When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (9 page)

Clearly she didn’t know him that well. And that made her the one person he could hang around with safely. The one person he could relax with, without fear of giving her the wrong impression.

And just in case they both needed that definition . . . “Yep. Owen was like a brother to me.”

In fact, that could be his secret weapon. Because if she started thinking they might have more, he could always tell her exactly how he’d wrecked Owen’s life. Or if he got really desperate, how he had only now, and nothing of a future, to give her. Just these three weeks of fun and relaxation and adventure.

But maybe that was enough.

Grace was going to fall in love with Hawaii if it killed her.

Thankfully, so far the prognosis was a slow, even delicious, demise. Overhead, the sky hung a canopy of brilliance, the clouds thick and spongy, the smell of summer, freedom, and the sea scenting the air as they drove along the shore, lazy and carefree. She wore a sundress, flip-flops, and a pink baseball hat.

Like she might be this kind of girl, a woman who shucked off life in trade for adventure.

Max had taken down the top on his convertible Mustang rental
and now tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to some country music station. “‘I wish you’d stay,’” he half hummed, half sang, his baseball hat backward on his head. He glanced at her from behind his mirrored aviators. “Stomach feeling better?”

She nodded, although she could admit to a small curl of something amiss inside.

Had Max not happened by, her entire vacation might have been spent staring at Hawaii from her balcony. In fact, if not for Max, she might have taken a flight home this morning. Or a ship, although that might not have been any better.

If not for Max . . . Well, she didn’t deserve his kindness, and she knew it. But maybe it had more to do with her brother than her. She got that.

He turned down the radio. “Think you could handle an early lunch?”

Grace nodded. “Although I read in my packet that tonight we are having a luau.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty tame. They do that the first night so that you get accustomed to Hawaiian food. We’ll spend the rest of the three weeks learning to make some of the specialties.”

“I saw the recipes. What is poke?”

“Pronounced
pokay
, like
okay
. It’s fabulous. A raw seafood salad
 
—they usually make it with fresh ahi.”

“Raw?”

“You know, a lot of cultures eat raw fish. Especially Asian. But even in Minnesota we eat raw fish.”

“We eat
smoked
fish caught out of Lake Superior. My father buys smoked herring and trout down at the fish house for our guests.”

“Your family runs a resort, right?”

She leaned back, let the sun bake her face, her arms. The traffic
had slowed as the road narrowed. The ocean combed the shore just beyond a rim of palm trees and sea grasses. She could drink in the view for hours. Hawaii. Wow.

“Our place is called Evergreen Lodge Outfitter and Cabin Rentals. But it burned down last summer, so we’re rebuilding.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it was terrible. But my older brother, Darek, has a lot of plans to upgrade, so it’ll probably work out for the good. Give us a few years and the place will be incredible.”

“And you work at the resort?”

“No, I work at a pizza joint.”

“That’s right.” He glanced at her again. “No delivery.”

He remembered? After six hours of conversation, a crossword, and calling the flight attendant for another cool cloth for her forehead? “I make a mean spinach pizza.”

“I’ll bet you do,” he said, flashing her a grin.

Maybe, no, she couldn’t eat.

“So what else is on the menu at the cooking school?”

“Poi, of course. Which is sort of a Hawaiian pudding. And lomi-lomi salmon, another staple on the luau table. We’ll probably learn to roll sushi too.”

“So a gal has to learn to like raw fish.”

“Might be helpful. We’ll make manapua also. It’s a sort of breaded pork dumpling. And the finale will be laulau. It’s . . . hard to explain. It’s made with pork, or sometimes chicken, and butterfish and wrapped in taro leaves, and then in ti leaves and steamed. It’s amazing but can be tricky to make.”

“Max . . . how many times have you attended this cooking school?”

“Well, this would be my third time.”

His third time?

“Why do you keep coming back to the same school?”

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Shrugged but didn’t look at her. “I like Hawaii. And . . . cooking. And here . . . well, it’s relaxing.”

She could almost grab it, the sense of something more, lingering outside their conversation. As if, past his carefree demeanor, Max might be hiding something. “Why don’t you buy a house here?”

He laughed. “No. I don’t own property. That would get complicated.”

“You could get a little vacation house, invite your teammates after the season, cook for them, show them the island. You could let your family use it, and then someday, if you get married, you could honeymoon here, teach the kids how to cook, maybe even surf. Pass it down through the generations, make a real family place.”

When he tightened his mouth, she had the strange feeling she’d said something wrong.

Max pulled off the highway into a dirt parking lot. A white food truck marked with graffiti like a modern-day guest book was parked next to a grouping of tables shaded by red, green, or blue canopies. A line of tourists snaked from the walk-up window.

“Wow, it’s packed.”

“That’s because it’s world famous. C’mon, it’s delicious.” He got out and just like that seemed to revert back to himself, the casual cowboy swagger taking on a surfer aura as he moved toward the menu board posted at the edge of the property.

He looked so easy, casual, like he belonged here, belonged anywhere. Could conquer anything.

She wanted that
 
—the confidence to do anything, be anything, go anywhere.

The ability to reach out and grab life.

Grace stepped up beside him and studied the board. “The garlic shrimp scampi looks good.”

“Hot and spicy for me,” he said. “I’ll order while you find us a table.”

Grace looked around the crowded eating area. Not a space in sight. In fact, at least two couples were eating on the hoods of their cars.

But she hadn’t worked as a waitress without cultivating a few skills. She zeroed in on a woman sitting with two towheaded boys playing with their prawns, ketchup slathering their cheeks. Next to them, a small pile of used napkins signaled defeat. Grace swung by the condiment table, grabbed a handful of supplies, and headed their way.

