Mitch was immediately beset by two children demanding approval to stay up late and watch for bats. He couldn’t see why not, so he agreed and laughed when the kids cheered. He and Lilith dragged lawn chairs out into the midst of the yard as the sun sank below the line of houses behind. Mitch shut off the kitchen and porch light, and they sat in the twilight, waiting for darkness to fall.
And when it did, the peculiar flying patterns of a trio of bats could be discerned against the night sky. Jason was entranced, Jen nodded off to sleep in Mitch’s lap. The bats circled, flying in a lop-sided figure eight over and over again, as they gobbled up mosquitoes. They called to each other, the sound barely discernible by human ears, and one that would be missed by anyone not paying close attention.
Mitch hadn’t known they could still be found in the city. Jason eventually ran out of questions and watched in wide-eyed silence. The rhythm of the bats’ flight was soothing, the occasional flutter of their wings like a whisper in the night. Mitch leaned back in his chair to watch them fly the same course over and over again, letting the evening’s quiet flood through him.
He hadn’t felt so relaxed in years. It was wonderful, just sitting in darkness and silence, watching the stars come out, holding his sleeping daughter. Yet at the same time, there was a tingle of electricity running beneath Mitch’s skin, a tingle fed by the occasional waft of jasmine, the glint of an alluring woman’s smile, the knowledge that Lilith was just an arm’s length away.
Tranquility, that’s what Lilith shared with him.
Not to mention, cats and toads and bats.
But then, she had said she was a witch, hadn’t she? Mitch grinned to himself, glancing over at Jason and noting that he had also succumbed to the sandman. He was dozing against Lilith’s shoulder, and she looked perfectly content to have him there.
Her gaze met Mitch’s and she smiled, a warm welcoming smile that made his toes curl. It was a smile that made Mitch think of all that old-fashioned stuff, all those things that he’d been sure would never come his way. Cooking together and sitting on the porch, laughing and making love for a lifetime.
All that good stuff.
He impulsively reached over and caught Lilith’s hand in his. When Mitch squeezed her fingers, she squeezed his back, then they both watched the bats fly until the moon rose.
The bats retired or sought their prey elsewhere - Mitch was sure they couldn’t have eaten every mosquito in his yard - and he stretched, shifting Jen’s weight.
“I should put these two to bed,” he said softly, then got to his feet. He glanced down at Jen’s dirty knees and grinned. “I guess there’s more than one way to get out of taking a bath.”
Lilith chuckled and sat forward a bit. “I think I’m trapped,” she whispered just as Jason stirred.
“Come on, sport,” Mitch cajoled and tousled his son’s hair. “Time for bed.”
But Jason snuggled against Lilith.
Mitch met her gaze, unable to stop his smile. “You are trapped.”
“We could switch.”
“You don’t think Jen’s too heavy for you?”
Lilith shook her head. “I can manage.”
They did switch, Lilith following Mitch into the house and up the stairs, both of them carrying sleepy little burdens. Having Lilith’s presence behind him felt perfectly natural. It made Mitch feel less alone, less responsible for every little thing, less burdened by the weight of the world. They were only putting his children to bed, but he had a tantalizing taste of being on a team.
He watched Lilith carry Jen and noted the protectiveness in the way she held his daughter, a gentleness in her fingertips and her voice when she laid the little girl on her bed. Mitch was humbled that Lilith could show such easy affection for children that were not even her own, children she didn’t even know that well.
He could never imagine Janice this way.
Because Janice had never been as giving as Lilith.
The words resonated with truth. Mitch frowned in thought as he tucked the children into their pajamas and then into their beds. He had always been sure that the fault in his failed marriage was his, that he had brought something out in Janice that otherwise would never have found voice, that his failure to love her enough or understand her intuitively or something he had done had been at the root of her lack of interest in their children.
Now, he wondered whether Lilith was right in her insistence that it wasn’t all his fault.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad at relationships, after all.
