Total Bravery

by Piper J. Drake

  Some might believe animals incapable of the kind of reasoning and nuanced decision making generally attributed to human consideration. But Taz was incredibly well trained and also possessed a strong predisposition toward caretaking. Whatever food might be in a person’s hand, Taz would never take. Nor would the big dog ever beg for a handout from a weakened individual, which Mali was at the moment.

  Raul tried hard to remember she was unwell, but damn. She was sitting on the bed wrapped in nothing but a towel. Her hair was still wet, only serving to accentuate the sweet shape of her face and to make her eyes look larger. Her knees were bent, probably to keep the sunburned backs of her legs away from the fabric of the bed covers. Even air contact was likely to be hurting her right now. The effect, though, was incredibly distracting because she was gorgeous in so many ways.

  “I was just trying to figure out if he’s allowed to eat pineapple.” Mali pressed her lips together, looking more uncomfortable than could be blamed on her sunburn.

  Taz just kept looking at him. It wasn’t like the dog could speak in his own defense.

  “To be fair, he didn’t seem to want it,” Mali added in a rush. “And I just dropped a piece by accident, and he didn’t eat it. Actually, he cleaned up. Put it back on the plate.”

  Ah, well that would explain Taz’s guilt then. Generally, the dog had been carefully trained not to take food from anyone. But he’d touched it, which was an undefined area of action, and Taz probably wasn’t sure how Raul would react. Not that Raul had ever seen Taz put something back on a plate ever.

  He cleared his throat. “Concierge sent up some aloe. I thought it’d help make you more comfortable before we head up to the main house.”

  Yup. Mind on the mission. He’d rescued the damsel, and now he needed to get her back to her family. Because her sister was absolutely capable of erasing him from existence if he entertained any of the distracting fantasies forming with every minute he spent in this room. Arin Siri might be primarily a search-and-rescue handler in the present, but she’d been a sniper in the past and had her share of hand-to-hand combat experience, too.

  “Ah. Thank you.” Mali’s lips twisted in a very cute grimace. Then she managed to tuck her legs under her so she could rise up on her knees to reach for the bottle of aloe lotion.

  He took a step forward, figuring she looked unsteady. She shouldn’t be leaning to get something when he was perfectly capable of bringing it to her. He’d managed to take a couple of steps, then Taz was standing, too.

  When eighty-five pounds of dog is suddenly in your way, you either stop or trip over him. Momentum played a part in Raul’s decision. He fell forward and spread his arms wide to catch himself on the bed rather than accidentally catch a handful of Mali’s towel.

  He caught a face full of her towel-covered cleavage instead.

  Mali squeaked.

  Raul rolled to the side.

  Taz barked.

  “Sorry.” Jeezus. He tried to get out his apology, his eyes clamped shut. He was not going to remember how good she smelled, a mixture of honey and sea salt and the indefinable, delicate scent of woman. Nope. He wasn’t. Nor was he going to ever think about how nice her cleavage had been. Just enough to bury his face and let him nuzzle without being so full he’d suffocate. The palms of his hands burned with an insane desire to feel her soft skin cupped in his grip.

  Mali backed away and then hissed in pain.

  His head cleared, and he opened his eyes to see nothing but ceiling. “Did I hurt you? Do you need help?”

  She leaned forward into his range of view, one hand clutching the front of her towel over her breasts. That was a really hot image, too. “No. I just sat back too fast and put weight on my sunburn.”

  “Oh.” He had no idea what to do. He couldn’t sit up while she was leaning over him and rolling to the side seemed awkward as hell. Of course, so did lying flat on his back in front of a woman in nothing but a towel. “Is there something I can do to get out of this situation without Arin wanting to kill me?”

  Mali’s eyes widened, and she froze for a moment, her lips forming a seriously naughty-looking O. Then she blinked and laughed. “No. Probably not.”

  It was either laugh with her or pull her down for a kiss. “I’m doomed. Dead.” He paused. “Once I get you safely to Arin, that is. No worries. We’ll get you to her before I report myself for molesting her little sister.”

