by Kym Roberts
I replayed the scene in my mind. Windy changing clothes in her car, then approaching a potential john in the street. When that didn’t pan out, she headed straight for the guard shack. It was as if she’d been-there-done-that.
However, the guard didn’t act that way. He had checked her out with his flashlight, sure, but he wasn’t grinning from ear to ear. His actions were typical of a guard approaching a trespasser. When she arrived, his behavior was by the book.
“Who was the guy in the car?” Pai asked without missing a step on his laptop.
“I don’t know, just some john that decided not to buy.”
“Or he was the one directing Windy to set the trap.”
Pai was right. Windy’s sole purpose had been to get the guard away from the shack. She’d known exactly what was going to happen when she shook her boobs for the guard. He didn’t.
“The guard wasn’t expecting Windy. He approached her as he would anyone else who walked up to the condo at that time of night. Until he saw her boobs. That’s when his behavior changed.” Just like Windy planned. She had set a trap and the guard had been snared. The knowledge resonated deep within the marrow of my bones. Windy was guilty. I just didn’t know what she was guilty of.
“And that’s exactly my point with Daven Raines. He’s guilty. I just don’t know what or how much he’s responsible for, but sometimes, you have to listen to what your body is telling you.”
I no longer found Pai’s ability to read my thoughts scary or embarrassing. It actually helped our level of communication tremendously. (At least while we thought about the case.)
“Why would she try to lure the guard away?” I asked while my mind focused on her method.
“I don’t know.”
Looking at Pai, I expected him to smile, at the direction of my thoughts. Instead, he sat there working on his computer like a distracted husband in front of the TV. He’d missed my mental comment to him, which made the situation even funnier.
I started giggling. My giggle turned into a burst of suppressed laughter. Pai looked up at me quizzically with the corners of his mouth twitching with the infection of my laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“Windy’s…” I tried to tell him, I really did, but I couldn’t. The laughter took over my body, shaking my shoulders, tightening my stomach muscles, tears forming in my eyes. Pai was looking at me, laughing from the pure contagiousness of my uncontrolled amusement.
He knew about Windy’s boobs, and he knew about her burying the guard’s head in her chest, but he didn’t know Windy’s last name.
In between my fits of laughing and my attempts to control the spasms of hilarity, I filled him in on the joke.
“Windy’s…last name… is Trapp. She set a…booby trap.” I choked on the punch line.
I heard Pai’s laughter roar as my body cramped from my own. His happy eyes were spilling tears faster than my own. Noise was no longer coming out of my mouth. I snorted trying to catch my breath, possibly the most unfeminine noise you’ve ever heard. Pai leaned back in his chair, losing control completely. I gasped for air, and he toppled over backwards.
Streams of tears running down my face, I jumped out of the Jacuzzi and ran to him. Lying flat on his back, laptop on his chest, and his legs still straddling the sides of the chair, Pai was still laughing and crying when I got there to ask him if he was okay between my own giggles.
Suddenly, he was more than okay. His laughter subsided and his smile disappeared. His eyes turned dark and he set the computer aside. He hopped to his feet with the ease of a child, not a man over six and a half feet tall. He was standing so close to me I couldn’t breathe, again. His eyes devoured me. Every naked inch of me.
Oh, God. I should run. Grab a cushion. Something. I didn’t.
“Malia…” His voice was husky. I liked it when he said my name that way. Especially when he rubbed my wet arms from the shoulder down to my elbows. “You’re cold.”
I saw his telltale lingering glance at my chest. Yeah, I knew how my body was reacting to our proximity and why he thought I was cold, but I was about as far from cold as a woman gets. Pai groaned that deep animal noise he’d made earlier and released me long enough to pull his shirt off and slip it over my head. Then he turned me toward the house.
“You’re killing me, Baby Doll. Go to bed, it’s late.”
More like it was early — the sun just about to capture the entire sky. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was going to join me.
“You have an appointment in a couple hours and I need to go check on James.”
“When are you going to sleep?” I knew it sounded like an invitation, but I didn’t care. His blue eyes were as dark as the night sky.
“Neither one of us will get any sleep if I stay here. I think it’s safer for you, if I go to the hospital. Our time will come.”
He said it with such certainty, he amazed me. I swayed from one man to the other depending on whom I was with. I didn’t have a clue which one was right for me. So far, each one had been exactly what I needed at the moment in time I needed them most. At what point would that change? When would I be able to decide which cousin was the man for me? Or was I doomed with indecisiveness until they both told me to take a hike?
He prodded me toward the house, but the pressure of his hand on my ass was completely unexpected.
I actually yipped with surprise. Shocked that he would step over the line of knighthood, I glanced back to see him smiling from ear to ear with that sexy, lopsided grin.
“I needed that. Now run away and sleep, my Hawaiian Princess.”
“You lied to me, Pai.”
He looked at me, trying to figure out what I was talking about.
I smiled, pleased that somehow I’d hidden something from the man who’d seen every last inch of me. “You said you wouldn’t look.”
As I ran upstairs like an inexperienced teenager, unsure of my own desires, I heard his soft laughter. “A hui ho, Baby Doll.”
