The dog froze, sniffed, and appeared to forget all about the cat. He hunkered down and proceeded to vacuum up Lilith’s potion.
“Cooley! No!” Lilith cried. D’Artagnan quietly slid out the door and headed for safety in some dog-proof zone.
“Cooley! Off!” Mitch roared.
The dog evidently knew he’d be challenged on this, because he gulped the contents of the pot with record speed. His gaze tracked how close the two humans were, his tongue moved like it was jet-powered.
It was Lilith that reached him first and half of the liquid was gone.
“Cooley, no!” Lilith repeated as she drew near the dog. She reached out her hand to grab the cauldron.
But the wolfhound lifted his head and snarled at her.
Lilith snatched back her hand. “I thought you said he seldom bit.”
“My mistake.” Mitch groaned. “This is just getting better and better,” he muttered under his breath.
But Lilith suddenly guessed what the problem was. She took a step closer, just to be sure, and the dog showed her his teeth.
Lilith was delighted. Her potion did work! She hadn’t been positive when Kurt left whether the change in his manner was due to Mitch’s presence or her “tea”.
Now there could be no doubt.
“That’s it!” Mitch bellowed. “Cooley! Down! Out!”
The dog straightened suddenly, as though surprised at what he had done, then turned a mortified expression on his master.
“Get off that counter and out of this house,” Mitch told the beast grimly. “Right now.”
The dog had the wits to do as he was told. Or at least, if he didn’t literally understand the command, he knew he was in trouble and would be better off elsewhere.
Cooley almost fell off the counter, he was so busy trying to keep a low profile, and skulked to the back door. Mitch opened what was left of the door and pointed imperiously to his own yard.
“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 f
inally 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?”
*
7
The Chariot
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?”
“I dunno.” Jason entrusted Lilith with his mayonnaise jar and they peered through the fogged glass together. “He hasn’t moved much since I caught him.”
“Mmm. Do you know what kind of bug it is?”
“A cicada. His name is Bob.”
“Bob the Cicada?” Lilith echoed.
Mitch cleared his throat suddenly and Andrea caught the glint in his eye. “Bob,” he mouthed silently as he came to Andrea’s side, then shook his head as he bit back his laughter. Andrea was very relieved to see his eyes sparkle like that. Mitch reached into the fridge for the hamburger patties. “Is the grill on?”
“Yes, it’s ready,” Andrea confided. “So are the fries, just about.”
“Fries?” Mitch grimaced. “Wh
at happened to salad?”
“Oh, we won’t waste your nice salad. Now, shoo. And hurry up.” Andrea flicked her hands and Mitch shooed, both of them content to leave the kids talking to Lilith.
“There’s Bob!” Jen cried.
Jason tapped a finger on the jar. “See? Right there.”
Lilith frowned with concern. “He’s awfully still, Jason.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
Lilith pursed her lips in thought. “Do you know what cicadas do when they’re happy?”
Jason shrugged, Jen watched Lilith with wide eyes.
“Well, they’re not so different from us,” Lilith confided and dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor between the children. “They like to sing.”
Jason shook his head, daddy’s little skeptic. “Bugs don’t sing!”
“Not really. But they can rub their wings together and make a sound that we call singing. Crickets do it, too.”
“I thought that was when they wanted to find a lady cricket and make babies.”
“See? Just like us.” Lilith smiled. “People sing when they’re courting, too. And they court when they’re happy. Has Bob been singing?”
“No.” Jason was solemn.
“Then, maybe, he isn’t very happy.”
“But why not? I put lots of grass and stuff in the jar for him!”
“Maybe it’s too hot. Or maybe he just doesn’t like being stuck in the jar.” Lilith made a face. “Do you like when you have to stay in your room?”
“No.”
“It’s kind of the same, isn’t it?”
Jason shuffled his feet as he considered that.
Mitch strode back into the kitchen and put the dirty plate in the sink. “Five minutes a side.”
“Can’t I have mine rare?” Andrea asked.
One look from Mitch answered her question. “You do remember our microscopic friend E. coli bacteria? And that article I did about all those people who were so sick last summer?”
Andrea rolled her eyes and soundly cursed little invisible things that took the fun out of life. But Mitch had already begun listening intently to Lilith’s conversation with Jason.
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