Mitch had a sudden definite sense that he really didn’t want to know what had happened. He didn’t want to think about Lilith pouncing on another guy, even if she thought that guy was him, even if she thought it had all happened some six hundred years ago.
Lilith leaned closer, her fingertips landed on his arm and Mitch opened his mouth to confess his deception right that minute.
But Lilith’s intent whisper cut off whatever he might have said. “Do you remember anything of that evening? Do you remember the shadows, that clung like velvet to the corners inside the tent?”
Her hand slid up his arm, her fingertips danced along the line of his jaw like butterflies. She was so close, her eyes flashed with a thousand recollections, her perfume surrounded him.
She was making him forget everything else in the world except her. Again. Lilith traced the line of his lips with one fingertip and Mitch didn’t even think he could feel any other part of his body.
Well, maybe one.
He stared into her dark, dark eyes, he thought about love antidotes, he thought about love spells, and he wondered.
“Do you remember the flickering gold of the oil lamp, the distant singing of the kumpania, the wind whistling through the trees overhead?” Lilith whispered, her lips a fingers-breadth from his own. Mitch was transfixed. He couldn’t have moved away to save his life. “I swore the very starlight shone through the roof of the tent as we sat together, I thought your flesh glowed with its own light.”
Mitch stared. Lilith was so persuasive. She couldn’t be pretending this, no one could act this well. He looked again into those eyes, but there wasn’t a glimmer of doubt in their magnificent depths. Lilith was clearly convinced that everything she told him not only had happened, but that it had happened to her.
And to him.
In the blink of an eye, Mitch’s entire universe did a one-eighty. Her conviction was the key to the solution. Mitch felt as though he’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four. Lilith believed this mumbo jumbo with all her heart and soul.
Which explained everything.
He’d been bothered since dinner over that creed she had told Jason she followed. Because harming no one didn’t mesh very well with running cons as a business. Mitch couldn’t imagine that a woman who believed cicadas shouldn’t die in mayonnaise jars could really hurt anything or anyone. Which hadn’t made a lick of sense until this very minute, because Mitch had already noticed that Lilith was nothing if not consistent.
But Lilith could reconcile her creed of hurting no one with her profession if she wasn’t a con artist.
It was so simple that Mitch wanted to smack himself. Lilith wasn’t a crook - she was just a flake who believed she could see the future and remember the distant past.
It was a bit scary how very reassuring Mitch found that particular conclusion.
Because he did. The surge of relief that rolled through him had the irresistible force of a tsunami. He didn’t have to brace himself against Lilith’s allure. Andrea wasn’t at any kind of risk. Mitch didn’t have to protect his family from her, he didn’t have to deny his instinctive attraction to her.
Mitch had been wrong. And for once, he was very, very glad about that. In the wake of that realization, the barriers he had hastily erected against Lilith tumbled like dominos. The most intriguing woman who had ever waltzed through Mitch’s life might be a little bit muddled up, but she was very much available.
And Mitch was delighted at the news.
Lilith seemed markedly less delighted. In fact, she seemed quite concerned. Belatedly, Mitch realized that he hadn’t been following everything she said.
She looked upset.
Lilith’s voice quivered slightly as she reached up and framed his face in her hands. Mitch’s heart started to two-step at the press of her fingertips against his skin. She was close enough that he could see each thick eyelash, close enough to kiss.
“Do you remember shuffling the cards?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.
He couldn’t lie to her.
Especially now. Mitch shook his head.
Disappointment flitted across her brow. Lilith glanced down, giving Mitch the chance to study her elegant profile as she dropped her hand and traced the length of his fingers with her fingertip. Her hair spilled over his arm and Mitch felt heat spread over his skin from her touch.
“The cards looked so fragile in your hands,” she murmured. “I can still see how nimbly you shuffled them although you said you had never done the like. I can still see you separating the Fool from the deck like a conjuror, still hear your laughter, still see you shake your head.” She swallowed. “It is as though it happened only moments ago, not hundreds of years ago.”
Lilith looked up at Mitch with wide eyes. She was very serious. His mouth went dry as he wondered where this story was going - obviously it was very important to her, whether it was true or not.
“And I have never forgotten what you said.” Lilith paused, then whispered something in a foreign tongue.
Mitch shook his head in incomprehension. “What does it mean?”
Lilith held his gaze. “I came for love,” she murmured, “but had hoped for a different answer than this.”
Love. That was at the root of all of this.
Maybe Lilith’s worst crime was convincing those who came to visit her that they were lovable, that there was a lovematch out there somewhere for each and every one of them. Maybe Lilith’s faith was all they needed to have the confidence to not only find love but to believe in it themselves.
As flaws went, that wasn’t a bad one.
Maybe it was time that Mitch believed a little bit more in love than he had for the last couple of years.
“I asked you not to go,” Lilith confessed in a heated whisper. “You asked why you should stay. Do you remember my response?”
Mitch shook his head slowly, glad he could be honest about that.
Lilith licked her lips, she edged closer, she lifted one hand to his jaw. Mitch couldn’t find it within himself to move away, to remove her hand, to tell her that he really wasn’t this Sebastian guy.
