When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (20 page)

She was miked, and he heard the audience, thinner than yesterday’s, twitter. “Okay, soup girl, what are we making with our . . . plantain, tofu, and pineapple?” He pulled the ingredients out of the basket.

“The plantain is a starch, so we’re going to treat it like a potato. Get out the pressure cooker.”

“Are you sure
 
—?”

“Have you never eaten mashed potato soup?”

“Not with bananas.”

“Trust me.”

He guessed he deserved that. But how could he trust crazy?

He found the pressure cooker, added chicken broth, then peeled the plantains, cut them, and added them to the cooker. Grace was already sautéing a chopped onion, garlic, and ginger on the stove, and she threw those into the pot. He set it on high, clamped the lid on. “Let’s hope that cooks in ten minutes.”

She handed him the tofu. “Chop this up.” Meanwhile, she went to work on the pineapple, trimming and skinning it, cutting it into quarters, and removing the core with a paring knife. Finally she sliced it into long spears.

He’d taught her that, and he smiled at her skills.

Max glanced over at the hippies. They were chopping the plantain, making a salad with it and the pineapple.

That sounded like a winning combination, and he nearly mentioned this when he saw Grace fire up the grill.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m grilling the pineapple.”

“What is with you and fire?”

“I keep thinking about yesterday’s brûlée, and how the char brings out all the flavor. Quick, make me a glaze of honey, lime juice, and black pepper.”

He ran to the pantry, found the ingredients, and whisked them together. She’d arranged the pineapple spears on a plate, and he ran the glaze over them with a brush.

Grace picked them up with her fingers and plopped them on the grill. “Give these about four minutes per side. Wait until they start to dry out on the surface, but don’t overcook them or they will turn mushy. Or burn.”

“Yes, chef,” he said, and she stuck out her tongue at him.

The crowd laughed.

And then so did he because it felt so natural and even easy to be in the kitchen with her, watching her work, seeing her mad skills at throwing together dinner.

He could do this every night. Forever.

That thought sparked another flame of frustration.

She opened the pressure cooker and steam billowed out. Fishing out one of the plantains, she tested it on the counter, squishing it. “I think it’s ready.” She ladled out the pieces and dropped them into a blender. Then, scooping up the chopped tofu, she dropped that in also.

She set the blender on puree, the sound a buzz saw across the kitchen. The other contestants’ heads gophered up, checking on their progress.

Max glanced at the clock. Thirteen minutes left. He turned the pineapple.

“Almost done?” Grace ran to the pantry and returned in a minute with turmeric, coriander, cumin, and a bunch of fresh cilantro. She added the spices to the soup, chopped up half the cilantro. “Give me four of those spears.”

He handed her four on a plate, and she dropped them into the blender, sped it through, and turned it creamy. Then she dumped it all back into the cooker and popped the cover back on, turning it up.

He pulled the rest of the pineapple off the grill. “Now what?”

She stared at him a long moment before saying, “We need some cream.”

Cream. He headed for the refrigerator as she pulled out soup cups. She plated the pineapple, then opened the lid of the pot and ladled the soup into the cups.

Max returned, and Grace used a spoon to design a creamy flower in each bowl, like someone might with a cup of coffee. Then she garnished each soup with cilantro.

It kind of resembled pumpkin soup, with a hint of yellow, a sprig of green, and the charred pineapple so fragrant, it just about made Max reach for one.

“Don’t you dare,” she said.

He wondered if she could read his mind. Probably.

She stepped back, took his hand, held it up with hers as Palani called time.

The hippies had built their salad on a slab of tofu. The aloha
siblings had created a grilled tofu and plantain dish with onions, lime, garlic, and ginger. The Twinkie girls had made a tofu salad with pineapple and plantain chips.

Palani walked by each of them, surveying their dishes with the crowd and the camera. Then they loaded them on trays to present to the judges.

Yesterday Tonie had made a point of mentioning Max’s use of Hawaiian condiments
 
—the mirin and shoyu sauce. It just sounded good, really. Tonie could have called it vinegar or soy sauce. But if she wanted to help him win, he wouldn’t fault her.

He hoped today she wouldn’t mock Grace for her simple ingredients.

And that the soup would taste good.

He stood with Grace, fighting the urge to take her hand again and then angry that he longed for her touch. He watched the hippies present their dish while trying to rewrite yesterday’s conversation to something that made sense and sorting through what they might do today after the competition that would help him find his footing again and
 
—

“We’re up.” Grace nudged him and gestured to the tray.

