He whispered her name, then bent and kissed her with an ardor that made Lilith’s heart sing. He might not be persuaded completely, but she was definitely making progress.
*
When Mitch lifted his head tantalizingly long moments later, his pulse was thundering in his ears. Lilith caught her breath and smiled just for him. “Magick,” she whispered with delight, then ran a fingertip across his lips.
Her sure touch made him shiver, but Mitch stubbornly attributed that to simple physiology. All the same, it was clear he wasn’t going to make much headway against Lilith’s convictions, at least not tonight.
Maybe this was just another step in working towards an acceptance of what had really happened to her in the past. Mitch took a deep breath, looked into Lilith’s glowing eyes, and decided it was worth letting the lady chart her own course. He supposed that someone who made a business of telling fortunes would need to have at least a cursory faith in magic.
Mitch conceded that he had finally met someone who not only refused to follow his rules, but did so enchantingly that he was more than happy to let her do so.
That made Mitch smile.
In fact, predictability was starting to lose its allure in this woman’s presence. It was time to go with the flow a bit. Mitch took a deep breath and deliberately changed the subject.
“So, what have you been up to this week?” he asked mildly. He caught Lilith’s hand in his and led her to sit on the top step of the porch. Her shoulder bumped against his in a way that made him think of that kiss they had just shared and consider the merits of sharing another. “Make any more lovematches?”
Lilith shrugged and looked across the yard. “Oh, nothing particularly worthy of note,” she said, but there was an undercurrent to her tone.
Mitch really liked that Lilith was as lousy of a liar as he was.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” he suggested.
Lilith smiled and shook her head. “It’s not important.”
But Mitch knew it was. He reached out and touched her chin, turning her to face him. In the light falling from the kitchen, he saw the shadow that had set up camp in Lilith’s eyes.
Something was bothering her. Mitch had a sudden fear that his earlier comments hadn’t been so readily absorbed as he had hoped. Dread rose in his chest and threatened to choke him. Had he pushed Lilith too far, too fast?
His voice sharpened. “What’s wrong?”
Lilith started to shrug, but Mitch wanted to know the worst of whatever he had done.
“Tell me.” He smiled encouragement and winked for her. “You can trust me, can’t you?”
To Mitch’s relief, Lilith smiled in turn. She even leaned her head against his shoulder. Mitch slipped his arm around her waist, liking the warm press of her curves against his side.
“A young man came to see me on Monday,” Lilith admitted quietly. “He was Rom.”
Mitch glanced down at her. “Gypsy?”
Lilith nodded but didn’t continue. Mitch’s imagination conjured up all sorts of possibilities as to why this would trouble Lilith, very few of which he liked.
“Did he bother you?”
She half-laughed. “Yes, but not in the way you mean.” Lilith straightened and tossed back her hair, flicking a hesitant glance upward to Mitch. “He wanted me to visit his grandmother.”
Mitch didn’t understand the connection. “Why?”
“She won’t speak English any more. She’s in the hospital.” Lilith frowned and Mitch knew she hadn’t been unaffected by the young man’s visit. “I think she’s dying,” she added quietly.
“What did he expect you to do?” Mitch wondered whether the visitor had expected some kind of mumbo jumbo healing ceremony with Lilith at the center of it all.
And Lilith taking the blame when magic didn’t deliver the cure.
Well, Mitch wasn’t going to let that happen. His protectiveness was just gearing up when Lilith’s next words killed the engine.
“He wanted me to talk to her,” she admitted softly. “In Rom. Translate, I guess.”
That sounded pretty harmless. In fact, Mitch couldn’t immediately discern what the trouble was. “What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“You didn’t want to get involved?”
“No.” Lilith’s lips set. “I am not Rom anymore.” Her fingers were tightly knotted together, a sure sign that this wasn’t an easy choice for her to make.
Mitch sensed that there was something important behind this assertion. Could Lilith be discarding select parts of her “cover story”? He reached out and ran one fingertip over her knuckles, wanting to help but not push. “Do you speak Rom?”
Lilith’s answer didn’t come immediately.
Mitch simply waited.
“I used to,” she finally said.
“Then, what’s the harm in talking to her?”
Lilith’s gaze swiveled and locked with his. “I am still mahrime. She won’t talk to me.”
Mitch had forgotten that part of the story. “Did you tell him that?”
“No. He wouldn’t have understood.”
Mitch studied Lilith’s profile silently for a long moment. He knew the sound of fear when he heard it - and he also recognized something that might help Lilith deal with her past all by herself. It was so tantalizingly close - she could reach for this solution and Mitch would be right behind her.
“I have to admit,” he said quietly, “that doesn’t sound like you.”
That got Lilith’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“Do whatsoever you will but harm none,” Mitch quoted quietly. “Don’t you think your denial is hurting this woman? And what about her grandson?”
Lilith’s eyes filled with sudden tears, but she didn’t speak.
“I’ve never seen you turn away from anyone or anything, Lilith,” Mitch added softly. “Although we haven’t known each other long, I can see that you always give. Why not this time?”
But if Mitch was expecting his question to make a crack in the veneer of her elaborate story, he was destined to be disappointed.
