Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (165 page)

And then, Mitch would do his damnedest to
convince Lilith to go to one of the psychologists he had found.
He’d help her in any way he could - but first he had to persuade
her to listen to his advice.

And that might not be very easy at all.
Mitch guessed that people - especially bright people like Lilith -
would not take well to being told that there was a fault in their
wiring.

The discussion could go either way in
Mitch’s estimation, but he didn’t think he had a lot of choice. It
mattered a great deal to him that Lilith be healed - and that was
more than worth taking a chance.

*

Opportunity presented itself sooner than
expected. Mitch stepped out of the garage to find Cooley looking
guilty and Lilith in the act of entering into his yard with a
spade.

Mitch looked anxiously at the dog when
Lilith smiled and waved. “Lilith, I don’t think you should come in
here like that,” he said by way of greeting. “Not after Cooley
growled at you last weekend.”

“
Oh, he’s just fine now,”
she said with a breezy confidence Mitch had a hard time
matching.

He looked at the wolfhound whose expression
immediately turned hopeful. That tail swept against the ground, but
Mitch frowned.

“
How can you be
sure?”

“
He’s had another potion,”
Lilith confided. Mitch noticed suddenly that Cooley was looking
quite damp. The dog stood up and shook himself, launching a volley
of water.

Or something. The wolfhound smelled even
worse than he usually did when Mitch finally hosed him down. “What
happened?”

Lilith laughed. “Cooley came visiting. But
he got an unexpected bath.” Her explanation didn’t exactly make
everything crystal clear, but Lilith started shoveling dirt back
into a hole that Mitch only just noticed.

Cooley wedged himself into the darkest
shadow beside the garage and put his nose on his paws, his gaze
fixed expectantly on Mitch.

Nothing like a couple of points getting
together to make a line. Mitch suddenly had a very good idea how
that hole had come to be.

He dropped his bag and crossed the yard with
long steps to Lilith’s side. “Let me do that,” he insisted, taking
the spade from her. “And you can explain all this to me again.”

Lilith stepped back slightly - not enough to
stop her perfume from making Mitch’s toes curl - and eyed him
carefully. “You look tired,” she said softly.

Mitch offered her a rueful smile. “Comes
with the territory of putting a story to bed. Some of them wrestle
like cranky three-year olds.”

She smiled, then watched Mitch shovel. “Do
you do this often?”

Mitch glanced up and shrugged. “It happens.”
Lilith’s eyes were shadowed with concern and Mitch’s heart took a
little leap at the sight. It had been a while since anyone worried
about him - that was
his
job - but Mitch liked the feeling
just fine. He smiled, but Lilith didn’t look particularly
reassured.

Mitch knew only that he had to make her
smile again. He adopted his best Foghorn Leghorn accent.
“Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an
emergency.”

To his relief, Lilith chuckled. The sun
shone down on them, the yard was filled with the lazy sounds of a
summer afternoon, and Mitch didn’t want to go anywhere anytime
soon. He realized that there was a tranquility to be found in
Lilith’s presence, a respite from the world and all its woes.

And he liked that just fine.

“
The good news is that I
have more flexibility these days,” Mitch continued easily, enjoying
the fact that he could discuss this with her. “I worked here the
last couple of nights, after the kids were in bed. Thank God for
laptops and modems.” He smiled. “And Andrea, my nearly-resident
lifesaver.”

Lilith’s smile broadened. “You love it.”

Mitch grinned at her. “Yeah, I do,” he
admitted. “As long as it doesn’t happen all the time.”

“
I’ll bet you’re good at
what you do,” she suggested with a confidence in that fact that
made Mitch’s heart take off at a gallop. He stared at her, unable
to remember when anyone other than his father had expressed such
confidence in his abilities.

“
You can judge for yourself
in the morning,” he said, less lightly than he might have hoped.
“First edition, front page. That’s my alibi for not cropping up
over the last few days.”

And Lilith smiled. “I was concerned,” she
confessed.

