Free Demon Lover by Kathleen Creighton Page A

adobe, some wood and galvanized tin, some no more than crude shelters of poles and brush—were clustered together in the cove to the south, with the fishing boats drawn up on the beach and the tantalizing but useless camper parked between the high–tide line and the rocks.
    Julie was desert–wise enough to watch for basking rattlesnakes without being intimidated by the prospect of meeting one, so she clambered over the rocks to the north to see what lay beyond the promontory. A secluded little bay curved away to another promontory of volcanic rock—a lovely beach, pristine and unmarked by a single human footprint. The explanation for its serenity lay in a scattered handful of jagged boulders hurled by the same convulsion that had formed the ridges. They dotted the sands and made treacherous dark smudges beneath the quiet waters of the bay, rendering it inaccessible and useless to man.
    Buffeted by the wind, one hand pressing her hair flat to her head in a pointless but habitual gesture, Julie shaded her eyes and turned in a slow circle, gazing toward the horizon.
    Freedom!
But it was only an illusion, and unbelievably frustrating. In some ways being confined to the stuffy camper had been easier to accept. These seemingly limitless boundaries made her feel vaguely guilty.
I’ve got to do something. I have to get away from them somehow!
    But with those beckoning vistas surrounding her, it was hard even to remember that she was a prisoner, hard to remember that the dark man with the electric eyes and a scar that looked like a dimple on his chin was a smuggler—a coyote—and that she was his captive. And utterly at his mercy.
    She was conscious suddenly of a hollow feeling that seemed to extend from her breasts all the way down to her thighs. She turned her back to the wind and stared back across the bay to where the boats lay drawn up on the beach.
    Fishing. He said he was going fishing.
But the boats had an abandoned look; pelicans and sea gulls roosted on the gunwales, and as she watched, a child scampered across the wet sand with a scruffy dog at his heels, darted to the water’s edge and threw something in. A few of the gulls lifted and circled in a desultory way before settling back to their places.
    "So where in the heck is he?" Julie asked aloud, conscious of a curious sense of abandonment, as if she had been brought to a party and then left standing by the punch bowl. Odd, this almost childlike dependence. Odd, and very dangerous.
    She chewed her lips, deliberately biting hard enough to cause pain, using the pain as an anchor to reality. She wanted to throw back her head and shout, "I am Agent Julie Maguire of the United States Border Patrol! I am an officer of the United States government!"
    So what if she’d been taken hostage and stripped of all the external trappings of her identity? It didn’t change it, or the fact that she still had her duty. These men—all of them—had broken the laws she had sworn to enforce, and it was up to her to do everything in her power to resist them and, if possible, to bring them to justice.
    "Step one," Julie whispered grimly. "I’m alive."
    The next step was to escape.
    The distant cry of a seabird made her aware of the silence. Except for the wind and that lonely call there was no sound at all. No footprints on the beach, and no sounds of human voices. She might have been alone on the planet. Swallowing fear and loneliness, Julie turned back toward the village. As she searched the foot and handholds for basking rattlesnakes and listened for the dry whir of a warning rattle, she knew that she was alone, and without friends. If she were to escape, it would have to be by her own wits.
    The sun was getting higher now, and she was hungry. "I’ll go and find Rita. I’ll feel better after I’ve had some coffee and breakfast." Speaking aloud seemed somehow to reassure her. Her hands went absently to the brightly woven belt at her waist.
Well, maybe not entirely friendless.
    It