When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (14 page)

Emma sat at the bow, facing the crew, a barrel tom-tom between her knees, keeping rhythm with a long mallet, not unlike the coxswain of a crew team. Although Casper would be the one to steer the boat from his position at the stern.

He directed people into position, trying to balance the narrow
boat for weight, then climbed into the back to man the rudder. The two empty places in the vessel would be filled when Darek and Ivy returned.

He held out his hand for Raina, but she managed to get into the boat without his help, not looking at him. Again, he couldn’t shake the odd feeling he’d done something to offend her.

“Push us off, Dad.”

After John shoved them away from the dock, Emma began to beat on the drum slowly as the two pacesetters, or strokers, led them out into the harbor.

Casper loved gliding over the water, the keen sense of flying. The quiet hush of eighteen people working as one as their paddles dipped. He steered them away from the dock, parallel with the shore, then around to the future starting line.

“When the gun goes off, we’ll start with twenty strong, fast strokes, then get into our rhythm. I’ll start us with a whistle. Paddles up
 
—”

He blew the whistle, and as one, they dug in, surging ahead. At the bow, Emma hit her drum swiftly, then at twenty, began to slow, establishing a beat.

Except his mother, on the port side, had gotten off rhythm a half beat, and now her entire side, in order to keep from hitting her paddle, slowed, readjusting their rhythm. Instead of rowing as one unit, half his paddlers dipped down into the water while the other half lifted their paddles in the reach.

The boat began to sway in the water.

Casper glanced at Emma as the rocking lurched the boat, and panic lit across her face one second before she shouted, “Stop!”

But the starboard side, led by Annalise, injected too much power into their strokes to stop, and they dug in hard.

The boat rocked low, and then, just as Casper thought it might right itself, Claire lost her balance. Jensen, her husband, grabbed for her as she tipped over, and the action surged the boat farther to the side.

They took on water, and with
Titanic
-style certainty, the boat swamped.

The temperature of Lake Superior, even in June, could scrape the breath from a polar bear; it slicked all thought from Casper as the boat overturned, trapping him underneath. On instinct, he pushed away, surfaced fast, and searched for heads.

He spotted his father treading water. “Dad!”

“I’m fine! I have your mother!”

Casper ducked back under the boat, checking for trapped paddlers. Please
 
—

He came up again, the cold like daggers against his skin.

Jensen was pushing the boat toward shore while Kyle grabbed paddles. Casper put his feet down and realized he could touch bottom.

He did a quick count and came up with the right numbers. Ahead of him Raina carried two paddles, wading in. Beside her, Nathan held Annalise’s arm. She fell, got back up.

Casper came around behind the back of the boat. “Jensen
 
—let’s tip it over.”

Jensen stood at the head, and Kyle manned the middle as they flipped the boat. Jensen towed it in to shore.

The cold had numbed Casper’s legs and he fell, too, as he waded in. His crew sat on the shore, some of them in towels. They eyed him with a look that might make him turn around and head back out to sea.

“I gotta get out of these clothes,” Nathan said, holding a shiv
ering Annalise in his arms. “Sorry, Casper. I’m not sure we’re quite cut out for this.”

“Mr. Decker
 
—”

“I’m with Nathan,” Eli Hueston said. “I think I’m too old for the polar bear plunge.” He took Noelle’s hand and headed toward their car.

In a moment, Casper’s crew had dispersed. Even Jensen abandoned him in favor of hot cocoa with his wife.

Casper, his hands shaking, stood on the shore, staring at the dragon boat, the seats soggy, paddles and wet life preservers in a heap.

“Now what?”

He looked over at the voice. Found Raina, a towel wrapped around her, shivering.

“Are you just going to let them give up?”

“I don’t know. I mean
 
—we were a disaster. Darek always organized the team. We won two years ago.”

“And we will this year too.” She said it through chattering teeth, but something about the fire in her eyes found the few still-lukewarm spots inside Casper.

“We will?”

“Listen. You got me all excited about this dragon boat thing, and now I’m wet and cold, and you’re telling me you’re going to give up?” She turned and began to walk away. “I should have guessed.”

“What’s that mean?” He ran to catch up with her.

She just kept stalking across the shore.

