
but this world and this life from a babe’s mind.

And if Mitch didn’t remember everything that
had happened between them, then that would explain why it took him
so long to find her. Lilith should be encouraged that he had
reincarnated and found his way to her door, even if he didn’t
remember exactly why.

And he had admitted that he had bought the
house
right next to her own
months ago.

Lilith smiled, immensely reassured. Some
part of Mitch did remember Sebastian! Something buried in a corner
of his mind had forced him to reincarnate, had compelled him to
come here, had urged him to seek her out when he was the right
chronological age - even though Mitch himself didn’t know it! He
was trusting his own instincts, without knowing he why.

Sako peskero charo dikhel
. Dritta’s
voice echoed in Lilith’s ears unexpectedly. But the words were apt
enough. “Everyone sees only his own dish.” Lilith had been so
focused on Sebastian returning, that she hadn’t considered events
from his perspective.

The High Priestess seemed to shimmer
slightly at Lilith’s conclusion. It was all so perfectly obvious
that Lilith couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. The
world truly did work in wondrous and mysterious ways!

She and Mitch/Sebastian were going to very
happy together, once they worked out a few technical complications.
Lilith kissed the card, silently thanking it for reminding her of
the power of faith, and slid it back into the deck. She wrapped the
silk around the ancient deck and put it on top of the highest shelf
in the room.

Lilith flicked off her neon sign
thoughtfully. The only question now was how to proceed. She had
never imagined that she would have to deal with such issues, but
then, the course of love did not always run true.

How could she prompt Mitch’s memory of the
past?

Should she conjure up a little something, or
give him some time?

D’Artagnan meowed, clearly indignant at the
state of his dish, whether empty or full. Lilith, puzzling over her
choice, followed him to the kitchen.

D’Artagnan bounded to the counter and
flicked his tail at Lilith in evident annoyance. He howled, annoyed
that he was being ignored, and Lilith immediately brushed him off
the counter.

“
We have a deal. You know
better,” she charged.

D’Artagnan bared his teeth, as though to say
“so do you.” He sniffed his dish with disdain, then sat down beside
it, regal and expectant.

Lilith opened a can, her mind working busily
all the while. Because Mitch seemed to be very much a man who put
value in the tangible. And he seemed to find her attractive, even
after all this time.

Lilith smiled. Maybe her personal magick
would do just fine.

*

The Annex is a neighborhood in Toronto
roughly sandwiched between the downtown campus of the University
and the posh urban residences of Forest Hill village, that village
long ago swallowed by the spreading city.

It’s a warren of one way streets and narrow
lots, its houses pressed cheek to jowl. The area hosts an eclectic
mix of artists, actors, flower children, activists and young
professionals. It also boasts the dual distinction of having both
the highest concentration of writers in any neighborhood in Canada
and the highest rate of bicycle theft in the country.

The two statistics are not believed to be
related.

Mitch Davison’s house was fairly typical of
the area. It was about a hundred years old, made of reddish brick
and nestled between two remarkably similar houses. There was a
skinny walkway between his house and Lilith’s, while his house
shared a common wall with the house on its other side.

There was a tiny front yard, long abandoned
to the weeds, a rickety wooden front porch that might have been
original. The lot allowed for a bigger backyard, with a garage in
one corner. The garage was accessed by a common lane that ran
between the lots facing Mitch’s street and those that faced the
street behind.

The house was two stories high, with a high
gingerbread-ornamented gable over the front second floor window.
Similar trim - in an equal state of disrepair - graced the roofline
of the front porch.

There was a living room, dining room and
eat-in kitchen on the main floor, a back door leading from the
kitchen to the backyard. Upstairs were four bedrooms - two quite
small - and a bathroom. The basement had been made into a perfectly
hideous apartment some thirty years before, though Mitch had plans
to gut it and make the kids a playroom.

In his spare time.

Such as it was.

Mitch liked that the house appeared to be
structurally sound, if in dire need of some repairs. He liked that
it was close to the subway. He liked that the kids would have a
yard to play in and he appreciated the friendly atmosphere of the
neighborhood. Although the Annex was funky and urban, there was a
vestige of small town concern between its residents.

And Mitch liked that. He also appreciated
that he could afford the place, no small feat for a single income
family in a city of high-priced real estate.

The realtor said the house had
Potential.

Mitch wasn’t thinking about any of this at
five the next morning, when a wet nose poked his ear in silent
demand. He grimaced and feigned sleep but Cooley wasn’t fooled.

The damn dog could tell when his breathing
changed.

Cooley took off like a shot at the first
sign of life, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor, his weight
thumping down the stairs to the kitchen. Mitch rolled to his back,
managed to open one eye and survey the ceiling.

At least it was light out.

But it was already hot.

And Mitch had aches where he had forgotten
he had muscles. He’d been up half the night, sorting, unpacking and
moving furniture as quietly as he could while the kids slept.
Andrea had retired at midnight, leaving Mitch to his work.

He surveyed the room, less than impressed
with his progress. There were still boxes crowding the room on
every side. A sheet was tacked over the window, Mitch’s sleeping
bag was cast over the mattress still on the floor.

He would not think about families having two
adult players.

It was the moment in the midst of a move
when everyone is exhausted and it seems that the chaos will never
be set into any kind of order. Mitch decided right then and there
that he really hated moving.

Maybe he would die in this house, a good
sixty years downstream, so he’d never have to move again. It was a
cheering thought.

Mitch considered the wobbly line where the
avocado green paint ran out and the chartreuse began. The previous
owner must have shopped in the odd lots section of the paint store.
All those colors mixed wrong that no one wanted. His gaze wandered
to the miscellaneous Slavic blessings inscribed over the door in
red crayon.

Mitch thought somewhat more critically about
Potential.

Cooley howled plaintively from the
kitchen.

“
All right, all right.”
Mitch rolled out of bed and hauled on his shorts.

He peeked in on the kids, making Cooley
wait, his heart contracting to find them sleeping like little
cherubs. Jen had a death grip on Bun, her cherished toy of the
moment, Jason frowned as though concentrating on sleeping very
well.

The door to the guest room was closed but he
knew better than to look in on Andrea before she declared herself
ready to face the world. Mutual respect was based on understanding
the Rules.

Cooley barked, his low woof resonating
through the house. Mitch took the stairs two at a time, not wanting
the dog to wake anyone. As soon as Mitch set foot in the kitchen,
Cooley wagged his tail and nosed the back door with rare
impatience.

“
Really gotta go, eh?”
Mitch unlocked the door and grinned at the dog. “Don’t let the
dandelions get you. They’re pretty big.” He barely opened the
screen door before Cooley shoved it open and took off.

Barking all the way across the yard.

Dammit! It was five o’clock on a Sunday
morning!

“
Cooley! Give it a rest!”
Mitch called
sotto voce
, but the dog was oblivious to his
command.

He muttered a curse and lunged out the back
door, just in time to see a cat’s silvery tail flick amidst the
dew-encrusted sunflowers.

Having everything make sense was little
consolation right now.

“
Cooley! Be quiet!” Mitch
darted barefoot across the yard. He quickly discovered that the
dandelions were mixed with a healthy crop of thistles. Mitch cursed
and picked a thorn out of his toe, hopping closer to the barking
dog.