When I Fall in Love (Christiansen Family)

by Susan May Warren

  Liza stepped away from the door. “That’s part of the plan too, Raina. But men will let us down. Only God won’t.”

  She didn’t want to argue with Liza, but God had let her down plenty of times. And hello, He’d let Liza down too. After all, wasn’t her aunt still single and approaching forty? No thanks.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Raina said, heading for the door.

  “I’ll be at the parade, cheering you on,” Liza said quietly, and Raina had to turn around and go back for a hug.

  She felt more of Jesus here with Liza than she ever had at church.

  A banner flapped in the wind over Main Street, packed with cars, pickups, motorcycles, and a slew of out-of-town competitors practicing in the bay. The annual dragon boat festival lured teams from Canada, Minneapolis, and as far away as Milwaukee to compete. Thankfully, the Evergreen team only had to win the local division, comprised of maybe seven homegrown teams.

  All manner of dragon boats—with intricately carved heads painted green or red, bearing sharp wooden teeth and etched manes, their boat bodies painted to resemble scales—floated in the harbor. It looked like Deep Haven had morphed into a medieval moat of legendary aquatic monsters.

  Music drifted from the stage set up in the park, a few kids dancing to the beat of a folksy hometown band. Raina walked down the sidewalk, searching for the lime-green shirts of her teammates. On the way she spotted the downtown team, shop owners and the mayor, in their hot-pink shirts, and another team from the east end of the county, the Moose Valley team, in their denim blues.

  “Raina!”

  Her name floated on the scant wind, and she turned, found Claire waving to her from a cluster of other members. John and Ingrid, who also waved, and Kyle, Jensen, Emma, Darek—and there, Casper. He sat on a rock, looking at a clipboard.

  She picked her way through the crowd. “Hey, everyone.”

  Casper looked up, met her eyes.

  Yeah, her world could come to a screeching halt with his smile.

  “Just in time. We’re the fourth boat team in the parade. We all have to stop in front of the judges’ booth and do our team chant. It’s not judged, but it stirs up the competition.”

  Emma climbed onto a rock. “Let’s run through it!”

  Raina lifted her voice in one accord with the group, caught up in the camaraderie, the power of the team.

  They had the win locked up. Especially when Casper climbed up beside Emma, pumping his fist in the air, raising a spectacle as if they were truly Viking warriors going to sea, to battle.

  After the chant, he came off the rocks, grinning. “Hey,” he said.

  Then he kissed her. Right there in front of everyone and . . .

  Yes, this night would be perfect.

  She’d never participated in a parade before—especially a small-town parade. They lined up around the block in the parking lot of the senior center. Emma led them out, keeping beat on a drum strapped over her shoulders, rousing team spirit. Raina carried one end of the team banner, opposite Casper, and behind them, each teammate held a dowel affixed to one part of a long Chinese dragon, light green, modeled after their boat.

  She glanced over now and again at Casper, who grinned at her. Oh, Captain, my Captain.

  They stopped in front of the judges’ booth to chant, and by the end of the parade, she never wanted to leave Deep Haven.

  She could become a Christiansen, grow old here with Casper. Live happily ever after. She just had to make sure no one ever discovered her mistake with Owen.

  Casper found her after they tucked away their parade paraphernalia, the team dispersing into the party. “Ready to dance?”

  “Yes.” She would just ignore the twinge in her stomach that refused to go away. And the sense that if she didn’t get something to eat soon, she might . . .

  “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

  “I think it’s the heat. And I haven’t eaten much today.”

  He slipped his hand under her elbow and led her to a bench. “Sit here. I’ll get you a drink of water.”

  But she wanted to dance. Still, the sight of Casper running off to the local cheese curd vendor, asking for water on her behalf, seemed enough.

  He cared. He really cared.

  But her head started to swim all the same, and she lay down on the bench. Just . . . for . . . a . . . moment . . .

  “Raina! Wake up . . . Raina . . . Okay, everyone make room.”