Until we meet again.
Chapter Twenty-one
Music blared somewhere, ruining the deep, mindless sleep encompassing me. I didn’t want to wake up. Soft, smooth cotton sheets caressed my skin, while the mattress hugged my body like a feather pillow. It was heaven and my enemy was ruining it.
I stumbled out of bed to grab my cell phone, surprisingly more refreshed than I would have expected after five hours of sleep and, finally realized the heaven I’d experienced wasn’t my own bed. I was in Pai’s room. In his shirt, and nothing else. I followed the sound of Green Day and located my phone near the door on the floor with my dirty clothes. I should have recognized it wasn’t my bed sooner. My own sofa bed was about as far from heaven as hell.
“Hello?” I answered with what I like to think of as my sexy, deep throat morning voice.
“Good morning, Baby Doll.”
“Pai?” My voice croaked, ruining any arousing image he might have of me lying in his bed, which I wasn’t.
“Does anyone else call you Baby Doll?”
“No. Do you call other women Baby Doll?”
“No. You’re the only one.”
“Why do you call me that?” I could almost hear him thinking about it as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“When I first saw you running along the road, I had this urge to hold you tight and never let go. Kind of like a little girl with that one favorite doll, she cherishes. It just came out of my mouth without me even thinking about it.”
“Oh.” Clearly, the man knew how to make a woman feel special. I’d had a favorite doll as a child. I’d even moved her to my apartment, without my brothers’ knowing it. (I left her in the box in my closet, but she was there just the same.)
“I’ve made an appointment for this evening with Misty Johnson.”
“But you’ve already talked to her.”
“I didn’t know Peter was inside your head at the time. I think there’s something we can learn by putting the two of them back toget
her.”
I didn’t tell Pai that I really didn’t want Peter to come back in my head. “What time is it now?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Have you slept yet?”
“Not yet.”
I could also somehow tell he was so tired that he was driving on autopilot, and I began to worry about him. At the same time, I felt guilty for my hours of slumber.
“I’m fine, Baby Doll.”
“Yes, you are definitely Fine with a capital F, but you need to go to bed.” And as soon as I said it, I knew what he was thinking. “Alone.”
He chuckled as I read the dirty thoughts coming through the airwaves of the phone.
“See, you’re beginning to listen.”
“I think anyone would have read that thought.” Then I got to the hard question. The one I needed to ask but didn’t want to ask.
“No, I don’t have any women’s clothing for you to wear, but I called Lani and asked if you could borrow some of hers.”
“You called Lani!”
“Would you rather I call your brother?” Pai sounded amused.
I was mortified.
“I told her about your car and the guard. She understood immediately.”
Hua. I’d never be able to face her.
Pai made a strangled noise. “It’s going to be difficult listening to you thinking about balls all the time.”
“I wasn’t thinking about balls.” I insisted, half-heartedly.
“Un-huh.” He wasn’t convinced.
Neither was I.
“There’s an extra set of keys in the kitchen drawer near the phone to Lani’s place.”
I opened the drawer and pulled out the keys. “Got ‘em.”
“I’ll be home in about a half hour,” Pai stated.
Be careful and mahalo, Pai.”
I hung up and ran to take a two-minute shower. Once again, I couldn’t risk being caught by a hunky man.
Some women would kill for my problems.
As I stepped out of the shower stall, a male voice echoed through the room. At first, I froze in excited fear. (Pai can do that to me.) Then I realized it was my brother’s voice on the answering machine. In not so polite words, John told Lani he knew that she’d worked with Pai in the past, and if she knew where he was, he needed to get his butt down to HQ for his statement. Now.
I chose to ignore the message. The phone line was the same for the main house and the in-laws quarters and the call wasn’t for me. Pai would listen when he got home and make the necessary arrangements. I made the bed, grabbed my belongings, and then took the keys to Lani’s place out of the kitchen drawer. Wrapped only in a towel, I locked Pai’s door and ran for the main house. Once inside, I called my brother Kionni from my cell phone.
“Aloha, Malia. What do you need now?”
“What do you mean, ‘What do I need’?” It irritated me he knew I needed his help, just like it pissed me off that he always had his shit together.
“You always need something. That’s the only reason you call.”
“Actually, I called to ask how… you and your girlfriend were doing.” I struggled to remember her name while I pulled on a pair of capris, jumping around in circles as my foot got tangled in the pant leg. I fell against the doorjamb with a grunt.
“I don’t have a girlfriend. I haven’t had a girlfriend in several months. Are you fighting with your clothes again?”
Pai wasn’t the only man in my life that could read me like an open book. “Funny.” I decided to stop playing games and go for it. “Can I trouble you for a ride?”
“What happened to your car?”
It pained me even to talk about it. “A drunk driver hit it last night and totaled it.”
“You okay?” His obvious concern softened our sibling rivalry.
“Yeah, I wasn’t in it.” I pulled on a bright green halter-top with pink lace around the neckline that didn’t require a bra and looked at myself in the mirror. Not bad considering Lani is built like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, and I’m more like stick-woman with muscles.
“I’ve got an appointment at a site at eleven-thirty. I can pick you up after that.”