“There was only one answer I could give,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked to his, Mitch’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation, then Lilith reached to brush her lips across his.
It was a tentative and cautious embrace, as sweet as a young girl’s first offering, as different as the first kiss Lilith had given Mitch as night and day. Mitch tasted Lilith’s vulnerability, and knew he couldn’t take advantage of her dismay.
Obviously, the telling this story was not easy for her, even if Mitch wasn’t sure why. He tipped Lilith’s chin with gentle fingers and kissed her lightly, wanting only to ease her distress. Mitch savored the sangria-tinged taste of her lips for the barest moment, then lifted his mouth slowly from hers.
Lilith’s breathing was rapid, her eyes were luminous. Her lips were slightly reddened from Mitch’s kiss, her hand rested against his chest. She looked puzzled, despite the flame in her eyes. “Why did you stop? You didn’t then.”
If nothing else, she was honest about her desire.
Mitch’s certainty that Lilith wanted him - again - was all he needed to be ready to repeat their first meeting, with ease. But Mitch didn’t want to do that.
There was something too precious at stake.
Mitch caught Lilith’s hand in his and ran his thumb across her palm as he watched its course. He wondered how he could explain to her that he wouldn’t surrender his self-control again.
The task might kill him, but Mitch was not an impulsive kind of guy. He wasn’t like Kurt, he didn’t love ‘em and leave ‘em, he deeply believed that lovemaking was an expression of commitment between two people.
If he and Lilith ever made love again - and Mitch was starting to think it was a serious possibility - it wasn’t going to be on impulse. It wasn’t going to be one night fling or a one time deal, it was going to be for all the right reasons. It was going to be for good. If Mi
tch ventured back onto the field of love, he was going to get it right.
Lilith deserved as much.
He wanted to know her, he wanted to love her, he wanted to believe as ardently as she did that they were destined to be together.
It was kind of a weird certainty she had, and an illogical one, but now that he knew it was harmless, it was starting to grow on Mitch. He smiled down at her. “Because you didn’t finish the story. What happened?”
To Mitch’s surprise, Lilith’s eyes clouded and she bit her lip. He frowned, having expected roses and sunshine from this point forward.
“We made love,” Lilith admitted softly, her voice breaking over the words. “All the night long.”
She traced a little circle on Mitch’s T-shirt with her fingertip and he watched her tears inexplicably well up, even though he couldn’t imagine what had made her so sad.
“One of my uncles saw you leaving my tent in the morning. He demanded the truth and I didn’t lie.” Lilith swallowed. “He went to the town to demand a bride price.”
That sounded pretty medieval. “A bride price?”
Lilith lifted her chin. “You had taken my virginity. I had given it to you willingly, and I refused to lie about it. I didn’t care who knew we loved each other. My uncle declared that you owed compensation to the kumpania, whether you wed me or not.” Lilith inhaled sharply and Mitch was surprised by the obvious strength of her feelings. “I knew that you would marry me, because you had pledged to return to my side.”
Mitch had a definite sense that things hadn’t gone well from this point. Lilith’s tearful defiance was not a good sign. “And?”
“You did not come.” Lilith frowned and pursed her lips. “Not the next night or the next. My uncle could not find you, all shunned me in the kumpania. They were certain that a gadjo had used me for his pleasure and cast me aside.”
Mitch watched her, more than a little troubled by the toll her story obviously took from her, yet not knowing quite what to do about it.
“Then, suddenly, we were summoned to a hearing in the town square. All the cards and signs in the wind declared that the meeting would be one of great import.” She straightened and squared her shoulders, but her voice was small. “We went.”
Lilith licked her lips and stared resolutely at the middle of Mitch’s chest. He felt her tremble. “It had been three days since we laid together, three days and nights that you had not kept your pledge. I was so worried, half-afraid something had happened to you, half-afraid that my uncle was right and that you did not love me, after all.”
Mitch felt a lump rise in his throat for this trusting young girl. He was half-afraid himself that she was right about her Romeo’s motives.
He wondered suddenly whether this story was a way she dealt with a painful, but much more recent memory. That would make an awful lot of sense.
Mitch wondered how he could find out for sure.
“In the square, they said a widow had been murdered, that the culprit was found and would be punished.” Lilith lifted her gaze to meet Mitch’s and he saw pain shining there.
No doubt about it, Lilith was hurting.
Mitch’s protectiveness surged to the fore and he instinctively put a hand on her shoulder. She leaned against him in a way that seemed markedly out of character. Mitch had already seen how independent and strong Lilith could be.
But this story cut deep. He wished belatedly that he hadn’t asked her for it. Mitch’s gut told him that it was only going to get worse. He pulled Lilith into his arms without another thought.
She was shivering, as though it wasn’t hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk, and she clutched two fistfuls of his shirt.
“It was you,” Lilith whispered unevenly. Mitch blinked, then he realized that she meant him as Sebastian.
