Authors: Kathleen Creighton
The smuggler rubbed his stubbly jaws and regarded her from under half–closed lids. "Why quibble about a pair of shoes? As I recall, a couple of hours ago you seemed ready to shed all your clothes."
Julie was silent. His eyes were so cold, so knowing. As if he could see inside her head. She kept her eyes on him and swallowed reflexively.
"You’ll get them back," he drawled softly, "when I think you’ve grasped the realities of your situation."
"You think—" She cleared her throat and tried again. "You think I don’t know what my situation is? I couldn’t very well mistake it, could I? I speak and understand Spanish very well." Her voice had escalated, and she fought it back down to a more self–possessed level. "I thought I had made it pretty clear where my priorities lie."
"Oh, right. You don’t want to die and you aren’t crazy." He took a beer from the refrigerator and popped it open, squinting against the misty spray. "Not very stoic for a lawman, are you?"
"I’m not interested in being a hero," Julie muttered, avoiding his eyes.
"Uh–huh." He slid into the seat opposite her, leaning across the table to tap the badge on her chest. She jerked away, and he smiled without humor, his eyes glinting coldly in his dark face. "Let’s just say I don’t trust anybody wearing a badge."
He sat back, sipping his beer. "Did you finish?" he asked suddenly, startling her with the casual, conversational question.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your search—did you finish, or would you like to get on with it?"
"No, thank you," Julie said sullenly. "What’s the point?" Then she sat forward abruptly. "What do you carry in those compartments? Guns? Drugs? They’re a little small for illegals—unless you’re into smuggling children."
"Ah, that’s better," he said blandly. Julie waited and after a moment he shrugged and said flatly, "Gas."
Julie blinked. "What?"
"Gasoline. There are two reserve gas tanks on this truck. Baja doesn’t have a station on every corner. You might keep that in mind when you’re plotting your escape."
Julie subsided, feeling foolish, and stared out the window. The smuggler, too, was silent, drinking beer and looking broodingly at the bleak vista unfolding beyond the dusty glass.
After a while he pushed the beer can away and leaned back with a soft sigh. "It might interest you to know," he said, his voice sounding as weary and harsh as it had before his nap, "that I don’t want you dead either. With that in common, do you think we can work out some kind of accord?"
Julie’s skin felt hot and dry. She dropped her eyes to her hands, folded on the tabletop. Her reprieve, it seemed, was about to end. "I told you I wouldn’t try to fight you," she said in a low voice.
"Good." The smuggler put his hands on the table just inches from hers. She stared at them as she would at a coiled rattler. "First, a few facts. There is absolutely no possible way for you to escape, so I’d advise you not to waste your time trying. As far as anyone else is concerned, you are my prisoner, to do with as I please. Do I make myself clear?"
He had leaned forward, the better to zap her with twin bolts of blue lightning. Julie swallowed painfully and said, "Oh, yes."
He continued to regard her until she again had to look away, then sat back, apparently satisfied. "Okay, Julie Maguire. Do as I tell you, trust me, and I guarantee you won’t be harmed."
"Trust you?" Julie said faintly, incredulously.
The smuggler seemed not to have heard. "For the time being you will stay in this camper. When we reach our destination you will, of course, share my quarters."
"Of course," Julie said huskily, forcing her eyes back to his face and lifting her chin slightly. "And your bed?"
"That," said the smuggler softly, "depends on you."
Julie blinked. "On me?"
"On how good an actress you are,
Guerita
."
"I don’t understand."
The smuggler leaned back in the booth. Julie again caught a glint of cold steel beneath the heavy lids. Still softly, with a slight smile hovering around his mouth, he said, "You will have to convince everyone that you are sharing my bed. And not only that, but make them believe you are happy about it. Make them believe you are no longer a danger to us. Do you understand?"
After a moment of shocked silence Julie shifted in her seat and raked unsteady fingers through her close–cropped hair. "No," she whispered hoarsely, giving her head a sharp shake. "No, I don’t understand at all. Why? Do you mean you won’t—"
He made a short, rude noise. "I’ve never had to resort to rape," he said in disgust. "I don’t intend to start now. Now—any questions?"
Still reeling from her unexpected reprieve, Julie leaned back and regarded him thoughtfully. What a surprising man this coyote was turning out to be. Intriguing, and unexpectedly challenging. She felt more confident now that she seemed to have been released from the paralyzing threat of physical and/or sexual assault, but she had an idea he might prove much more difficult in other ways than those she had imagined.