“Raina. What did I do? I thought we were getting along the other night.”

She pursed her lips, sighed, looked away. Then finally back at him. “We were.”

He raised an eyebrow, hoping for more.

“It’s just that I’ve had an epidemic of people
 
—guys
 
—letting me down lately, and I’m kicking myself for believing this might be different.”

Oh. Wow. She knew how to hit a man in the throat.

You’re the poster boy for the Christiansen family.
He didn’t know why Amelia’s words latched on to him at that moment or why his body moved almost without thought. But he darted after Raina, catching up, then standing in front of her.

She stopped, frowning. “Hey
 
—”

“I’m not giving up. You’re right. I started this, and I’m not going to let one mistake shoot me down.” He glanced at their wounded dragon boat, moored like a Viking ship on the rocky shore. “We can win this if we learn to paddle in sync.”

She made a sound that resembled laughter, or maybe disbelief, but her face was solemn.

So maybe the sound had come from him, something deep inside he’d been trying to escape.

Would escape, someday, once he figured out how.

He looked at her, at the way she held her towel nearly over her head, gripping it at the base. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Please?”

She sighed again, seemed to consider him, and then said, “Okay. But if you offer me a ride on your motorcycle, I’m outta here.”

Huh?

But she was already stalking toward the coffee shop.

“W
E SEND YOU TO
H
AWAII
and you drop off the planet!” Eden’s voice came through the phone without a hello.

Grace pushed the speaker button and put the phone on the bureau in her hotel room. “You’re just in time to help me pick out a dress for tonight’s reception.”

“Reception? What reception? I have to admit, Grace, I feared I’d find you curled in the fetal position in your room, nose in a good book.”

A book. Yes, she’d been meaning to read one, but, well . . .

What woman in her right mind would pick reading over cooking with Maxwell Sharpe?

Outside, the sun dipped into the inky ocean, streams of fire tinging the waves, igniting the horizon. She’d opened the sliding-glass
door of her suite to hear the roll of waves on the shore, to smell the fragrance of plumeria outside her window.

“No reading. Just cooking
 
—isn’t that why you sent me here?”

Grace stood in front of the mirror in her towel, lifting her wet hair from her neck, trying to decide if she liked it up or down for tonight. Despite her hours in the kitchen this week
 
—the delicious fun of teasing Max, enjoying his patient attempts to teach her Hawaiian cuisine
 
—she’d managed to deepen her tan. She could thank his desire to keep to their schedule of required fun.

Fun, like expanding her palate into the world of raw fish at a local sushi bar. And strolling down Waikiki Beach under a shower of stars. He’d even talked her into parasailing, the boat arching her high over the water to steal her breath as she surveyed the ocean, the beaches, the mountains of the glorious island.

The perspective made her realize that yes, with this trip, God had invited her into a bigger life, a world of tastes and experiences and . . . friendships.

That’s what she was calling it, because Max hadn’t, not once since the snorkeling fiasco, hinted at more. And he hadn’t really even hinted then, just reacted to his fear, something she’d finally accepted after their walk along Waikiki Beach
 
—the one void of any romance.

Oh, sure, the palm trees had danced under a golden moon, the ocean whispering along the shore and the fragrance of romance hanging in the freshness of the salty air. Max bore every resemblance to a full-fledged storybook hero, walking beside her barefoot, leaving toe prints in the creamy sand. His tan showed through his gauzy white shirt, open three buttons down and teased by the wind. When he looked at her with those brown eyes, a sizzle tremored through her, something that turned into a full-out ache when he dropped her off at the elevator.

“Just cooking? Nothing else?” Eden’s voice held a hint of tease.

Grace picked up the phone and sat on the bed. “Nope.”

Silence. Grace made a face. Uh-oh
 
—she sensed Eden, the journalist, on the hunt.

“Okay, what’s going on? I expected you to call me every day wanting to come home. So props to you for that. But you’re spending every day with Max Sharpe, one of the Blue Ox’s most eligible bachelors, and you’re telling me that you are
just cookin
g
?”

“Yep. Just cooking.” Day after day of grueling hours in the kitchen with a man who knew his way around a saucepan. She just might be in heaven.

