Magic. She didn’t know how else to describe the abruptness of peeking under the surface and seeing the sea vibrant and bright, suddenly alive. She spotted an orange sea urchin nestled into the rocky sand and a small school of black- and white-striped tangs swimming by.
“Wow,” she said and managed to gulp in water. She popped up, coughing.
Max lifted his face from the water and removed his snorkel. “You can’t talk. I know that’s going to be a bit of a challenge, but if you need to say something, just tap me. We’ll surface. Now, blow out your snorkel.”
She blew hard and found it cleared. “I think I can do this.”
“Of course you can. Here’s a hint—keep your face straight down, and let yourself glide on the water.” He pointed toward the reef. “Let’s head out there.”
She nodded, fitted in her snorkel, and followed him as he paddled out. Keeping her face down, she watched the sea world scuttle beneath her. They floated over formations of coral, hard cones and divots of rock in which fish rooted for food. She spotted a few from the ecology movie—triggerfish, with their long orange mouths; a blue bullethead parrot fish; a school of yellow butterfly fish. Even a sinister-eyed moray eel slid by.
Grace didn’t even yelp.
In fact, she experienced a surreal sense of power as if she were flying, fearless. She looked around, saw Max swimming nearby, and watched as he inspected hiding places, studied fish. She met his eyes once and saw the smile in them.
I just want to get it right. . . . I don’t have time for mistakes.
She didn’t understand the reason for his words, but yeah, she could embrace them. Even send up a prayer. Please, God, don’t let me be making a mistake here. Don’t let me dive in only to have me land hard.
Except what exactly might she be diving into?
She felt a tap on her shoulder and saw Max pointing down a crevice in the rocks. She moved closer for a better view. Her hand found Max’s shoulder.
A sea turtle slept deep in the mottled shadows of the coral, its shell sparkling with gold in a shaft of sunlight.
She treaded water, watching. Suddenly the turtle began to move. It swam away from her, out of the coral enclave and toward deeper water.
Grace couldn’t help it—she began to swim after it, just to see the ballet of its motion in water. It swam farther and she followed, the water becoming cooler; below her, the coral dropped away. Still, like the hypnotic lure of a mermaid, the turtle coaxed her deeper.
She could feel Max behind her now and again, tapping her as if trying to keep up.
Then the turtle shot off and disappeared. She rose to the surface to talk to Max.
Max surfaced five feet away. Something about his expression set a fist in her stomach. “Come back!” he shouted.
She treaded water but had the sense of moving, and that’s when she saw the sign, the buoys. She’d swum beyond the boundaries, into the channel of the riptide.
“Swim back!”
Grace dug down into the water, but even as she kicked, she felt a grab, a tug at her body as the tide yanked her into the dark channel of the sea.
Max was going to get her killed. After all his talk of adventure, he’d pushed her into this, and now Grace would drown, somewhere miles away from home, in the ocean.
He’d tried to grab her as she swam with the turtle, tried to warn her that the ocean could turn on her, that she had to respect it, heed the dangers. But she’d swum past the barrier without even seeing it, and now the riptide sucked her away from him.
“Swim to me!” He launched out after her, every single warning against following a victim into a riptide blaring in his brain. But she hadn’t quite lost herself to the pull yet and—
She touched his hand. Briefly, but she was kicking hard, fighting, and yeah, she could swim. He lunged for her again and caught her, pulling against the fingers of the cold current.
“Kick!”
It seemed they’d alerted the lifeguards from shore—a cadre of rescuers on surfboards paddled their direction. He tried to remember his safety training on how to escape a riptide. It seemed he had to swim perpendicular to it, maybe.
Or maybe he should surrender to it, let it take them both to sea.
“Don’t let go!” Grace screamed.
Never. He tightened his iron grip on her hand, and they seemed to be breaking free. Or maybe the buoy had simply moved with the wind. His leg began to tighten, a cramp working up the length of it. He groaned.
