When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (28 page)

“I have a pretty delicate sauce here,” he growled.

Grace shot him a look but didn’t say anything. For a second, memory flashed. He’d used that same tone on the last day of competition.

“Are you involved in the catering company or just helping out a teammate?”

“Excuse me; I don’t want to burn you,” he said, taking the saucepan off the stove. He poured the sugary syrup over the cakes, each on its own dessert plate.

“Oh, that looks good,” she said.

Grace pulled the salad fixings from the fridge, began to assemble it.

“What kind of salad is this?”

“It’s called Waimanalo salad, from the Ko‘olau Range area in Hawaii. It’s a mix of romaine, red kale, red oak leaf, arugula, and lollo rosso. There’s also some curly cress and tatsoi, an Asian green,
along with some island favorites
 
—oranges, avocado, goat cheese, and macadamia nuts. On it, I’m drizzling a dressing made from Maui onion and olive oil.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“I hope so.” Grace went to the oven, pulled out the butterfish, moved it to the broiling rack, and set the heat to broil. “We’ll be setting the table in five minutes.”

The photographer had moved in, started snapping shots, and she cringed. No one told her she’d be in the shot, and she wore her jeans and pink Evergreen Resort T-shirt.

A real beauty.

But then Max came up next to her. “Ignore them. Smile. You have a pretty smile, 9B.”

Oh, Max. He had the terrible ability to knock her off her feet. She never knew when she might get blindsided by his tease, his devastating smile.

She carried the salad to the table, then went after the poke. By the time she returned, Max was plating the butterfish. Perfectly caramelized on the top, the broiler had blackened the edges and turned the fish to a beautiful burned-butter color.

The smell was so good it could roll her eyes back into her head.

Max added the plates to the table and uncorked a bottle of white wine while Grace garnished the cakes with whipped cream, kiwi, shaved coconut, and a dusting of macadamia nuts. She set the cake plates on the table. Max lit a long silver taper candle.

“Wow.” Eden had come in off the deck and stared at the meal. “That is beautiful. Isn’t it, Jace?”

He stood behind her, his expression looking like a mixture of feigned happiness and dread. “Is that fish?”

“Butterfish. We had it flown in from Hawaii and marinated it
for the last two days in misoyaki sauce,” Grace said. “The salad is made from local greens, and this is poke. It’s seared and served with a spicy Asian mayonnaise sauce.”

“Grace, this is amazing,” Eden said.

She felt Max slip his hand into hers, and for a moment, she stood again before the judges. She wrapped her fingers around his.

The photographer zeroed in on the food, taking shots from every angle. Finally he suggested a pose of Eden and Jace eating.

They pulled up chairs, lifted their wineglasses. Another shot. Then, while Eden tried the butterfish, Jace speared the poke.

Grace couldn’t read his expression. Max’s hand tightened on hers.

“This fish is delicious. Try it, Jace,” Eden said.

He looked like he might be going in for gallbladder surgery, the way his face twisted. A darkness began to spread through Grace.

He cut the butterfish, forked it. Slid it into his mouth. Swallowed.

“See?”

He nodded. “Delicious.”

“Let me get a shot of you eating the fish, Mr. Jacobsen,” the photographer said.

Jace took one bite, then another, finally asking, “You need a third?”

“One more.”

But to Grace’s eye something didn’t seem right. Jace’s eyes had started to water, his voice turning raspy. She untangled her hand from Max’s, ran to the fridge, poured him some water, and returned.

“Jace, are you okay?”

He coughed. “Yeah.” Except his voice sounded as if it had been
run over a washboard. He drank the water, then got up. “I’ll be right back.”

Eden put down her napkin and followed him from the room.

Grace stayed for a moment, her eyes on Max, then followed Eden.

She found them in Jace’s bathroom, him rooting through his medicine cabinet. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m allergic to certain kinds of fish.”

“What? How come I don’t know this?” Eden said.

“I don’t know. We never eat seafood
 
—” He coughed. Tears ran from his eyes.

“But didn’t you look at the menu?” Eden said.

“That’s your . . . job . . .” Jace slapped his cheek.

“What’s going on?” This from Max. Pretty soon they’d have the entire magazine crew in the bathroom with them.

