Free Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) by Toby Neal Page A

think so. A few bruises is all.” Lei sat up, feeling her ribs. Taking a deep breath made her gasp. “Maybe a cracked rib.”
    “ Tiare is going to kill me if I let you get injured before the wedding,” Pono said.
    Takama was already climbing down. “Don’t get up. Let me check you over.” Jacobsen and Takama helped her climb out of the steep gulch after giving her a quick once-over.
    “You okay to walk?” Pono picked a leaf out of her hair as she was boosted over the lip of the cliff.
    “Just a little short of breath. Maybe I should get my ribs checked out,” Lei said, holding a hand against her side and breathing shallowly.
    “We should go back, have you get that looked at,” Takama said, his angled brows knit.
    “ Another reason we try not to move too quickly out here,” Jacobsen said. “All kinds of invisible hazards.”
    “ The unsub really knows his way around,” Lei said, as Pono hoisted her to her feet. “I mean, the suspect.”
    “ Yeah, that Fed lingo’s still sneaking in now and again,” Pono said, referring to her stint in the FBI. “Tracking is over for the day. At least we know a little more about the guy and we’ve got some possible trace.”
    Jacobsen spotted another fresh blood mark. “We should still get the deer,” he told Pono.
    Lei waved a hand. “Ranger Takama can take me back to the truck.”
    Jacobsen and Pono peeled off to find the deer, and Takama walked with Lei back toward the parking area.
    Lei was in pain, hunched over with a hand pressing her ribs, by the time they’d hiked the two miles back to the vehicles. She lay down on the soft grass beside the parking area to wait for Pono.
    Takama elevated her feet, gave her water, and, after feeling her ribs, said, “Probably just a bad bruise. Just take it easy.”
    “ Guess I don’t have much of a choice,” Lei said, sipping from her water bottle. “I’d like to be able to bring some tracking dogs up here, try to get this guy. We know he’s a real pro in the forest now, and that’s going to make it challenging.”
    “ We’ll keep an eye out, stay in touch about it.” Takama sat beside her, looping arms around his knees in a comfortable, active pose that revealed a man who was used to living without furniture.
    “ Not sure if I’m going to be the one to make it back up here, but I can tell Pono will want to.”
    Just then Jacobsen and Pono appeared, walking through the trees. Pono wore the field-dressed, bloody deer carcass over his shoulders, his face split in a ferocious grin.
    “ Gross,” Lei said, gesturing to the stains on Pono’s shirt. The big Hawaiian gave a heave and tossed the buck into his truck bed.
    “ Worth the report I have to write.” He pulled an impressive-looking bowie knife from a holster on his belt. “You guys want some venison?”
    A few minutes later they pulled out. The buck lay in the back, minus the hind leg Pono had whacked off to leave with the rangers.
    “ To the doctor with you,” Pono said, glancing at Lei’s pale face.
    Her nose wrinkled. “Phew. I’ve never liked the smell of blood.”
    “ At least it’s not human this time.”
    Halfway down the mountain, Lei had to have Pono pull over so she could vomit.
    “You don’t look good,” Pono said, as she got back in the cab. “You pregnant?”
    “ God no. That would be terrible,” Lei said. “No. It’s carsickness and the fall making me queasy. They don’t tell you how windy this road is in the travel brochures.”
    “ What’s so terrible about you getting pregnant? You guys are finally acting like adults and getting married. And don’t start with that ‘I had a bad mother so I’ll be a bad mother’ crap. I’ve seen how you are with dogs. Best indicator of parenting abilities is how people treat their dogs.”
    “ I don’t want to talk about it.” Lei leaned her forehead on the cool glass of the window and watched the road, breathing slow to calm her roiling stomach. As they drove down the volcano and