Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (156 page)

“
You know where to go,” he
informed the dog, who returned guiltily to his corner of exile from
the week before.

Mitch exhaled slowly, winced at the damage
to the door, then turned toward Lilith. It seemed he couldn’t look
her in the eye.

“
Looks like I owe you
another apology,” he said quietly. He nudged the remains of the
screen with his toe and Lilith knew it would never go back in
place. In fact, the door had bent beneath the dog’s weight and
didn’t even shut right anymore. Mitch swung it back and forth,
eying the damage with a wince. “And a new storm door,
too.”

Lilith folded her arms across her chest,
secretly too delighted that her potion was effective to worry very
much about the door. She knew Mitch would do the right thing, and
she didn’t really care very much about the door.

Everything, after all, was right back on
track between them and that made Lilith feel all bubbly inside.

What she did care about was how upset Mitch
was about his dog’s deeds.

“
I had no idea dogs were so
expensive,” she mused, keeping her tone deliberately light. Mitch’s
head snapped up and he blinked at her smile as though he didn’t
know quite what to do about it.

“
I should have cast that
spell years ago.” Lilith grinned outright and leaned one hip
against the counter. “Just think of all the home repairs I would
have all done. I could have been living in the lap of luxury all
this time.”

Mitch grinned despite himself, then sobered.
“It’s really not funny,” he insisted solemnly.

Lilith sobered in turn. “No, of course not.
I was very attached to that ancient, warped and extremely
well-painted storm door. I could have gotten, oh, a dollar in a
garage sale for it. On a good day.” She scowled with mock ferocity.
“No. Losing it is not funny at all.”

Their eyes met.

Their lips twitched.

They chuckled.

“
I don’t think I’ve ever
seen a cat move so fast,” Mitch said under his breath.

Lilith laughed. “Did you see D’Artagnan’s
fur?”

Mitch snorted. “He looked like he’d caught
the wrong end of an electrical wire.”

“
Or fell into the dryer
without fabric softener.”

Mitch leaned against the wall and chuckled.
The smile tugging his lips made Lilith want to jump on him again.
The light of concern that invaded his warm gaze was icing on the
cake. “You think he’s all right?”

“
Insulted horribly, I’m
sure, but that’s hardly lethal.” Lilith held a hand to her lips as
she remembered something else. “And the look on Cooley’s face when
he was trying to drain that pot before we reached him. It was
priceless!”

Mitch grinned. “Even though he knew he would
dead meat for it. Talk about stubborn! That must be something
you’ve cooked up there.”

Lilith smiled. “Oh, it’s a wicked brew. You
know, a witch always has to have a little something on the
boil.”

The words seemed to erase any trace of humor
in Mitch’s expression. He frowned thoughtfully at the door, his
gaze trailing to the repentant dog. When he spoke, his words were
low with conviction. “Lilith, my dog growled at you. That’s not
funny.” His frown deepened. “It’s really not like him to do
something like that.”

But Lilith didn’t want Mitch blaming the
dog. “Maybe it wasn’t his fault.”

“
What do you mean? Of
course it was. He’s smart enough to know what he’s doing.” Mitch’s
lips drew to a taut line and he cast a glance over the fence. “And
he’s trained well enough to know better than that.”

“
It’s not his fault.”
Lilith shook her head and pointed to the half-empty pot in her
sink. “No joke, that
is
a magickal brew, Mitch. Cooley drank
half of a potion intended for forty men. It’s no wonder it had such
an effect on him.”

Mitch folded his arms across his chest. One
chestnut brow arched high. “Another love potion?”

Lilith laughed. “No, a love
antidote
.”

Mitch didn’t smile. “I don’t
understand.”

Lilith was more than ready to explain. After
all, there was no reason to keep secrets from her one true love.
“It’s for those men out there. You see, they were caught up in the
web of the love spell I cast for you. It seems to have worked
really well on them, for whatever that’s worth, but I just can’t
have them standing out there forever.”

Mitch’s expression was blank and Lilith had
no doubt that was deliberate. She just couldn’t guess why.

