When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) (33 page)

“Perfect
 
—191.3.” Max pulled the thermometer out of the pig’s hindquarters. The skin had roasted to crimson, the scent of the pork enough to reduce him to caveman. He could nearly taste the meat, juicy and succulent, dripping off the bone.

“Let’s get it onto the platter and cover it with foil until the party gets here.”

The sauce simmered on the stove. Max went into the kitchen, lifted the lid. The juices had soaked into the carrot and onion, the smell a mix of spice and sweetness. He stuck in a wooden spoon,
tasted it. Tangy and sweet, but it lacked something. The flavors seemed too different, too unique to meld together.

He put the top on. Stared at the mess he’d created.

“Max?”

He turned, and for a second, his heart stopped. Grace stood in the doorway, her hair in waves, tied up with flowers and ribbon, beautiful strands cascading around her face. She wore a blue dress, short, V-necked, and from her fingers dangled a pair of gold high-heeled sandals.

“You look . . . beautiful.”

She came into the kitchen. “What are you making? Did something burn in here?”

He stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. “Listen. I got this. I know I was gone, but I’m back now
 
—”

“Gone. Max . . .” She shook her head. “You left me.”

True. “I’m so sorry
 
—I wanted to call, but my phone died and
 
—”

“Shh.” She held up her hand. “It’s okay. I don’t care.”

She didn’t?

He stood there like an idiot, hoping she couldn’t hear his heart drumming in his chest. “Grace, I have to talk to you
 
—”

The sauce bubbled over, out of the pan.

“Oh!” He turned and took off the lid while she cut the flame.

“What is that?”

“It’s a red onion, carrot, and citrus glaze.”

“For the . . . ?”

“Pork.”

“What happened to the gingered-mango sauce?”

“It burned. And then we ran out of mangoes.”

She stared at him, undone.

“But we found oranges and carrots and onions, and Max put it all together . . . ,” Ty said.

Grace looked at Ty, and he slunk back into silence.

Raina appeared at the door, her face red, puffy.

Max wanted to ask but decided to keep his question to himself as Grace picked up a wooden spoon.

She tasted the sauce. Rolled it around her mouth. “It’s good, Max.”

He wanted to drop with relief.

“It just needs to be . . . hmm . . .” She turned to Raina. “Don’t we have a blender somewhere?”

Raina fetched it from one of the racks, brought it to her, and plugged it in.

Grace ladled in some of the sizzling mixture from the pan. She put the top on. Glanced at Max with a smile. “Look at you, living dangerously, making mistakes.”

“Nothing’s a mistake with you, Grace.” Oh, he wasn’t sure what desperation drove him to say that, but he let his words hang there. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

“I forgive you,” she said quietly. Then she hit Blend.

The sauce whirred together, the onions and carrots juicing into the mixture. She kept it going until it was blended. Then she turned it off and removed the top. Took a spoon and tasted it.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said and handed him a fresh spoon.

Yes, he just might. Nothing bitter, just smooth and delicious, with a hint of ginger, garlic, the tangy sweetness of the carrots and oranges, blended so perfectly that they made an exquisite sauce.

“You amaze me,” he said. “You need to know that.”

“But you’re the one who made the sauce.”

“No, I just brought the ingredients. You added the magic.” He took her hand. “Really, please, I need to talk to you.”

“We have a pig to serve.”

Oh, for . . .

“I got this,” Raina said. “Ty
 
—let’s get this pig onto the serving table. Someone finish blending the sauce, and then, please, people, let’s make sure we don’t forget serving spoons.”

She reached for her chef’s coat as Max tried to pull Grace out of the kitchen.

“Max, I need to be here. We have so much left to do; we have to get the bread and salads on and
 
—”

“Your team has this. You’ve trained them. Besides, Raina’s here.”

“Yeah,” Raina said, putting on her coat. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“See?” Max said. “It’s time for you to get out of the kitchen and into the party.”