Lilith’s words suddenly gained momentum. “They said you had been possessed by demons, tainted by laying with a Gypsy whore, they said you were a criminal. I knew it wasn’t true, I knew it was a lie, I knew that you would never hurt another, but they would not listen to me.”
Her voice dropped low and for the first time, Mitch heard bitterness in her voice. “I was just the Gypsy whore, after all.” Lilith halted and swallowed awkwardly, her fingers tapping restlessly on Mitch’s chest. She caught her breath, she trembled, and the words tumbled out of her.
“And then, before all of us, they hung you until you were dead.”
That startled Mitch, no less the way that Lilith’s tears began to fall in earnest. They fell like scattering jewels, splashing on his skin in an endless torrent.
This had gone far enough.
Mitch closed his arms tightly around Lilith, his voice dropped with low urgency. There were psychologists who specialized in treating emotional trauma, all sorts of experts who could help Lilith deal with whatever had happened to her and put in securely in the past.
And Mitch decided right then and there that he would ensure she got that help.
“But, Lilith, that can’t be…” he began, but got no further before she laid a firm finger across his lips. One look into the intensity of her eyes silenced him, at least for the moment.
“You don’t know the rest of it,” she declared. “You can’t. They said it was my fault, they said they would burn the Gypsy whore who had poisoned one of their own sons. They chased us from the town with flames, all of us, and set fire to the woods behind us. We fled with the speed of the wind and they could not catch us.”
As delusions went, this one was pretty thorough. Mitch tried to find something good in all of this drama. “But, in the end, your kumpania sheltered you, right? You all stuck together?”
Lilith’s lips twisted and her tears welled again. “Of course not! They could not. They cast me out.”
“What?”
“I was declared mahrime. Unclean.” Lilith’s words were flat, although Mitch guessed her tone hid a wealth of emotion. “It was bad enough that I had lost my maidenhead to a gadjo, but the fact that he did not pay the bride price was an insult that could not be endured. No Rom man would have me, then. A mahrime person can infect others with their pollution. I could not be permitted to remain. My presence was a risk to the cleanliness of all.”
Okay, things had gotten even more medieval in her mind.
But the truth was clear to see, at least to anyone who looked. Mitch heartily disapproved of what he perceived Lilith’s family had done. So, she had been caught as a young woman in a compromising position - her family had no right chucking her out into the world.
Suddenly, a lot of puzzle pieces surrounding Lilith fell into place - Mitch would bet that all those missing records were registered in her real name, whatever that might be.
And she had simply taken another name for the purposes of day to day living - Lilith for the Old Testament woman who could not control her passions. That would be a result of whatever nonsense her parents had dumped on her. And Romano, perfectly fitting with this whole Gypsy thing she had concocted as an alternative to the truth and now ardently believed was the truth.
It wasn’t that Lilith didn’t exist - it was that Mitch had been looking for her in the wrong places.
Mitch didn’t really care about such practicalities right now. It made him damned mad to think of what Lilith had endured at her family’s behest. He couldn’t imagine that either of his kids could anything bad enough that he would just toss them out the door to fend for themselves. It was wrong. It was unfair.
It was not in the parental job description.
Mitch didn’t want to frighten Lilith with his anger, but he couldn’t just say nothing at all. He wanted her to know that he was on her side. Mitch forcibly kept his tone even. “It’s pretty cruel to leave a young girl alone like that,” he confined himself to saying.
To Mitch’s surprise, Lilith smiled thinly. “I wasn’t destined to be alone. You swore to return to me and repeated your vow on the gallows. I knew you would find me.” Her eyes saddened again. “Even though I never imagin
ed it would take so long.”
Mitch saw the full weight of the loneliness he had only glimpsed in Lilith earlier. She seemed to be wrung out emotionally by sharing this story, even in its disguised version, though Mitch supposed that made sense. It hadn’t been easy for her, and she had said she refused to even think about it any more.
He was humbled that she trusted him enough to share this with him. Lilith leaned against Mitch, her cheek against his heartbeat and Mitch felt her tears dampen his T-shirt again. This time, though, they ran silently.
“I’m so glad,” she whispered softly and unevenly, “that you’re finally here.”
There was an ache in Lilith’s voice that made Mitch want to make everything come right in her lopsided little world. Someone was hurting, someone expected him to make it all better, someone was counting on him.
Mitch was securely back on familiar ground.
He wanted to apologize for taking so long, even though he knew Lilith wasn’t talking about him or maybe even aware of the truth anymore. But he wouldn’t lie to her, at any cost. So, the only way to reassure her without uttering a lie was with his touch. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, the one thing his heart had urged him to do all along.
The difference was that Mitch had finally decided to listen to its urgings. Whatever the cause, whether it was the lady’s own allure, her vulnerability or her concoction, Mitch was completely enchanted by his neighbor.
And he couldn’t bear her tears. Mitch gathered Lilith into his arms, cupped her chin and gently touched his lips to hers. He gave her plenty of latitude to pull away, but she immediately parted her lips beneath his own.
She still wanted him. Mitch’s heart thumped. But that wasn’t what this was about. He wanted to reassure her, to ease away her fears, to make sure she slept without nightmares tonight.
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