“
Don’t be. I don’t take as
many chances as I used to.” They smiled at each other for a long,
sultry moment, then Mitch turned back to the task at
hand.

He shoveled the last of the dirt into the
hole, well aware of Lilith watching him. Mitch drove the spade into
the ground, then rested his elbow on the handle to survey
Lilith.

He wasn’t in a huge hurry to leave. “So,
’fess up,” he demanded with a smile. “What did happen here?”

Lilith turned to Cooley, who inched closer
on his belly. The dog certainly didn’t seem to have the same
animosity towards Lilith he had shown before.

Which was pretty weird, come to think of it.
What had gotten into the wolfhound lately?

Fortunately, Lilith was prepared to
explain.

“
After Cooley drank too
much of that love antidote last weekend, he disliked me.” Her voice
was low and very easy to listen to. Mitch felt the last bit of
tension ease out of his shoulders. “It wasn’t his fault that he
growled, the potion was too strong. Apparently, he took it upon
himself to continue the hunt this week.”

Before Mitch could ask, Lilith gestured to
the hole.

“
Fortunately, after some
thinking, I came up with just the right potion.”

Mitch sensed the story was being edited
heavily. He wondered what the dog had done when he reached the
other side today and suspected he would never know.

“
I dumped it on him and it
worked like”- Lilith grinned and snapped her fingers
–“magick.”

Despite his own skepticism, Mitch couldn’t
stop his own smile. “Magic, eh?”

“
Absolutely. Just watch.”
Before Mitch could stop her, Lilith stretched out a hand and
beckoned to the wolfhound. Cooley raced across the yard at this
small encouragement, but there was no reason for Mitch to
intervene.

The dog licked Lilith’s fingers and wagged
his tail so hard that he could hardly keep his balance.

Mitch tried to keep his mouth from falling
open.

She couldn’t be right. There was no such
thing as magic, nothing remotely logical about potions. They were
placebos, at best, the belief that they worked being responsible
for any results.

Which left the question of how Lilith could
convince a dog that a potion worked.

Mitch couldn’t reason that through, but knew
it was only because he was tired. It was sleight of hand of some
kind, Lilith’s belief in magic just a necessity to protect her
cover story.

“
Aren’t you glad?” Lilith
asked.

“
Oh, yeah.” Mitch reached
down and scratched the dog’s ears. “Good to have you back to
normal, ol’ boy.” Cooley nuzzled Mitch’s knee and thumped his tail
against Mitch’s legs, his usual self in every way.

What was more important was how Mitch was
going to raise the subject he really wanted to talk about.

“
You seem distracted,”
Lilith commented when Mitch didn’t say anything else. “Would you
like to talk about it?”

It was the best opening he could have had.
Mitch glanced to his watch, seeing that he didn’t have long to get
to the daycare. He’d never get through this in five minutes!

“
Well, it’s a long story,”
he began, wondering whether they could meet after he got
back.

But Lilith smiled outright. “And who has
more time on their hands than an immortal, hmm?”

Mitch looked up in surprise. It was as
though she had read his thoughts, but then it was hardly the first
time he’d had that feeling with Lilith. Talk about cutting to the
chase - Mitch decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“
You’ve got to admit that’s
a pretty uncommon claim,” he said carefully.

Lilith nodded. “True. The secret of immortal
life
is
carefully guarded. Do you know what would happen if
the elixir fell into the wrong hands?”

Mitch declined to pursue that line of wild
speculation. “So, how did you find it?”

Lilith shook her head with a smile. “Not
found
. I earned the right to a sip, after seven years in the
tutelage of a company of sorcerers.”

“
This would be after you
left the Gypsies?”

“
Yes, I traveled west, as
Dritta had counseled me.” Lilith frowned, apparently in
recollection. “She had heard of these people and told me to seek
them, that my Gift would help me find them.”

“
Your gift of finding
people’s true loves?”

“
No, no, not that. That
came later. My Gift is the ability to see the future.”

Mitch watched Cooley as he scratched the
dog’s ears, not wanting any hint of his rampant skepticism to throw
this discussion off track.