Already? He’d missed the hippies’ feedback and the Twinkies’, so he hadn’t a clue how they’d fared. He presented the soup to each of the judges.

Keoni made no sign of recognition and Chef Rogers had his gaze on Grace. Tonie raised an eyebrow and he smiled as he stepped back.

“We made a tofu and plantain yellow curry bisque, garnished with cilantro and served with charred pineapple,” Max said.

He found Grace’s hand in his as the judges dug in.

He was never good at reading faces. Body stance, skate direc
tion
 
—yes, he got that. Could read a player’s forecasted moves better than his own sometimes. But he had nothing as the panel tasted the soup.

The crowd seemed to hold their collective breath.

Then Keoni smiled. “Delicious.”

Palani handed him the mic.

“Smooth, creamy. The curry is perfect, with the slightest hint of sweetness from the pineapple.”

Grace squeezed Max’s hand.

“I agree,” Rogers said. “Some of the pineapple is just a little mushy, but that’s hard to get right.”

Max kept his smile.

“But the texture is perfect, and the caramel char on the pineapple is an interesting blend with the curry.” Rogers looked at Grace, warmth in his smile.

Max tightened his hold on her hand.

Tonie set down her spoon. Licked her lips. Sighed. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you could pull it off. Soup is . . . well, it’s easy to step over the line from a hint of curry to overpowering. But this . . . yes, I agree with the panel. Although I might have added a smidge more ginger and a little less pineapple.” She looked at Max. “And I didn’t find the pineapple overdone.”

Not a glance at Grace, but he didn’t care. They moved away and listened to the judges evaluate the aloha siblings. Who apparently hadn’t followed the instructions at all and, according to the judges, created a main dish instead of a delectable side.

Max had to stop and orient himself a moment when the results came in, let it sink in that he and Grace had made it to the main course round.

He had to admit, deep inside, he hadn’t expected them to
advance past the first round. Then again, nothing with Grace Christiansen seemed predictable.

Grace was jubilant and nearly hugged him onstage. However, she waited until they’d exited, until the cameras shut off, before flinging herself into his arms. “You were fabulous!”

He held her as long as he dared, then put her down. Smiled into her eyes. “No, you were. Who would have thought . . . soup?”

“Curried potato soup is one of my mom’s favorites. Only she makes it with coconut milk. The swirl of cream
 
—all Mom. And the pineapple we had a few years ago during a cookout. So I wasn’t completely original.”

“You were fantastic,” he said, meaning it.

“But you’re wearing the hat tomorrow, Chef Maximoto. I can’t handle all this pressure. It’s just so . . . Wow.” She pulled off her hat. “I could use some surfing.”

Surfing.

With that, the last of his anger worked free. Because despite knowing that he had to leave her in five short days, he would still choose every wonderful, infuriating, frustrating, glorious moment of being near her.

“Let’s catch some waves.”

O
KAY.
F
INE.
She could admit it.

Grace was in love with Maxwell Sharpe. She’d probably fallen for him on the airplane ride over the ocean, when he’d practically helped hold her barf bag. Definitely when he shoved his foot into her door and forced her to escape from her hotel room and raised her meager expectations of this trip. But it had only been cemented when he’d helped her believe she was capable of more than she’d ever dreamed.

Like snorkeling. Parasailing. Surfing.

Being a finalist in Honolulu Chop.

When Palani had uncovered the Twinkies’ plate during today’s main course round, leaving only the hippies and Max and Grace to compete in the dessert finale, Grace simply had no words.

No words except
I love you, Max
.

She wanted to grab his beautiful face with both hands, look him straight in those hypnotizing brown eyes, and blurt it out.

Maybe even kiss him. Oh, she’d thought about it
 
—a lot, in fact. What it might feel like to be in his arms
 
—really be there, not just by chance, but because he wanted her.

Sometimes she thought she saw it in his eyes too. A flicker of desire that broke free from wherever he tamped down his emotions. That was about when he turned away, cracked a joke, or announced they would do something adventurous.

It made her wonder if his words at Pearl Harbor weren’t hypothetical, but rather a sort of cryptic message. Which felt weird because what did he mean, if you knew someone was going to die? Max wasn’t dying
 
—one look at the man shouted the contrary.

She leaned back on her hands on the cushion of her towel in the sand, watching as he paddled hard with a wave, caught it, and stood, riding the angle to the shore. Water glistened off his hard-packed body, the ripples in his stomach, his sculpted shoulders. He wore sky-blue trunks, and against the twilight blue of the sky and the ocean, he looked like a man made for the sea.

