Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (160 page)

Lilith leaned closer, her fingertips landed
on his arm and Mitch opened his mouth to confess his deception
right that minute.

But Lilith’s intent whisper cut off whatever
he might have said. “Do you remember anything of that evening? Do
you remember the shadows, that clung like velvet to the corners
inside the tent?”

Her hand slid up his arm, her fingertips
danced along the line of his jaw like butterflies. She was so
close, her eyes flashed with a thousand recollections, her perfume
surrounded him.

She was making him forget everything else in
the world except her. Again. Lilith traced the line of his lips
with one fingertip and Mitch didn’t even think he could feel any
other part of his body.

Well, maybe one.

He stared into her dark, dark eyes, he
thought about love antidotes, he thought about love spells, and he
wondered.

“
Do you remember the
flickering gold of the oil lamp, the distant singing of the
kumpania
, the wind whistling through the trees overhead?”
Lilith whispered, her lips a fingers-breadth from his own. Mitch
was transfixed. He couldn’t have moved away to save his life. “I
swore the very starlight shone through the roof of the tent as we
sat together, I thought your flesh glowed with its own
light.”

Mitch stared. Lilith was so persuasive. She
couldn’t be pretending this, no one could act this well. He looked
again into those eyes, but there wasn’t a glimmer of doubt in their
magnificent depths. Lilith was clearly convinced that everything
she told him not only had happened, but that it had happened to
her.

And to him.

In the blink of an eye, Mitch’s entire
universe did a one-eighty. Her conviction was the key to the
solution. Mitch felt as though he’d been hit in the head with a
two-by-four. Lilith
believed
this mumbo jumbo with all her
heart and soul.

Which explained everything.

He’d been bothered since dinner over that
creed she had told Jason she followed. Because harming no one
didn’t mesh very well with running cons as a business. Mitch
couldn’t imagine that a woman who believed cicadas shouldn’t die in
mayonnaise jars could really hurt anything or anyone. Which hadn’t
made a lick of sense until this very minute, because Mitch had
already noticed that Lilith was nothing if not consistent.

But Lilith
could
reconcile her creed
of hurting no one with her profession if she
wasn’t
a con
artist.

It was so simple that Mitch wanted to smack
himself. Lilith wasn’t a crook - she was just a flake who believed
she could see the future and remember the distant past.

It was a bit scary how very reassuring Mitch
found that particular conclusion.

Because he did. The surge of relief that
rolled through him had the irresistible force of a tsunami. He
didn’t have to brace himself against Lilith’s allure. Andrea wasn’t
at any kind of risk. Mitch didn’t have to protect his family from
her, he didn’t have to deny his instinctive attraction to her.

Mitch had been wrong. And for once, he was
very, very glad about that. In the wake of that realization, the
barriers he had hastily erected against Lilith tumbled like
dominos. The most intriguing woman who had ever waltzed through
Mitch’s life might be a little bit muddled up, but she was very
much available.

And Mitch was delighted at the news.

Lilith seemed markedly less delighted. In
fact, she seemed quite concerned. Belatedly, Mitch realized that he
hadn’t been following everything she said.

She looked upset.

Lilith’s voice quivered slightly as she
reached up and framed his face in her hands. Mitch’s heart started
to two-step at the press of her fingertips against his skin. She
was close enough that he could see each thick eyelash, close enough
to kiss.

“
Do you remember shuffling
the cards?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

He couldn’t lie to her.

Especially now. Mitch shook his head.

Disappointment flitted across her brow.
Lilith glanced down, giving Mitch the chance to study her elegant
profile as she dropped her hand and traced the length of his
fingers with her fingertip. Her hair spilled over his arm and Mitch
felt heat spread over his skin from her touch.

“
The cards looked so
fragile in your hands,” she murmured. “I can still see how nimbly
you shuffled them although you said you had never done the like. I
can still see you separating the Fool from the deck like a
conjuror, still hear your laughter, still see you shake your head.”
She swallowed. “It is as though it happened only moments ago, not
hundreds of years ago.”