But then, it was going to take time for them
to learn all of each other’s secrets. Lilith was more than prepared
to make the investment.

“
So, you mixed up an
antidote,” he said casually.

“
Well, what else could I
do? At least we know it works.”

Mitch shook his head. “We don’t know
anything of the kind.”

“
Of course we do. I gave
some to Kurt and he changed his mind about pursuing me.”

Mitch peered at the green contents of the
pot. “Kurt drank this willingly?”

Lilith smiled. “I told him it was my own
special brew.” She fluttered her eyelashes tellingly and Mitch
shook his head.

His eyes twinkled, then eyed the concoction
dubiously. “It is amazing what he’ll do. Will it hurt him?”

“
No.” Lilith tapped a
fingertip on Mitch’s arm. “Of course, if I had known you were
coming to save me,” she murmured, “I wouldn’t have had to even give
him any.”

“
I wasn’t…” Mitch started
to protest, then fell silent. He frowned, looked at Lilith, then
turned his attention back on the cauldron.

The back of his neck got red. Lilith smiled,
liking very much that Mitch was hesitant to name his own noble
urges. Actions were the proof of good intent, after all, not just
words.

“
Kurt’s a good guy, but he
has kind of a one track mind,” he said gruffly.

“
It’s okay,” Lilith
whispered and sidled up beside him. “Feel free to come to my rescue
any time you like.”

Mitch’s eyes flashed, but Lilith reached
past him for the cauldron. He stepped back as she hefted it over to
the stove.

His tone was considering when he finally
spoke. “And you’re saying this potion is why Cooley growled at
you?”

“
Of course! It’s clearly
not in his nature. Kurt and Cooley - that’s proof enough for me.”
Lilith gave Mitch a stern glance. “Two points do make a line, you
know, at least last I heard. Honestly, Mitch, you just have to
think these things through logically to see what perfect sense they
make. It’s not hard.”

Mitch blinked and didn’t seem to have much
to say about that.

Lilith frowned at the pot, intent on getting
things back on schedule. “Maybe if I pick out the dog hairs and
bring it back up to a boil, it will still be okay.”

Mitch grimaced comically. “After Cooley’s
had his jowls in it? Remind me never to eat at this
restaurant.”

Lilith threw back her head and laughed at
his teasing. “You don’t have to drink it! Besides I don’t have
enough ingredients to make up another batch.” She considered the
pot and decided. “It’s just going to have to do.”

Lilith turned on the element, then glanced
pointedly to Mitch. “So, will you pour for the first hour or should
I?”

*

If anyone had told Mitch two weeks before
that he would be offering a green brew in mismatched bone china
cups and saucers to an unlikely gathering of men on the sidewalk in
front of his new neighbor’s house, he wouldn’t have believed
it.

And even a few minutes before, he wouldn’t
have believed that those same men would have willingly drunk
Lilith’s brew. The stuff had a wicked smell, even after she ladled
a big glob of honey into it.

But it seemed that just her endorsement was
enough to have all those star-struck men sipping like obedient
puppies. They lifted their pinkies in the air as they held the
delicate cups, their gazes locked on Lilith as though they couldn’t
bear to look anywhere else.

Mitch certainly didn’t imagine that the
“potion” would work, even after Cooley’s and Kurt’s responses. He
wasn’t nearly as ready as Lilith to draw a line between those
points.

But he was curious. The mark of a good
journalist, Mitch told himself, refusing to acknowledge that he had
any interest in seeing these guys move along.

He watched them drink, not a word from any
of them, and felt as though he had stepped into a foreign film with
incomprehensible sub-titles. The scary thing was that this wasn’t
the first Truly Weird thing Mitch had witnessed since he moved. Or
even, the first Truly Weird thing he had done in Lilith’s
company.

He tried not to think about that.

He tried not to think about Lilith’s new
certainty that he was her champion, much less the warm feeling that
gave him inside.

He tried not to think about the way she
kissed him, or the scent of her perfume, or even to notice the
contrast of her bare feet against the grass.

