Water Witch

by Jan Hudson

  “What are you doing here at this hour?” she asked, raking tangled hair from her face and squinting through eyes not yet focusing at full capacity.

  “Waiting for you. Remember, I told you I’d help to make up for lost time.”

  She rolled her eyes and groaned. “I haven’t even had breakfast yet. Not even a cup of coffee, and I can’t function until I’ve had coffee. Go away.”

  “No problem,” Sam said, stepping into the house uninvited. He held up a foil-wrapped package. “Loma sent along some of her famous cinnamon rolls. They’re still warm. And I’ll make the coffee . . . while you get dressed.” A glint sparked in his eyes, their green more pronounced because he was wearing a dark moss-colored paisley shirt, and a slow grin spread across his face. “Or, on the other hand, you could wait a while to get dressed.”

  Looking down, Max realized she was wearing only the thin nightshirt again. “Dammit, Sam Garrett,” she muttered. Stomping into the bedroom she gave the door another picture-rattling slam.

  Max mumbled as she combed and braided her hair and brushed her teeth, grumbled as she dressed, railed as she laced her boots. She took time for a dab of blusher and a dash of lipgloss, though for the life of her she couldn’t imagine why she had done it. Certainly not for Sam Garrett. It was all well and good to admit that he was a most appealing man, but allowing herself to get all cow-eyed over him wouldn’t pay the rent. Right now falling for a redheaded charmer was way down on her list of things to do. Last night was simply a momentary aberration, she convinced herself.

  She didn’t need him around mucking up her search. Sam was worse than lint on black velvet. Somehow she had to shake him. Time was running out. She needed a full day of concentrated effort with her witching stick.

  And she couldn’t concentrate on her business when Sam was around. She jacked up her flagging defenses and strode to the kitchen.

  Sam was leaning against the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand, Dowser at his feet. On the table was a plate of cinnamon rolls, a big glass of orange juice, and a second mug of coffee. The breakfast sat atop a place mat with a matching linen napkin beside it.

  “Good morning, Angel. Ready for breakfast? I would’ve fixed some eggs, but I couldn’t find any in the refrigerator.”

  “I usually just have oatmeal,” she grumbled, sitting when Sam held out the chair at the place he’d prepared. “Cholesterol, you know.” After she’d had a few sips of the reviving caffeine, a tantalizing whiff of the rolls made her taste one. It was heaven. She ate a second and reached for the juice, then frowned. “Where did you get the orange juice?”

  “Out of the freezer in the garage. I’m sure Honey Bear won’t mind.”

  Max hesitated. She hadn’t intended to play Goldilocks and eat the Bartons’ food. It was enough that they were allowing her the free use of their weekend home. Oh, well, she reasoned, there was no need in its going to waste. She loved orange juice.

  It was like nectar from the gods. She drank the whole big glass and ate a third cinnamon delight while she tried to think of a way to keep Sam off the hill.

  “Sam,” she began, “I really appreciate your offer to help me today, but I’m sure you have other things to do.”

  “Nope, not a thing. I’m free all day.”

  She carried her dishes to the dishwasher and tried another approach. “I find it distracting with someone else around while I’m working. I do better alone.”

  “I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You won’t even know I’m there.”

  An edge of desperation was beginning to creep in. The man had the sensitivity of a block of granite. Couldn’t he take a hint? Max began to assemble her lunch, still trying to find an excuse to lose him.

  Taking the bread and a jar of mayonnaise from the refrigerator, she looked for the package of bologna. Where the devil was it? She pulled out all the drawers. Nothing. She knelt on the floor and peered into every corner. It was gone. How could it have disappeared? The only things in the refrigerator had been a pitcher of water, apples, bread, mayonnaise, and bologna.

  “Looking for something?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” she said, pulling out every drawer to double-check. “My bologna. It’s missing.”

  “Oh, that. I fed it to Dowser for breakfast.”

  “You did what?” She sat back on her heels in front of the cold, empty shelves and her shoulders slumped.

  “I fed it to the dog. He seemed to like it.”

