Because people had to exist. They had to have social insurance numbers, they had to have immigration papers, they had to have bank accounts and various other numbers assigned to them.
Except Lilith didn’t.
Oh, she had bought the house ten years before all right, paid cash, which said something about the financial power of fortune telling that Mitch had never considered before. She had used a bogus social insurance number on the transaction, but it didn’t trace anywhere.
And before that property title, there was no record of Lilith Romance anywhere at all. She hadn’t been born here, she hadn’t immigrated here, she hadn’t ever been to the hospital, or passed a driver’s license test. She hadn’t had a run-in with the cops, she hadn’t filed a complaint with anybody anywhere.
She didn’t have a bank account. She didn’t have a phone. She didn’t answer surveys or buy investments or get on mailing lists. Somebody paid her property taxes in cash.
As far as Mitch could discern, she didn’t even pay income tax. That was a hell of a trick and one he wouldn’t mind learning himself. He eyed the winking neon sign in her window and resolved to check the business registry.
But Mitch was quite certain he wouldn’t find anything there either. He grimaced, pushed his way through the crowd of men on the sidewalk, and made his way up his own walkway.
The big question was why Lilith didn’t exist. Because people didn’t ‘disappear’ by accident. No, Lilith had spent a lot of moment making sure she couldn’t be found.
And honest people didn’t need to do that.
Mitch wasn’t going to consider that finding indications of Lilith’s nefarious intent was at the root of his bad mood. He wasn’t going to admit on any level that he’d been hoping that a little research would prove him overprotective and maybe even wrong.
He couldn’t be grumpy just because that hadn’t happened. After all, Mitch didn’t like being wrong, so being pleased by being proven wrong would have made no logical sense.
Mitch opened the front door and called as cheerful a greeting as he could manage. He had a policy of not bringing work – or its emotional fallout – home.
Jen squealed as she ran down the hall, the faithful Bun in tow, and threw herself into his arms. Mitch grinned and swung her high, very glad to see her giggling again.
“Daddy, we went swimming again. And we went to the store and Nana bought blue Jell-O and…”
Mitch shook his head with mock solemnity. “They don’t make blue Jell-O.”
“They do! Daddy, they do! We had some. It’s boo-berry.”
Mitch bounced his daughter on his hip and he headed for the kitchen, her litany of news running in one ear and out the other. Cooley nudged his knee, demanding his ears be scratched, his jowls dripping water.
Jason proudly displayed a mayonnaise jar. Its lid had been punctured, no doubt with one of Mitch’s better screwdrivers.
“I caught a cicada,” he declared and Mitch bent to squint into the jumble of grass.
“It’s a big one.”
Jen bounced Bun on her dad’s shoulder. “Nana made stir-fry and we helped and it took forever!”
Mitch looked up at that incredible bit of news. “Nana made a stir-fry?”
Jen and Jason nodded in unison.
Something was up. Mitch slanted a glance to Andrea who stirred honest-to-goodness vegetables a little too quickly to be entirely innocent.
What had happened while he was at work? Mitch wasn’t sure he wanted to know, the very presence of a healthy dinner hinting that it was something really bad.
Jen unwittingly spilled the beans. “And Daddy, Nana is going on a boat! A big white boat like on television!”
Mitch straightened. Andrea cast a tentative smile over her shoulder and stirred more quickly.
“Are you?” he asked, a decided frost in his tone.
His stepmother tossed her hair. “Love is in the gentle Caribbean breezes, Mitch,” she said. “I told you I was going.”
Mitch put Jen down as his temper came to a simmer. “I thought we had decided about this.”
“We did.” Andrea plunked a jug of grape Kool-Aid on the table with so much defiance that it sloshed high. “We just decided differently.”
Mitch kept his mouth shut while he counted to three.
It didn’t help a whole lot.