Then suddenly they popped free, surging forward in a giant stroke. Grace came abreast of him, paddling hard, while Max kicked, fighting the burn in his calf to keep up.
A lifeguard on a paddleboard shot out of the boundary area. “What are you doing?”
Like he couldn’t figure that out? Max took the proffered paddle so the guard could drag him closer to the safe zone. Another guard pulled up, letting Grace rest on his board as he paddled her back in.
Max let the guard tow him into the swimming area. “Thanks.”
“We should kick you out. Don’t you know it’s forbidden to go out of the buoy area?”
“It was an accident,” he said, glancing at Grace, who now stood shoulder-deep on the sandy bottom. “Believe me—she didn’t realize how far she’d gone.”
“You were lucky,” the guard said and paddled away.
Grace had her arms wrapped around herself, shaking despite the bathtub-warm water.
Max moved over to her, feeling the same dark chill deep inside. He lifted his mask, then hers. His hands cupped her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She shivered even as she nodded. But her big eyes held his as if needing confirmation, and he didn’t know what to do.
Mostly because he wasn’t sure of the answer either. No, he wasn’t okay.
For a moment there, he’d felt as if a hand reached in, closed around his heart, and threatened to rip it from its moorings.
And because that scared him nearly as much as watching her rocket out to sea, he wrapped his arms around Grace and pulled her to himself. Tight. Breathing in her salty, wet skin, pressing his head against her hair.
Feeling her wrap her arms around his waist and hold on.
Bad idea, because she fit into his embrace like she belonged there, the way her head landed just below his chin, the curve of her body so perfect against his that it only added to the cold tremble inside. His heartbeat probably betrayed him, thundering against her ear even as it filled his head.
What if she’d died?
Max blew out a breath, then another, and finally released his hold. He thought she might be crying, and he felt the same way. Grace folded her arms in front of her and looked at him, her heart in her beautiful eyes . . . and that’s when he realized he’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.
He should have seen it coming. After all, each day he’d looked forward a little more to seeing her. And despite her antics in Chef Keoni’s class—who suggested crackers with lomi-lomi?—he couldn’t deny he longed for her under-the-breath quips.
No, he didn’t love poi either, but he wasn’t letting her know that. Still, he nearly responded to her words today.
You, however, approach cooking like it’s a competition.
Of course he did. Because he didn’t have time for second chances. In hockey, in life . . . in love.
And that declaration would lead to an exploration of why. He could just imagine her horror when he told her he never knew when his disease might kick in, what vacation might be his last.
Yeah, he’d ventured way too close to the edge with Grace today, and this was his wake-up call. Any farther and someone was going to get hurt.
“I think we should go.”
She bit her lip, then nodded. “I’m so sorry.”
He headed toward shore, not able to look at her. “You didn’t know. It’s my fault. I forgot to tell you about the riptide.”
“But I should have never followed the turtle. I wasn’t really chasing it—it was just . . . almost magical
—”
“I get it. Really. Let’s just get our gear. It’s late.”
She said nothing, splashing to shore behind him. He took off his flippers in the water, then walked to shore, the sand coating his wet feet. He scooped up his towel, dried his head, draped the towel around his neck.
Grace was drying off, not looking at him. She wrapped the towel around her waist before finally turning to him. The expression on her face felt like a dagger to his chest.
“I’m so sorry I wrecked our trip.”
“You didn’t wreck our trip,” he said softly and turned away before he crumbled.
Mistake. The word roared in his head. He blew out a breath and headed up the shore without looking back.
They dropped off her gear, and she remained quiet as they washed their feet and walked to the car. She laid her towel on the seat, then donned her shirt and slid in.
He should say something. But this crazy, dark pain had bottled in his chest, and he didn’t know how to make it better, how to pull them back to safety.
How to make her understand that he hadn’t meant to let it get this far.
“Wait until Owen hears that you nearly killed me.”
Huh?
