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.
“Sorry we’re late,” Max said. He’d retrieved a couple of his messages before hopping in the shower. One from his agent, who called with some interesting celebrity endorsement opportunities. He skipped over the three from Brendon, not willing to let his brother’s aspirations sour his vacation.
Sorry, Bro, but he wasn’t going to tear open the fabric of his dismal future for the world to pity him. For Grace to pity him.
He wanted her untainted admiration for as long as he could have it.
He held his hand out for Grace as she climbed over the edge onto the sailboat. Her blue eyes landed on him, wide, a smile telling him he’d chosen tonight’s dinner correctly.
“This is incredible, Max. Do we have the boat to ourselves?”
“With the exception of our skipper, Lio.”
Lio waved to her from where he was casting off, and Max helped her to the front of the boat. Netting stretched between the two hulls, but he directed her to the deck in front of the cabin. “We’re not going out far, just enough to see the lights and get some dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Lio, along with being a talented skipper, runs a private dinner cruise.” He hunkered down beside her, watching as the boat slipped away from shore. “On the menu tonight: crab cakes with spicy aioli, tropical fruit salsa over macadamia nut–crusted basa fish, and grilled asparagus.”
“Yum.” She shook out her golden mane of hair. “I love boats. We have canoes and a fishing boat, and once my parents rented a houseboat for a couple days on Lake Vermilion. But I’ve always wanted to have my own boat.”
For a second it tripped his lips—the notion that maybe next year they rent a yacht, sail around Hawaii. Instead he leaned back on his hands, breathing in the scenery and the sense of her beside him, not letting his tomorrows steal his today.
“What do you think they’ll throw at us in the competition tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Maybe star fruit. Or mahimahi. We haven’t had a lot of seafood to deal with yet.”
“How would we ever make a mahimahi dessert?”
“I don’t know. Maybe grind it up and put it in something with dark chocolate? Make a sea-salt caramel to go with it?”
She stared at him. “You’re so brilliant. Where did you learn to cook like this?”
He reached up and caught a strand of her hair when the wind twined it around her face. “I did mention I’ve been going to culinary school during the off-season for a few years now, right?”
“But . . . you have to have some natural ability. Does anyone else in your family cook?”
He hadn’t let her too far into his family, but maybe he could give a little more away, just a couple pieces. “After my dad died, my mom needed a way to provide for us, so she became a private chef. She liked to experiment with cuisine from different cultures, and she’d often try out recipes on us before she made them for her clients. She’d say, ‘Boys, what country should we visit this weekend?’ and then we’d dig up recipes from Thailand or China or even Russia and attempt to make them.” He shook his head, the memories savory. “Attempt is the key word there.”
“If there is one thing this competition has taught me, it’s that you just don’t know what will taste good. You have to throw things together and try,” she said.