I stopped looking at how Lani’s pants fit my ass. If he didn’t pick me up now, I’d be here when Pai came home. Not an option.
“I really need to get to work. I’ve got lessons starting at noon. Can you pick me up and then I’ll drop you off at the site and head for home.”
“You’re funny, sis. You’re not driving my truck the day after you wreck your car.”
“I didn’t wreck it. It was parked.” I was starting to remember why the little twerp got on my nerves.
“You still got your motorcycle license?” he asked.
“Yeah, but it’s at Mom and Dad’s, and I sold my bike when I bought my car.”
I really liked my bike but on the Garden Isle, where we get more rainfall than any other place on earth, it’s nice to have a roof over your head when you need it. My helmet saved my hair, but not my clothes. Since I couldn’t afford to have a bike and a car, I did the next best thing and bought a convertible.
“I just got a new bike. I’ll let you ride it.”
His generosity caught me off guard and made me suspicious. “You’re going to let me ride your new bike, but you won’t let me drive your truck?”
“The bike didn’t cost as much as the truck and it’s a small one that fits in the bed. I’m at Mom and Dad’s now. I’ll grab your license and be at your apartment in about twenty minutes with it.”
He started to hang up without saying good-bye, which is another one of my pet peeves he indulges in. “Wait! Kionni!” I heard him laughing, he knew his behavior irritated me and he loved to push my buttons.
“Yeah, sis.”
“I need a helmet and I’m at Lani’s place.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Open the gate for me.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and looked in the mirror. My complexion is dark enough I can go without makeup and my hair is straight enough not to worry about the style, but with the green top and tan capris, I could seriously blend into the island backdrop. I grabbed a ponytail holder, pulled my hair back off my face and then took a washcloth to my teeth. My goose egg had improved — it was now the size of a robin’s egg, in color and diameter. I couldn’t ask for more than that.
Fifteen minutes on the dot, Kionni honked his horn at the gate I hadn’t opened yet. I looked out the bedroom window and saw his ruby red truck sparkling like a gemstone. He treated that truck like a baby, and it glowed on the other side of the iron bars.
I ran down the steps, pressed the remote entry at the front door, and went out on the porch. Kionni pulled up in front of the house and I got a glimpse of his ‘bike’ in the bed of his truck. It was orange, and that was just the beginning.
The driver’s side door slammed shut shortly after the engine turned off and Kionni walked around toward the backside of the truck. Today he was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a white button down shirt. His smart-ass face wore a giant shit-eating grin, one that made the sibling in me want to tell him where he could stick that ‘bike,’ but I needed the ride.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“You don’t like my bike?” Kionni feigned innocence.
“That’s not a bike.”
“It’s street legal,” he responded and opened the tailgate.
Kionni unstrapped the orange monster in the bed. Okay, it was a mini monster, but it was definitely a monster.
“You expect me to believe you bought that?”
“I didn’t say that. I said, ‘I just got a new bike.’ I won it.” Kionni unloaded a bright orange scooter from the back of his truck with very little effort.
“That’s not a bike. That’s a scooter.”
“Yeah, but it’s transportation and you need it.”
“You could give me a ride.” I looked at him, trying to hide my anger and plead for a ride in his truck
at the same time.
“We don’t have time to go by your apartment before I go to the site. What are you up to?”
“I’m working a case.”
He laughed. “You’re not a PI. Is Lani crazy?”
I kept my mouth shut. He didn’t need to know the case didn’t involve Lani. The less he knew the better.
“Maybe you’ll earn enough money to pay your bills.” Finally, Kionni turned to open the passenger door of the truck, and I stuck my tongue out at his back. But quickly pulled it back in my mouth when he turned around. At first, I thought he had a basketball in his hands, which made me take a closer look.
This had to be some kind of cruel joke. It was actually a motorcycle helmet that looked like an orange.
“You have got to be kidding.”
His smile belonged in a toothpaste commercial. I looked back at the scooter. The logo of an orange soda product stood out obnoxiously in bright blue letters on the side panel. I couldn’t help it, I groaned.
“Hey, look at it this way, it’s better than a hotdog. Can you imagine wearing a wiener on your head? Now, guys will just ask to see the melons to go with the orange.”
I glared at him, not trusting my mouth to behave if I opened it.
“And, better you than me,” he said as he put the helmet on my head, still grinning that obnoxiously white smile that made me want to smack off his face. Instead, I took my frustration out on his hand as he tried to snap the chinstrap in place. I swatted it like a nun whacking a student’s hand with a ruler. Not that I’d ever been whacked by a nun, but the visual was nice.
Kionni laughed, handed me my motorcycle license and turned toward his truck.
“As soon as I get a rental car, you can have it back.” I told his retreating back.
“Nah, that’s okay. You’ve just become a tax deduction for me. You’re welcome, sis.”
I knew I had to thank him, but it was pretty damn hard to say something nice when he was laughing at me and making me look like an idiot. He probably tweeted about this before he got here so all our friends would get pictures of me riding it in various places across the island. Normally I love technology, but right now, I had a feeling that social media would make me a laughing stock.