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.”