  What? Raina opened her eyes, realized she’d fallen asleep—or passed out? She tried to push herself to a sitting position, but nausea rolled over her.

  In front of a crowd of gawkers, she left her meager lunch on the sidewalk.

  Gross.

  But Casper didn’t seem to mind. “Here, drink this,” he said, helping her to a sitting position. He crouched in front of her. “An ambulance is on its way.”

  Ambulance—“No, Casper, I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You passed out. And you’re sick.” He clasped her hands, his expression a little undone. “You scared me.”

  Oh.

  “Make a path!”

  The voice came from beyond her. Her view seemed fuzzy around the edges, so she blinked and then a couple of EMTs appeared. One of them was Pastor Dan from the church where Liza—where she—attended.

  “Raina, what’s going on?” He knelt beside her, putting a defibrillator and a medical kit on the ground. Next to him stood a taller man in his forties. Sandy, curly hair. It seemed she recognized him too. Wait, yes—Joe somebody, the husband of Liza’s friend Mona.

  Dan slid a pressure cuff onto her arm, pumped it up.

  “I’m fine—really, I’m fine.”

  “Shh,” he said.

  Casper had barely scooted over for them. Now he sat on the bench, put his arm around her. “Let them do their thing.”

  It was so silly. She just hadn’t eaten very much today. She said that to them as Dan took her blood pressure reading.

  “Your pressure is a little low. I think we need to bring you in, get some fluids in you, see what’s going on.”

  “No.” She moved to take off the cuff, but a wave of nausea hit her again, and she put her hand to her mouth.

  “Here.” Joe shoved a disposable bag toward her and she lost the fluids Casper had given her.

  She wiped her mouth with the napkin Casper handed to her. So maybe she didn’t feel stellar.

  But this night was supposed to be perfect.

  “You’re definitely going with us,” Dan said. He gestured to the ambulance, and to her horror, they brought over a stretcher.

  “Please—”

  “Just do it,” Casper said. “I’ll be right behind you on the bike.”

  “No, Casper.” She let Dan and Joe lead her to the stretcher, help her lie on it. “You have to be here. You have to announce the team from the podium later. You can’t come with me.”

  But he was already dialing his phone. She heard his voice even as they began to wheel her away.

  “Darek, yeah, it’s me. Can you introduce the team? I need to go to the hospital with Raina; she’s not feeling well. Yeah . . . no worries; I’m sure she’s just fine.”

  But at the tail end of his voice, she thought she heard the finest edge of worry.

  She was just fine. This was so silly. And yet her stomach still roiled.

  They put her in the ambulance, shut the doors, and Joe drove toward the ER. Thankfully they didn’t turn on the siren. She might have died of embarrassment or begged them to simply keep going straight out of town.

  Dan took her temperature. “It’ll just take a second to get to the hospital. They’ll give you an IV. You’ll be feeling better soon.”

  “I’m fine.” It seemed the mantra of the hour.

  They parked at the hospital, wheeled her through the double doors into the ER. “We’re going to transfer you onto a table,” Dan said.

  “I can do it myself.”

  But they didn’t listen, just grab
bed the edges of the sheets and plopped her onto the exam table.

  “I don’t feel well again.”

  A nurse came up to her. “Hi, honey. My name’s Denise. We’re going to take good care of you.”

  She put a basin under Raina’s chin even as she sat up and leaned forward. Nothing came out. She lay back, her face flushed and hot.

  “Let’s find out what’s going on,” Denise said as she got the chart from Dan. “Not much of a temperature. A little elevated, probably from the heat. I see you’ve been throwing up.”

  “Could be heatstroke,” Dan said.

  “We’ll wait until the doctor comes in. Let’s get some tests done.” She hung the chart on a clip at the end of the bed. “I’m going to start an IV.” She looked at the guys. “I think we got this.”

  “All right.” Dan patted Raina’s arm. “You hang in there. I’m sure we’ll see you in church on Sunday.”

  She gave him a small smile. “Please don’t call Liza.”