But then, Andrea didn’t know the whole story. Mitch cleared his throat and frowned. “Look, Andrea, I found out some stuff today. Someone” – he punctuated that word with a heavy glance – “has spent a lot of money to make sure she doesn’t have a paper trail. It’s like she doesn’t exist…”
Andrea dropped the spoon and spun in horror. “You snooped!”
“I did what I do best,” Mitch retorted. “And I did it for you.”
“Ha!” Andrea snatched up her wooden spoon and stirred with vigor. “You did it to prove that you were right. What is it with men? Why do you all have to be right, all the time, even when you’re wrong?”
“Andrea, what I found is not the mark of an honest citizen…”
“Oh, Mitch, give it a rest!” the older woman snapped. She threw the spoon into the skillet and turned a frustrated look on him. “I’m going on the cruise, and that’s that. Just let it go.”
“You should cancel it,” Mitch argued stubbornly. “Go on a cruise, any cruise, anywhere, just not that one. Book another.”
“It’s nonrefundable,” Andrea enunciated carefully. She banged a couple of pots. “And I’m glad. Now, sit down, the chicken’s getting cold.”
But Mitch wasn’t ready to let this go just yet.
Clearly, he wasn’t going to get through to Andrea now. She had that come-hell-or-high-water look that he knew better than to fight.
The argument had moved next door.
Because if Andrea was going to rely on Lilith’s advice, then Lilith had to be persuaded to abandon this con game.
Mitch knew he was the very man for the job.
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Andrea glanced up, no doubt hearing the resolve in his tone, but Mitch didn’t care. He strode down the hall, kicked open the storm door and stalked toward his neighbor’s porch.
It was only then that he noticed the collection of men and boys lingering on the sidewalk in front of Lilith’s house. There was even a cable television repair crew, their truck parked illegally, all three of them staring at Lilith’s house as though they couldn’t look away. Mitch followed their gazes but couldn’t see anything that would prompt such an expression of moonstruck wonder.
Mitch scowled and pushed his way through the small crowd, heading decisively for Lilith’s porch.
A lanky man stepped suddenly into Mitch’s path, holding a massive box of chocolates. ‘Are you going to talk to Lilith?” he whispered with obvious awe.
“Yeah. Why?” Mitch knew he didn’t imagine the wonder that swept through the ranks in the wake of his simple agreement.
The man’s voice trembled when he spoke. “Then could you give this to her? Please?” He licked his lips nervously, his gaze darting to Lilith’s door and back to Mitch, his words tumbling forth. “It’s for today, at the bookstore. I hope she’ll understand that it wasn’t my fault, that I feel just awful about everything. I hope, I hope, I hope she isn’t mad at me.”
Before Mitch could make sense of that, the man pressed the box insistently into Mitch’s hands. To keep it from falling, Mitch ended up taking it.
And the man darted away.
“But wait!” Mitch called. “You should take this to her yourself! Make your own apology!” But the man was running down the street as though the hounds of hell were after him.
It had to be the biggest damn box of chocolates Mitch had ever seen. And here he had thought that they only packaged them like this at Valentine’s Day. The smell of warm chocolate wafted through the cardboard and Mitch’s belly growled.
A teenage boy stepped forward then, offering a pink envelope, hi
s expression hopeful. “It’s a card for her. Chicks like cards, don’t they? Don’t they?”
Mitch didn’t know what to say, his experience in such matters fairly limited and not particularly successful. “I guess.”
Mitch’s acceptance of this token seemed to turn him into the official envoy. He didn’t know what else to do. He certainly wasn’t expecting to get loaded up, but that was what happened. Every guy there had something for Lilith, some affectionate gift or another, and Mitch ended up carrying them all.
It was really weird.
Mitch wasn’t quite sure what to do to make them stop. He almost forgot that he was angry at Lilith, because the situation was so strange. The men and boys stepped back in turn as their tokens were entrusted to Mitch, their expressions hesitant and hopeful.
And horny.
Oh, yeah, Mitch knew that look. Been there, done that. He frowned not liking his role. He considered the chocolates, perfume, stuffed toys and balloons and thought about the yearning they represented. Before he could figure out what exactly to say, a throat was cleared.
