Lilith accepted a glass, he poured, and they clinked glasses. “To new fences,” Mitch said.
“And good neighbors,” Lilith added. They shared a smile and Lilith sipped. The sangria was cool and fruity, rich on her tongue. “It’s lovely. Very refreshing.”
“Hmmm. Just the thing after a day of chasing dogs and kids.” Mitch swirled the drink around his tongue, then nodded approval.
They sipped in companionable silence for several relaxing moments. Lilith was quite certain there was nowhere else she’d rather be. The faint calls of parents summoning children carried through the air, there was a murmur of conversation and the clink of glasses in the distance, the cicadas were singing.
Maybe even Bob joined the chorus.
Slowly, indigo claimed the sky, the smear of orange over the opposite rooftops fading to darkness with every passing moment.
“Did you get enough to eat for dinner?” Mitch asked.
Lilith glanced to him. “Of course. Why?”
He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know you were a vegetarian and burgers were kind of the main deal.”
“The salad was great,” Lilith said graciously. “And I haven’t had french fries in a long time.”
Mitch shook his head. “I try to keep them infrequent around here, too.” He narrowed his eyes with mock suspicion. “But there are subversive elements at work.”
Lilith laughed lightly, then Mitch’s gaze suddenly sharpened. She had a distinct sense that his next words would be important and braced herself for a tough question.
“So, why did you become a vegetarian?”
Lilith blinked. It was a pretty pedestrian question to have him be so interested in her answer. “When I pledged to that witch’s creed.”
Mitch frowned into his glass. “The ‘harm none’ one?”
Lilith nodded and smiled. “After all, becoming burgers isn’t a really good experience for the cow.”
“No, I guess not.” His expression turned thoughtful. “How do you make sure your nutrition is adequate?”
“It’s a different kind of cooking, certainly, but after a while, you get used to pairing your proteins. It’s really not hard.” Lilith sipped her sangria. “If you’re interested in eating less meat, I can give you some recipes.”
Mitch’s slow smile made her heart pick up its pace. “You’ve been very helpful, you know, and very nice.”
Lilith felt herself flush. “Just being neighborly.”
Mitch’s gaze never wavered from hers. “I don’t see too many other neighbors offering to help with gardens or teach vegetarian cooking...”
“Or mend my back door.”
Mitch chuckled. “There was a prime mover there.”
They glanced as one to the wolfhound, the glimmer of his eyes barely visible in the shadows. Lilith heard his license tags jingle as he lifted his head.
“I’d forgive and forget, but I don’t want a repeat of what he did this afternoon,” Mitch said softly.
“I really don’t think it was his fault.”
“Either way, I don’t care for the change.” Mitch flicked a glance to Lilith’s storm door, just the top of it visible over the new fence, and winced. “One job down, six million to go. I’ll measure your door tomorrow - maybe we’ll be lucky and the hardware store will stock the size.”
“You don’t have to fix it right away.”
Mitch nodded. “You can’t be without it in this heat. You won’t have any circulation in your house. Besides, it’s only right.”
Lilith smiled at him, not remembering this facet of his character but liking it very much. “You’re quite concerned with doing what’s right, aren’t you?”
Mitch seemed slightly surprised by her question. “Well, sure. I mean, the alternative isn’t very attractive, is it?”
Lilith laughed lightly at the truth of that. It was so good to be sitting with him like this, just talking, just enjoying each other’s company. “No, I suppose not.”
Mitch turned his glass in his hands and frowned as though he was looking for the right words. “Look, Lilith, Andrea told me that she asked you to watch the kids. It’s nice of you to agree, but...”
Lilith straightened. “You don’t want me to watch them?”
Mitch glanced up, his gaze bright. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything you don’t want to do. I mean, you must have plans. I’m sure Andrea didn’t bother to ask.”
Lilith shook her head. “No plans. Just fortune-telling and I can always turn off the sign.”
