Water Witch (11 page)

She tried not to think about Sam, knowing that with the least provocation the lump in her throat would change to tears. Instead she put on a nightshirt, popped a big bowl of popcorn, and climbed into bed to watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

*    *    *

Her body clammy and tangled in twisted sheets, Max came half awake. Dowser whined and his wet nose nudged against her cheek. The room was dark. Her heart was still pounding heavily with the horror of a nightmare. Monsters, body snatchers, had surrounded the house and were about to come in the windows after her. She’d been trying to scream, but no sound would come from her throat. It had seemed so real.

The Doberman whined again and raised his head toward the window, which was at her back.

Max’s heart switched to triple time as childhood terrors rose up like specters, sucking the air from her lungs, paralyzing her limbs. It was real! “They’re here,” she whispered with lips almost frozen by fear.

Her first inclination was to bury her head under the covers and wait, shivering, for the inevitable. Using every bit of willpower she possessed, she forced herself to roll over and face the dreaded creatures.

Standing outside the window, his grotesque face illuminated by moonlight, was the most hideous monster Max had ever seen or imagined.

Max screamed and bounded from the bed in a mad dash from the room, flipping on lights as she went. Damn! Her cell phone was on the bedside table. No way was she going back for it. She ran to the kitchen phone instead. Sam’s number was the first thing she saw on the note board, and she jabbed at the glowing buttons on the dial. He answered on the second ring.

“Sam, call the police! It’s the body snatchers! They’re after me!” She slammed down the receiver and sank to the floor.

Knees drawn up to her chin, she sat huddled by the kitchen cabinets, shivering, trying to catch her breath. Dowser lay beside her, his head in the crook of her arm, his body shaking as hard as hers.

A few minutes later there was a hammering on the door. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Max! Open up!”

Sam. It was Sam. She ran to the front door. Her fingers were trembling so badly that it took her three tries before she could turn the lock and slide the bolt. She flung open the door and threw herself into Sam’s arms.

“My God, Angel, you’re shaking like a leaf. What’s wrong?”

“A monster. He was after me.” She buried her face in his bare chest and waved an arm behind her. “I saw him. In there. Looking in the window.”

He held her close and made soothing noises. “It’s okay, love. I’m here.”

A siren came wailing up the drive, then a car door slammed. When Sam tried to move, Max wrapped herself around him with a death grip. “Don’t leave me,” she whimpered.

“I won’t leave you,” he said. “I just need to talk to the deputy for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

He sat her down on the couch. Something tore inside him as he watched her curl into a ball. He was filled with helpless fury at the thing that had caused such terror. The Max he knew wasn’t prone to hysteria. He wanted to roar, wanted to pull up trees and beat the ground with them at the idea that someone would put her in such a state.

He strode outside to where Dick Ware stood, shining his flashlight around the house.

“Everything seems okay,” the officer said. “But look what I found in the bushes.” He held up a woman’s stocking. “She probably scared him off, but it was our burglar all right. We’ll check the area, but he’s probably long gone by now.”

Sam could have kicked himself from here to Austin. If he hadn’t been playing games, he would have been with her tonight in her bed. Or his. Damn his stupidity! Well, that could be remedied soon enough, he thought as he walked back inside. He was going to gather up Max and the dog and her stuff and take her home with him where she belonged.

He was surprised when she went along with him without much of a fuss. Since Sam had run across the river, barely taking time to call the sheriffs office before pulling on loafers and a pair of jeans as he ran, he was without a car. He found her keys, packed her bags, and loaded everything into the truck. Max, wrapped in a blanket, snuggled beside him as he drove to his house. He could still feel her trembling.

Max nestled closer to Sam, drawing comfort from the strong arm around her. Maybe her monster had turned out to be just a man with pantyhose over his head, but she had never been so terrified in her life. For that one awesome moment, she had come face to face with the embodiment of every bogeyman she had conjured up in her younger years. She felt like an idiot now. Grown women didn’t believe in monsters. It had been a burglar, not a body snatcher. Still, old fears died hard. And she didn’t think she could have spent the night alone in that house for a million dollars. She shuddered and nuzzled her cheek against Sam’s bare shoulder.

“You don’t have on a shirt,” she said.

He chuckled. “You scared me so badly, I didn’t take time to dress. You’re lucky I didn’t come charging over in my birthday suit.”

“Thanks for coming, Sam. After the broccoli went limp, I was afraid I might never see you again.”

“The broccoli? What are you talking about?”

“I fixed dinner for you tonight, but you didn’t come, and it got overcooked waiting.”

Sam felt like a first class heel. He squeezed her to him and said, “Angel, I . . . I . . .”

“It’s okay. You didn’t say anything about dinner. I just assumed . . .” Her finger traced an idle pattern over his chest, and she felt him grow tense. “Did I thank you for the roses? They’re beautiful.” She bolted upright as they pulled up in front of his house. “Sam, we forgot to bring the roses.”

“Don’t worry about the flowers tonight. We’ll pick them up tomorrow.”

Despite her protests, he carried her into the house. She was far from petite, but he carried her as if she weighed nothing. He wasn’t even breathing hard as he strode through the front door, which was standing wide open, and down the hallway. He didn’t seem to consider taking her to a guest room. He made straight for his king-size bed and laid her on the side where the covers were thrown back and the pillow indented from his head. A brass lamp on one of the bedside tables cast a warm glow over the room. She felt safe here.

He tossed aside the blanket she’d been wrapped in and pulled the sheet up to her chin. “You stay here,” he said, “and I’ll get Dowser settled and bring in your things.”

Face solemn, he stood and stared at her for a moment before he left the room.

Max turned on her side and snuggled against the pillow. It smelled of Sam. A heady mixture of spices, citrus, and musk. Sexy. Masculine. Like Sam.

