When I Fall in Love

by Susan May Warren

  He parked his car in the rental area and took a shuttle to the airport. At the airline counter, he put down his card. “I need a first-class ticket, one-way, to Minneapolis.”

  Ticket in hand, he slung his duffel over his shoulder and headed toward the gate.

  Still an hour and a half before his flight. He sat in the corner, pulled his hat down, slouched. He probably needed something to read. Reaching into his bag, he took out the magazine from his trip in.

  The magazine naturally opened to the crossword. He traced his finger over the word atoll. And then avast. Swallowed past the boulder in his throat.

  Max closed the magazine and pulled out his phone. Maybe he could find some sports scores, watch ESPN. He turned it on, seeing two more text messages from Grace. He deleted them without reading them.

  He was checking the NHL preseason chatter and predictions when his phone rang. Brendon’s face appeared.

  He grimaced and took the call. “Hi.”

  “So how’d you do? Did you win? Of course you won.”

  “No. I didn’t win,” he growled.

  “No . . . really? What happened?”

  Even to his brother—maybe especially to his brother—he couldn’t come clean. “One of us mixed up the salt and sugar and put salt in the dessert. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Aw, man, I’m sorry. I suppose that sort of thing happens.”

  Not in a gourmet kitchen. Not with trained chefs. “Yeah.”

  “So a couple more days in paradise and then you’re coming home, right?”

  Max blew out a breath. “I’ll call you when I get to Minneapolis.”

  “Swell. And then we’ll figure out when Lizzy and I can taste what you learned.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, Bro. Thanks anyway for your offer.”

  Max made a sound, sort of a grunt, and clicked off. He couldn’t take any more. He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  A family entered the waiting area. A father, mother, and two little blond boys. The boys pulled their own carry-ons, featuring pictures of the Hulk and Iron Man. The husband, tall, lanky, wore a baseball cap imprinted with the Chicago Cubs logo. The woman sat down and pulled one of the boys onto her lap. Began to tickle him. The little boy’s laughter sweetened the air.

  Max ground his jaw.

  For a second he had the urge to race back to the hotel. Back to the woman he . . . yes, loved. The realization twisted inside him, twined around his heart.

  He could go back and apologize. Pretend that it wasn’t ending. It wasn’t like she knew what he’d done.

  But the lies could suffocate him.

  He just couldn’t lead her on one more day. And that glued him to his spot, watching passengers fill the gate area, tan and happy from their vacation. Too many wore I Love Hawaii T-shirts, leis, floppy hats.

  He’d checked and found that he and Grace had been on the same flight back to Minneapolis. Now Grace would have to fly home by herself. No one to hold her barf bag. No one to ensure she switched planes safely. What if she sat next to a jerk?

  Or a guy like him, who could recognize her beauty?

  He picked up the magazine again, telling himself that would be best. He would have to break it off eventually anyway. He’d known going in that it was just a vacation friendship. It could never be more than that.

  Maybe if he’d kept it to friendship . . . But one look at Grace and deep down, he’d known he couldn’t stop there. He’d lied to himself for three weeks, until he’d pulled them both in to drown.

  Worst vacation of his life.

  The gate attendant announced first class. Max grabbed his bag without a look back at the family, the other passengers. He handed her his boarding document.

  “Aloha,” the pretty attendant said. “How was Hawaii?”

  He ignored her and got on the plane.

  Max had left Hawaii. Flown out or taken a ship or even swum. But he’d really left Hawaii. Without an explanation. Without a good-bye.

  It took a full day for the truth to sink into Grace’s heart.

  When he’d walked away from her after the competition, she stood, too stunned to do more than watch him go. Unable, even, to run after him. To stop him.

  Keoni had driven her back to the hotel, his own expression grim, as if he was sorting through Max’s actions.

  She’d changed, texted Max. Waited, texted again. Finally, around dinnertime, she went to his room.

  A family dressed in beachwear, fresh from the mainland, answered his door.

  Just in case he’d simply moved rooms, she asked about him at the hotel desk. They gave no information other than that he’d left.

  She spent the rest of the evening by the pool, her eyes thick with tears, rereading page 3 in her stupid novel, listening to his words in her head.

  He didn’t have time for mistakes.

  Like the wrong ingredients.

  The wrong partner.

  Her.

  It still seemed so impossible that she’d driven him clear out of Hawaii.

  By the next day, the unfairness rooted in her bones, turned her brittle and angry. What kind of person simply abandoned the team? Upset or not, he owed her an explanation. She had stopped texting him, given up after leaving a couple voice mails.

  Still, like a lovesick fool, she kept her phone by her side. Hoping. Hating herself for hoping. Running conversations over in her head, none of them satisfactory.

  She sat on the beach while the sun burned her, watching the surfers, the lovers strolling hand in hand, trying not to remember Max’s arms around her, the way one look from him made her feel strong. Capable. Extraordinary.

  By Sunday morning, she simply wanted to endure until her late-afternoon flight. She got up, showered, and packed. Hating that she looked like a swollen crawfish, she donned her sunglasses and went outside for breakfast on the terrace. The Twinkies sat at a table and lifted their hands to her. She waved but made a U-turn and headed toward the beach.

