by Kym Roberts
My phone rang, “Do You Know Your Enemy” breaking the unnatural silence. I yanked open my bathroom door and was met by John holding out my phone, still restricting where I could go in my tiny apartment.
The song of my ringtone hit a little too close to home. I saw John’s chin lower, his head shaking from side to side. I wasn’t the only one questioning my musical choice.
‘Alapai Lincoln’ flashed on my screen. My heart lurched into my throat. I blurted out, “Is he okay?” before Pai could say anything.
“He’s fine. He lost some blood, has a broken thumb that’s going to need a cast and he’s going to have a few scars to show off to the women, but he’s going to be fine.”
I slumped down on the bench near my door, too relieved to care much about John’s displeasure over my location. My next question was a formality. A part of me was curious, the rest of me didn’t care past, ‘He’s going to be fine.’
“Where was he shot?”
“Once on his right side and once on his forearm.”
“Okay.” All my nervous energy vanished in the blink of an eye. I rubbed my side, it was so sore, but I knew I deserved every bit of it. “Does he need someone to take care of him?”
I wasn’t prepared for Pai’s answer. “Our kapuna wahine is going to take care of him. He lives with her.”
Makaio lived with his grandmother. Their kapuna wahine was going to take him home once he was released from the hospital. I expected Makaio to have a bachelor pad. If not by himself, then one he shared with some other guy. Not live with his kapuna wahine.
“Malia. I’d like to see you, if that’s okay? We really need to talk.”
I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. It was all just too exhausting. Finding Peter Johnson’s body. The lack of sleep. The tension with Makaio. The lack of sleep. The triangle turned square with Joe, Jade, Pai and me. The lack of sleep. Windy and Pearl — MY CAR. Lack of sleep. Reading Pai’s thoughts and being drawn into the powerfully addictive feeling mixed with deep sexual arousal. Sleep. Fighting Mutt and then trusting him not to hurt me when the traitor may have been waiting for the moment to bury his knife in my body. THE LACK. OF. SLEEP. Knowing Makaio was heading for a deadly situation and letting him go anyway, despite feelings for him that I didn’t understand. And the lack of sleep compounded by pain radiating through my body.
All I wanted to do was sleep. Just sleep it all away. Get back to normal. Whatever that was.
No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to see Makaio. I’d nearly fainted when John told me he’d been shot. The pain had come on suddenly before that, doubling me over and making John run to my side. I’d denied everything, telling my brother and myself that I was okay. But I wasn’t. I’d felt the cold hand of death when Makaio left, and I let him go anyway. That wasn’t an easy thing to live with. Pai’s phone call had released the tension coiled up in my body. Allowed me to relax. But I couldn’t see Makaio. His grandmother was there. He needed family. Not me.
“Pai, can we talk in the morning?” A glance at my watch told me it was approaching dawn a little too quickly.
“Malia…”
I interrupted him, irritated he was pushing me where I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to hear anymore.
“Please, Pai.” My petition for a break went on deaf ears in the peanut gallery. John’s voice, the voice of reason, delivered my sentence.
I hate that voice.
“Malia, you can’t sleep here. Your front door won’t lock and there’s still a man out there that hired someone to kill you. It’s not safe.”
I turned toward John. “I can go to Mom and Dad’s house.”
“Then I need to tell them everything in case Raines shows up there.” John pulled his cell phone from the inside of his suit jacket pocket.
He was right. By going to my parent’s house, I put them at risk and despite my dad being completely capable of protecting himself, would he be able to protect my whole family against Raines?
John’s argument gave Pai all the encouragement he needed. “I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. I’ll take you to Lani’s and you can sleep in her bed. Alone.”
John looked down at me, shook his head and raised his eyebrows. “You can stay at my place.”
The invitation about killed John. He liked his freedom from family obligations as much as I did, but he didn’t want me with Pai. I turned away.