“Jace is allergic to fish!” Grace said.

Max closed the door, trapping them inside. “Well, don’t let them know.”

Grace turned to Jace, who had sat on the edge of his giant Jacuzzi tub. “The man is going into anaphylactic shock. We’re going to have to hospitalize him. How are they not going to know this?”

“I’m not . . . Oh no. Make way
 
—” Jace dove for the toilet.

Max and Grace turned away.

“Whoa. Okay. I’m getting rid of them,” Max said.

Grace stood there, stricken, watching Eden press a cold cloth to Jace’s forehead.

She’d taken out the former enforcer for the St. Paul Blue Ox with a butterfish. Her hand found the counter, and she leaned against it. “What did you think we were going to serve on your Hawaiian menu, Jace?”

He leaned against the wall, sweat beaded across his forehead. “A roast pig? Maybe some pineapple?”

Oh, boy. She might be ill right alongside Jace. “I’ll go help Max get rid of them.”

Eden caught her hand. “I’m so sorry, Grace. For the record, I thought it was delicious.”

“It was good . . . just deadly,” Jace said.

Yeah, she could pretty much use that description for the last two-plus days. She found Max in the kitchen, cleaning off the plates. “I sent them home with the Bundt cakes,” he said.

Grace shook her head. “He wants a pig.”

“Huh?”

“You know, dig a hole, light a fire, add a pig, shove an apple in its mouth. Jace thought we were having a luau.”

Max appeared appropriately horrified. He put down the dish, met her eyes. “Don’t worry, 9B. It’ll all work out.”

But she couldn’t help it. She sank her face into her hands, the frustration and stress leaking out in hiccuped breaths.

Max’s arms went around her, his hand running down her hair. He smelled like the kitchen
 
—tangy, sweet
 
—his embrace even stronger than it had been in Hawaii, if that was possible. Her head fell against the hard planes of his chest, and she let herself sink into him.

Jace was right. Good but deadly, because she hadn’t a prayer of not falling for Max Sharpe all over again.

W
HEN
J
ACE HAD CALLED HIM
for a pickup game of hockey, Max assumed the big guy just wanted to work out his prewedding restlessness. After all, he had roughly twenty-nine hours before he walked down that aisle and . . .

And that might put any guy in the mood to gather his buddies, slap around a puck, play hard into the boards, even without protective gear.

Marriage. A life with someone you loved. Forever.

Max tamped the sudden, unwelcome spurt of jealousy and slapped the puck to Kalen Boomer, who juked out Sam Newton, one of Jace’s old buddies and former Minnesota Wild player, sliding it between his skates and heading for the open net.

The practice arena soared above them, the sound of their sticks
on the ice like gunfire. Max loved the way the breath of the ice seeped into his skin, despite the fire of a good sweat.

Kalen took the shot and it bounced off the post. Sam scooped up the rebound and shot it out to Jace. The two had a groove, and with Sam playing the role of Jace’s best man, it felt like they had history off the ice, too. Max raced down to fight for the puck, but Jace slapped it into the goal, circling behind the net, his arms raised.

“Had enough there, kiddo?” Sam said, laughing.

“I don’t know, old guy.” Max fished the puck out. Played with it, kicking it between his feet as Jace came around to steal it.

“Who you calling old?” Jace said, jabbing for the puck. “I feel like I’m seventeen again.”

“You play like you’re seventeen.” Max outsticked him, headed for the net, and scored, Jace not even giving pursuit. But his laughter filled the arena.

The ebullient joy in the air had the power to lift Max out of the dark place that threatened to pull him in, that sad place of reality reminding him of what he and Grace could never have. The camaraderie of the past two weeks, e-mailing, phone calls . . . the memories
 
—the argument it churned inside him could sink him.

They skated into the box, and Max reached for his water.

Jace had already grabbed a towel. “By the way, I’m trying not to worry, but I do need to know you got this.”

Sam grabbed his skate guards. Kalen had taken the puck, begun to work on his stickhandling out by the red line.

Max swallowed his water. Wiped his chin with his sweater. “No worries. We reworked the entire menu. We’re roasting a pig just for you, dude. Grace hired serving staff and even prep cooks from a local culinary school, and her friend Raina is helping with the preparations. And if this is an excuse to back out, you’d better tell
me right now because that pig is going in the hotbox first thing in the morning.” He reached for his towel, seeing Sam disappear to the lockers.