“You aren’t even remotely attracted to him?”

Grace lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan stirring the balmy air. She could imagine her sister, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, sitting on her tiny deck in downtown Minneapolis, or better, on Jace’s patio in St. Paul, the stars glimmering off the dome of the state capitol building. “I didn’t say that.”

“I knew it!”

“But nothing is going to happen between us.” Grace sat up, running her fingers through her wet hair. “He made that perfectly clear the first day. He thinks of me as his sister. Or at least off-limits because I’m Owen’s sister.”

More silence.

Grace got up and put the phone back on the bureau. “It’s better this way. We’re entered in this cooking contest and we need to be able to work together without distraction if we want to win
 
—”

“Hold up. A cooking contest? And since when doesn’t Max distract someone? Hello?”

Grace laughed. “We’re going to compete in a local culinary contest called Honolulu Chop. Or at least I hope so. If we get in,
then we’ll compete for four days. One team drops out with each round. But get this
 
—the prize is ten thousand dollars.”

“Ten thousand
 
—wow.” Eden’s voice changed tone, and Grace could hear the latent cheerleader rising. “You can so do this. No one can open a fridge and throw together ingredients like you can.”

“I don’t know. I think Max is the superhero chef here. I’m still trying to figure out how to make poi.”

“Make what?”

“Nothing. There’s a meet and greet tonight, and they finalize the contestants based on a casual, social interview, so you’re just in time to help me pick out a dress.” She went to her closet, opened it. “Green sundress or white floral Hawaiian dress?”

“How about the black cocktail dress I put in your suitcase for exactly this occasion?”

“Ah, that was you. I didn’t know whether to blame Amelia
 
—”

“I have much better taste than Amelia.”

“And much skimpier. Seriously, Eden, did you really expect me to wear this?” Grace pulled the dress off the hanger. A halter-style cocktail dress, with a low back and above-the-knee skirt, it seemed like she might show less flesh in her swimsuit. “Where did you get this anyway?”

“I bought it for a cocktail party Jace invited me to a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have a magnificent tan . . .”

Grace’s skin
had
darkened to a beautiful penny shade. She looped the halter behind her neck, let the dress drape in front of her as she stood before the mirror.

“You want to get Max’s attention, wear
that
.”

“Eden!”

“I’m serious, Grace. From what Jace tells me, Max is a great guy. And very single. Do you like him?”

Oh, it went way, way beyond like. But she kept her voice small, bored, easy. “Sure. He’s nice enough.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Grace sat on the bed. “Like I said, he’s not interested
 
—”

“Then make him interested.”

“No. I don’t
 
—I don’t chase after
 
—”

“Something you want?”

Grace swallowed, sighed.

“Isn’t this what the trip is about? Doing something out of your comfort zone?”

“I’m so far outside my comfort zone I’ve lost sight of it.” She got up and unzipped the dress. “I’ve done everything short of surfing here. I even went parasailing.”

“What?”

“Yes.” She climbed into the dress and zipped up the back. “And this competition is me living way outside my boundaries.” She smoothed the dress over her hips and saw that it didn’t dip too low in front, just enough to show off her tan, accentuate her hourglass shape, and reveal her legs. Who knew she could clean up with such class?

In fact, for a second she took her own breath away.

Silence. Then, “You put on the dress, didn’t you?”

Grace sighed. “It’s too . . . much.”

“You look fabulous in it, don’t you?”

She shook her head, reached for the zipper.

“Stop!”

What, could her sister see through the phone? “I can’t
 
—”

“Okay, let’s go back to the competition. You want to get in, right?”

“Of course. We’ve worked so hard. I’ve spent all week in the
kitchen practicing and learned how to make every native Hawaiian dish Max knows. I can chop up a coconut and even core a pineapple. I’m so ready for this. If it wasn’t for tonight’s interview
 
—”

“That’s why you have to wear the dress. In this dress, you know you’re amazing. A winner.”

Grace again picked up her hair, held it away from her neck. Tugged a few tendrils around her face. Smiled. Whoops, too much teeth.

“You got this, Sis,” Eden said. “You want it, go get it.”

Go get it.

She did want it, and if this dress helped . . . “I’ll call you if we win.”