Hard to believe he spent nine months of the year on ice.

She couldn’t think about that
 
—about leaving. Four days until her vacation was over, and how did anyone expect her to return to her mundane, pizza-tossing life after the exhilaration of Hawaii? Of Honolulu Chop? Of Max?

Maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe . . . maybe if she told him how she felt, it would unlock whatever trapped him, whatever kept him from unleashing his own feelings. After all, he carried the deep pain of losing his father. Maybe he was simply afraid of losing again.

If she let go of her heart, handed him a piece of it, maybe that would be enough for him to give her a piece back.

Then what? They continued their relationship in Minnesota?

She watched him tumble into the surf, emerge, grab his board, and paddle out again. She’d begged out of today’s surfing, wanting to give him time to surf on his own. Not that he’d complained, but after today’s competition, Keoni had come up to her while Max was completing his set of interviews for tomorrow’s taping and mentioned that Max hadn’t joined any of the locals this year.

Oops.

Still, she’d practically had to force Max to leave her on the beach while he joined Keoni and a school of other surfers fighting for waves.

After all, she had that unread book.

Right. Her mind kept wheeling back to the photo session today, the one featuring her and Max dressed in their chef’s attire, posing with knives and lobsters and other island treasures. Once he’d picked her up, thrown her over his shoulder. She banged on his back until he released her. He’d been laughing too, the sound of it infectious.

The cameras caught the entire thing, but she didn’t care. After all, who would see it? Honolulu Chop didn’t exactly garner a national audience.

It was that moment, laughing in his arms, when she’d realized she didn’t care if he didn’t say the words back. She loved him. And somehow she’d figure out a way to tell him before tomorrow’s competition.

In her bag, she heard her cell phone sing, and she reached for it, fumbling to answer, glancing first at the caller ID. “Mom?”

“Grace! I’m so glad to hear your voice. How are you?”

She sank into her mother’s welcome voice. Oh, where to start? “I’m great, Mom. Absolutely great. I love . . . Hawaii.”

“Wow.” Her mother laughed on the other end, and Grace imagined her sitting at the family picnic table, listening to the loons as the sun set
 
—or maybe it was later, with the moon rising over the shaggy pines to the west. “Is this the same woman who looked white as a sheet at the thought of getting on a plane?”

“Nope. That woman is long gone. I’m tan and I’m surfing and I’m . . . I’m not coming home.”

Silence.

“I’m kidding, Mom.” But she stared into the surf, where Max and Keoni fought for the same wave. Her words contained some truth.

She didn’t want to leave this magical place where she’d learned to dive into life and live large.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to visit Hawaii. If you decided to stay
 
—”

“Seriously, Mom. No.” Grace laughed the idea away, despite the lingering tingle of desire. “But I am learning lots about cooking for Eden’s wedding. I’m even in a cooking contest!”

“I know.”

“How
 
—?”

“Your sister told me, and I looked it up online. There are pictures of you and Maxwell Sharpe, with comments about the food you’re making. Even videos of you two, and I downloaded the last episode. I saw that you made my curry potato soup!”

“Yeah. Except with plantains and tofu. And today
 
—you should have seen it, Mom. Our ingredients were a pig knuckle, mangoes, and arborio rice.”

“What kind of rice?”

“It’s risotto rice. We made a mock roaster pig knuckle with mango risotto. You should have seen Max. He seared the knuckle in a cast-iron pan, then roasted it in butter and fresh rosemary in the oven. I was worried it wouldn’t get done, but it was juicy and just a little rare and absolutely succulent. While he worked on the meat, I made the mango risotto.”

“Risotto. I’ve never even tried to make that.”

“It can be tricky. I sautéed some onion with the risotto in coconut oil, then added white wine, coconut milk, and some water and kept stirring until the rice absorbed the liquid. I grated in some fresh nutmeg, and then after the liquid absorbed, I added the mango. We served it on top of the pork with a little rocket arugula, and it was so pretty. The judges loved it.”

“You amaze me, Grace.”

“It was all Max. He came up with the idea
 
—”

“It sounds like you two are a great team. You seem to be having a lot of fun.”

A great team.
Grace watched as Max lost his footing on the board and fell into the surf. “I think I’m in love with him, Mom.”

Silence, and Grace quickly followed with, “Oh, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I . . .” But she had to tell someone or she might burst.