Lilith looked up at Mitch with wide eyes.
She was very serious. His mouth went dry as he wondered where this
story was going - obviously it was very important to her, whether
it was true or not.

“
And I have never forgotten
what you said.” Lilith paused, then whispered something in a
foreign tongue.

Mitch shook his head in incomprehension.
“What does it mean?”

Lilith held his gaze. “
I came for
love,”
she murmured,
“but had hoped for a different answer
than this.”

Love. That was at the root of all of
this.

Maybe Lilith’s worst crime was convincing
those who came to visit her that they were lovable, that there
was
a lovematch out there somewhere for each and every one
of them. Maybe Lilith’s faith was all they needed to have the
confidence to not only find love but to believe in it
themselves.

As flaws went, that wasn’t a bad one.

Maybe it was time that Mitch believed a
little bit more in love than he had for the last couple of
years.

“
I asked you not to go,”
Lilith confessed in a heated whisper. “You asked why you should
stay. Do you remember my response?”

Mitch shook his head slowly, glad he could
be honest about that.

Lilith licked her lips, she edged closer,
she lifted one hand to his jaw. Mitch couldn’t find it within
himself to move away, to remove her hand, to tell her that he
really wasn’t this Sebastian guy.

“
There was only one answer
I could give,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked to his, Mitch’s heart
skipped a beat in anticipation, then Lilith reached to brush her
lips across his.

It was a tentative and cautious embrace, as
sweet as a young girl’s first offering, as different as the first
kiss Lilith had given Mitch as night and day. Mitch tasted Lilith’s
vulnerability, and knew he couldn’t take advantage of her
dismay.

Obviously, the telling this story was not
easy for her, even if Mitch wasn’t sure why. He tipped Lilith’s
chin with gentle fingers and kissed her lightly, wanting only to
ease her distress. Mitch savored the sangria-tinged taste of her
lips for the barest moment, then lifted his mouth slowly from
hers.

Lilith’s breathing was rapid, her eyes were
luminous. Her lips were slightly reddened from Mitch’s kiss, her
hand rested against his chest. She looked puzzled, despite the
flame in her eyes. “Why did you stop? You didn’t then.”

If nothing else, she was honest about her
desire.

Mitch’s certainty that Lilith wanted him -
again - was all he needed to be ready to repeat their first
meeting, with ease. But Mitch didn’t want to do that.

There was something too precious at
stake.

Mitch caught Lilith’s hand in his and ran
his thumb across her palm as he watched its course. He wondered how
he could explain to her that he wouldn’t surrender his self-control
again.

The task might kill him, but Mitch was not
an impulsive kind of guy. He wasn’t like Kurt, he didn’t love ‘em
and leave ‘em, he deeply believed that lovemaking was an expression
of commitment between two people.

If he and Lilith ever made love again - and
Mitch was starting to think it was a serious possibility - it
wasn’t going to be on impulse. It wasn’t going to be one night
fling or a one time deal, it was going to be for all the right
reasons. It was going to be for good. If Mitch ventured back onto
the field of love, he was going to get it right.

Lilith deserved as much.

He wanted to know her, he wanted to love
her, he wanted to believe as ardently as she did that they were
destined to be together.

It was kind of a weird certainty she had,
and an illogical one, but now that he knew it was harmless, it was
starting to grow on Mitch. He smiled down at her. “Because you
didn’t finish the story. What happened?”

To Mitch’s surprise, Lilith’s eyes clouded
and she bit her lip. He frowned, having expected roses and sunshine
from this point forward.

“
We made love,” Lilith
admitted softly, her voice breaking over the words. “All the night
long.”

She traced a little circle on Mitch’s
T-shirt with her fingertip and he watched her tears inexplicably
well up, even though he couldn’t imagine what had made her so
sad.

“
One of my uncles saw you
leaving my tent in the morning. He demanded the truth and I didn’t
lie.” Lilith swallowed. “He went to the town to demand a bride
price.”