Lilith’s hands unclenched, she reached and caught at Mitch’s hand. “I’m afraid she’ll reject me.” Lilith took a shaking breath, surprising Mitch with this display of vulnerability. His protectiveness roared. “The way they did before. It was awful to see their eyes…”
Mitch squeezed her fingertips and halted that painful story before she could get too far into it. “But what if she doesn’t?” he dared to suggest. “What if she needs you just as much as you need her?”
Lilith turned and stared into Mitch’s eyes. He didn’t break her regard, and he didn’t know what she saw, but after a few moments, she bowed her head.
She sighed. “I just don’t know what to do.”
But Mitch had a very distinct sense that this was important, that this was something Lilith needed to do. “Do you want me to go with you?”
That offer made her smile, her hand rise to Mitch’s cheek. Lilith’s thumb slid over his lip, her eyes shone slightly. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” There was a thread of wonder in her voice that reminded Mitch of how self-reliant she’d had to become.
He smiled for her. “You bet.”
That made Lilith ease closer. She brushed her lips across Mitch’s so slowly that he felt a thrill run all the way down to his toes. “I think you know what it means to be a giving person,” she murmured, her gaze roving over his features, “because you’re a very giving man yourself.”
Before Mitch could answer that, Lilith framed his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. He caught her against him, savoring the sweetness of her kiss, the delicacy of her waist beneath his hand.
Finally, Lilith pulled away, depositing a feather light kiss on each corner of his mouth as though she couldn’t resist him. “I’ll think about it.”
Admiration flooded through Mitch that Lilith was working so steadily toward unraveling her past by herself. He was fiercely glad that he h
ad been able to help her, even in such a small way.
“You look exhausted,” she said softly, and Mitch had to nod concession.
“Two all-nighters have a way of getting to you.” He yawned, then looked into her eyes. “You all right?”
“Fine.” Lilith rose and strolled to the gate, waving her fingertips at him from her porch. “I think I could get used to having a champion around,” she mused, then smiled.
Mitch smiled. “There’s no rest for the wicked,” he complained amiably. “See you tomorrow night?”
Much to Mitch’s disappointment, Lilith shook her head. “I have readings booked every evening, but surely we’ll see each other on the weekend.”
“Kurt and I will probably end up waking you up.”
“But the fence is done.”
“This weekend, we’re going to patch the roof.”
“Is Andrea going to watch the children?”
Mitch grimaced. “I haven’t asked her yet. After calling her at the last minute this week, I thought I’d give it a few days.”
Lilith folded her arms across her chest, her gaze intent. “Let me watch them Saturday, Mitch. Andrea will be getting ready for her trip and we can have a little trial run while you’re still around.”
“That’s a great idea, although I’m sure Andrea will turn up at some point. Don’t let us wake you up too early.”
Lilith smiled, then tilted her head abruptly, as though she was listening to something. Mitch listened, but couldn’t hear anything at all. “I’ll be up early on Saturday,” she declared softly, her certainty catching Mitch’s attention.
“You sound pretty sure of that.” Mitch leaned against the pillar on his porch. Lilith’s last luscious kiss was going to keep him from sleeping anytime soon, he knew that.
“There’s something in the wind,” she whispered mysteriously. “Something almost as special as finding you again.”
Before Mitch could ask, Lilith kissed her fingertips, then disappeared into her house.
He supposed he’d have to wait to find out what she meant.
He wasn’t surprised that that didn’t trouble him at all.
In fact, Mitch was grinning as he headed into the house, did his final check, and climbed the stairs to bed. Anticipation wasn’t a bad thing.
Not at all.
*
It was very early on Saturday morning when Mitch thought he heard Jen stir. He rolled out of bed and crept into her room in the darkness, only to find her grimacing in her sleep. He knelt down beside her and tucked Bun safely back into the bed.
Mitch wondered what she was fretting about in her dreams. Jen frowned as though the weight of the world was on her tiny shoulders, fidgeted and gripped Bun’s well-worn ear tightly.
He hoped his unsettled week hadn’t unsettled his daughter. Mitch knew well enough that kids had radar for these kinds of things and Jen was even more sensitive than most.
He brushed those blond curls back from her forehead, and murmured soothing nonsense to her. Slowly the rhythm of his touch seemed to ease Jen’s anxiety. Her frown faded, her breathing deepened, and Bun’s ear got a break.
Mitch squatted there and watched her sleep, his mind full of memories. He could still see the hospital waiting room where Janice had insisted he remain during the delivery. He could still see the cheerful smile of the nurse who had opened the door when he’d thought he couldn’t stand waiting any longer and beckoned to him.
And he could still see Jen’s tiny red face as the nurse passed his child into his arms for the first time. Jen’s eyes had been squeezed tightly shut, baby hair dark and damp against her brow. Her tiny hands had been clenched into fists and she had looked even more like a little old man than Jason had.
She had been so small, so light, so precious. The nurse had taken him to Janice’s room and left him there, marveling at the bundle of flannelette, while Janice slept. Mitch had sat there all night, transfixed by the way his daughter slept, amazed that she even existed.