“Fine, I’ll stay at Lani’s.” I knew when to give up the fight. Right now, my life was so unpredictable I couldn’t get a grasp on reality and the last thing I needed to do was give my brother permission to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong.
Thinking about whether or not I’d actually seen into Makaio’s future was something else I didn’t want to think about. Along with the question of whether or not I’m some kind of freak who can talk to someone with my mind. I am simply not crazy enough to believe in things as outrageous and ridiculous as that.
In the twenty minutes it took Pai to get there, John and his crew finished processing my apartment. He’d taken my statement with his mini recorder so I was done for the night. Crime scene technicians were at Misty’s condo processing it, and Pai had already talked to a detective at the hospital with Makaio. I found some nails for Pai to secure my door and waited in his Jeep.
Next stop for John? Talk to Mutt. Next stop for Makaio? Spend the night at the hospital with his grandma by his side. Next stop for Pai and me? Bed. Alone. At Lani’s place. Sometimes life can be rough. Other times, when you’re looking forward to a bed… it can be almost wonderful.
Pai smiled. One of those full smiles. The one I liked so much with the dimple on his cheek. I couldn’t help but smile back. That dimple told me so much. Pai was reading my thoughts, controlling his reaction, and blocking me from reading his. How he did it, I had no idea.
We rode the rest of the way in silence. Pai, content with his blissful inner self. Me, wondering if I really had a ‘purpose’ in life.
Living in my world had taken on a whole new set of ups and downs and questions about the future. And this whole new pile of crap about being a guardian of a race who is tasked with safekeeping the balance of everything good and evil in our society? It was pretty hard to swallow.
I mean, hell-ooooo? I just solved a murder case. Wasn’t that enough?
We arrived at Lani’s and true to his word, Pai let me go to bed without even a handshake or goodnight kiss. He did offer me a couple ibuprofen for my splitting headache.
I should’ve felt relieved but wasn’t. My side and arm hurt like hell, and the gashes throbbed on the back of my head. Combine that with a hefty load of guilt, and I teetered on the verge of a total meltdown.
I stripped down to my undies, lay down on the soft downy bed, and allowed my body to sink into the oblivion it offered. It didn’t matter that the sun would be up soon. I wouldn’t. I was going to sleep and then sleep some more. I didn’t care what awaited me.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I dreamed of little men in loincloths building dams and offering sacrifices to the gods. (Fortunately, the sacrifices were bunches of fruit and intricate wood carvings. The human kind would have sent me over the edge.) Makaio stood at the top of the Waimea Dam, looking down upon all the smaller workers filling the canyon below. His bare chest was covered in tribal tattoos that emphasized the deep ridges of his muscular torso. A crimson red cloth, with intricate symbols dyed into the fabric, wrapped low around his hips and reached the middle of his powerfully built thighs. He held a spear above his head as he led a fierce chant to the Menehune below.
Pai sat on a throne in the middle of a Heiau to the side of the dam. His long, silky hair draped across his broad shoulders, a necklace of boar husks adorning his neck. His thighs were tattooed in a similar fashion to Makaio’s chest. The markings linked their bloodline, but his face and chest were also covered with his very own unique tattoos. A solid black band extended across his left eye, giving him the appearance of a masked man.
Very separate in their roles. Pai accepted the sacrifices of the Menehune for the gods. A priest. Makaio led the warriors. A general. Any other time it would have been a good dream. A little different, but… entertaining.
Today, it left me shooting up in bed and gasping for air. Pain pierced my side and stabbed at the back of my eyes. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Just a frickin’ nightmare. Covering my eyes from the morning sun coming in the window, I took several breaths and lay back down on the soft, feathered pillow.
Pai’s stories had me reviewing my Hawaiian history in my sleep. The Menehune built the dam in Waimea. Until yesterday, the Menehune were just an ancient race to me. Now, I’m a Guardian of their race. Whatever.
“Saying guardian like a ghostly howl does not change the fact that you are one.” Pai walked into my room with a breakfast tray full of food.