Mitch looked up into the rheumy old eyes of the man who must be Lilith’s other neighbor. That man offered a bouquet of roses, evidently cut from the plants surrounding his house. His gnarled hand shook as he handed the flowers over the short hedge.
“These, too,” he said hoarsely. “Tell her Joe sends them.” He smiled, as if the expression was unfamiliar. “Joe next door. It’s good just to know that they’ll be close to her.”
There was definitely something wrong with the drinking water in this neighborhood. Mitch would have to start buying the bottled stuff for the kids.
All the same, he couldn’t bring himself to be rude. He juggled his load and made his way to the door, more than aware of his expectant audience. Before he rang the bell, Mitch reminded himself why he had come.
Right. He was mad. Lilith was a crook, or at least she hid her trail like one, and he was convinced that she was trying to swindle Andrea. Mitch wasn’t going to let his stepmother get ripped off. Since he couldn’t change Andrea’s mind, he intended to persuade Lilith to find other prey.
That was it. Mitch took a deep breath as he rang the bell and tried to look forbidding. It was pretty hard to summon indignation with an armload of romantic gifts, but Mitch did his best.
He rang the bell again, then again, then knocked on the door. Lilith might have hidden herself away from the world, but she wasn’t hidden from him. Nope, Mitch was on to her, he smelled a story and his instincts were never wrong.
They were going to get this straightened out right now.
* * *
5
The Pope
“I’m coming!” Lilith called as the doorbell rang and rang and rang. The person was even knocking at the door, as if she could miss all that noise!
What could be so important? Lilith was rattled, having escaped the bookstore by a narrow margin and come home to find a growing legion on men on the sidewalk.
But everything was wrong in the stars for a counter-spell. So, Lilith had barricaded herself in the house to wait it out. She distrusted the fact that her bell rang now.
It was probably one of Those Men.
Well, Lilith was ready to tell them what she thought of their behavior. She’d been trapped in her house long enough and was done with it. Yes! She would give them a piece of her mind - and if they were looking to win her affections, that would finish that!
“Well? Where’s the fire?” Lilith demanded as she hauled open the door, then her mouth fell open in shock.
Because it seemed that Mitch wasn’t as immune to her spell as he’d insisted, after all. Gifts of a most romantic sort cascaded from his arms, he even clutched roses. He looked mildly startled by her greeting, but Lilith was delighted.
He remembered!
That alone made every trial of the day fade out of Lilith’s mind. Everything was finally falling into place. Lilith lunged out the door and cast herself into Mitch’s arms.
Actually, she landed in the midst of his packages and Mitch couldn’t do much about it. Lilith didn’t care. She landed a seriously yummy kiss on Mitch and embraced him with all the ardor she’d been saving just for him.
He made a little growl of protest, but much less than he had the first time, and maybe only because he was going to drop that great big box of chocolates. They’d probably cost a fortune, but Lilith didn’t care about the box. She wasn’t much for chocolate anyhow.
There was another kind of sweet treat she had in mind.
The box fell, the chocolates rolled, Lilith framed Mitch’s face with her hands and kissed him harder.
Mitch swore under her breath, shivered, and nearly lost his balance. Then he abruptly dropped everything else and caught Lilith up against him. His hands cradled the back of her waist possessively and he pulled her right to her toes. His lips slanted across hers with purpose and Lilith’s heart began to thunder.
He remembered!
This time would be even better than the last. Lilith joyously pressed her breasts against Mitch’s chest and took a deep breath of the warm masculine scent of him. She twined her fingers into the thickness of his hair and ran one bare toe up the back of his leg. He was so strong, so muscled, so perfectly delicious.
And he was really back.
Lilith rolled her tongue between his teeth and Mitch groaned. She felt the evidence that their thinking was as one in this and arched herself against him. Mitch gripped the back of her waist even tighter, he plundered her mouth with his. Sunlight danced in Lilith’s veins, she rolled her belly against his raging erection.