Mitch met Lilith at the top of the stairs, and was snared by the flash of her smile. He paused beside her and stared into the shadows of her eyes.
He thought about kissing her and her smile quirked.
When Lilith reached out and touched his jaw, it was as though she read Mitch’s thoughts. Or that their thoughts were as one. Either way, the tingle beneath his skin became a roar and he edged closer, unwilling to leave any distance between them.
“You were right, you know,” Lilith whispered, her voice low and musical. She stepped closer, her breasts almost touching his chest, and the heat in the hall escalated.
Mitch let his hands fall on Lilith’s waist, his fingers gripped her slenderness. He drew her minutely closer. “About what?”
“Something did change,” Lilith admitted. Her eyes shone. “I’m not immortal and it’s all because you’re here.”
Relief surged through Mitch, mingled with pride that Lilith was making such good progress in coming to terms with whatever demons haunted her. She had only to stretch toward him before he bent and met her halfway, his mouth closing over hers resolutely. He didn’t care if she knew how much he wanted her, he didn’t care if she guessed how he was feeling. This time he backed Lilith into the wall, loving how she responded to his touch.
There was no hesitation in her ardor, no strings on her passion, no negotiations necessary to win a single kiss. Mitch realized suddenly how Janice had cheated him with her constant complaints, her raw dislike of any show of affection.
He wondered suddenly whether she had even loved him.
Lilith insisted she did love him and gave of herself openly. Lilith never turned away, Lilith never snarled, Lilith gave and gave and gave.
And Mitch liked that very much. He knew that whatever this was between himself and Lilith was just the beginning of something very good, something that would improve with time, like fine wine.
But no sooner had Mitch lifted his lips from hers, than Lilith hauled the rug out from beneath him and challenged his conclusions once again.
He ought to be getting used to that by now, but he wasn’t.
Not by a long shot.
*
“Maybe you were sorceror in one of your past lives,” Lilith mused as she stared up at Mitch. Her heart was hammering in the wake of his kiss, but she was fighting her urge to drag him off and ravish him.
She had agreed to his terms, after all.
“What do you mean?”
Lilith slid her hands up the strength of Mitch’s neck and let her fingers wind their way into his hair. “We certainly do make powerful magick between us,” she teased. “It’s worth sacrificing immortality, there’s no doubt about it.”
Mitch froze. “Sacrificing? I thought you had realized you were mortal?”
“I am now.”
His gaze flickered, but otherwise Mitch was as still as a statue. His voice was very low. “Maybe you could run through that a little more slowly for me.”
“I was immortal, for five hundred and” - Lilith did some quick math – “sixty-seven years, I guess it would be.”
She smiled because Mitch looked suddenly so very grim. “But that’s all right, because once my love was back by my side” - she stretched and gave him a quick kiss so he wouldn’t have any confusion over who that individual was – “the elixir apparently wore off.”
“Just like that?” Mitch asked dryly. He pulled back slightly and gave her a skeptical glance.
; “Magick!” Lilith declared and chuckled under her breath. “Honestly, I couldn’t have planned it better myself. The great forces have given us the greatest gift of all.”
Mitch looked somewhat less than convinced. But then, this was news to him while Lilith had been thinking it through for a few hours. He’d see it her way in a minute, Lilith knew. She linked her arm companionably through his and urged him toward the stairs.
“Just think about it, Mitch. It wouldn’t be right if you aged and I didn’t, and it would be very strange if neither of us aged at all. I can’t even imagine how confusing it would be for Jen and Jason. And then, I would ultimately be left alone again, which could hardly be part of any divine plan.” Lilith shook her head. “No, this is absolutely perfect.”
Mitch looked a bit dazed.
Maybe he was tired. Yes, he must be exhausted after pulling that story together.
Maybe Lilith should make the sangria.
They were halfway down the stairs when a sudden thought came to Lilith. “Oh!” She spun and locked her arms around Mitch’s neck, treating him to a big kiss. “Mitch, maybe I could even have children now!”