“And if I say, ‘nah, nah, nah, nah,’ does that mean I can simply ignore being one?” My sarcasm didn’t go over well. Luckily for me, Pai was a patient man and overlooked my rudeness. I asked about what was bothering me the most. “How is Makaio today?”
“A few minutes ago he was like you, still asleep. Now that you’re awake, we need to talk.”
Well, shit, he was going to ruin a perfectly good breakfast with more talk about the Menehune. I looked at the tray lying on the edge of the bed. Eggs, bacon and fruit. No way was I going to let it go to waste. My stomach growled in agreement. I was starving.
We don’t have the luxury of time on our hands, Malia. There’s a reason we were brought together on this case.
He was doing it again. I could feel it creeping up my legs. When he walked in, my body reacted to the gorgeous man making his way through the door, but I ignored it.
He wasn’t letting me ignore it now, so I did the mature thing and pretended I was in control. Pretended parts of me weren’t ripening like the fruit on the tray in front of me. Pretended my pulse hadn’t quickened and my body hadn’t heated. Pretended Pai was a skinny, scrawny computer geek with long greasy hair, thick glasses, a bad complexion and a constant sniffle. That shut down any desire.
Whatever works for you, Baby Doll.
He felt it. Felt my power controlling the drive. It encouraged me to talk to the incredibly shy geek who didn’t know how to communicate with women. We were brought together to catch a murderer. We did it. It’s over.
“Not just the murderer of Peter Johnson. I’m talking about protecting the Menehune. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about the guard that you thought was beheaded the other night.”
My fork, filled to the brink with eggs scrambled to perfection, stopped just millimeters before my lips. My mouth stood open, ready to greet the delectable offering. Salivating. Did he really have to bring up something so humiliating? I set my fork back down on the plate, disappointing my mouth, but probably saving my stomach as its growl turned into a groan.
“I’m not making fun of you, Malia. The guards working for me are Menehune. Windy did something to them, both Joe and James Kamakau. He believes she has somehow retrieved the knowledge of an ancient curse. A curse that may not literally cause them to lose their head, but it does cause them to lose consciousness.”
I didn’t need to hang onto the computer geek if he wasn’t going to be the one talking to me, so I dumped him. “She probably drugged him.”
The tox screen showed nothing in his blood system.
My body electrified with sexual desire. Computer geek! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Dammit, Pai. Stop jumping back and forth. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this.
“I wanted you to remember how quickly and potent the effects can be. Our connection is inexplicable, just as a curse that would cause men to lose consciousness is beyond comprehension — yet both are very real. And an entire race is dependent upon us to figure out what is going on.”
I spit out one word in capitulation. “Fine.” At least that’s what I wanted him to think. I surrendered.
Baby doll, you push a man too far.
The tray was on the floor, swiped off with one quick move as the covers flew from my body. A body now begging to be naked. I’d like to say Pai made the first move, but the truth was, I’m the one responsible for the mess on the floor. I straddled him, pushing him back on the pillows before he could make a move. My mouth crushed his with a force that shocked him. My tongue attacked his while my hands pulled the tie from his ponytail. Once his hair was free, my hands moved to his shirt, wound their way under the crisp cotton material at his neck. His skin was smooth and taut. The ripples of his traps and deltoids drove me insane. I had no time for buttons. I yanked at his shirt, pulling it away from pectoral muscles large enough and defined enough to be worshiped by all women. My hands gloried in the dips and grooves.
I had capitulated completely, and offered myself to him. Just like the Menehune offered sacrifices to him in the Heiau of my dream. I served myself up on a royal platter. I didn’t care about the consequences.
His hands expertly moved to my ass and gripped the flesh, kneading it, pulling me closer and closer until we seemed to be one and his fingers curved around to touch my core. My knees hugged his hips, the hard length of him pressed against my stomach. Not only did I feel his passion, I experienced it. And he experienced mine.