Grace glanced back at Raina, but Max still had her hand, pulling her out into the reception area. He could hear voices, people starting to arrive. In the corner, the band was setting up.

He found her gaze, lost himself for a moment in it, then conjured up the words he had to say.

Courage.
Focus on life.
“You need to be here. With me. We never finished our conversation at the park, and there’s something you need to know
 
—”

“I already know, Max.”

She did?

And then he saw it on her face, the truth in her smile, sad and edged with pity.

“Jace told you.”

She nodded. “
You
should have told me.”

He drew in a long, steadying breath. “I know. But I was . . . I was afraid.” He took her by the shoulders. “And you should be too, frankly. It’s not like cancer. This disease is going to take me from you slowly, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s put together. I’ll lose my mind and my body one agonizing step at a time. I’ll start dropping things and forgetting things you say to me. I’ll lose my balance, my ability to speak. Then I’ll slowly lose my mind, even become irrational. I’ll stop being able to care for myself. You’ll have to feed me. And in my worst nightmares, I’ll linger that way for years.”

Her expression had become more solemn, as if finally the truth had sunk in. But there was more.

“Grace, the worst part is, you’ll have to suffer through this alone. I can’t give you children. I’m sterile
 
—on purpose.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

He winced. “No
 
—every time I look at you, I see family. A home. A long life with the one you love
 
—this is what you want. And exactly what I can’t give you.”

Suddenly her expression changed again. She smiled, something so tender in her eyes, it could crumple him. She slid her hands up to cradle his face. “Oh, Max, don’t you get it? You can give it to me
 
—just not how I’d planned. We don’t have to have a long life to be happy. The tragedy doesn’t have to steal our joy. Has it occurred to you that maybe God brought you into my life not for your good, but for mine? That maybe it would be my
privilege
to walk through this with you? There are no guarantees in life, and we can’t keep from living
 
—or loving
 
—just because it might be dangerous. Max, I
 
—”

“Sharpe, you have about five seconds to get out of here before this gets ugly. And I promise you don’t want that.”

Max froze as he looked up and saw Owen headed for him. His
former teammate, despite being dressed in a suit, wore a patch over one eye, sick and clear evidence of Max’s mistake.

“Owen . . . man, I’m sorry.” He backed away from Grace. “Listen, we need to talk. I am so sorry about
 
—”

“Owen, back off!” Grace’s voice shrilled between them.

Owen stopped short, looking down at her.

She’d turned her back to Max, stepping between him and her brother. “You’re going to listen to me whether you like it or not. You’re a mess. You’re angry and hurting; we all get that. And we love you. But Max is not to blame for your pain.”

“Are you kidding me? He’s totally to blame
 
—”

“No, he’s not. You are. It was a terrible accident; no one is denying that. And Max feels terrible about it. But guess what
 
—your life isn’t over. You’re not dead. You have choices about the way you treat people and how you live.”

Owen’s face tightened into a frown. “You’re seriously siding with Max? Over me?”

Grace seemed to hesitate for a second, and Max wanted to step in, to rescue her.
No, Grace
 
—

“Yeah, Owen. I choose Max. Because I love him. I love him more every day I’m with him. Max is amazing. He’s kind and patient and frankly a thousand times braver than you’ve been lately. He’s the kind of guy I was hoping to find someday. He gets me and makes me believe I can do more than I ever thought I could.”

Max was trying to make sense of her words, but as he looked at her, the truth began to blossom inside him.

“Most importantly, Max is
God’s choice
for me. Max is the gift, the
more
that God has for me, for as long as God will keep him
on this earth. So you’re going to figure out a way to forgive him or make the choice to walk away from both of us.”

Owen’s jaw tightened. “Awesome. That’s just awesome.” He strode away, but Max didn’t care one more second about Owen and his anger, his issues.

Max is
God’s choice
for me.
Those words he grabbed ahold of.

Really, God? Even with . . . even with . . .