Exasperation flitted across Mitch’s brow. “Lilith, those kinds of things don’t just change because people meet each other…”
“Don’t be silly, of course they do. I couldn’t have children because my cycles stopped when I drank the elixir. But if I’m mortal, they’ll start again!” Lilith nearly danced down the remaining steps, knowing she had never been so enthused about receiving her monthly visitor in the past. “And all those hormones will get back to work! Ha! We will be able to have kids!”
She spun at the bottom of the stairs triumphantly and looked back at Mitch.
He remained on the third stair. He had his arms folded across his chest and looked markedly less delighted than Lilith about this news.
Oh no. Lilith sobered. “You don’t want more kids?” she asked quietly, hearing the disappointment in her tone. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, and you do have two little darlings already…”
“Lilith!” Mitch swore with soft eloquence, shoved a hand through his hair and marched down the stairs. He caught Lilith’s elbow in his hand and led determinedly to the back porch. “We have to talk,” he said grimly.
Lilith bit her lip, unable to contain her disappointment. “I suppose that if you feel strongly about it…”
“Lilith!” Mitch spun her to face him when they reached the back porch and caught her shoulders in her hands. “I love kids. I could have twenty of them, as long as I could figure out how to feed them and send them to university. That’s not the problem.”
Hope fluttered in Lilith’s heart. She felt her smile dawn anew. “Really?”
“Really.” Mitch visibly gritted his teeth, then looked her dead in the eye. “But we are getting a bit ahead of things here.”
Lilith folded her arms across her chest and stared up at him, not liking the sound of this at all. “I can’t imagine what you mean. You’re my true love, I’m yours - if nothing else, the loss of my immortality proves that we’re destined to be together…”
Before she could continue, Mitch interrupted.
“Stop! Let’s just linger there for just a moment. Think for a minute about what you call the loss of your immortality.”
Mitch was so serious that Lilith did what he said. “Are you worried that I’ve not really become mortal?” she asked carefully.
Mitch’s lips thinned. “Hardly that.” He paused and looked into her eyes, his hesitation in choosing his words making Lilith brace herself for whatever he was going to say. “Lilith, were you ever really immortal at all?”
Lilith chuckled, she couldn’t help it. He was so solemn - and his question was so ludicrous. “Of course I was! How else would I survive the better part of six centuries?” She shook her head at him. “People don’t live that long, Mitch.”
If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he ground his teeth. “But Lilith, how could it just change? How could it just go away?” Mitch flung out his hands.” How could this elixir keep you from aging for so long, then just stop working? How could it be cognizant of changes in your life? There’s not a bit of it that makes sense.”
Lilith smiled easily. “Magick makes perfect sense on its own terms.”
“Magic?” Mitch flung out his hands and paced the width of the porch. He rubbed his brow, muttered something about ‘making progress’, then came back to face her again. His lips were drawn to a thin line, his eyes were devoid of a twinkle. “Lilith, it’s time we got to the bottom of this. You have to know that there is no such thing as magic, that potions don’t work, that no one can see the future.”
Lilith blinked. Then she laughed. “I don’t know any such thing!”
But Mitch didn’t smile. He watched her and a sadness dawned in his eyes.
Lilith sobered as cold dread slithered down her spine. She took a step closer to not miss any change in Mitch’s eyes. “You’re not serious?”
Mitch held her gaze unflinchingly. “That was my question.”
Lilith gasped, the conviction in his golden eyes doing nothing to reassure her. Thank goodness she was still there in the shadows of his eyes!
But was her image getting smaller? Fainter?
How could Mitch not believe in magick? Lilith had to persuade him! “Of course there’s such a thing as magick! The world is full of magick, everywhere you turn you catch another glimpse of the great forces at work.”
Mitch looked decidedly unconvinced.
“What about Kurt?” Lilith demanded. “What about Those Men? What about Cooley?”
