When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (18 page)

No wonder she longed for people, the team, community.

“Casper says that you are living with your aunt Liza,” Ingrid said, finding warm coals.

“She’s my dad’s sister. He wrote to her and asked if I could move in after . . .” She shook her head. “My dad was dying, and he was worried about me.”

Her dad was gone too?

“What about your brother? Is he in the Cities?”

She held her marshmallow over the fire. “He died a few years ago.”

Oh. Casper glanced at his mother, who was watching Raina with a look of concern. His dad wore a grim expression.

“I’m so sorry, Raina.” He hadn’t meant to stir up all this pain.

She sat there, roasting her marshmallow, watching as the skin rose dark and caramelly, puffy. “Thank you. I’m trying to put it behind me.”

“Do you plan on staying in Deep Haven long?” John asked.

Casper frowned at him.

“I like it here. So far.”

“Dad?”

“I was just wondering if we could count on her next year. For our dragon boat.”

Oh.

Raina laughed. “Only if Casper is captain again.”

He let himself smile at that.

“But if I could, I’d stay here forever
 
—oh!” Her marshmallow flamed and she yanked it from the fire, shook it. It flew off her stick, landing in the dirt.

“That’s okay. I did that one of the first times I roasted a marshmallow too.” The voice came from behind them, light and cheerful. Casper turned to see Ivy and Darek walking down the path.

“Daddy!” Tiger launched himself at them and Darek caught his son, twirling him around.

“I didn’t expect you back until later this week,” Ingrid said, wrapping Ivy in a hug. Ivy wore the sunshine of Cancún on her skin.

Darek came up behind her, Tiger over his shoulder. “Tropical storm,” he said. “They evacuated us three days early.” He set Tiger down. “But maybe I’m back in time to check on Casper’s progress with this year’s dragon boat.”

John had finished roasting his marshmallow and now made it
into a s’more, crushing it between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate. “We finally learned how to paddle without upsetting the boat.”

“You swamped a dragon boat?”

“It’s not that hard to do,” Casper muttered. “They got out of rhythm.” He wanted to glare at his dad. Whose side was the guy on?

“Maybe I should take over. Ready to declare mutiny, Dad?”

“What? Are you kidding me?” All eyes turned to Raina. She had found her feet. “You can’t just come back here and take over. Casper’s been working hard, and he deserves your respect.”

Darek stared at her. “Who are you?”

“I’m . . . I’m his first mate.”

“His . . .” Darek looked at Casper, then suddenly started to laugh. Casper didn’t know how to respond.

Raina did. “What is it with you arrogant Christiansen men who think you can just use people? Casper has been working to get this team going, and you can’t trample over him as if his feelings don’t matter!” She stormed past Darek, up the path, toward the driveway.

Casper scampered after her, seeing Darek’s smile dim as he passed. “Raina!”

He caught up with her next to his truck.

“I . . . I don’t want to be here right now.” Her eyes were red as if
 
—

“Are you crying?”

“Can you take me home?”

He nodded and reached for his helmet. What exactly had just happened?

“No. Not on the bike.” She went around the truck and got into the passenger side.

Oh. Okay. He got into the truck, pulled out.

Casper drove in silence as Raina folded her hands on her lap. Were they shaking? Finally he asked, “What happened back there?”

“He just made me so angry, to mock you like that. Especially after you’ve worked so hard. It’s not like you tried to swamp the boat. You put your faith in us and
we
swamped it.”

He frowned, not quite seeing it that way.

She sighed. “Okay . . . I guess I overreacted.”

“I’ve never had anyone overreact for me before.” He reached for her hand. “I kind of like it.”

She glanced at him. “You do?”

Enough to wish they’d brought the motorcycle. He ran his thumb over her hand. “Yes. Would you like to see the sunset again?”

She nodded, her right hand wiping her cheeks. “Very much.”

Safe.
The word reverberated through him. As he held her hand, feeling it warm in his, his father’s words came back to him about Jesus fixing her broken places.

Please, Lord. Use me for good in this woman’s life.

M
AX MIGHT BE RIGHT.
They could win this.

The sky arched blue above Grace, the day shiny and brilliant. When the announcer introduced Max, the crowd went wild.

Grace stood behind Max, raising her hand when the announcer
 
—a local newscaster by the name of Palani
 
—introduced her as Max’s sous-chef for round one, appetizers. Every team had to have a head chef and a sous-chef, and she’d volunteered Max for head chef before he could make the mistake of pushing her to the front.

Now he stood fully inhabiting his Maximoto, ninja chef, persona, a warrior in the kitchen, his short military cut giving him a steely demeanor.

Of course the crowd loved him. She loved him.

Loved, at least, the hero he’d turned into over the past two days. He’d made her believe she could fly
 
—on water, anyway. More, he’d made her believe that if she reached beyond herself, she might find something amazing.