  He nodded, frowned. “Sure.”

  “I don’t want to worry her.”

  He nodded again. “Take care.”

  As he left, Denise broke out the IV kit, grabbed some gloves. She looked at Raina, her eyes kind. “So you’re Liza’s niece? You helped cater Darek and Ivy’s wedding, with Grace, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.” She didn’t remember seeing the nurse at the wedding, but she didn’t know many people. Had only made one friend that night—although she wouldn’t necessarily call Owen a friend.

  Oh, she hated how he invaded her mind, uninvited, sending regret like spears through her body.

  She sighed as she held out her arm for the needle. Denise drew blood, then put in the IV. “When did you start feeling punky?”

  “Three or four days ago. I thought I’d picked up a bug, or maybe it was fatigue from the practices for the festival.” Except, if she thought about it, she hadn’t been feeling well all week and had thrown up yesterday too.

  Denise took her pulse. Wrote down notes. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

  Raina lay back and closed her eyes. The IV flooded cool solution into her veins.

  “Hey, there you are.” She opened her eyes and Casper stood above her. Handsome, worry in his beautiful eyes. “Sorry I’m late—I had to dig my bike out of a thousand cars.” He pulled up a stool. “What did they say?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She hated hospitals—the smells, the antiseptic, the surreal sense of loss and tragedy that embedded the walls. Everyone acted so cheerful and happy in hospitals. But they weren’t cheerful, happy places. They were places of darkness and fear. Places where ten-year-olds lost their mothers to cancer.

  Casper seemed to sense her mood even as he took her hand. “Hey, I can find someone to replace you. It’s no—”

  “What?”

  He pushed her back down when she tried to sit up.

  “No, I’m totally paddling. Are you kidding me? I’m your first mate, right?” The question seemed to hang there between them. She wanted him to grab it, to assure her.

  Thankfully he smiled, then touched her face, running his thumb down her cheek. “Yeah. Sure. As long as you get cleared by the doc, you are paddling. And if not, you’re going to stand on the dock and wave us in.”

  That made her feel better, she could admit. “I really wanted to go to the dance tonight. I think we can still make it.”

  “You know, we could turn on music here. Who needs a band?”

  But it wasn’t the same as being in his arms under the starlight, the waves applauding as they swayed to the music. “You should go. Colleen Decker really wants you to dance with her.”

  He laughed. “Right. I don’t think I’m going to leave you for Colleen Decker. Besides, there are plenty of guys lining up to dance with her.”

  Silly her; she shouldn’t be jealous of an eighteen-year-old, but his words dispelled any lingering remnant.

  Denise came back in. “I need to talk to Raina, Casper, so if you want to step out, we’ll call you when we’re done.”

  Casper got up even as Raina wanted to protest, but something about the look in Denise’s eyes told her to let him go.

  Denise closed the curtain and pulled up the stool. She seemed to be waiting for Casper’s footsteps to die before she said, “I’m trying to gather all the information before the doctor comes in . . .” She paused. “You couldn’t possibly be pregnant, could you?”

  A chill went through Raina. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as her brain kicked back over the days.

  Oh. Oh, my. She was late—two, maybe even three weeks. She put her hand to her forehead. It prickled with sweat. “I . . . I don’t know.” Her chin began to tremble. How stupid. Of course. She gritted her teeth to keep the tears from forming, but they did anyway, streaking across her cheeks and into her ears. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Denise patted her arm. “I’ll run a test. In the meantime, just lay here and rest. The doc will talk to you when he comes in.”

  The quiet descended around Raina like a fog, cold and suffocating. No. Oh, please, no.

  Casper returned. Pulled back the curtain. “So are they going to release—? Raina, are you okay?”

  His voice had gone so unbearably soft that she winced, pressed both hands over her eyes. No, no, no—pull it together. He couldn’t know, couldn’t see. How could this have happened?

  “Raina? What did the nurse say?”