Mitch just shook his head. “There has to be another explanation. Potions and spells don’t work, Lilith. There are no love spells, no antidote, no great forces of magic at work. It’s just the world, just life. It’s just the way things are.”
Lilith knew she looked skeptical now. “You aren’t going to try and tell me that life isn’t magickal, in and of itself?”
“Science -“
“Phooey on science!” Lilith interrupted sharply. “There isn’t a scientist alive who can satisfactorily explain why those bean plants came out of those seeds.” She pointed to the plants that had unfurled from the beans she and Jason had planted just a week before. “Or what makes a baby’s heart start to pound, or why a child is formed of sperm and ovum some of the time and not others. Can you explain Jen and Jason with mathematics and theorems?”
“I can’t,” Mitch admitted uneasily. “But I’m sure that someone could.”
“No one can,” Lilith replied with heartfelt urgency. “Because there’s something there beyond the cell division and the genetics, something that no one can put their finger right on. The whole reason why is beyond our comprehension. The impetus in the first place is unexplained, never mind the caprice of the same factors not always leading to the same result. It’s magick, Mitch, it’s magick as old as all the earth, which has a special kind of magick all its own.”
“Lilith, the earth is just a great big rock…”
“No. The earth is magick, right to its bones. There’s magick in the air and in the ground and in the sea. No one can tell me why my roses grow bigger and redder when I talk to them, or how all of a plant - or even its blueprint - fits into a single tiny seed. No one can fully explain how the birds know when to go south or how they find their way to somewhere they’ve never been, or how my perennials know when it’s really spring and not just a false start. It’s magick, a magick that the creatures all around us understand and that we willingly deny.”
Lilith waited, she hoped desperately that her argument was going to make some impact. She just couldn’t imagine living with and loving a man who didn’t believe in magick.
Especially after all they’d been through together. How could Mitch deny what had finally brought them back together again?
But, much to Lilith’s disappointment, deny it he did.
“Well, I don’t believe in magic,
” Mitch declared with the definitive air of a man who has closed an argument, for once and for all.
Lilith, however, was not prepared to let this go so easily.
It was too important.
“Really?” She leaned closer and poked a finger into his chest. “Then how did I know you, and how did you know me? How did you end up living right beside me?”
“Lilith, we’ve been through all that…”
“Clearly not, if you don’t understand. This is magick, Mitch. There is something special between us that no scientific theory can explain.” She let her voice drop low and knew by the quick flick of Mitch’s gaze that she had his attention. “Ask your scientists why my heart skips a beat when I see you.”
Mitch glanced up suddenly at this admission and Lilith smiled right into his eyes. “It’s not some textbook biological mating urge, because it doesn’t happen when I see anyone else. It doesn’t happen whenever a handsome healthy man crosses my path. Just you. It’s magick, a magick that only applies to you and I.”
Lilith framed Mitch’s face in her hands and felt his conviction waver ever so slightly. He caught his breath as she moved closer. The velvet of the night seemed to slip through the windows of the unlit kitchen and press in on them from all sides. Lilith only knew she had to persuade him of this one simple truth.
“Do you feel that tingle?” Lilith whispered and when Mitch looked into her eyes, she knew he had. There was a fire in his gaze fueled by the very magick they made between them.
Lilith lifted Mitch’s fingertips to the flutter of her pulse at her throat. “What about that?” She brushed her own fingertips across Mitch’s chest and pressed her fingers against the thump of his own increased heartbeat.
“That’s not chemistry,” she insisted softly, “it’s magick. Our magick. It’s recognition - despite an incredible difference of time and place, despite the odds, despite even the difference of the skin you’re in. How can you imagine that it’s anything else?”
Mitch stared down at Lilith as though he couldn’t look away. She smiled up at him and eased to her toes, liking how his eyes flashed and his arms slid around her.
Time Travel Romances Boxed Set Page 123
