Water Witch Read Free

that. We’ve got a weekend place on the river up there sittin’ empty as a church on Monday morning. We won’t be usin’ it for a spell. Honey Bear’s draggin’ me off to New York City to get some new duds and to go to some of them high-priced art stores.” Max smiled at the memory of the gruff old wildcatter who was one of the richest men in Houston. “He said to make myself ta home.”
    Sam laughed. “That sounds like Buck all right.”
    Sitting back on her heels, Max looked up at Sam. “Now you know what I’m doing here. What are you doing here? And why were you trying to break in?”
    “I wasn’t breaking in.”
    She cocked an eyebrow. “Funny, you could have fooled me. Most people use doors.”
    Glancing back and forth from the dog to Max, Sam said, “The Bartons’ housekeeper in Houston told me today when I called that my aunt and uncle were in New York for a few days. I was headed for my place down the road, and when I saw the lights on here, I thought maybe some kids were taking advantage of an empty house to have a party. They’ve been known to do that sometimes. I knocked on the damned door for five minutes and nobody answered.”
    “Oh,” Max said, feeling foolish. “I thought you were a tree limb.”
    “A tree limb?”
    “Yes, a tree limb. Banging against the house in the wind. I told Dowser that’s what it was.”
    “Dowser?”
    She nodded toward the Doberman, still sitting where she had commanded, his shoulders quivering as he eyed the man in the chair.
    Sam squirmed. “Has he had his dinner? He looks hungry to me.”
    She suppressed a smile. “He’s been fed.” Then taking pity on them both, she rose and commanded, “Dowser, heel.” Both of the two big males seemed relieved when she closed Dowser in the bedroom, but she felt uncomfortable being alone with Sam Garrett. Even with her back to him, she could feel his green-eyed gaze on her.
    And she’d noticed that his eyes were an unusual green, as green as the junipers that clung to the rocky hillsides. No, they were more like translucent jade, more the color of the Guadalupe when sunlight shimmered on its surface.
    Turning to face him, she discovered she was right. He was gazing at her as if her robe were invisible, as if those Guadalupe green eyes were magnets pulling her toward him. For a moment she could only stand and stare, as mesmerized by the flesh and blood man in the chair as she had been by the monster on the television screen. She could feel the same kind of reactions: a flutter in her stomach, a prickling of her skin, a pulsing in her neck. Somehow he frightened her, which was strange. Men had never frightened Max, only monsters. And Sam Garrett was no monster—he was all man.
    After she had stood there staring for what seemed like an eternity, she cleared her throat and glanced anxiously around the room. “Would you like something to drink?” Why had she asked him that? She didn’t want him to stay. She wanted him to go. He made her nervous.
    “I’d like that,” he said, his deep voice a rumbling caress. “I don’t think Honey Bear would mind if we raided her brandy.”
    When he smiled, a slow, lopsided lift of his lips that crinkled his eyes and deepened the grooves bracketing his mouth, Max felt as if she might dissolve into a puddle on the braided rug. Her fingers fidgeted in the pockets of the plaid robe. She cleared her throat again. “I’ll fix it,” she said, and hurried to the bar beside the huge stone fireplace that stretched across one end of the room.
    Sam sucked in a ragged breath and, with his elbow propped against the chair arm, dropped his head into his hand. His fingers massaged his damp forehead. Godamighty, he was sweating. He’d never had a woman affect him so. Those black eyes of hers had about burned him to a crisp. He’d wanted to grab her and kiss those full pink lips and touch her all over. Angela Maxwell Strahan was some kind of woman: full of spit and vinegar and sexy as hell. He