  The idiot had given her lunch and dinner for an entire week to Dowser for breakfast! If she hadn’t been so angry she would have cried. For months she’d been juggling bills, selling everything she owned to try to keep up those enormous house payments. The Lexus had been the first thing to go, and it had kept her afloat for the first year. But now, even with cutting every corner, it had taken her whole salary to pay her gasoline bill and the utilities, or risk having them cut off since they were two months overdue. God forbid that she should get sick; she hadn’t had any insurance since January. She couldn’t afford it.

  Her roommate Beth’s rent payments kept her in bare essentials—like food. Not filet mignon and eggs Benedict. Bologna and oatmeal.

  Sometimes her mouth watered for shrimp scampi or veal parmesan. Instead she had spaghetti, or something equally cheap and filling. More often than not lately, she ignored the rumbling in her stomach and portioned out those slices of bologna as if they were gold. The apples she’d bought on sale had been a real luxury. And now this overgrown wart in a Rolex watch had disposed of her food as if it were nothing. Nothing!

  How dare he?

  Her fists curled in fury. She’d once had a fancy watch, too, but she’d hocked it and bought a cheap one to make last December’s mortgage payment.

  Jumping to her feet, eyes narrowed and adrenaline pumping, she thrust her finger toward the door. “Out! Get out of here right this minute before I strangle you.”

  Bewildered, Sam stared at her. “What’s wrong, Angel? Is it the bologna? I don’t think it will hurt him.”

  “You insensitive clod! You fed Dowser my bologna. What gave you the right? He has plenty of dog food in the pantry. Go away,” she said, gesturing wildly. “Just go away. Scram. Vamoose. Get lost.”

  “But, Angel–”

  “Go!”

  Plopping back down in front of the empty refrigerator, Max dropped her head into her hands. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep a few tears from escaping, and the knot in her throat became a strangled sob. She beat against her thighs in frustration. “Go away,” she pleaded. “Now!”

  Sam hesitated for a moment, then shrugged helplessly, shook his head, and left.

  Dowser whined, nudging in close and licking her face. She put her arms around the quivering Doberman, nestled her head next to his, and rocked as she sniffled and whispered, “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. I’m all right.”

  Max was furious with herself, humiliated that she had acted like a hungry wolf snarling over a bone. Since she’d come here, her nerves had been stretched tighter than what’s-her-name’s purple pants. Why was she, a mature, independent woman, sitting in the middle of the floor crying over a package of lunch meat?

  It wasn’t the bologna, she knew. She still had a few dollars for food and, if worse came to worse, she could always sell the truck. It was all that the pitiful package of bologna represented. It was a grim reminder of how close she was to the fear that lurked in a far corner of her consciousness, the fear that plagued her in unguarded moments. The fear that she was useless, that she’d never amount to anything, never be able to make it on her own.

  No, she refused to believe it. She would not listen to those old tapes in her head. She was not stupid, not afraid of hard work. She’d make it. Even if life had dealt her a few blows and seemed to be kicking her while she was down, she’d make it.

  Strong. Invincible. She could do anything, she reaffirmed in a silent litany.

  Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she struggled for control of her emotions. Why had she al
lowed Sam Garrett to get under her skin? Ordinarily, she wasn’t the type to lose her temper, to scream and yell like a wild woman. As a kid, she’d had enough of nasty tempered yelling to last for two lifetimes. Oh, she stood up for her rights— she’d had to learn that early to survive—but she rarely lost control. Never became a shrieking, blubbering mass of hysteria. Yet, that’s exactly what she’d been.

  And Sam Garrett seemed to be the catalyst.

  Poor Sam. She hadn’t even thanked him for breakfast. Oh, well, tonight she’d call and apologize for her outrageous behavior. He must have thought she’d lost her mind.

  She laughed and gave Dowser a pat. “At least I finally found a way to get rid of him.” Feeling strangely buoyant after the spectacle she’d made of herself, she rose and blew her nose on a paper towel. Maybe she’d just needed a good cry to relieve the tension. She certainly felt better.