“Well, I don’t want you to feel that you have to do this, just because you were asked.” He smiled ruefully. “Andrea is a freight train in her own way, sometimes. I can find someone else, or cancel my trip.”
Lilith put her hand on Mitch’s and savored the heat of his skin beneath her own. He flicked a very gold glance at her, then looked down at her hand upon his. “But I don’t mind,” Lilith insisted. She leaned slightly closer. “Although it sounds as though you do.”
Mitch stared at her hand resting on his for a long moment. Slowly, his turned over, as though he couldn’t stop it from doing so, and his fingers closed warmly over her own. Lilith’s heart skipped a beat, then another when she looked up and found Mitch’s concerned gaze fixed on her.
It had been a long time since anyone worried about Lilith.
“It seems very unfair to you,” he admitted quietly.
“I don’t think so.”
Mitch shook his head ruefully. “Lilith, they’re at the age when they’re into everything. I swear that when one goes one way, the other goes in the opposite direction just to keep me on my toes.”
Lilith smiled. “It sounds like fun.”
Mitch looked at her with mock sternness. “Aha, the certainty of the uninitiated.”
Lilith knew he was trying to make her laugh. All the same, the unwitting reminder that she was without children of her own made her smile fade to nothing. She frowned and looked across the yard, fighting the return of that lonely ache.
Mitch eased closer, his voice low with concern. He squeezed her fingers. “Hey, did I hit a sore point? I’m sorry.”
Lilith forced a smile and glanced to him, not expecting to be snared by the concern shining in his eyes. “I always wanted kids,” she confessed quietly.
Mitch winced. “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s really just luck of the draw, isn’t it?”
“I think it takes a little more than luck,” Lilith said softly.
Mitch took a sip of his drink, his gaze assessing. Lilith had the sense that she didn’t have to tell him she couldn’t have kids, that he already understood. He smiled wryly and gave her fingers a little squeeze. “Fair enough, but these things still don’t always work out according to plan.”
Lilith stared at their entangled fingers and dared to ask the question. “Is that what happened to you?”
Mitch frowned at the garden, his thumb slowly moving across the back of Lilith’s hand in an unconscious caress. She didn’t say anything, just let him work through whatever he was thinking.
From the crease in his brow, she guessed that whatever Mitch was remembering hadn’t been pleasant.
Mitch straightened suddenly, as though he had just realized she was waiting for an answer. He looked suddenly down at Lilith’s hand, then carefully extracted his fingers from hers. He folded his hands resolutely around his glass and forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Yes, I guess it did.” He looked ready to change the subject, but Lilith wanted to know more.
“What was your plan?”
Mitch froze for a moment, then he shrugged with a nonchalance she knew was feigned. “Oh, I wanted all that old-fashioned stuff. Kids and a house and a dog, summer vacations up north and the occasional visit to Disneyland.” He seemed to be looking for an answer in the depths of his sangria. “Cooking together and sitting on the porch, laughing and making love for a lifetime. All that good stuff. Nothing particularly earth-shatteri
ng.”
When Mitch’s words halted, Lilith understood he hadn’t found much of that in his marriage. The divorce wasn’t his fault alone - Lilith knew it as well as she knew that Mitch blamed himself thoroughly. It took two to tango, two to make a marriage and two to break it.
Maybe divorce was what happened when people weren’t destined to be together. Lilith was suddenly very glad that she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mitch was the man for her. She now understood the reluctance she had already seen in him. On some level, he recognized Lilith and couldn’t fight his instinctive attraction. But on another, his ex-wife had left him cautious of pursuing women and relationships.
Lilith couldn’t blame Mitch for a little healthy caution. What she had to do was win his trust and prompt his memory further. Just the fact that they were sitting like this had to be a sign of progress.
Never mind that he had invited her into his home.
Lilith deliberately guided the conversation back to more neutral territory. “I’d really like to watch the children that weekend. Jason and I have had a lot of fun in the garden. They’re such sweet children...”