This was more like it! She had known that her one true love would be irresistible when he put his mind to seduction.
But just when everything seemed to be going exactly right for a change, Mitch suddenly gripped Lilith’s shoulders in his hands. He pushed her away from him, a steely glint of determination in his amber eyes.
“Not again,” he declared, his voice so low and gritty that it made Lilith tremble in anticipation. “Not like that again.”
Lilith blinked in alarm before she understood. No. Not on the porch. Or even in the foyer. Of course not. The house presented myriad, more private options.
What a marvel of practicality her man was!
Lilith snared Mitch’s collar and dragged him into the house. “Don’t worry. We can be very creative. Where should we start? In the living room? The bedroom? The kitchen?”
He frowned and planted his feet resolutely against the floor. “No. That’s not what I mean.”
Lilith was puzzled by his change of attitude. “You want to do it on the porch?”
At that suggestion, Mitch looked decidedly agitated. “No!”
“In the foyer again?”
Mitch looked at the carpet and swallowed, obviously remembering their first passionate encounter. When he looked back to her, the heat smoldering in his eyes made Lilith’s heart skip a beat. “Yes,” he said silkily, and reached out one hand to her before he suddenly checked his response.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Mitch shook his head as though he was remembering something, or trying to shake something loose. “No!” He took a step back. “This isn’t what’s supposed to be happening here. This isn’t why I came!”
“It isn’t?” Lilith knew her confusion showed. “But I thought everything was going according to plan.”
Mitch impaled her with a bright glance. “Not my plan.” He shoved an hand through his hair and eyed Lilith with obvious exasperation. “What do you do to me, anyhow? How do you manage to make me forget the point, just like that?” He snapped his fingers, not looking too pleased about the situation.
But Lilith laughed. The answer was so perfectly obvious. “We’re destined to be together,” she said easily. “Of course, we have a powerful effect on each other.”
“Destiny,” Mitch muttered. “And here I thought you were going to blame it on a spell.”
Lilith smiled. “Well, maybe tha
t didn’t hurt.”
Mitch took a deep and deliberate breath, then granted her a quelling glance. “Whatever it is, I wish you’d stop.”
Lilith blinked in surprise. “You do?” Then she smiled again, seeing his teasing for what it was. “You could have fooled me,” she purred, backing Mitch into the wall as she closed in for another kiss.
But Lilith never connected.
Mitch stepped quickly away, leaving her in mid-pucker. “Lilith!” He flung out his hands. “This has to stop! And it has to stop right now!”
“You’re the one who came bearing romantic gifts,” she felt compelled to observe.
But Mitch jabbed a finger toward the debris on the porch. “That stuff isn’t from me, so don’t go leaping to conclusions. I didn’t come to bring it either.” Lilith watched him, mystified as to what was his problem. He certainly was wound up. “It’s from them, so your gratitude is misplaced.”
Lilith looked to find that the army of men camped out in front of her house had grown. She winced. “Oh, no. I was hoping they were gone.”
“Well, they’re not.” Mitch sounded quite disgruntled about the whole thing, and rightly so, to Lilith’s way of thinking. “And they made me into their official envoy since I was coming here anyway.”
Lilith felt her lips quirk at this admission. Suddenly everything made perfect sense. Trust Mitch to be worried about only taking credit where it was due! So, he had remembered and come to tell her so, but he didn’t want her misunderstanding the source of these gifts. Her certainly had developed some noble traits in his character over the centuries.
She tried not to tease him, but she couldn’t resist. He was so serious about doing the Right Thing.
“And you only accept kisses that you think you’ve earned?” Lilith heard the laughter lurking in her voice, but Mitch didn’t smile. Lilith was undeterred. “So, do I have to wait until you bring me something to give you another kiss?” She playfully ran a fingertip up his bare forearm. “Or should we think of some other ways for you to earn a kiss?”
This time her lips brushed against his before Mitch caught his breath and took another step away.
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