  Keep on peddlin’, honey. You can make it. She could hear the words of her grandfather echo in her head. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

  Taking a deep breath, she thrust out her chin and said, “Come on, fellow. We’ve got to cut some dowsing sticks so I can find Honey Bear’s water and save the family homestead.”

  * * *

  All the way home, Sam tried to figure out what had set Max off. He hadn’t wanted to leave her like that, but she didn’t seem to be in any mood to talk rationally. For the life of him, he couldn’t make sense of it. Maybe it was that time of the month. Growing up with two sisters, he was no stranger to such things.

  But he wouldn’t have imagined Max was the type to succumb to hysteria over a package of bologna. She couldn’t have cared so much that he’d fed it to the Doberman. She doted on that dog. Why, last night he’d watched her slip pieces of apple pie and cheese under the table to him. It had to be something more. You’d have thought that those few slices of meat were all that was standing between her and starvation.

  Sam started at the thought.

  No, that couldn’t be it. Still . . .

  He decided that he needed to make a few phone calls to some friends in Houston. It wouldn’t be difficult to do a little checking into Max’s background.

  * * *

  By noon, Max’s earlier good spirits were beginning to droop. Not once had the willow branch twisted in her fists as she trudged over the rocky hillside. The only water around here seemed to be in her canteen. No, it was too soon to give up; there was a lot of territory yet to cover. From her investigation of the area ground water maps, she knew that the best chance to find water would be in veins, the most difficult kind to locate.

  “Let’s have lunch,” she said to Dowser. “Such as it is.” An apple and a mayonnaise sandwich didn’t sound very exciting.

  Stepping from behind a clump of scrub oak and heading toward the truck, Max was surprised to find Sam spreading a blue tablecloth on the boulder where she’d had her lunch yesterday. Before he could see her, she tossed her willow branch behind a bush.

  As she approached, he looked up. “Oh, there you are,” he said, smiling as if she’d never pulled her screaming demon act earlier this morning. “I was about to come looking for you. Loma fixed us a picnic.”

  “Sam, you didn’t have to do this. I feel terrible about the way I carried on this morning. I don’t know what got into me. Things have been crazy lately. It’s been tough.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure? I’ve got a good ear, and we all need a little help now and then.”

  Pride raised her chin. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, but thanks for the offer.”

  “No problem.” He took her by the shoulders and sat her down on the outcropping, then began to unload a wicker basket. With a paper plate in one hand, his other executed an exaggerated flourish over the bounty spread before them. “I have here some home-fried chicken. Do you prefer light meat or dark?” When she replied that she liked light, he forked two big pieces on her plate. From a thermos he spooned a chilled pasta salad and added crisp carrot and celery sticks that had been packed in ice water. From another thermos, he poured each of them a glass of milk.

  “Milk?” Max asked.

  “It’s good for you. Calcium and stuff. Don’t you watch the commercials?”

  After he’d tucked a napkin under her chin and filled his own plate, Sam sat down and looked at Max. His face was beaming with a smile that spread almost the width of his broad square jaw. Like an open-faced little boy, he looked proud enough of himself to pop his buttons. “Now I ask you, isn’t this better than bologna?”

  Max couldn’t keep a straight face. Her smile matched his. At that moment she had the greatest desire to hug him as if he were a cuddly puppy. “Infinitely,” she answered, and bit into a piece of chicken.

  Why, she asked herself, did Sam have to be so darned nice? She certainly didn’t deserve it. Anybody else would have been long gone after the fool she’d made of herself this morning. And why did she have an almost overwhelming urge to sit in his lap and have him hold her?

  She found herself staring at his forearms, watching the muscles flex as he ate a piece of chicken, watching the play of sunlight over the red-gold hair dusted along their length. Then his arms stilled and she glanced up. He was gazing at her in the strangest way. It was an odd combination of tenderness and something else she couldn’t quite define. But the look was so potent, it took two swallows for the bite of pasta to get past the stricture in her throat. She turned away and forced her attention on her food.

  Soon their meal was finished. Max rose to help put away the things, but Sam stopped her. “I’ll take care of this,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want a brownie?”