“Fear not; I’m not going to bolt.”

“Good. Because Grace and I put too much into this to eat all that pig alone.” He thought Jace might laugh and looked up when he didn’t.

Jace wore a solemn look. “Don’t break her heart, Max.”

He stilled.

“I’m not stupid,” Jace said. “Okay, I might be, but Eden certainly isn’t, and she told me that something happened between you and Grace in Hawaii. And I saw you holding her hand at my condo.”

“It’s nothing.” But he didn’t look at Jace when he said it, bending instead to fit on his guards.

“Right. And I suppose it was nothing in Hawaii, too? Because I saw the video of the show. That looked like flirting to me.”

Max kept his expression easy, nonchalant. “We were teammates.”

“We used to be teammates. I don’t remember you calling me nicknames. At least not the kind that sound like names of endearment.”

Max narrowed his eyes at Jace. “Okay, fine. There were sparks.” Liar. He’d call it a full-out inferno. But . . . “It doesn’t matter now. It was just a vacation thing. It’s over; I have to focus on my career.”

Jace ran a towel over his head. “Huh. I used to say that too. But the fact is, hockey is just a sport. Grace is a life. A future.”

Apparently now that Jace had turned into a coach, he thought he had the right to speak into Max’s life. Or maybe he always had. “It’s none of your business, dude.”

“When it comes to Eden’s sister, yeah, it’s my business. And frankly, Max, you’re my business too. We’re friends and that means something to me. You gotta get it through your head that someday all this is going to end. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in ten years, but you won’t have hockey anymore. And then what? If I’d had Eden in my life earlier, I might not have taken so many risks. I’d have had less to prove, maybe a longer career. I don’t know. But I know that having her on the sidelines makes winning that much sweeter. And this next season of my life . . . that was worth the wait.”

But see, Max had no next season of his life. “I’m no good for her, Jace. Trust me on this.”

Jace frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He hadn’t wanted to go there. He blew out a breath, wishing he could escape back to the ice.

But maybe that was the problem
 
—he spent so much time playing hockey, breathing in the icy air of arenas, because it numbed him to the raw, ugly truth.

“I’m gonna die, Jace.”

Silence, and then Jace . . . laughed? A short burst of disbelief that made Max frown at him.

“We’re all going to die, Max.” Jace shook his head. “What kind of lame excuse is that
 
—?”

“I have the faulty Huntington’s gene.”

Jace closed his mouth. His eyebrow twitched, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. “What?”

“It causes a hereditary disease where your brain starts to deteriorate. Basically, in about five
 
—maybe ten
 
—years, I’m going to stop being able to walk, reason, or even talk. I’ll eventually become totally reliant on someone else to take care of me. And I can’t let that person be Grace.”

Jace sank down onto the bench. “Seriously?”

“My dad died from it, and my brother and I both carry the faulty gene that causes the disease.”

“Are you sure
 
—?”

“It’s going to happen, Jace. I can’t escape it. Unless, you know . . . I jump from a bridge or something.”

He was only half-kidding, and Jace must have seen that in his eyes. “And I thought my migraines were a bummer.”

Max lifted one side of his mouth. “Yeah, well . . . my brother runs a nonprofit organization for the research of a cure, and he wants me to be the poster boy.” He ran his hand across the air, an imaginary headline. “‘Huntington’s Doesn’t Have to Destroy Your Life.’”

“Does it?”

“You tell me. Don’t say you’re not feeling sorry for me right now.”

Jace swallowed.

“Right. You can imagine my joy when my brother said he was going to put me front and center on his foundation’s website if I won the cooking contest.”

“He did?”

“I’m not an idiot. I know the difference between salt and sugar.”

“You threw the contest.”

Max fisted his hands in his towel. “It was just a stupid local contest . . . I never thought . . .” He shook his head. “I let her down, I know. But it would be a thousand times worse if she knew the truth.”

“I’m going to have to fight you on that one. Do you seriously believe that Grace is the kind of person to walk away from someone she loves just because he
might
get sick?”