Holding his second newly arrived child had been no less of a marvel for Mitch.
The first light began to ease beneath the shade in Jen’s room, just as it had that morning over three years before. It had awakened Janice that long-ago morning, and Mitch deliberately stopped the replay of his memories without going any further down that particular path. He didn’t want to review Janice’s demands and accusations. He didn’t want to relive that fight.
Mitch straightened and winced at the kink in his legs, glancing out the window before heading back to his own bed.
But what he saw made him stop and stare.
Despite the earliness of the hour, Lilith sat in her garden, so perfectly motionless that she could have been a statue. She was sitting on a little stool, her hand outstretched. She was wearing a dress in shades of gold, colors he had never seen on her before, and her dark hair hung past her waist, its length wound with matching ribbons.
The morning was still – there wasn’t even a breath of wind – but Lilith’s dress fluttered ever so slightly all the same. Mitch watched surreptitiously as the sun rose in the front of their houses, the shadows of the buildings stretching long across their yards.
And still she sat there.
A band of sunlight painted the fence along the common driveway in rosy hues, then moved closer to the houses in a slow progression. Lilith didn’t move. Mitch watched the sunlight touch each sunflower along her far fence in succession; he watched each blossom in Lilith’s garden be touched by the golden finger of the sun’s light.
The garden slipped out of shadow, crossing the line from night to morning, each plant in succession, each moment changing the view. Lilith’s dress moved a little more, although there was something odd about its flutter.
When the sunlight finally fell across Lilith, Mitch abruptly realized what the oddity was. Her dress moved in sudden agitation beneath the heat of the sun. It fluttered and flowed, its color changing to vivid hues of orange and black.
And when the monarch butterflies – for that was what they were – absorbed enough of the sun’s caress, they stopped stretching and quivering.
As one, they took flight in the early morning light.
Mitch had never seen anything like it. In a heartbeat, the air was filled with a cloud of sunlight and shadow, thousands of delicate butterflies simultaneously taking wing. The sunlight glinted over the golden glory of their wings and the air filled with the faint rustle of their flight.
They rose from Lilith’s garden in a swirling spiral, not so different from a migratory flock of birds. They danced higher and higher, their ranks swelled by even more butterflies hidden on the fence and in the trees, their presence unnoticed by Mitch until they took flight.
He stared in wonder until they began to disappear high up in the pal blue of the sky, then he looked back down at Lilith. She blew gently on one last monarch that lingered on her fingertips. The butterfly flapped, dipped, then chased its fellows as the sun illuminated Lilith’s delighted smile.
She was wearing a sheer white sleeveless nightgown, its hem ruffled around her knees. Although it was not a magnificent gown wrought of golden butterflies, it was as feminine as the lady herself. Lilith’s feet were bare and her hair was unbound, those “ribbons” having flown away. She stood, unaware of Mitch’s presence, and waved farewell to the migrating butterflies.
They must stop here every year. Mitch knew monarchs migrated from Canada to Mexico and back every year, but he had never seen a butterfly flock take to the skies. He supposed he had never rolled out of bed early enough on the right August morning.
Mitch thought about Lilith’s comments about magic. He thought about butterflies making their way over thousands of miles to a particular haven in Mexico, without ever having done it before.
He thought about a woman who could hear them coming, in the whisper of the wind.
And as he watched the last butterfly disappear into the endless blue of a summer sky, Mitch Davison wondered whether there rea
lly could be such a thing as magic, after all.
*
12
The Hanged Man
Kurt whistled as he flicked curled shingles free on Mitch’s roof. It was a warm morning, sunny and clear, but not hot enough yet to make a guy regret getting up on a black roof without a tree in sight. Mitch was making short work of replacing the flashing on the chimney, and actually there weren’t that many bad shingles.
A couple of hours’ work and Mitch could get another year or two without redoing the whole roof.
Kurt slanted a glance at his buddy and tried to think of a good way to bring up the suggestion that was kicking around in his mind. It was about time Mitch admitted that he was still alive, to Kurt’s way of thinking. A man couldn’t baby sit and deny his basic urges forever.
It wasn’t natural.
And there were dangerous signs that Mitch was reaching the end of his tether. The August 1976 issue of National Geographic had been on the kitchen table when Kurt arrived this morning, left open to an article on butterflies. Butterflies! That had to be a sign of desperation.
Kurt would think that a guy who wasn’t getting any would choose a more provocative kind of reading material.
One that he wouldn’t leave lying around in the kitchen. But Kurt had peeked and hadn’t found a single interesting thing.
He hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Hey, Mitch,” Kurt said as casually as he could manage. “You should see this chick I’m taking out tonight.”
Mitch made a noncommittal sound in his throat and frowned at the last end of the flashing. “Uh huh.”
“Vivienne,” Kurt continued with enthusiasm. “What a knock-out. French,” he declared with a significant glance to his clearly uninterested friend.
Things were much worse than Kurt had suspected, because Mitch showed no appreciation of this information.
He cleared his throat. “Major curves in all the right places. You know, those how those French women are. Dark hair and red lipstick, black lacy lingerie. Oh là là.”
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