Mitch straightened and forced a teasing smile. “Don’t be fooled. They’re not nearly perfect.”
Lilith smiled and nodded. “I know, I know, but they’re good kids, Mitch. You should be proud of them. The only thing that worried me is that Jen might be afraid.”
Mitch’s gaze clung to Lilith’s for a heady moment, then he smiled warmly, as though he wanted to reassure her. “Jen’s very selective with her hugs. It’s quite an honor that you’ve already had one.” He leaned closer, his expression solemn. “But, Lilith, are you sure about this?”
“You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to being needed,” Lilith confessed. It was supposed to be a joke, but her breath caught tellingly. She glanced at Mitch and knew he hadn’t missed the inadvertent sign of how much this meant to her.
Lilith bit her lip, feeling that a little more explanation was necessary. She tried to keep her tone light. “You know, I’ve been alone for so long. Five and a half centuries. Even D’Artagnan doesn’t need me - if I forgot to feed him, he’d just go somewhere else to bum a meal.”
The silence stretched between them, although Lilith wasn’t sure what exactly prompted Mitch’s quiet. She wondered whether she had spoiled the mood by confessing a vulnerability and wished she could take the words back.
Then Mitch leaned closer, his eyes gleaming. “Hey,” he said quietly, the thread of humor in his voice telling Lilith that he was going to try to make her smile.
Her heart warmed at the sign of his concern.
“Are you trying to give me a run for my money on this worrying front?” Mitch winked. “You ought to know that you’re taking on a champ.”
It worked.
Lilith grinned. “I know.” Mitch was a champion and in more ways than he even guessed. And he would be hers for all eternity.
The very thought made Lilith’s smile broaden.
Mitch eyed the pitcher. “Do you want some more of this sangria? It’s a pretty wicked batch, if I do say so myself.”
Lilith chuckled. “A regular witch’s brew.”
Mitch joined her laughter. “Takes one to know one?”
Lilith nodded, then sobered. “I’ll take good care of them.”
Mitch frowned. His gaze flicked away, then met Lilith’s again. “Yes, I know,” he said quietly, as though surprised by his own conviction in that. He studied Lilith’s features as though he sought the key to some puzzle there, then reached for the pitcher.
“This stuff just seems to evaporate,” he murmured with a wink, then topped up their glasses.
“It’s very, very warm tonight,” Lilith concurred solemnly.
“So, why don’t you prompt my memory a bit? Mitch said with a casualness that didn’t quite ring true. He flicked an intent glance Lilith’s way. “Why don’t you tell me how we met?”
Lilith felt a little surge of disappointment. “You still don’t remember?”
Mitch looked away. “Not enough.”
Clearly he was embarrassed by his own inability to recall all the important details. But Lilith was more than happy to help this man remember.
She wrapped her arms around her knees. In her mind’s eye, the events of all those centuries ago were as clear as if they had only just occurred.
Maybe if she gave her memories voice, a word or an image would prompt Mitch’s memory. And there was no reason to keep all her secrets safely locked away any longer. Mitch was her love returned to her; Mitch she could trust with her life and her history.
“I was born among the Rom,” Lilith began softly, well aware of how intently Mitch listened. “That’s what we called ourselves. Others called us Egyptians – later shortened to “Gypsies” – although we never came from Egypt, as far as I knew. We did travel constantly, spending a month here and another there. We were entertainers, fortune-tellers, acrobats, as well as merchants of gold and horses and baskets woven by our men folk.”
“So you are a Gypsy. That’s what Andrea said.”
“I was Rom,” Lilith corrected firmly.
“Not anymore?”
Again Lilith found the denial didn’t come easily to her lips, so she just shook her head. “But I’ll get to that. It was the spring of 1420 – although I knew nothing of dates in those days – when we came to a village in what is now northern Italy. It was there, in the twilight of a spring evening, that I first glimpsed the man who would hold my heart for all time.”