“Will. Full stop. I 
will
get this disease. I 
will
die a long, horrible death. But you’re right. I know she’s not that type of person. It’s not just about Grace’s commitment to me
 
—it’s her future. I can’t have kids. I didn’t want to pass down the disease, so a few years ago, I went under the knife. If Grace is with me, I’d steal her hope of a family. And then she gets to watch me die. Yeah, I’m a real package.”

“So you’ll break her heart instead.”

“I already did
 
—and trust me, it’s better left where it is. Now I just have to keep her at arm’s length until the wedding.”

“How’s that working out?”

“Not great, thanks to you.” He glanced at Jace, serious.

Jace rubbed his hands together, staring at them. “I’m not sure I should apologize. You’re good for each other. Maybe you can’t have forever or a family, but you have something rare
 
—someone who loves you. And I can’t figure out, for the life of me, why you’d want to stop living just because someday . . . you’ll stop living.”

His words settled over Max.

“Or maybe you’ve never started.”

Max looked away, the memory of Hawaii rushing through him. Of being caught up in a world where his future didn’t touch him, where it might be only Grace, only . . . grace.

Yeah. Maybe he hadn’t started living until he’d met the one woman who made him realize that he wanted to.

Sure, he’d figured out how to hold on to his faith while staring at his bleak future. But how could he ask Grace to do the same?

“Tell her, Max. She deserves to know. Let her decide for herself.”

“And what if she decides she . . . ?”

“Doesn’t want you? That’s the problem, isn’t it? You want to reject her before she gets a chance to reject you.”

“I have nothing to give her. To give anyone. I am living a worthless life.” He gritted his teeth, looked away. “At least for anything beyond hockey.”

“I know a little about thinking your life is worthless, Max. God made you, and as long as you are on earth, your life is valuable to Him.”

Max wanted to shake his head.

And he wanted to lean into Jace’s words.

“Your life is also valuable to Grace. It could be that she needs you just as much as you need her.”

Max didn’t need her
 
—the words nearly crossed his lips, but he bit them back. Because, yes, he did. The thought poured through him. He needed Grace like a thirsty man needed water.

What if he
did
tell her he loved her?

Jace must have read his mind because he clamped him on the shoulder. “I know. Facing death is one thing. But letting a girl know how you feel
 
—that should terrify any man. Maybe we should stay right here and play more hockey.”

“Grace, you are absolutely a fairy godmother. You create magic wherever you go.” Eden walked through the open space of the warehouse they’d rented for the wedding, nearly floating with the joy on her face.

Grace looked up from where she was directing the delivery boys with their boxes of fresh fruit back to the kitchen. She put
down her clipboard. “Blame Raina. She’s little Miss Tinker Bell with her twinkle-light obsession.”

Indeed, the space glittered. Raina had draped lights from the girders over the expansive eating area, and on each table, in a tall vase filled with pearly marbles, curly twigs dangled tiny pots with votive candles.

The service crew Eden rented with the space had already set the tables, covered them with deep-blue tablecloths and gold-rimmed plates. The florist had stopped by with a sample of the bouquets, a mix of orchids and the exotic birds-of-paradise, a few ginger spires. White plumeria flowers would decorate the serving line, even circle the platter on which Grace would serve . . . the pig.

It had arrived yesterday, an entire 125-pound animal, freshly slaughtered and prepared for roasting, with the ribs split so it could lie flat on the grill that Max had delivered.

Max to the rescue again. He’d breezed in yesterday, checked her ingredients, then stuck around to help her make the dressing for the salad. And tomorrow he’d run the kitchen while she stepped out of her role as chef to play maid of honor.

This just might work.

Especially since, with the overhaul of the dinner, the menu had been simplified. In fact, the entire thing took a turn toward redneck with Jace’s allergic reaction to fish.

Scratch sushi. And anything to do with seafood. Or, for that matter, Hawaii. She and Max had reworked the entire menu to suit Jace’s palate.

The only thing that remained was the Waimanalo salad. Now the menu featured, along with the roasted pig, a gingered-mango sauce; truffle macaroni and cheese; roasted zucchini, mushrooms,
and summer squash; pineapple fruit kebabs; and Hawaiian sweet bread.

Grace could finally sleep through the night.