“Does he love you?”

“I don’t know. I sometimes think so, but he hasn’t said anything. Maybe I’m just reading into all this. Wishing for something I can’t have. I don’t want to do something that I’ll regret.”

Max popped up from his tumble into the sea and grabbed his board, this time climbing on and riding it to shore.

“You always told me that you were only going to fall in love once. And when you did, you’d give your heart away completely.
I’m so glad you like him. But you need to take a breath. Does he love Jesus like you do? Is he going to be the husband who leads you closer to God?”

“I . . . Oh, I hope so, Mom. He says he’s a Christian, and I see it in him. He’s so kind and patient, and he believes in me, even pushes me to believe in myself. He makes me want to . . . to do the things I’ve always wanted to do but been too afraid to try.”

“Like fall in love.”

She dragged her finger through the hot sand, made a heart. “Yeah. Like fall in love. I’ve never really felt this way about a guy before . . . or even wanted to.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know. We have one day left of competition and then a couple more days until we fly home Sunday afternoon. I keep wondering . . . or hoping . . .”

“You’re hoping to see him when you get back to Minnesota.”

“He does play for the Blue Ox. And Eden lives in Minneapolis. What if I moved to Minneapolis and . . . ?”

Again, silence.

“Or not. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a terrible idea. It could backfire and then what?”

“Then you get back up and you keep following God’s open doors. Just like this trip. You trusted God, and see what’s happened? More than you could have asked for or expected. Look at you. Surfing. A cooking star
 
—”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Yes. You’re brilliant, Grace. And how would you have known that unless you trusted God to show you what He would do with an open heart?”

She wouldn’t really qualify her heart as open when she got on
the plane. But maybe . . . maybe God had done something with her fledgling hopes. Her longings for more.

Max came to shore now, glistening under the sun and smiling at her.

“I gotta go, Mom.”

“Eden will pick you up from the airport on Monday. You might want to stay with her a couple days, just to talk about the wedding.”

Max grabbed his towel, covered his head.

“Go for it, Grace. More than you can ask or imagine. Believe in God’s plan for you.”

“I love you, Mom,” she said and hung up.

Max hunkered down next to her. “Your mom, huh?”

She put the phone away. “I was telling her how spectacular you were today.”

“As were you. Want to know a secret?” He leaned close to her. “I’ve never made risotto well. I was totally at your mercy.”

His eyes skimmed her face, his lips so close she could almost taste them. Water hung from his whiskers, dark and rough after a full day. He smelled like the ocean
 
—salty, mysterious
 
—and the scent of his coconut oil sunblock.

She couldn’t speak, only managed to bite her lip.

His eyes dipped to her mouth; then abruptly, he sat up. “Maybe we should get back to the resort and clean up before dinner. We have a five thirty reservation.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not moving.

Now. She should tell him now. Before the moment ended. Just open her mouth and say it.
I love you, Max. You changed my world.

But her chest tightened, trapping the words inside. “We’re
going to win tomorrow,” she said and wrinkled her nose at her cowardice.

He glanced at her and grinned. “Yep.”

She laughed and the knot in her chest eased.
Yep.
Maybe she didn’t have to say it right now. Maybe she’d wait until tomorrow, after they won.

Then they’d have two full glorious days to savor their victory . . . and figure out how to bring it home to Minnesota.

Tonight Max would have to keep a tight grip on his heart if he had any chance of leaving Hawaii in one piece.

Grace descended the hotel steps and came toward him wearing a green sundress, her hair down, floating like gold around her shoulders. A hint of orchid fragrance lifted from her skin, and he conceded that he hadn’t a hope of getting out of this without pain. His only consolation lay in the fact that the four sweet hours he would escape with her tonight on the catamaran dinner cruise might be the most glorious of his life.

The kind that could sustain a guy during the dark, hollow days ahead of him.

So he gave her his arm and determined to keep his wits about him, to not let his affection take them too far, to keep his heart safely in his chest.

“Where are we going?”

“I have a surprise for you.” He walked her down the boardwalk toward the catamaran tied up to the long dock. The sun hung low over the sea, fading fast, but twinkly lights wound around the mast of the boat, turning it magical. Their captain, a friend of Keoni’s
named Lio, sat on the end of the boat, barefoot, his legs dangling down. He wore a Hawaiian-print shirt, a baseball cap over his shaved head.

“Aloha,” he said, jumping up and climbing onto the dock.