Water Witch (6 page)

“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 brush 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.”

A painful ache of tenderness filled Max’s chest and she turned to face him. Her fingers stroked the frown lines away from his forehead, then trailed along his temple to caress his cheek. “Someday you will.”

She could see the hunger, the longing in his gaze as she looked at him. At first she thought it was his desire to paint. Then she realized it was for her. It was her face, her form she saw mirrored in the depths of Guadalupe green eyes. And her image was filled with the same longing. At that moment water wells were the farthest thing from her mind.

“Angel,” he whispered. “My Angel.”

His lips lowered to hers, first brushing gently, the tip of his tongue played across the slight opening of her mouth. His touch was as soft as the breeze ruffling the sumac, as warm as the sun on her back. Then with a groan, he deepened the kiss, clutched her tighter to his chest, and plunged his tongue between her lips.

Caught up in delicious sensation, Max matched his fervor, whimpering as she ran her hands over his muscled shoulders, threaded her fingers through his thick hair.

One large hand slid up her rib cage and cupped her  breast. His thumb slowly stroked her nipple, and when she strained toward his palm, low growls vibrated deep in his throat as his tongue thrust deeper.

Dear heaven, she thought. She was going to die from the longing swelling within her, from the hunger tearing at its leash. It was terrifying. It was wonderful. She held him tight, losing herself in the protective intimacy of his arms as her spirit soared over the hillsides.

Never had anything felt so marvelous, so right.

When at last they broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Sam leaned his forehead against hers and said, “Lady, you’re something else.”

She gave a throaty little laugh and blew out a soundless whistle. “Fellow, you’re something else yourself. My toes may never uncurl.”

He threw back his head and gave a lusty laugh of delight. “Angel, we’re going to make a hell of a team.”

She snuggled in the nest of his strong arms, listened to the sound of his heartbeat against her face, and savored the words.

“Are you through for the day?” he asked, his voice low and suggestive.

Through? Lord, thanks to Sam, she’d barely started. When her hormones settled down and her good sense reappeared, Max was disgusted with herself that she’d let things go so far. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what Sam had in mind. And she’d encouraged it. What in the world had she been thinking?

That was the problem. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d simply plastered herself on him like a price tag from a discount store. She’d intended to send Sam home, or somewhere, anywhere, so she could witch this area. What had happened to her good intentions? She didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that one either.

Some way she had to convince him to leave. She had to find that water. And soon.

She withdrew from the comfort of his lap and stood. “I’d like to check one or two more things.” She took another deep breath and said, “Sam, go away. I have important work to do here.”

“But, Angel—”

“Sam,” she said firmly, narrowing her eyes and planting her fists on her hips, “go home and watch your sheep or go sign up for painting lessons or go bug what’s-her-name at the art store, but stop bugging me. Please.”

He grinned. “Have I been bugging you?” He reached and pulled her back onto his lap.

She shoved him away and scrambled to her feet.

“Dammit, Sam Garrett, you are without a doubt the most thick-headed male God ever put on this earth.” She looked around for his car. “How did you get here today? Did you plan for me to drive you home again? If you did, get in the truck. The sooner I get rid of you, the sooner I can get some work done.”

He stood and motioned over his shoulder with his thumb. “My car’s parked at the foot of the hill. I didn’t want to drag the bottom out of it on this rough road. Looks like I’m going to have to buy myself something more serviceable if I keep coming up here.”

Deliver me, Max thought, rolling her eyes heavenward. She grabbed the canvas and the easel and said, “Here, let me help you carry your stuff down.”

By the time she reached the foot of the hill, Max was breathing hard, partly from having almost run the entire way, partly from sheer exasperation. Sam, carrying the rest of the things, was close behind her.

When she saw the big Jaguar parked beside the road, something about that maroon pile of money with leather seats sparked a renewed irritation in her and her lip curled. “That yours?”

He nodded and opened the trunk.

“Very fancy. What do you put in the radiator? Perrier?”

He laughed. “Now there’s an idea.” He took the canvas and easel from her and stowed the things away. “Thanks for helping, Angel.” Leaning down, he dropped a kiss on her nose. “I’ll pick you up for dinner about seven.”

She scowled. “I’m not going out to dinner with you.”

“Want me to come back up on the hill and help you some more?”

“But. . . but,” she sputtered, “that’s blackmail.”

He shrugged.

She glared.

“Seven,” he said.

Max muttered all the way back up the hill. Sam Garrett had a way of making her talk to herself. Maybe she was going crazy.

An hour later, she was still muttering as she tramped over the rocky terrain, a fork of the willow branch in each fist. The tip of the limb pointed skyward, mute, mocking. She trudged onward through the rough gravel, more determined than ever to find a vein of water.

The little quiver in her hands was so faint she almost missed it.

Max stopped, her heart pounding. Not a dip, but definitely a quiver. She moved on and the branch stilled. Moving over a few feet, she walked a path parallel to the one she’d just completed. Another quiver.

Excitement began bubbling like a spring deep inside her. But she mustn’t get her hopes up yet. It was just a quiver, a hint of the possibility. It might be the edge of a big vein or it might be nothing of any consequence. She laid down her forked stick on the spot, then retrieved her rock hammer, several spads, and some red plastic ribbons from her tool bag. She hammered a marker into the rock where she’d felt the first quiver, another into the second.

After a few more passes, she had put down three more markers. They formed a meandering path toward the big gray boulder where she and Sam had picnicked.

Moving in a zigzag pattern with the dowsing rod held firmly in her hands, she slowly snaked her way toward the huge outcropping suspended at the edge of the crest. Her boots slipped and slid on the uneven, rock-strewn ground.

The quiver of the branch grew to a shimmy. The shimmy became a shake.

Vibrations from the rod were soon like powerful spasms that shook her arms and shoulders. Slowly the agitated limb began to turn in her hands. Hardly able to contain her mounting excitement, Max fought to keep the tip upright, but the willow bark twisted off in her fists as the branch writhed like something alive and the tip convulsed downward.

She let out a whoop as she dropped the branch and flung her arms in the air. “Hot dog, there’s water here! I knew it. I knew it. I knew it!”