Lilith bit back her smile of recollection. “He was unlike any man I had ever seen before, his hair not black but the shade of ripe chestnuts, his eyes not dark but as fiery as the sun. And in that twilight, he was chopping wood in the forest near where we made our camp. He heard me running – a remarkable thing for a gadgo – “
“A what?”
“Gadjo. A man not of the Rom,” Lilith explained softly. “It is said that the Rom move as silently as the wind through the grass, and I was held to be more quiet than most.” She shook her head, still marveling at the truth of it. “But he heard me.”
Lilith turned and looked deeply into Mitch’s eyes, golden eyes like sunlight snared in a bottomless pond. “You heard me, when you were Sebastian. It was just the first sign of many that we were destined to be together.”
If Mitch looked slightly discomfited by this, Lilith didn’t notice. She looked back to the changing sky and hugged her knees closer.
“It was a wonderful summer, a year when everything seemed possible to me, a year of unspeakable magick. I was twenty-one years of age, well past the age when the Rom would have seen me wed, but I knew there was something special in my future. And I was indulged because I had the Gift.”
“What gift?”
“The one I told you about. I could always see the future, I could see what would come to pass, with greater clarity than anyone else within our kumpania. There were those who said it was because I was born on the night of a blue moon, those who insisted it was the kiss of a goddess on my brow, but old Dritta said it was my mother’s talent that coursed through my veins. She said it was passed from mother to daughter.”
Lilith paused. It felt so good to be able to share these precious memories. It felt so good to have Mitch/Sebastian back by her side, with the unexpected bonus that he was even more wonderful than she remembered.
“You sound fond of this Dritta.”
Lilith smiled in reminiscence. “She was a total tyrant. Some said she was my grandmother – I never knew the truth.”
“Didn’t your mother tell you?”
Lilith sobered and shook her head. “My mother died when I was an infant. I don’t remember her. But Dritta took me in as her own. She always said she only did it because she could discern the power of my Gift. Dritta was a true shuvani.” The Rom word fell easily from Lilith’s tongue.
“What’s that?”
“A wise woman, maybe a sorceress. It doesn’t transla
te perfectly well.” Lilith considered that for a moment and realized suddenly how much Rom had crossed her lips since Mitch had moved in next door to her. It was strange, but she shrugged it off as coincidence.
“At any rate, she had a rare ability to see beyond this world, through the veil to the possibilities of the future. Dritta taught me to read the cards, and to read customers, too.”
“I don’t understand.” Mitch’s voice sharpened in his interest. “What do you mean by reading customers?”
Lilith glanced at him. “Most people come to have their fortune told for a reason, although there are some, particularly now, who indulge their curiosity regularly. In those days, though, it was risky to visit the Rom – you could be charged with heresy and burned.”
Lilith paused, then decided to state the worst. It might prompt Mitch’s memory, although she had made it a matter of principle not to recall the events of a certain night.
“You could be hanged for consorting with heretics.” She spoke deliberately, then looked at him.
Mitch didn’t say anything. He held her gaze without blinking and she wondered whether her words had awakened an uneasy recollection.
She swallowed the lump in her throat that that short sentence had prompted and pulled her mind away from the darkness of that night’s memories. She never dwelt upon that.
Lilith forced herself to continue in an even tone. “So, those who came, usually had a good reason to come. And an astute observer like Dritta could often guess the reason before a word was uttered.”
“That doesn’t sound very honest.”
“On the contrary, it saves a lot of time. The reading has a focus, a focus derived from the seeker as surely as the lay of the cards themselves. Keen observation makes for better readings.” Lilith smiled. “And greater customer satisfaction” She looked steadily at Mitch. “When your presence is barely tolerated by the locals, it’s wise to ensure that they have no complaints about services rendered.”
Mitch lifted one brow. “What kind of observations? Give me an example.”
Lilith frowned. These were secrets whispered to her by Dritta and not to be readily shared, even to someone she knew she could trust more than herself.
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