Grace turned. Vanished from her eyes was any trace of the pity, the sadness. “If he’ll have me.”

If he’ll have . . .

That was it, wasn’t it? Right now, right here, he could choose to share his life
 
—the good, the bad, the ugly
 
—with her, letting himself choose her too. Or he could walk away.

Courage.

“Oh yeah, I’ll have you, Grace. For as long as I live. But are you sure? What about kids
 
—?”

She put her hand to his mouth. “If God wants us to have kids, we’ll have kids. We can adopt, and they will still be our own.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “I’m God’s choice?”

“I believe you’ve always been God’s choice for me, even before I sat in 9B.”

Max grinned. “Yeah.” Then, with one quick movement, he swung her into his arms.

“Max!”

But he ignored her as he took the stairs all the way to the second floor, emerging onto a flat-roof deck that overlooked the Mississippi River. He set her down in an Adirondack chair.

The sunset spilled across the rooftop, gold and amber.

Max knelt in front of her.

“What are you doing?”

“Grace Christiansen, here’s the deal. I need a swim buddy. Forever. And I’m pretty sure that I’m never going to have this kind of courage again. I know I’m going to wake up tomorrow convinced that you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. But I promise to fight that fear, to stick around and not run away if you will agree to be my wife.”

She leaned forward, her eyes shining. “That’s the craziest proposal I’ve ever heard.”

“Listen, I have to work with what I’ve got.”

She took his face in her hands, capturing him with her beautiful blue eyes. “Then you have me. I’m only giving my heart away once, and it’s to you, Maxwell Sharpe. Finally, completely. And forever. Yes, I’ll marry you. It’s time to live dangerously. It’s time to live abundantly.”

He pulled her into his arms, kissing her under the golden haze of the sunset. And he knew her words would be gloriously, deliciously true for the rest of his life.

“G
RACE, HURRY UP
 
—
IT’S ALMOST ON!”
Eden’s voice rose over the chatter of the commercials.

Grace opened the oven, pulled out the taco dip. “Has anyone seen the serving spoons? Mom gave me a bunch.” She set the hot casserole dish on a cutting board, then began rooting through the boxes still lined up at the edge of the kitchen. She’d have the kitchen unpacked before Max returned from his road trip and conjure him up something tasty to help her and Raina christen their new apartment in Minneapolis.

“Try the box marked ‘kitchen stuff,’” Eden said, getting up and grabbing a bag of chips. “Or we can double dip, Grace. It’s just us.”

“And me,” Raina said, coming out of her room wearing an oversize Blue Ox fan shirt. Her belly protruded just enough to hint at the life inside her. “But I don’t mind sharing.”

She’d relaxed since the move to Minneapolis, even in the short time since they’d arrived, a sort of easiness, even hope descending over her. Of course, that probably came from the fact that she’d left town without telling her aunt anything about her condition
 
—that would be an interesting conversation. But until Grace and Max’s wedding, Raina planned on hiding out with Grace.

Grace had no doubt Casper lingered not far from her mind. But she hadn’t spoken a word about either of Grace’s brothers since the night of Eden’s wedding. Not even to Eden, who’d discreetly noticed but hadn’t commented.

Time. Raina just needed time and a friend. Family.

Grace found the box, opened it. “Yeah, here’s my old apron and a bunch of plasticware. Mom gave me magnets off the fridge. And . . . a folder full of papers
 
—weird.”

“She was probably cleaning off her desk,” Eden said, piling her plate with the cheesy dip. She went back to the game, where the announcer had begun his between-period commentary. “You know how she likes to pile stuff. Look through it; you might find your second-grade report card.”

Grace tucked the folder under her arm, then grabbed a plate with dip, giving in to the use of a chip as a spoon. Building her new business
 
—Signature Weddings
 
—took up all her spare time. It helped that one of Eden’s guests had signed on for her first event.

She settled on the sofa next to Eden. She might have preferred to watch the game at Eden and Jace’s place, on the huge flat-screen in their family room. But her tiny apartment had a charming homeyness with the hand-me-down furniture from her parents, the blankets and quilts from home.