I couldn’t breathe. The rise and fall of his chest stopped. My heart took on another pace. His stuttered. Mine. His. Ours. An entire chorus of tribal drums beating to the gods. The heat so intense our bodies fused like molten lava.
Pai threw me back on the pillow. Finally. This craving would be satisfied. I reached for him, ready to indulge in the passion of the gods. The drug I had avoided captured me, consumed me. I thought he was going to follow, but he didn’t.
Pai was across the room, standing at the door, and I was empty handed. His chest heaved, expanding with his recovery. His torn shirt bared an unbelievably sexy chest that was free of tattoos, unlike the image of my dream of him at the Heiau, yet no less desirable. His hair falling loose across his semi-nude torso.
He was fighting it. I could feel it. I needed it. Don’t!
“Malia. This is wrong. I shouldn’t have.”
You didn’t, I did. My body writhed with unsated desire.
“What about Makaio?”
His words were like ice water in my face. They sobered me. Drove the addiction away like a twelve step program. I pulled the sheet up over my body.
Something that looked a lot like disappointment flashed across his face. I tried to read his thoughts, but his mind was closed like a steel vault. “You need to choose before we can continue, but at least you know how strong a curse can be.”
Without another word, Pai walked out of the room, leaving me a believer in ancient curses.
Chapter Twenty-nine
I was able to clean up the mess from my breakfast tray easily enough and after making sure Pai was no longer in the house, I slipped into Lani’s shower. Following the coldest shower possible, I retrieved yet another outfit from Lani’s closet.
At this rate, I was going to owe her an entire wardrobe. Especially since I needed to borrow a bathing suit for my surf lessons later that afternoon. It was either that, or go home and break into my boarded up apartment, and then try and get the door fixed before work.
I didn’t see that happening. My only option was to borrow the suit and change at the resort.
My head was sore, but not splitting at the seams. My cankle was almost an ankle and my side and forearm gave only slight twinges of pain.
Pai had changed into a buttonless silk t-shirt and was standing at the kitchen counter cutting up more fruit when I brought down the remnants of what had been a beautiful meal.
Wanting to avoid any talk of what had just occurred between us, I got right down to business. “So how do we find out about the curse?”
“We contact Windy.”
Of all his responses, I really didn’t expect that one. “What for?”
“W
e find out what she knows. What she did to my guard.”
“So you really think it was a booby trap?” Finally. He looked at me, a trace of his dimple returning. I really think he felt worse about what had happened between us than I did. I didn’t regret it. Hell, no. I just wasn’t sure it was morally right if it was an addiction.
“Now you see my dilemma. No regrets. Not between us, Baby Doll.”
I returned his smile, feeling a bit of a dimple forming on my face, if not quite my soul. “No regrets.”
We ate in companionable silence. I couldn’t read his thoughts, but I figured he could still read mine, so I kept them bland. Shared my escape from reality with thoughts of surfing. Riding that imaginary wave relaxed me. I hoped it did the same for him. But something bothered me, and I needed an answer.
“I thought you would have tattoos on your chest.”
His fork stopped half way to his mouth, then he slowly laid it on the table and waited for me to explain.
“I had a dream that you were at a Heiau and your chest and face were covered with tattoos. The sun was rising and …” I laughed and looked away, realizing how stupid the whole thing sounded. It was just a dream.
“If we were at a Heiau at sunrise, you would see my tattoos.”
My eyes met Pai’s and he smiled, his dimple confessing and giving me permission to believe my dream, all at once.
“You mean you would have a band across your left eye, and tattoos on your chest?”
He nodded. “That was the reason why I met Peter and Daven before the sun came up. They wanted to meet at the beginning of their day. I couldn’t do that without revealing way too much.”
It was like a weight lifted off our relationship. That secret he hadn’t shared, the lie I knew was lodged between us, drifted into oblivion. Until his smile disappeared.
“I’m afraid my secret played into Daven’s plot to kill Peter.” Pai’s heart was injured, I felt the guilt spreading through his soul. A burden I couldn’t allow him to bare.