She might not have won his heart, but she’d won his admiration when she had called Keoni and asked him to give them another chance.

Keoni had already chosen them for the competition.

They spent yesterday in their interviews, and she’d managed to sit in a chair, stare at the camera, and somehow communicate her desire to start a catering company.

She had no idea what Max said after he kicked her out of the studio.

Now she sorted through what Max had taught her as she stared down the competition
 
—the hippie couple from North Beach, the Pearl Harbor father-and-son soldiers, the Hawaiian sister-and-brother team, and the two women from their cooking class. Max had dubbed them the Twinkies.

She didn’t want him calling her anything but the best sous-chef he’d ever seen.

Last night, he’d spoken the magic words. “You’re ready.”

He said it over a dinner of shrimp tacos from Lola’s, across the street from the Waikiki pier, just before he took her back out in the water.

She’d gotten up on her board a total of ten times. One of these days she might even learn how to read the waves, catch one without Max’s help. Until then, she let him push her out with the wave, trusting him and paddling hard to find her groove, get her balance. Ride the swell to shore.

“Chefs, are you ready?” Palani said.

Max, standing beside her, nodded, and Grace mimicked him.

“Then take your stations.”

They would cook live at outdoor kitchen stations before a grandstand audience
 
—a discovery that had nearly turned Grace around at the edge of the stage. But Max kept his hand on the small of her back, nearly pushing her forward, and what could she do?

Now he took her hand, probably fearing she might bolt. But she hung on, letting the strength of his grip sweep through her.

We make a great team.
Yes, those words, too, had been said last night as he looked into her eyes, so much in his that it shucked her voice from her.

He felt something for her; she just had to believe it.

Please, God, help me not be a fool.

She followed Max to their station. The hippies were next to them, the military team on the other side.

Palani stated the rules, the time limit, and then introduced the ingredients. “Today, chefs, you’ll make us an appetizer out of ahi, ramen noodles, black poppy seeds, and . . . oranges.”

Grace stared at the basket of ingredients as everything hollowed out inside her. Seriously?

But a glance at Max’s game face shored her up.

“Go!”

She ran for her basket, scooped it up, returned to Max. He had already pulled out two knives.

“What are we going to do?”

His mouth tightened to a grim line. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know
 
—but you looked so confident!”

“Never let them see you sweat, baby. Okay, listen, we’ve got ahi, so we could make a sort of sushi
 
—”

“Oh, that’s it. What if we boiled the noodles al dente and made a shell out of them, like spaghetti pie. Then you’ll do your ahi massage in a little vinaigrette, something sweet that goes with poppy seeds.”

“Right.” A spark lit his eyes. “How about shoyu sauce and oil? We can add some mirin . . .”

“What?”

“It’s, uh . . . Japanese sweet rice wine. Just trust me.”

“I do.” She had already found a pot, was filling it with water.

He grinned at her and began to clean the tuna.

Grace set the water to boil and grabbed the oranges. One in each hand, she looked at Max. “What if we supremed these, then blackened them a little?”

“Nice work, swim buddy. Way to use your mad culinary skills.”

She found a cutting board, then cut off the ends of each orange. Setting one on the cut end, she worked her knife between the inner edge of the skin and the meat of the fruit, ever so gently removing the pith and skin and leaving behind the juicy fullness of the fruit. She cleaned the extra pith off with a paring knife. Then, holding the orange in her hand, she cut along the membrane of each section, slicing on the inside to separate the fruit meat from the membrane wall. She removed each segment of meat from the shell.

Finally she squeezed the juice from the membrane into a bowl and handed it to Max. “Use this in the vinaigrette.”

He had cleaned the tuna and now cut it into pieces. She glanced at the clock, discovered that fifteen minutes had passed and she hadn’t yet dropped the ramen noodles into the now-boiling water.

Max seemed to read her mind. “I’m on it,” he said, grabbing the noodles.

Meanwhile Grace spread out the oranges on the cutting board and found the blowtorch.

“Please, let’s not catch anything on fire,” Max said, standing guard over the boiling pot.

“Stand back, 9A. You don’t want to mess with a girl and her brûlée.”

He laughed, and so did the crowd.

They were miked. How could she forget that?

Max must have seen her expression because he touched her arm, met her eyes. “It’s just us,” he said softly. “Focus.”

She nodded quickly and reached for the sugar. Focus. Forget the crowd. She sprinkled sugar on the oranges, then ran the torch over each one to melt it. She added a touch of sea salt across the brown, crispy surface as Max pulled the noodles from the water. He ran them through a cold rinse, then arranged them in custard cups.

“How long under the broiler?”

“One minute? Maybe two? I don’t know.” She stood back, glancing at the hippies. They’d concocted a sort of ceviche, it seemed, leaving the noodles uncooked and crunchy. Max had his arms folded now, willing the noodles to harden. Behind her, she saw the military boys sautéing their ahi, creating a soup with green onions, cilantro, and noodles. The oranges they’d hollowed out, as if to house the soup. What they’d done with the fruit meat, she couldn’t guess.