On the television, the announcer showed highlights of Max’s
goal, the way he raced around the back of the net and fell into the arms of his teammates.

How she loved to watch him embrace life.

They segued into bench shots, and she spotted Jace in one clip, his eyes dark as he yelled at the refs.

“When did Max say it would be on?”

“After the second period sometime.”

Raina joined them, sitting in an overstuffed chair covered with a blue quilt. “I still can’t believe he agreed to do it.”

“Why not? He’s so good with kids, and it’s a great opportunity to reach a huge audience.” Still, she knew he’d had to dig deep, trust God, to find the courage. It only made her love him more.

Grace opened the folder, began to sort through it. Christmas cards from friends, a magazine offer in an unopened envelope. It looked like a smattering of old mail, lying on the counter for months. Oh, Mother.

“When is your trip to Hawaii?” Raina asked Grace.

“January. Max wants to scout locations for the golf tournament.”

“Does he even play golf?” Eden asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. He does everything.” And why not? Embrace life while you can.

“You promise me you’re not going to do something crazy like elope while you’re there.”

Raina looked up, her eyes wide.

“No promises,” Grace said.

“Well, I suppose it might solve the problem of Owen and his hatred for Max.”

At the mention of Owen, Grace glanced at Raina. She didn’t look back.

“Oh, here it is!” Eden picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

A shot of Max scoring
 
—one of last year’s clips
 
—came on the screen. It freeze-framed and Max walked into view in front of it. “Many of you know me as Maxwell Sharpe, right wing for the St. Paul Blue Ox.”

He wore an apron that bore the Blue Ox logo over his team sweater. It only accentuated his wide shoulders, his hockey physique. His hair hung below his ears, and Grace saw herself in his arms, twirling it between her fingers. Then he smiled, that Maxwell Sharpe signature grin, and she recognized the man who’d charmed her into the wide ocean of life.

He stepped over to a kitchen, where a little girl about the age of six, with long blonde braids, wearing her own matching apron, sat at the counter. “But what you might not know is that someday, I won’t be fighting for a puck. I’ll be fighting for my life.”

Max opened the oven, pulled out a tray of cookies, set it on the counter. “As the son of a father who died of Huntington’s and a carrier of the faulty gene that causes the disease, my fate is a near surety.” He scooped cookies onto a plate. Handed it to the little girl. “But hers isn’t. Research for a cure has made great progress, and if we can figure out a cure for Huntington’s, we may also be able to treat Parkinson’s, ALS, and even Alzheimer’s.”

He picked up a cookie, leaned down, and smiled at the girl before taking a bite. Then he looked back at the camera. “Give the gift of a future. Donate to the Sharpe Foundation for Huntington’s Disease Awareness and Cure Research.”

The PSA ended on a screen shot of the foundation’s website and a picture of Max in his hockey uniform, about age twelve, posing with his invalid father.

The room went quiet even as the TV flipped to the Blue Ox players piling back out on the ice.

“Wow,” Eden said, reaching up to wipe her eye. “Yeah, that’s
 
—”

“Eden, Max doesn’t want your pity. He wants your joy, your hope, your prayers. Okay?”

Eden nodded despite her wavering smile.

“Oh, my. I can’t believe it.” Grace pulled a crumpled envelope from the folder. “This is part two of the application for the Minneapolis Institute of Culinary Arts.” She opened it. “When did I get this?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s an invitation to send in a unique recipe.” She looked at the postmark. “It came right during all the rush of mail from Darek and Ivy’s wedding. It must have gotten mixed up with it and then set aside. But . . .” Grace set the application on the table.

“So are you going to create a unique recipe?”

The Blue Ox took the ice. A close-up of Max showed his game face. Determination. Fierceness.

The face of courage.

The face she loved.

“I think I already have,” she said and reached for the dip. “Now it’s time to eat.”