Water Witch by Jan Hudson Page B

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