  She shook her head. Then, reaching deep inside, she summoned the strength cultivated from being a girl without a mother, a girl who watched her brother slide into drug abuse, a girl whose father ended up in jail. A girl who spent most of her life alone.

  She knew how to survive. She would survive.

  Raina ran her fingers under her eyes, forced a smile through the shattering of her hopes. “Oh,” she said, her voice only a little shaky. She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. I just feel silly for being so needy. Why don’t you go to the dance and tell everyone I’ll be there later.”

  He frowned. “No, I’m staying here until the doctor arrives.”

  “Uh . . . I’ll probably need something to eat then. Would you mind digging me up a sandwich?”

  He nodded. “That I can do.” He leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead.

  When he left, she didn’t wait for the doctor. Didn’t wait for Casper to return. She simply got up, eased the IV out of her arm, and held a cotton ball against the blood. Then found a Band-Aid and peeled it over the wound. She grabbed her bag and headed out the door just as Denise came down the hall.

  “Hey!”

  “I’m fine.” Raina waved, not looking back. “Really, I’m fine!”

  She left the hospital before anyone could stop her.

  Grace hadn’t recognized the man who sat across the table from her at Sammy’s Bar and Grill last night.

  Sure, he’d looked like Max, with his tan skin, those devastating brown eyes that could whisk a girl back to a star-strewn beach and stir up memories of the smell of the ocean on his skin. And his laughter—she’d recognized that, too, deep and breathtaking, a rumble under her skin, almost hypnotic.

  Yes, the man across from her had looked like Max, sounded like Max, but in truth, Max hadn’t shown up all night. Even though she’d forgiven him.

  Not that he needed forgiveness, perhaps, but he appeared undone when Jace revealed his secret about Owen. That’s when Grace had heard it. The small voice inside her that said, Do you love Me?

  You know I do, Lord.

  Feed My sheep. Forgive him.

  Forgive.

  The word had taken root inside, and her heart went out to the man who couldn’t escape his mistake so much that it drove him away from their friendship. If that was what they had. She wasn’t quite sure, because even after her statement of forgiveness, fun Hawaii Max hadn’t appeared.

  Instead, she got a prickly version of Iron Chef Max. A Max who recited some of the many dishes they’d made in school, took notes, and promised to e-mail them to he
r. A Max who picked up the dinner tab and left without even a one-armed hug.

  A Max who seemed determined to erase the three glorious weeks they shared in Hawaii, as if they’d never existed.

  Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe she’d read into everything.

  No. Her memories wouldn’t let her believe that.

  Which meant that Max wanted to forget everything that happened. That truth had lodged in her throat throughout dinner, over the past three days of helping Eden shop and pull together her wedding details, and even during the drive to Deep Haven this morning.

  Poor Max. The last thing he wanted to do was help her with the wedding.

  And she wouldn’t force him. Thanks, but she could do this on her own. Especially with Raina and Ty by her side.

  Best-case scenario, she never talked to Max again, and she filed their vacation in Hawaii away, never to look at it again.

  “Sis, when did you get back?” The voice rose over the crowd perched along the beach getting ready to watch today’s competition, finding Grace where she sat on a boulder onshore. Darek picked his way around the fold-up athletic chairs, kids eating ice cream, onlookers dressed in dragon boat festival shirts and foam hats, some with bandannas.

  Grace stood to greet him, and he swooped her up. “A little while ago,” she answered. “You were all gone already, so I thought I’d come to town, watch the race.”

  He put her down, set her away from him. “You look amazing! Hawaii agrees with you. Look how tan you are!”

  Please don’t ask me about the vacation. “How was the honeymoon? You’re not so pale yourself.”

  He grinned. “We survived.”

  Out in the harbor, the first racers streaked across the lake to the roar of the crowd. “How’s the team?”

  “Casper’s at the helm this year.”

  “Really? What, did he pry the rudder from your hands?”

  “Funny. No. I was gone, and we needed a team. Besides, am I the only one who’s noticed that he didn’t go back to school in January? He’s . . . depressed. Or he was, until he started training for this competition.”