  Her laughter faded, and her dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “Well, if you’re going to get in trouble anyway…”

  She bent then, leaning a hand on his chest, and pressed her lips to his.

  Chapter Four

  Mali’s lips burned against his as she pressed against him. Her sunburn might explain the temperature but it had nothing to do with the way heat scorched through his entire body as she pulled back just enough to lick his lower lip and then settled her mouth over his for a deeper kiss. He opened for her, letting loose a low groan as her tongue explored and teased.

  Apparently that worked for her, because she answered with a pleased sound of her own and tilted her head for a better fit.

  Flat on his back and at her mercy, he balled up the bed covering in his fists to resist the urge to run his hands over her. Not that he didn’t want to. Damn, but it was taking everything he had not to wrap her in his arms and tumble her right out of her towel.

  “So good,” he muttered the words against her lips.

  “Mmm.” She’d settled on top of him, her hands flat on his chest.

  A nervous whine broke through his awareness, and suddenly her weight was gone. Raul opened his eyes to see her sitting beside him looking toward the side of the bed.

  Taz sat there with ears canted slightly back and a glazed expression in his eyes. The dog had an amazing sense of smell, and right now, he was probably drunk on all the pheromones. Raul sat up and shook his head. He was pretty overwhelmed, too. Obviously.

  “We need to get you back to your sister, and I have kennel duties to finish.” Shit. He hadn’t even started. Leaving the way he had without a word to anyone, he was sure he’d left behind a crap impression. This had obviously been more important.

  Mali was biting her lip, one hand clenching the towel over her chest. She nodded. “Yes. I don’t know why I…We really need to get to my sister and your team. I need help.”

  She had started to tremble, and her jaw was clenched hard enough to make the muscles stand out.

  “Hey.” He tried for a soothing tone but he wasn’t good at comfort. He started to lift his hand, remembered the state of her skin, and let his hand drop. A person needed calm to project it, his mother used to say, and Raul hadn’t been the type to keep calm inside him. He’d been the kind to fake it. “It’s okay. People have all kinds of reactions after they’ve been in danger. You can take your time to tell us what happened. You’re safe now.”

  She laughed, the sound strained by her chattering teeth. “I am. My PI and the rest of my research team are out there, though. I’m hoping they’re safe like me. But I need to find out for sure.”

  PI. Private investigator? No. Raul wracked his brain for what he knew about her. “You’re here conducting some kind of research.”

  She nodded. “The main research is my principal investigator’s but my secondary research was under his supervision. There’s another postdoc on the team and we’ve been here on the island gathering testimonials. We’re close to the same age, obviously not law enforcement, so the individuals we’re trying to interview are more willing to talk to us than the older researchers.”

  Raul nodded. The details weren’t completely fitting together right now but he was taking mental notes and would see if he could make sense of them later. He wanted to encourage her to keep talking but he didn’t want to drain her either. This needed to happen at her pace.

  It must’ve been the right thing for him to do because her shaking eased. She reached out carefully for the water glass and took a sip. When she spoke again, she was somewhat
more settled. “The police are limited help with the research. Hawaiian laws are still evolving to protect the right people so most of the victims we want to interview aren’t willing to talk to us for fear of being arrested, but we’d started making progress with local contacts. Even if we weren’t looking to buy what they were selling, they were willing to chat if we made it worth their time and didn’t get in the way of potential…clients.”

  Raul tried hard not to let his eyebrows rise up into his hairline. If this was going where he thought it was going, he was very sure Mali had gotten tangled up in some bad news. “I’m guessing you weren’t trying to interview street vendors selling knock-offs or produce.”

  Her gaze met his and there was a fierce spark in her dark brown eyes. “No. Human trafficking is a serious problem around the world. Places like Waikiki and Honolulu are key hot spots because of the sheer waves of tourists coming and going year round.”

