“WE SEND YOU TO HAWAII 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 cooking?”
“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.”