"Of course I have questions," she said dryly. "But I doubt very much that you’d answer most of them.
"Okay, so I’m supposed to pretend to be your, um… What do I call you? Chain, or
El Demonio Garzo?
Or would you prefer just Demon for short?"
He gazed at her with distaste. "I assure you this is not a matter for levity. Or sarcasm. If you can’t be convincing with this charade I’ll be forced to make it more realistic. The only reason you’re alive right now, lady agent, is because I have a certain reputation with these men, and they are confident of my ability to…shall we say, control you. I told them you would be of some use to me, something they can understand since they both have their women with them. Don’t make it necessary for me to prove my mastery of you in front of them. Make no mistake,
Guerita
. If they think you constitute a threat, you’re dead—" he snapped his fingers, making her flinch "—like that." He waited, watching her face, then nodded. "All right. That’s better. In answer to your question, my name is Younger. Chayne Younger. That’s spelled with a y and a silent e. The other women call me
Señor Chayne
, by the way." His lips twitched in the beginnings of a grin. "To my face."
Julie thought she knew what they called him behind his back. He was a devil, as smooth–spoken and enigmatic as Lucifer, and certainly as confusing.
"All right," she said hoarsely. "Just one more question: Why? Why are you doing this? Keeping me alive? Why shouldn’t you just let them kill me if I’m so much trouble?"
For a second or two he glared at her, and then he made that noise of disgust again and looked away, out the window. Julie noticed he’d begun to rub mechanically, unconsciously, at the scar on his belly.
"I’m not a killer," he muttered.
Julie couldn’t hold back a snort of derision. "Oh, great. You aren’t a killer or a rapist. This must be my lucky day! I’ve been captured by a pure smuggler! I’ll bet you’re just a softhearted liberal, aren’t you? You think you’re down here helping these poor downtrodden souls to a better life, right? Some kind of Mexican Robin Hood?"
"Lady," the smuggler murmured, an unmistakably dangerous edge to his voice, "you have no idea how lucky you are."
Suddenly, completely unexpectedly, like a snake striking, his hand shot out and clamped like a vise on the back of her neck. It was pure steel, that arm—Julie had never encountered anyone so strong. She had time for one shocked gasp before he leaned across the table and kissed her hard, ravishing her mouth briefly but thoroughly. As he pulled away, leaving her lips moist and throbbing, he paused to impale her with those devastating eyes.
"Don’t press your luck," he rasped, and slid out of the booth.
Julie stared out the window, swallowing repeatedly in an effort to combat something she could only describe as panic. The vista that shimmered before her had changed. Instead of sand flats and undulating mirages she saw a desert jungle, a wilderness of chaparral and cholla cactus so dense an army could get lost a few feet from the road.
The road was appallingly bad. The camper bumped and lurched over what must have been little more than a track through the fearsome tangle, and Julie, realizing she hadn’t seen a single sign of human habitation, understood the need for the extra gas tanks and other modifications. What a disaster it would be to suffer a breakdown out here.
The silence in the cabin behind her played on her nerves. She turned back reluctantly to find the smuggler, Chayne, leaning against the kitchen counter, drinking another beer and watching her. He gestured with a second can, muttered, "Catch," and tossed it to her.
She caught it neatly, popped it open and leaned quickly to catch escaping foam.
"Thanks," she said with unwilling courtesy, adding dryly, "What are you, a chain–beer drinker? Don’t you know this stuff is bad for your figure?"
"So I’ve heard." His mouth quirked sideways in a wry smile as he rubbed the hard–muscled contours of his stomach. Julie, following the movement with her eyes, felt her cheeks grow hot.
No trace of a beer belly on that body.
She worked with well–conditioned men every day, but she’d never seen anyone in better shape. From her gymnastics days she knew very well the constant training and effort that went into maintaining such superb physical conditioning. Did a smuggler’s life really require such fine–tuned reflexes, such strength and agility? How did he maintain such a body, driving illegals through the desert and drinking beer?
"Get used to it," Chayne said. Julie flushed, thinking for one mad moment that he was referring to his body. His eyes glinted at her over the beer can, as if he knew that very well. "You’re in a desert now. This stuff is safer than water, and a whole lot more plentiful."