  Considering the mention of clients, it was unlikely that the people Mali and her postdoc friend had been trying to interview were manual laborers. More likely, Arin’s little sister had been approaching prostitutes to interview them for her research. Prostitutes could be dangerous, yes, but worse were their pimps. Arin was going to have a stroke. Raul rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t maintaining his calm thinking about this either.

  “You said men in suits took your friends this morning.” He tried to focus on the details that didn’t fit. Tried to get her talking again so she could release her pent-up tension, ease the shaking more.

  Mali blinked several times but she maintained eye contact. “They weren’t standard pimps, obviously. I don’t know who these new men were. We were doing early morning interviews because work is slow for the ladies then and the pimps sleep in late. These men pulled up, and we thought they might be government officials checking up on our research until they started talking to my PI. I was farther away, down the street but still able to see everyone. We always kept in sight of each other. But then they made a grab for my PI, and he blew his safety whistle in the pattern for us to scatter. We all bolted in different directions.”

  Relief flashed through him, and then he paused. “Usually safety whistles are to call for help. I’m glad you all split up to get out of there; don’t get me wrong. It’s just unusual.”

  She lifted her chin. Her back straightened, and she was proud sitting there in nothing but a towel. Proud and confident and gorgeous in that moment. “Our studies on human rights take us to a lot of places. Not all of them are safe. Sometimes it’s smarter to call for help to come to you, and sometimes everyone should split up and regroup. We have whistle patterns for either scenario.”

  The moment passed, though, and she sank onto her heels a fraction.

  He didn’t want to take away from her confidence, the strength she had despite her fear and exhaustion. Despite sunstroke, she was holding up amazingly well. “Let’s get you to your sister and our team. Then we’ll regroup with your PI and research colleagues. Okay? One step at a time.”

  Her gaze rose to meet his. He wondered at the mahogany red hue of her brown eyes. Amazing.

  Then tears welled up, and she blinked them back, but a few spilled over. “I don’t know if they’re safe. I haven’t got a call yet, and when we scatter we’re supposed to meet up the next morning at the hotel. It’ll be a whole afternoon and night before it’s time to meet.” Her shaking increased, and her hands tightened into fists at the top and bottom of the towel, holding it and herself together.

  Raul got off the bed. He searched his closet for something loose and light for her to wear. Her burned skin wouldn’t do well in her smaller, closer-fitting clothing. “Then we have time to take care of your health and talk to the team. What you saw wasn’t just a thug issue. And if they came after you, we should be prepared to handle them before the situation escalates.”

  Truth was, she would need to tell the team all of this again and then probably the police. It wasn’t a good sign when men stood out the way Mali had described and didn’t care that they did. If they’d followed her all the way from downtown to the mall area and even farther to the hotel beach area, they had a good idea of what she looked like. They were going to come after her and her colleagues again.

  He didn’t know the island law enforcement yet but maybe one of his new teammates did. Raul had left a message on Arin’s voice mail, but she wasn’t likely to answer a call until she’d completed her current mission and was on the return trip. Raul wasn’t sure when that would be, but Arin would go to the team house first to check in. Raul could call the police here to the hotel, but it might be better for them to come to Mali at the team house or even in town at the corporate office. Miller would know better but Raul definitely didn’t think it was in Mali’s best interest to take her down to the closest police station. She needed Arin.

  And he planned to be right there with Mali, too.

  * * *

  Raul opened the front door to the house and gestured for Mali to go ahead. She smiled as Taz also waited for her. The two of them were a contrast to what she thought she’d encounter when she met her sister’s coworkers.

  Growing up, she’d viewed with trepidation the way her older sister went out into the world. Arin was straightforward, living out loud with no time for subtlety. Her sister preferred confronting people to get to the crux of any given situation. Mali hadn’t appreciated it in their younger years. It meant fighting and raised voices. It meant discord and people disgruntled at her because her sister made them uncomfortable. She’d always imagined the people Arin would work with would be coarse, impatient, and intimidating.