She was looking at him, tease on her face. “Yep. You’re a dead man.”
“I—”
“I mean, here you go, assigning yourself as my babysitter, and you practically drown me. He’s going to come back from Montana and take you out.”
And just like that, the tension in his chest snapped. Gone. Free. “I think he’s smart enough to know that you’re trouble.”
“Me? Trouble? I’m not the one who . . . fed me shrimp. Or showed me Diamond Head. Or introduced me to turtles.”
“Oh, right. Well, I’m not the one who tried to race a turtle.”
“I would have won had you not distracted me.” She grinned, and he wanted to kiss her.
No, not kiss her. Maybe give her a high five or a knuckle bump. Because somehow, the darkness had receded and the prospect of having to drop her off and spend the evening avoiding her died in the wake of her easy laughter.
Maybe she’d pulled them both back from the cliff, back to just friends.
“Now, if you’re a cruise director worth his salt, you’ll find me a decent hamburger and some fries. I’m in serious need of comfort food.” She leaned back and propped her bare feet on the dash, her blue toenail polish like sapphires in the sunlight.
“As you wish.” He put the car in gear, turned on the radio, and considered his demise.
A guy like him had to be on his game, because any more time with Grace Christiansen could take them into dangerous waters, and he was the one who just might find himself the goner.
Of course Pierre’s Pizza had to start delivery services with Grace in Hawaii. Because, no, they weren’t shorthanded in the kitchen, requiring Raina to arrive early for prep and stay late to clean up. And should someone call in with a rare delivery order, who had to drop everything and run it out to them? Not Ty, who knew Deep Haven better in his sleep than Raina did with a full GPS system, or Stuart, the owner, who’d raised three children in Deep Haven and probably even knew the clandestine hangouts.
No, it had to be Raina who carried the pizza box out to her gray Impala, rain or shine, and drove like an idiot around town, trying to locate the address.
Why? Because it turned out Ty didn’t own a car. And Stuart was too busy at the counter greeting guests, friends, residents of Deep Haven who came in not just for pizza but for camaraderie.
Besides, the truth was, Raina had no friends. No camaraderie. No reason for sticking around Deep Haven. Nothing but a car that apparently needed new tires.
“Not again!” She slammed her hand against the steering wheel as the car came to rest in the soggy swamp that had once been County Road 53.
The pizza box lay on the floor, having arrowed forward with her slam of the brakes.
The DOT might consider putting the “road washed out” flags before the curve.
Now her Impala lurched to the right as the wheel sank lower into the muck. She opened the door. Thankfully, her driver’s side still sat on semidry ground, and she got out, slopping to the center of the road.
Overhead, the sky hovered low and menacing, the late hour of the day hanging through the shadow-shrouded trees.
Raina pulled out her cell phone, held it up, praying for a signal. Nothing. Of course. She could say that about this entire stupid town. There was nothing here. No nightlife, no fun, no friends, no—
She leaned against the car, scrubbing a hand down her face. Okay, so the humiliation of Owen’s full-out run from her place over a week ago seemed to sour her outlook on everything. Why couldn’t she get his rejection—and her own stupidity—out of her head?
She stood, went around the front of the car, and stared at the mess. She’d simply driven off the hard pack of the dirt road, now smaller after the rain this week. She’d bet Seattle was a drier place than Deep Haven in June.
Maybe . . . Raina put the car in neutral and went around to the front again. Threw her weight against the hood.
Nothing.
She couldn’t push and gun it at the same time. Folding her arms, she tucked her head into them on the hood.
The trees shivered off rain, and the silence, the stillness of the forest, wheedled through her.
She lifted her head. Stared into the woods on one side, then the other. She might be one, even two, miles from the highway, back in the hills.
And not a house in sight. In fact . . . She got in the car and pulled up the GPS. It showed her destination as off the main road—this muddy “main road.”
Who knew where 1290 County Road 53 might truly be located?