"What do you do—between runs across the border, I mean?" Julie asked casually, following a previous train of thought. She was becoming more and more curious about this coyote who fit no mold, so unlike any she had ever encountered before. And it had occurred to her that she was going to have to feel a lot more comfortable with him if she was ever going to be able to act the part of his … his what? Bedmate? Doxy? Moll? His…woman?
And then there was the matter of the even more difficult role she had to play. Somehow she must convince this sharp–eyed demon of her sincere desire to cooperate while she worked out a plan to defeat him.
"Obviously," she murmured, allowing her eyes to crinkle at him over her own beer can, "you don’t spend all your time guzzling beer."
There was a sardonic twinkle in his eyes that suggested he knew exactly what she was up to, but he only smiled and shrugged. "I guess you’ll be finding out soon enough, won’t you?"
"I suppose so." She tried a new tack. "Chayne," she said earnestly, veiling her eyes, "why do you do this? I’ve arrested a lot of smugglers over the years, and you don’t fit the pattern. I’m curious—do you think you’re on some kind of crusade?"
He snorted.
"All right, then why?"
He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. "Pays well."
"That’s it? Just the money?"
The smuggler drank beer and pursed his lips, then wiped away the moisture on them with the back of his hand. "Sure, what else is there?"
"Just a mercenary—no altruistic excuses about unfair immigration laws?"
"Nope—sorry. Would it make you feel better if I had an excuse?"
"There aren’t any excuses," Julie snapped. "There’s no excuse at all for breaking the law."
"Spoken like a true lawman." Chayne chuckled. "Not even a bad law?"
"If it’s bad, change it. But as long as it’s a law, it’s my job to see that it’s enforced. And if you break it, you’re doing wrong, mister. You’re a criminal, nothing more."
Chayne stared past her, his eyes narrowed. "There are worse things," he murmured, rubbing the scar on his belly.
"Than being a criminal?"
He jerked his eyes, still narrowed and steely, to her face. "There are worse crimes," he said in a hard voice, "than being a smuggler."
Julie gave a sardonic hoot. "Oh, yes, I’m sure you could manage to aspire to greater lows if you put your mind to it. Tell me—have you ever aspired to an honest line of work?"
There was a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Honest, or legal? There’s a difference."
Julie glared at him, frustrated. "I’m serious. You seem intelligent, resourceful and, uh—" She coughed and added, "Reasonably presentable," ignoring his soft chuckle. "There must be other lines of work that pay as well."
"Not so many for chewed–up veterans of dirty, unpopular little wars. At least, not when I came home."
Julie was silent, watching the vivid blue eyes turn inward. So he had come by the scars in a war after all—and how many more that didn’t show? Julie was no stranger to the wreckage of Vietnam; she still retained vivid memories of a roommate, a former army nurse who used to scream and sob in the night, and of her cousin Dan, who, according to his wife, was still apt to wake up under his bed after a night of thunderstorms. She fought down feelings of sympathy for her captor, something she knew was a symptom of "hostage syndrome." She must not, for heaven’s sake, begin to identify with her jailer.
"Oh, come on now," she said skeptically. "Don’t try to tell me a Vietnam vet can’t get a decent job—especially these days. Hundreds of thousands of them managed just fine without resorting to unlawful activities."
"You’re right." He grinned at her suddenly, white teeth flashing in that dark–stubbled face. The moment of brooding introspection had passed; he was on guard once more, and the blue–eyed demon was back. "I’m just an unrepentant sinner, I’m afraid. A bit too late to change my life–style, don’t you think?" His eyes teased her, a softer blue now, the blue of autumn skies.
"Not necessarily," she protested, stammering a little. "You could change. You could—" She stopped.
He nodded, chuckling softly. "Could what, Julie Maguire? Surrender? Turn myself in? Now you’re talking like a woman. Always trying to straighten a man out, change him, make something of him." He set his beer can in the sink and leaned toward her slowly and deliberately. Julie held her ground, determined not to shrink. "Tell me, Julie Maguire, what would you make of me? As a woman." He put a knuckle under her chin and lifted it, studying her face with a look of lazy curiosity, as if she were a mildly intriguing bit of flotsam he’d found on the beach. She stared back, frozen, her eyes fastened on his mouth. After a moment she saw it curve in a tight little smile.