The big room suited him, she thought as she looked around. Rich, lush carpet was the same russet shade as his hair. A massive dresser and chest of dark wood stood against natural-colored grass cloth walls decorated with more of the western art he loved. Two easy chairs flanked a table by windows which, Max imagined, looked out over the river.

By the bedside phone two books lay open and face down. She picked up one and read the title. Painting for Beginners. She smiled. The other was a Stephen King novel. She scanned the dust jacket and shivered. The taste of fear was still too fresh in her mouth.

Tossing the sheet aside, she got out of bed and found the bathroom. Horrified at what she saw in the mirrors that stretched along the six foot marble vanity, she grimaced. She looked worse than the prowler. Using Sam’s brush, she restored her hair to some semblance of order. Then she washed her face and gargled with mouthwash she found by the sink, surprised to find her knees were none too steady.

“Max!”

The sudden bellow startled her, and the mouth-wash bottle flew from her hand and crashed into the basin. “Damn,” she muttered, grabbing the towel bar with a white-knuckled fist.

Sam jerked open the door. “What happened in here? What are you doing out of bed?”

“I had to go to the bathroom, Sam, and when you yelled, it nearly scared me out of ten years’ growth. I dropped a bottle in the sink. Now look at the mess I’ve made. I’m sorry. I seem to be nothing but trouble for you tonight.” She began gathering up pieces of broken glass, but he stopped her.

He took the shards from her hand and tossed them into a wastebasket. “Forget the damned bottle. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I guess I’m still a little jumpy. My legs don’t seem to want to hold me up.”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her back to bed. When she was under the covers and sitting propped against the pillows, he sat down beside her and brushed a long strand of hair away from her face. “Sweetheart, what happened tonight to frighten you so badly? It seems strange that the little spitfire who nailed my pants to the wall would fall apart over a prowler.”

Trying to collect her thoughts, she licked her lips and fidgeted with a corner of the sheet. “Well,” she said, avoiding his eyes, “I suppose it’s because I knew you were a man, and I thought he was a body-snatching monster.” She glanced up and saw his puzzled look. Trying to keep her reply light, she managed a feeble smile and added, “I’d watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers on TV and was having a nightmare. When I woke up and saw the man at the window, I thought he was one of them.”

Sam chuckled. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers? You’re going to have to stick to something a little less ghoulish from now on if movies give you nightmares.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I watch scary films all the time. It’s part of the desensitization process. You know, if you see something often enough you sort of become immune. Like doctors and blood. Only in my case it’s creatures from the black lagoon and werewolves. I have teratophobia.”

He frowned. “You have what?”

“Teratophobia. A fear of monsters. I’ve had it as long as I can remember. As a little boy, didn’t you ever lie in bed at night and imagine that monsters were under your bed or in your closet? Didn’t your parents ever tell you that horrible, child-eating bugbears were there waiting to gobble you up if you got out of bed or were bad?”

“Good Lord, no! Who would tell a child such a thing?”

She dropped her gaze to her hands, which were nervously pleating the hem of the sheet. “My father.”

“The bastard.”

She gave a little mirthless laugh. “He was that.”

“And your mother let him get away with it?”

She shook her head. “My mother died when I was about two. I think my father blamed me for it; she was never very well after her pregnancy with me. He adored my mother and my older stepbrother, Carl, but he never liked me very well. Neither did Carl. I suppose I was something of a nuisance.” She shrugged and kept pleating and unpleating the sheet. “My earliest memory was of my father scratching the mattress and telling me that ‘Bloody Bones’ was under my bed and would get me if I didn’t go to sleep. I must have been about three. I think he wanted to go out drinking with some of the other roughnecks and my brother wasn’t home to baby-sit. His tactics worked so well, he kept it up. For years I used to lie in my bed petrified. Afraid to breathe.”

Sam took her in his arms and held her close. “My God, Angel. I can’t imagine somebody doing that to you. I could kill him.”

Drawing back and cupping his face in her hands, she smiled at him. “Sam, believe me, he isn’t worth the trouble. But thank you for caring.”

“Oh, I care, sweetheart,” he said, taking one hand and dropping a kiss in her palm. “Do you know how much I care?” His eyes met hers and held. His gaze warmed like green crystal reflecting the sun. “I love you, Angela Maxwell Strahan. I have from the moment I first saw you.”

Emotion filled her heart near to bursting. She stroked his face, her fingers moving gently over the slight roughness of his jaw, and managed to whisper, “Oh, Sam.” Tears welled up and stung her eyes as she basked in the wonder of it. Not that she believed in love at first sight; she figured it was more lust than love. But she had powerful feelings for him as well. Powerful feelings.

“And I’ve never, never wanted anyone the way I want you.” He guided her hand over the fine red-gold hair on his chest. “One touch from you and I . . .”

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath as her hand continued its way alone, then was joined by the other. She slowly stroked spirals over his torso, pausing over a mole here, a hard-muscled ridge there. When his eyes opened, and river-green had ebbed away from a center dark and wide with longing.

He reached for the top button of her nightshirt. “I want to see you, touch you, drink my fill of you.”

She watched his face as he unfastened the row of buttons and parted the sheer fabric. When he looked at her and licked his lips, a flash of desire leapt from her lower belly, radiating downward to an ache and upward to a shiver that turned her nipples hard.

Sam watched the change in her breasts with a heavy-lidded gaze. “Lord, woman,” he said, then groaned as he leaned forward to flick his tongue over the dusky tips.

He laved the underside of one breast and kneaded the fullness of the other. She arched her back, offering herself to his touch, begging for more. One hand covered his at her breast, the other went to the nape of his neck. He circled a nipple with his tongue, then with a deep growl drew it into the wetness of his mouth.