  Instead, Arin’s best friend had dropped everything, at a single phone call, for Arin’s little sister. And she hadn’t been completely forthcoming with her sister the last time she’d been here.

  Guilt tightened her chest as she stepped past Raul and Taz through the small foyer area into the comfortable living room. She’d had a lot of misconceptions previously and she was about to prevail upon them for even more help when she hadn’t previously appreciated how important their work could be. Needing to ask for help was uncomfortable on a lot of levels.

  Nails clicked on the cool stone tiles covering the floor as one of the big red hounds ambled into the room from down the hallway. The dog regarded her as it panted for a moment and then sat.

  She’d met him when she’d come for dinner with her sister. At least she thought it was the male. There were two, and she’d mostly seen them together. They belonged to Todd Miller, the kennel master. He and his wife lived here at the team house, so Mali had met them when she’d visited previously.

  Mali let the cool seep into the soles of her feet, too keyed up to sit on one of the couches nearby. She’d thought it an odd choice to have stone tile floors instead of some kind of wood flooring but Arin had explained to her how the stone tiles helped wear down the dogs’ claws in a small way. Plus no wood floor would survive so many dogs coming and going at all times of day. The people in this house were practical.

  Before their recent dinner, Mali and Arin hadn’t spoken beyond the occasional brief text or email for years. Arin had always been away overseas and working. Mali had been buried in her undergraduate, then advanced, studies. They’d become only familial acquaintances, and Mali had no insight into what Arin did aside from doing dangerous work for the highest bidder. Arin never talked about it, and Mali decided she didn’t care to know.

  It’d been easier, more comfortable, to simply exchange pleasantries through those brief messages than to check in and really get into what was going on in their separate lives. This entire reunion with her older sister after years of adulthood had been a reset in the way Mali viewed what their relationship could be. Needing to call for help didn’t reduce her unease at all, obviously.

  “This is unexpected.” Todd stood in the hallway, his other hound at his side. The silver-haired man smiled at her. “Welcome back. Arin hadn’t mentioned you’d be visiting again.”

  Th
e bigger hound—Dan, she remembered belatedly—moved to sit on Todd’s other side. The female’s name was Ann. Arin had explained to her that they were Redbone Coonhounds. Mali wouldn’t have remembered at all if it hadn’t been for the subsequent discussion on dog breeds they’d had and the kinds of traits a team like theirs looked for in their canine partners. It’d been surprisingly interesting, and more startling, talking about dogs had made her sister smile. Mali had few memories of Arin smiling. So here she was, looking at Dan and Ann, two aging Redbone Coonhounds flanking their master. Maybe it’d been a few seconds, or several minutes, because Mali wasn’t sure how long she’d been lost in pondering them.

  She lifted her gaze, belatedly hoping Todd didn’t think she’d been staring at his legs. The man stood with his weight evenly balanced between his good leg and a high-end fitness prosthetic. If he thought her rude, it didn’t show in his expression either. He was simply waiting.

  “Abrupt change of plans.” Mali gave him her best smile despite her struggle to think through swirling emotions. “I called Arin but Raul answered the phone. I asked him to pick me up.”

  “That so?” Todd’s gaze lingered on Raul where the other man stood in the doorway. “Was wondering what would induce you to abandon your post.”

  Mali scowled. She didn’t want Raul to get into trouble. The team hadn’t seemed so formal when she’d visited Arin for dinner. Todd’s words were cool, and his phrasing sounded distinctly severe to her.

  “I made a decision.” Raul’s tone was respectful but his words were concise, not conversational. “It was urgent.”

  Todd considered Raul for another long moment before looking at Mali again, and his smile returned. “I’m guessing this’ll be a good story then. Kalea happens to be in the kitchen right now. Raul can get back to what he was doing this morning, and why don’t you and I head into the kitchen to see what Kalea might be cooking for lunch? Arin and Zu won’t return from their mission until tomorrow but they should be calling in soon and we can get a more exact ETA.”