Walking by, she feigned nonchalance, then said, “Oh, my, you look fresh out of napkins.” She held out the offering.

The mother looked up at her. “Thank you, that’s so kind.”

“Not at all. I’m just waiting for my
 
—” she glanced at Max
 
—“friend to get us some lunch. I’ll get more napkins.”

“We’re nearly finished. Would you like our seats?”

Score. Grace retrieved more napkins, then helped the mother gather the debris. “Are you tourists?”

“Oh no. The kids and I just love the shrimp. It’s worth the drive. We live in Pearl City. My husband is stationed here. I’m from Iowa.”

“Minnesota.”

“I should have recognized the accent. It’s nice to meet a fellow Midwesterner.” She propped one of the boys on her hip. He reached for her shell necklace and played with it.

“How long have you lived here?”

“About six months.”

“And . . .” Grace checked on Max’s progress. “How was it? Moving to Hawaii?”

The woman caught her other youngster before he could run away. “You can do anything as long as you are with the one you love.”

Right.

The woman had followed her gaze to Max. “He’s very handsome.”

Grace stood, flummoxed for a moment. “We’re . . . just friends.”

“Well, Hawaii is an easy place to fall in love,” the woman teased. “Have a great time.”

Uh-huh.

Grace slid onto the bench and set the napkins across from her to save Max’s place as she watched the woman walk away.

Fall in love.
Right. It was enough that she was here in Hawaii, so far out of her comfort zone that she couldn’t even see it on the horizon. She wasn’t going to be so stupid as to let her heart fall for a guy who lived for adventure only when he wasn’t traveling all over America playing hockey. Max, with his big life, was exactly the wrong kind of guy for a small-town girl.

But it didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. Just like he and Owen were friends.

“What are you thinking about?”

She looked up as Max set a basket in front of her. Then stared down at the fresh shrimp bathed in garlic and lemon butter, the two scoops of rice and a wedge of lemon, and answered, “Lunch.”

“Indeed.” He sat across from her, setting yet more napkins on the pile between them. “Enjoy.”

If it killed her, yes, she planned to. She picked up a shrimp, refusing to wrinkle her nose.

“I usually peel off the shell, then pinch the shrimp at the tail, and pull. That way you get all the meat.” He demonstrated, shooting hot sauce across the table. “Oops.”

When she tried it, garlic splattered on her hands. “So it’s messy.”

“But oh, so good.” Max finished off his first shrimp, licking his fingers. “Now, tell me, what was so scary about summer camp?”

She didn’t expect that. Just like she didn’t expect to like the shrimp, especially with the flavors of garlic and lemon, the butter that dripped from her fingers. “Wow. That’s delicious.”

He nodded, a silly grin on his face. The fact that he’d managed not to get hot sauce on his chin seemed unfair. She felt bathed in butter.

“There’s more food adventuring in your future, if you’re ready.”

No, she wasn’t ready, not at all.

But maybe that was the point. If she waited until she was ready to taste life, it might pass her by.

“It all started with the fact that I didn’t have a swim buddy.”

He peeled and ate another shrimp. Frowned.

“See, we had a cabin of odd numbers. I think one girl didn’t show up, so when it came time to choose swim buddies, I was left out. Which meant that they had to double me up with another pair. Unfortunately, the girls came from the same church, and I swear they made a pact to destroy my camping experience. From the first day, they hated me. They threw my shoes in the lake, put sand in my sleeping bag, and banged my bunk from below in the middle of the night. The last straw was when they put my swimsuit in the chimney and covered it with soot. I couldn’t swim after that
 
—it was filthy.”

He had stopped eating. “I have this insane urge to track down those two girls and hurt them. Please tell me that you didn’t let them get away with it.”

“What could I do? I called myself a coward and vowed to never go back. But it set the mood for camp for me, and even though the next year I had a swim buddy, I had already decided I would hate it. And then I discovered the kitchen staff.”

“You went to camp to cook?”

“No, but after dinner, when the rest of the campers were playing games, I found the staff singing in the kitchen. It reminded me of home, of my family working together after dinner, so I sat on the stoop and listened, and one of the girls, Kiley, found me. She and the other girls took me under their wing. They would let me help make the late-night snack, and they’d talk about boys and high school, and I felt like they let me into their world.”

“So food isn’t really about food for you,” Max said, finishing his shrimp. “It’s about camaraderie.”

“Sometimes I don’t even eat what I make. But I always watch people eat it. I love it when they make those little sounds of joy.” She closed her mouth. “
Mmm . . . yum . . .
those sounds.”

“Like these?” He slurped, then licked his lips.

She laughed. “I like watching people be happy. Unfortunately, I sometimes think that food will fix things. After Owen’s accident, I kept making muffins and trying to feed everyone into feeling better. But no one could fix it; no one could stop his life from unraveling.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. We all hate what happened to Owen.” He sighed, and on the tail edge, she felt again that strange, painful sense that she’d treaded into something dark. And why not? Owen was his friend. He reached for a napkin, wiped his fingers. She probably needed a bath.

“Ready to see the turtles?” he asked.

“Really?” She went to work on her fingers, her chin, with a napkin. Yep, a bath.

“Yeah, big sea turtles lying on the shore.”

“Every day?”

“Almost. Just basking in the sun.”

“Do they bite?”

“No. They’re turtles. They lie there. Sometimes they stick their tongues out like this.” He opened his mouth to demonstrate.

She laughed. “And then what, cruise director?”

He got up, gathering her plate. “I think tomorrow after class we’ll climb Diamond Head, and I’ll show you a gorgeous view of the island. And maybe the day after that, Hanauma Bay, for snorkeling.”

“Snorkeling?”