Hadn’t she read a story about wolves attacking a woman in her yard in a recent edition of the Deep Haven Herald?
Just in case she’d loosened it, she put the car in reverse. Stepped on the gas. Slowly, and then as the tires kicked up mud, she floored it.
Mud splattered into the air, landing on the windshield, the side windows, as she dug in deeper.
Raina let off the gas, smelled the engine burning. Nice. Maybe she should simply leave the thing and start hiking back to the road. She still had an hour of daylight, right?
She glanced at the pizza, then dove for it, pulling it up on the seat. The smell of pepperoni had tormented her all the way from town. The red padded covering radiated heat. She opened the Velcro, found the pizza still hot. She pulled it out and set it on top of the insulated envelope. Then slowly pried open the box.
A layer of gooey cheese dripped from the lid where it had glued in place as it hurtled from the front seat. Only red sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, and onions remained in the sauce on the crust.
At least it didn’t have olives. She hated them, and if she was going to have to survive on this lonely pizza until help arrived, she didn’t want to have to choke down olives.
She scraped cheese off the box with her fingers, then dropped it onto a slice. Considered her actions. She worked the piece free. Maybe she needed a little nourishment now, to help her figure out what to do next. Maneuvering the piece into her mouth, she took a bite. Not too bad, even with the cardboard-flavored cheese.
As she moved to take another bite, a buzzing behind her made her nearly drop the piece. She turned, flicking the automatic locks. Like, what, it might be Bigfoot approaching?
No, worse.
She recognized him on that black motorcycle, in a black helmet, motoring toward her like he’d forgotten something. Maybe one last flicker of her pride to stomp out.
Raina determined to ignore him. Even if—shoot. She could be here forever if she didn’t—
He slowed as he drove past her, and then, of course, he stopped. Because he just couldn’t help himself. A damsel in distress, another woman whose heart he might take captive.
She just wouldn’t look at him. She pulled her Pierre’s Pizza visor down, stared straight ahead. Maybe he wouldn’t realize
it was her. . . .
He knocked on the window. “Are you okay in there?”
Through the glass, she recognized his voice. “Yep.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a hand? You look pretty stuck—”
“Oh, for pete’s sake, I know, okay? Go away, Owen!” Raina looked up then and stilled.
Not Owen.
The man, however, had Owen’s features—the same arrogant chin, the same blue eyes. With the exception of his dark curly hair, a layer of dark whiskers, and the concern in his expression, it might be Owen.
Raina glanced at the motorcycle, back at the man, just to be sure.
She rolled down the window as he straightened as if to heed her words. “No—I was—uh . . . I’m sorry!” She opened her door, and he moved back as she got out. “I’m stuck. And . . . yes, sorry. I need help.”
“Okay.” He gave her a funny look and she realized she still held the pizza slice.
She turned and put it back in the box. Wiped her hands on her jeans. “Um, I didn’t know how long I was going to be out here.”
“I see.” He walked around to examine the car. She thought she recognized him, something about his saunter, the way he crouched down, studying the mess—
Oh, wait. He had to be one of the brothers. She’d seen a guy with his dark looks, handsome with a brilliant-white smile, at the wedding. “Casper Christiansen?”
He glanced up at her. “At your service.”
She couldn’t escape them.
“I don’t think I can get you out of there. You’re dug in pretty deep.” He stood. “But I’m headed over to a buddy’s house for a meeting. He’s got a truck that I think can yank this out for you. If you want a ride, we’ll see if we can’t help you out.”
He smiled, and oh, she had issues. Because for a second there, her heart stopped on yet another Christiansen man’s smile.
No. She needed help, but she wasn’t going to fall for the charm of another north shore scoundrel.
“Yes. That would be very helpful,” she said, not smiling back. “Thank you.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You’re welcome.” He started toward his bike. “And please bring our pizza—or what’s left of our pepperoni, mushroom, and onion deep-dish.”
When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family) Page 9