“It’s coming out.” Max reached in with his towel to grab the tray. “Hot! Hot!” He slid it onto the counter and jerked his hand back. “The towel’s wet.”

Grace cast a look at the clock. Six minutes left.

Max ran his hand under water while she poured Max’s
vinaigrette over the ahi, added salt, and massaged it. “Did you add the orange
 
—?”

“Yes!” He turned off the water, grabbed a fresh towel, and transferred the custard cups to a plate. Carefully, he turned each dish over, catching the shells in his hand, then plating them.

They’d turned out perfectly, a nest to cradle the ahi. Grace placed a spoonful in each nest as Max added two slices of oranges to each cup. She garnished the three cups with black poppy seeds and stepped back just as Palani called time.

Max slipped his hand into hers, and Grace just about cried with relief.

But she’d never had so much fun in all her life.

One course down, three to go. Max still didn’t know how they’d hung on. Not against the hippies’ tropical ceviche or the military team’s ahi bisque in an orange cup or even the aloha siblings’ orange poi sauce over ahi. He’d clearly underestimated the competition.

He had to admit, however, that Grace might have saved the day with her brûléed orange supreme. She’d even named their dish, the words rolling off her tongue as she presented it to the judges: “Ahi tartar in a rice noodle cup, garnished with char orange supreme.”

It sounded like something out of a gourmet magazine. With their appetizer course, Max had stepped into a surreal world of culinary dominance, especially with the elimination of the military team.

In a crazy way, it felt as if he were in the Cup play-offs, only . . . better. Max wanted to shout or pump his fist in the air or . . .

Maybe just sweep Grace into an embrace, although that didn’t seem appropriate for the competition.

And definitely not safe for his heart.

But oh, she’d done something to him
 
—he felt it, and it was more than just wanting to weave his fingers into her hair, take her in his arms. The feeling exploding inside went way beyond wanting to kiss Grace Christiansen.

He had changed clothes, perched himself on the Mustang, waiting for her as she emerged from the changing rooms. She wore shorts, a tank top, and carried a string backpack over her shoulders.

She high-fived him. “Way to go, master chef.”

Oh yeah, he was in trouble. He found his voice. “You’re in the driver’s seat tomorrow.”

She climbed into the passenger side. “I don’t know. We made a great team today, but I can’t plate like you can.”

“So I’ll plate, but you
 
—” he got behind the wheel, grabbed his aviators
 
—“you’re in charge of amazing.”

“Huh?”

He grinned. “I think you know what I mean.”

She smiled and slid down in her seat. “So where to today, cruise director?”

“Pearl Harbor. It’s time for some history.”

He found a country station on the radio and headed out of Honolulu, north toward Pearl Harbor. The endless blue sky arched over him, the sun kissing his skin as he sang along to Jake Owen. “‘I’ll go anywhere, anywhere with you.’”

Grace hummed with him.

They cut off the highway, followed the signs to Pearl Harbor, found a parking spot, and headed toward the monument.

“One of my favorite movies is
Pearl Harbor
,” she said, and he had the urge to hold her hand again.

He fished out his wallet, paid for their tickets despite her protest, and rented a couple headsets for the tour.

He’d visited Pearl Harbor before, during his first year in Hawaii, and the depth of the soldiers’ sacrifice had taken more from him than he’d expected. Too many young lives cut down. Destroyed. It skirted too close, so the next year, he’d avoided the monument.

Now he listened to a minute-by-minute account of the attack on the naval base, imagining the boys stationed here, fighting for their lives. He stood at the wall, studied the map that outlined the Japanese attack, and imagined a blue-skied Sunday morning, the sun glorious, no hint of disaster on the horizon.

It felt too close again. The sense that death, or at least pain, lay anchored just out of sight, waiting to attack.

Max stared across the water of the bay to the white monument built over the battleship
Arizona
, and that’s when he felt Grace’s hand slip into his.

He held on and didn’t care.

They took the ferry to the monument in silence, hands clasped, watching the oil still rising from the massive ship–turned–tomb.

He couldn’t speak with the immensity of it all.

When they finally took the ferry back, he deliberately hung on to her hand, wishing.

After they turned in their headsets, Grace went to sit in the garden overlooking the harbor.

He slid onto the bench next to her and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Took off his sunglasses. Glancing at Grace, he saw her eyes reddened, watched as she whisked a tear from her face.

“Sorry. I thought this would be inspirational,” Max said.

“It is. The bravery. The sacrifice. These men had no idea they’d give up their lives when they joined the military. We were in a time of peace, despite the turmoil in Europe, and these boys were in the prime of their lives, stationed in beautiful Hawaii. What could go wrong?” Another tear rolled down her cheek. “It just makes you think about life, stepping out and not knowing what is out there and
 
—”