  She patted her stomach. “I can’t eat another bite. I’ll save mine for a snack this afternoon. I need to get back to work. Thanks for lunch. And thank Loma for me.”

  He stood with his hands on his hips, smiling as she walked away. She turned and waved. “Thanks again.” He returned her wave, still standing there.

  Wasn’t he going to leave? she wondered. She ducked behind a thick juniper, parted the branches, and peered through the opening. The basket was packed, but Sam wasn’t going anywhere. In fact he was retrieving something from behind those trees.

  An easel. A folding stool. A case. Dear Lord, he was going to stay right there and paint. She groaned. Sam Garrett was like lint, exactly like lint. For a while she’d simply have to search areas that were out of his sight.

  Sighing in exasperation, she retrieved her dowsing stick from behind the bush and trudged off over the rocks.

  Several times during the next hour or two, Max almost tripped and fell flat on her face. Visions of broad shoulders, broad smiles, rust-colored hair, and magical green eyes kept flashing into her mind, and she would stumble. At the oddest moments, niggling memories of a tingling soft kiss crept into her head, and her toe would stub an unseen rock the size of a bowling ball.

  Sam Garrett was playing havoc with her concentration. Lecturing herself about safety and attention, Max forced her mind to stay on the business at hand before she sprained an ankle or worse. She must have heard that lecture twenty times before she called a halt.

  By midafternoon, she’d found no promise of a vein, so she stashed her willow branch and headed back toward the truck. Sam was, of course, still sitting at his easel with Dowser dozing at his feet. She’d peeked through the juniper branches several times during the afternoon, hoping he had left. No such luck. She had a feeling about an area that she wanted to try, but it was in his range of vision. Lord, what a mess. And it was all Sam’s fault.

  Well, Mr. Garrett would just have to move his butt off this hill. Enough was enough. She was damned tired of sneaking around like a philandering deacon. One way or another, she was going to get rid of him. Now. Time was running out.

  With one brush between his teeth and another in his hand, Sam was frowning at the canvas. When he heard the crunch of gravel under Max’s feet, he took the br
ush from his mouth and smiled.

  Max felt her heart turn over. It was hard to stay irritated with a man who smiled like that. It was a struggle to remain resolute in her aim when her fingers ached to tangle themselves in the russet hair falling across his brow.

  There. She’d admitted it. She wasn’t any more immune to Sam’s charm than anyone else. The cold truth was she was tempted to kiss him rather than send him away. But she was going to send him away. She had to.

  “Hi,” he said when she drew close. “Ready for your brownie?”

  “Hardly.” She laughed. “I’m still stuffed from lunch.” Curious; she peeked over his shoulder at the canvas he’d been working on so diligently.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Cocking her head first to the right, then to the left, Max squinted at the blobs and streaks of gray and green and blue. The painting didn’t look like anything she recognized. Six-year-olds could do better. Maybe he was one of those impressionistic artists. She never could make heads or tails of their stuff. Discreetly clearing her throat, she moved back a step and squinted again. It was terrible.

  “Interesting,” she said, nodding sagely.

  “I’m not too happy with it. It doesn’t look like I want it to.”

  “How long have you been painting, Sam?”

  He glanced at his watch. “About an hour and forty-five minutes.”

  “No, I mean how long . . . ever?”

  A hint of amusement played at the corner of his lips. “About an hour and forty-five minutes.”

  She clamped her teeth together and held her breath to keep from laughing. “This is your first?”

  He nodded. “Pretty awful, huh?”

  “Well,” she said, trying to spare his feelings, “maybe awful is too strong a word.”

  “Look at it from down here.” He pulled her into his lap. “It’s awful.”

  “Perhaps you need to take a few lessons to learn the basic techniques.”

  “I think you’re right.” He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin atop her head. “It’s damned frustrating. I can see the scene so clearly in my mind. I wanted to paint you lying on that boulder over there. Beautiful, soft, the way you were when I came upon you eating the apple yesterday. In my mind I paint like Andrew Wyeth.”