That sounded pretty medieval. “A bride
price?”

Lilith lifted her chin. “You had taken my
virginity. I had given it to you willingly, and I refused to lie
about it. I didn’t care who knew we loved each other. My uncle
declared that you owed compensation to the
kumpania
, whether
you wed me or not.” Lilith inhaled sharply and Mitch was surprised
by the obvious strength of her feelings. “I knew that you would
marry me, because you had pledged to return to my side.”

Mitch had a definite sense that things
hadn’t gone well from this point. Lilith’s tearful defiance was not
a good sign. “And?”

“
You did not come.” Lilith
frowned and pursed her lips. “Not the next night or the next. My
uncle could not find you, all shunned me in the
kumpania
.
They were certain that a
gadjo
had used me for his pleasure
and cast me aside.”

Mitch watched her, more than a little
troubled by the toll her story obviously took from her, yet not
knowing quite what to do about it.

“
Then, suddenly, we were
summoned to a hearing in the town square. All the cards and signs
in the wind declared that the meeting would be one of great
import.” She straightened and squared her shoulders, but her voice
was small. “We went.”

Lilith licked her lips and stared resolutely
at the middle of Mitch’s chest. He felt her tremble. “It had been
three days since we laid together, three days and nights that you
had not kept your pledge. I was so worried, half-afraid something
had happened to you, half-afraid that my uncle was right and that
you did not love me, after all.”

Mitch felt a lump rise in his throat for
this trusting young girl. He was half-afraid himself that she was
right about her Romeo’s motives.

He wondered suddenly whether this story was
a way she dealt with a painful, but much more recent memory. That
would make an awful lot of sense.

Mitch wondered how he could find out for
sure.

“
In the square, they said a
widow had been murdered, that the culprit was found and would be
punished.” Lilith lifted her gaze to meet Mitch’s and he saw pain
shining there.

No doubt about it, Lilith was hurting.

Mitch’s protectiveness surged to the fore
and he instinctively put a hand on her shoulder. She leaned against
him in a way that seemed markedly out of character. Mitch had
already seen how independent and strong Lilith could be.

But this story cut deep. He wished belatedly
that he hadn’t asked her for it. Mitch’s gut told him that it was
only going to get worse. He pulled Lilith into his arms without
another thought.

She was shivering, as though it wasn’t hot
enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk, and she clutched two fistfuls
of his shirt.

“
It was you,” Lilith
whispered unevenly. Mitch blinked, then he realized that she meant
him as Sebastian.

Lilith’s words suddenly gained momentum.
“They said you had been possessed by demons, tainted by laying with
a Gypsy whore, they said you were a criminal. I knew it wasn’t
true, I knew it was a lie, I knew that you would never hurt
another, but they would not listen to me.”

Her voice dropped low and for the first
time, Mitch heard bitterness in her voice. “I was just the Gypsy
whore, after all.” Lilith halted and swallowed awkwardly, her
fingers tapping restlessly on Mitch’s chest. She caught her breath,
she trembled, and the words tumbled out of her.

“
And then, before all of
us, they hung you until you were dead.”

That startled Mitch, no less the way that
Lilith’s tears began to fall in earnest. They fell like scattering
jewels, splashing on his skin in an endless torrent.

This had gone far enough.

Mitch closed his arms tightly around Lilith,
his voice dropped with low urgency. There were psychologists who
specialized in treating emotional trauma, all sorts of experts who
could help Lilith deal with whatever had happened to her and put in
securely in the past.

And Mitch decided right then and there that
he would ensure she got that help.

“
But, Lilith, that can’t
be…” he began, but got no further before she laid a firm finger
across his lips. One look into the intensity of her eyes silenced
him, at least for the moment.

“
You don’t know the rest of
it,” she declared. “You
can’t
. They said it was my fault,
they said they would burn the Gypsy whore who had poisoned one of
their own sons. They chased us from the town with flames, all of
us, and set fire to the woods behind us. We fled with the speed of
the wind and they could not catch us.”