He really tried not to be charmed by a woman
who chided him for not using good solid logic to make conclusions,
even if her assumptions were a bit out of this world.

And most of all, Mitch tried not to worry
about any of these men responding to Lilith’s potion the way Cooley
supposedly had. Lilith had refused to hear anything about the
possibility, but Mitch watched them sip dutifully and wondered.

Of course, what Mitch should have been doing
was trying to find out about Lilith’s nefarious schemes. He should
have been ferreting out the truth about Andrea’s cruise. He should
have been focused and diligent and concentrating on the job he had
made his own.

But instead, after the men had drained their
teacups, he stood with Lilith, holding the empty tray and his
breath. And Mitch watched as, one at a time, they each got that
look of confusion, as though they had just awakened from a long
dream and weren’t quite sure where they were.

They looked at Lilith.

In obvious uncertainty, they looked at
Mitch, the house, each other, then back at Lilith again. They
looked down to the cups in the hands, then at Lilith one more time.
Several checked their watches, one looked at the sky as though
unable to fathom where the hours had gone. The cable guys frowned
at the parking tickets clustered on the windshield of their
truck.

Then without a single word, the men turned
and left as one.

They dumped their cups back on Mitch’s tray,
studiously avoided his gaze, and stepped away without a backward
glance. It was incomprehensible, it was illogical, it was
whimsical.

But it seemed that Lilith’s potion was
working.

And even more oddly, Mitch couldn’t quell
his relief when the last of them rubbed his brow and wandered away.
When Lilith hooted with delight and threw herself into his arms,
Mitch decided it would be rude to not catch her.

And even more rude to not kiss her.

Although he suspected that he invited her
for dinner for an entirely different reason than he should, Mitch
did it anyway. And even though his heart took that strange
double-skip when Lilith accepted the invitation, he knew that
couldn’t mean anything at all.

It wouldn’t have been logical, after
all.

*

When Mitch ushered Lilith into the house and
announced with no small measure of triumph that she was staying for
dinner, Andrea was certain she couldn’t have planned things better
herself. Mitch didn’t look nearly as grim as he had recently, which
could only be a good sign. And Lilith was flushed like a girl in
love.

Perfect.

“
About time you showed up,”
Andrea chided, having no intention of revealing how much this
development pleased her. “Dinner’s going to be burned to a
crisp.”

“
Cooley had an altercation
with Lilith’s storm door,” Mitch supplied amiably.

Lilith’s eyes twinkled. “The door lost.”

Andrea smiled. She could just imagine. And
from the look of these two, there were no hard feelings over the
matter.

“
Lillit, where’s your
kitty?” Jen demanded, her fair brow tight with concern. “Is he all
alone?”

“
No, Jen, he’s okay.”
Lilith crouched down beside the little girl and shared that smile.
“He’s just asleep.”

“
In the furthest corner of
the attic,” Mitch muttered. “It’ll probably be days before he -“
Mitch paused and looked at Jen “- uh, before he wakes
up.”

Jen bit her lip with consternation. “Is
Dartaggin sick?”

“
No, no.” Lilith shook her
head. She seemed to exude a soothing calm and Andrea noted with
approval that Jen was not immune to its effect. The little girl
visibly relaxed. “He’s just tired.” Lilith’s lips quirked as though
she couldn’t stop them. “He had a busy, busy day.”

“
Lots of running around,”
Mitch contributed. The pair looked at each other for the first time
since they had walked in the door and started to
chuckle.

Andrea didn’t understand why and she didn’t
much care. It was good to see Mitch smiling in a woman’s company
again.

The timer went off and Andrea flicked on the
oven light, trying to discern without opening the door whether the
frozen french fries were cooked or not.

“
Well, my bug
is
sick,” Jason piped up.

Lilith immediately looked as though this was
the mightiest problem confronting the free world. Andrea smiled to
herself, then decided to leave those fries just a few minutes
longer. She hated when they were mushy inside.

“
Oh, what’s wrong with
him?”