Wherever the hell it was going.

The trick was to just keep asking
questions.

“
Well, how did it change?”
he asked as mildly as he could.

“
When I sipped the elixir,
that changed my Gift. Maybe it honed it. I don’t know, but from
then on, it was focused and I could see destined loves right in
people’s eyes.” Lilith shrugged and smiled. “Maybe it was because I
had love in my mind when I drank.”

“
Right.” Mitch couldn’t
hold her trusting gaze. “So, being able to see the future helped
you find these sorcerers?”

Lilith’s smile flashed unexpectedly. “At the
time I thought it did, but maybe it was chance. Or maybe they found
me.”

Mitch couldn’t help interjecting. “Maybe it
was destiny?”

Lilith laughed merrily. “Maybe! I only know
that I practically stumbled over them after I’d been alone for a
year or so. They took me in, despite what they called the rawness
of my skills, and began my apprenticeship.”

She heaved a sigh of satisfaction and
frowned slightly as she sobered. Her voice turned thoughtful. “It
was the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done.”

Mitch refused to think about military
enlistment advertising campaigns. “How’s that?”

“
It was
hard
!”
Lilith stared blindly across the yard, a sure sign that she was
thinking of something sensitive. Mitch dared to hope he was making
progress. “There were times when I didn’t think I’d survive,” she
admitted quietly.

Mitch’s heart tightened. She had been
through a lot, that much was for certain. And he was going to put
everything to rights, if it was the last damn thing he did.

Lilith lifted her hand to halt Mitch’s
question before it came. “But don’t ask me for details, I was sworn
to secrecy and can’t tell anything of what I witnessed among them
or even of what I did.”

A pledge of confidence was a pretty
convenient little trick, Mitch had to admit. No doubt it veiled
some pretty painful memories - he’d leave uncovering that to the
pros. “But you were there seven years?”

“
Graduated with honors,”
Lilith confirmed with a small smile.

And she should be proud of herself. Even if
she had worked up a complicated story to protect herself, Lilith
had survived - and in Mitch’s view that
was
worthy of
honors.

But it was high time the mood lightened
around here. “
Magus cum laude?”
Mitch teased, wanting to see
that smile widen.

But Lilith sobered. “Mitch, it was a very
solemn event. Many adepts don’t even survive the ceremony. The
graduation and opening of the seventh seal is the final test. Only
those who pass win a chance to sip the elixir of immortality.”

Okay, she had headed to weird again. Mitch
frowned and tried to think of a diplomatic way to make his
point.

He couldn’t, so he just laid it out. He
managed to keep his tone thoughtful. “You would think that, over
the centuries, there would end up being an awful lot of immortals
in the world.”

Lilith glanced up quickly. “And you’re
saying there aren’t?”

“
You’re the first I’ve
met.”

She smiled. “You obviously travel in the
wrong circles.”

“
Lilith!” This really
wasn’t working out as Mitch had intended. Lilith was sticking to
her story like contact cement – and he was running out of time.
“I’m serious.”

“
So am I,” she said easily.
“But the fact is that the vast majority of those who win the right
to a sip
decline
the opportunity.”

That unexpected comment gave Mitch pause. He
eyed Lilith and his curiosity got the better of him. “Why would
they do that?”

Lilith’s expression turned sad. “Because the
wisdom they have already gained has shown them that immortality can
be a very lonely business.”

“
But you
sipped?”

Her glance was bright. “I had no choice. I
had only sought them out to win the chance for this sip. I
had
to have immortality – there was no other ay I could have
waited for you.”

Mitch frowned in concentration as he tried
to find a question that would bring the truth to light, the truth
he knew was hiding behind this fable. He not only had to find a
hole in Lilith’s logic, but show it to her to make her reconsider.
“But if I was going to be reincarnating, why couldn’t you do the
same?’

Lilith shook her head. “In retrospect, its’
clear that I could have. At the time, I thought we were just
slightly out of synchronization. I didn’t imagine it would take so
very long. And by the time I realized the truth, I had already
taken that sip. It was too late.”