“You will,” Eden said. “Love you!”

The call ended, but Grace let her sister’s words linger and find her heart.
You want it, go get it.

Yes, tonight she planned on winning.

The twilight had curled in like a mist by the time Grace finished tying up her hair, adding a few floral bobby pins and a silver and faux
 
—she assumed it was faux
 
—diamond necklace that Eden had also shoved into her bag. She’d even found a pair of strappy black sandals about two inches taller than she’d ever worn before. She dearly hoped she didn’t topple over in them.

But she had to admit, next time she left town, she’d require Eden to do all her packing.

Next time . . . ?

Okay, this vacation had sunk deeper into her skin than she imagined. Making her leave her hotel room looking like a woman who’d never known a life of cutoff shorts, pizza stains, and old Deep Haven Huskies hockey T-shirts.

She looked . . . elegant. Refined. Even sexy, although that word
seemed unfamiliar and a little uncomfortable as it touched down in her mind.

Confident. Yes, she’d settle on that description. She wrapped a scarf around her shoulders and hit the button for the elevator.

A low whistle filtered down the hall. She turned and startled at the sight of her teacher, Keoni, walking toward her. He wore a white linen suit, his long dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, looking exotic and painfully handsome.

“I didn’t know you were staying here,” she said as the elevator door opened and he held it for her.

“I live on the Big Island, not Oahu, so the school provides lodging.” He stepped in after her, letting his gaze travel over her. “I think someone wants to win this competition.”

She grinned. “I do. It’s more than just the money
 
—and the fun
 
—though. It’s about Max and how much he’s believed in me.”

Oh, maybe that was too much information. She stared straight ahead and tried to keep her face from heating.

Then the elevator doors opened to the lobby and there stood Max.

So much for trying to keep cool. He’d also brought his A game to tonight’s reception. He wore a black suit, tailored to accentuate his wide shoulders and trim waist, and a pink dress shirt, a matching plumeria blossom tucked into the lapel buttonhole. He’d shaved, and the smell of his cologne tugged her out of the elevator. But the expression in his eyes stalled her just a few feet away.

He appeared almost . . . angry?

She wanted to flee the lobby for her room, forget this stupid interview and the fact that she had longed, just a little
 
—or more than a little
 
—for Max to be wowed. Longed to take his breath away.

Grace licked her lips, found her voice. “Too much? I can change
 
—”

“We’ll be late. You look . . . you look . . .” He shook his head. “Let’s just go.”

He held out his arm, but his words cut through her, cold and sharp. She ignored them, bit her lip, and let him lead the way to his car, parked by the entrance. She climbed in, tucking the scarf around her shoulders, tying it in front. Blinking to keep the bite from her eyes.

He got in beside her. “You look real nice.” His tone sounded like he might be congratulating the other team on their victory.

But she did look nice
 
—better than nice
 
—and for a moment she hated him for stealing that from her.

He pulled away from the curb and said nothing during the drive to the reception. She glanced at him once and noticed his hand, whitened on the stick shift. Maybe he was as tense as she was about tonight. She dared a look at his face and found his jaw tight.

He noticed her gaze on him and met it. Offered the smallest smile.

Grace turned away, completely confused.

Music drifted from the glassed-in reception hall tucked into the arching, lush mountains and overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A valet took the car, and Grace conceded to taking Max’s too-muscular arm as he led them up the stairs and into the party.

Inside the hall, the open doors spilled out to the beach, where tiki lights illuminated a path to the ocean. A band played on the lanai, luring people to the outdoor seating.

Tucked surreptitiously around the room, cameramen captured every nuance of the evening
 
—from the flickering candlelight to the excited hum of guests holding champagne glasses, all dressed in
high summer fashion. Most of the men wore linen suits, the women in cocktail dresses. She saw Keoni greet a tall, sun-kissed blonde woman in a sarong, her hair loose and cascading down her back.

“That’s Tonie, one of the judges this year. She has a food blog and a show on a local cable network,” Max said.

As if sensing Max’s words, the woman looked over at them, smiling when her gaze fell on Max. Hungry. Interested.

A tiny knot tightened in Grace’s stomach. Good grief, she wasn’t jealous, was she?