  Sunday seemed like any other day at the resort—paddlers on longboards in the lagoon, surfers testing the swells, children digging channels out to sea, women in bikinis on straw mats soaking in their vitamin D.

  At home, her family would be returning home from church. They took up an entire row, sometimes two. Surely Darek and Ivy had returned from their honeymoon by now. Tiger would have taken a perch between them, although sometimes he opted for Grace’s lap. She too often let him play thumb wars with her when the sermon got long.

  They’d all be gathered at home for brunch—something Grace would have prepared—or they’d grill, eating outside on the picnic table. Casper would take volunteers to go fishing. Darek would disappear to work on the framing of his house, now in the rebuilding stage. And in the evening, they’d gather for their ritual Sunday night s’mores around the fire.

  What was she doing here in Hawaii alone, when she should be in Deep Haven with her family? Why had she agreed to this trip, this disaster? The entire thing seemed like a trick, as if God had held her dreams out in front of her only to yank them away.

  She’d stepped onto the hot sand, heading toward the water, when a sound caught her attention. Music. A hymn.

  “‘O, how He loves you and me . . .’” A flute played the melody and lured her closer, toward where a man dressed in a blue Hawaiian-print shirt was singing. A woman in a matching blue floral dress danced a sort of hula to the words. Fifty or so onlookers sat in folding sports chairs or in the sand, some under tents, listening.

  Grace leaned against a palm tree.

  The man finished the song, then welcomed them to Waikiki Beach Church. “There’s no better place to worship the Lord than on the beach in Hawaii.”

  Grace folded her arms.

  “I know that for many of you, this is a dream vacation. Something you’ve saved for, planned for, hoped for over many years. I hope it has been—or will be—all you wanted.” He gestured to the ocean, the beauty. “But I’m here to tell you that you can find paradise
without ever leaving your homes.”

  Grace pursed her lips and started to walk away.

  “Paradise is not what you see, but a relationship with the One who made it.”

  She’d heard this before. And had no interest, really, in sitting through a sermon about how if she just trusted God more, she might find happiness.

  She’d reached out—no, flung herself out—on this great adventure, and God had dropped her. Hard.

  “The key to finding what God has for you is not reaching out for paradise . . . but letting go. Falling. Losing control.”

  She stopped.

  “But most of us are too afraid to truly let go, to hold open our hands and receive what God has for us.”

  Maybe just another minute . . .

  “Consider the journey of Peter, who left his nets to follow Christ and ended up denying Him. Peter believed in Jesus, followed Him, but hadn’t been transformed by Him. He walked with Jesus, obeyed Jesus, and called Him Messiah. But until that dark moment of denial, Peter hadn’t come face-to-face with his own heart, selfish and angry and afraid. It wasn’t until Peter saw the kind of person he was and regretted his sins that life began to change for him.”

  Grace tucked herself back under the palm tree.

  “John 21 tells the story of a repentant Peter who longs to make things right with his Lord. And when Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him, Peter heartily replies three times that he does. Peter is confronted with grace. Jesus doesn’t condemn him for his actions. Rather, He charges Peter with a new command: ‘Feed My lambs.’ Peter wasn’t just to follow his Lord, but to be so close to Jesus that he became Jesus to His people. Love, forgive, serve. Peter would share a relationship with God like Jesus has. This is the transformation Jesus intends for us, a wholeness, a closeness in our relationship with God that is beyond our wildest hopes.”

  The preacher scanned the crowd. “So many of us come to Hawaii because we long for paradise. For more than our lives give us. That more is waiting for you right here.” He lifted his Bible. “You may be walking with Jesus, but has truth broken your heart? Have you been undone by the gospel in the face of your own sins? The truth is that you can follow Jesus . . . or you can walk with Him step by step. The Bible calls this abiding with Him. It starts with transformation and ends with the joy, the abundance, you long for.”

  He gestured to the ocean, where a man and woman dressed in Hawaiian attire stood at the waves’ edge. “If you would like to experience more joy, more hope, more peace . . . abundance, I invite you to come forward and be baptized today. Repent—regret your sins and let Jesus forgive you. Fill you with His grace. His love. A new life. More than you could have ever asked for or imagined.”

  Grace’s feet moved.

  She looked down, seeing herself shuffle through the sand, her throat thick.

  For years she’d been clinging to her own expectations of what God should be giving her. She had come to Hawaii looking for something, and when it hadn’t turned out just as she hoped, she let it burn a hole in her faith. But what if God had brought her to Hawaii for this one thing? To face her own selfishness, her own fears, even her anger?

  What if He’d heard the silent longing of her heart and answered it, not with Max but with Himself?

  Here, on the beach, if she understood right, God was inviting her into the more, the abundance her heart longed for.

  Grace wiped her cheek as she headed toward the edge of the water. The woman standing in the shallows took her hand.

  “I am a follower of Jesus already,” Grace said, the words like a breath inside her soul. “But I want more. I want to let Him transform me. I want an amazing, abundant life with Jesus.”

  “Then today you shall have it.”

  Grace walked fully clothed into the water, the salty freshness cool against her ravaged, burned skin. She waded out to her waist before the woman stopped her.

  “What do you want to say to God?”

  Grace looked to the scrape of cirrus clouds white upon the blue canvas. “Lord, I confess that I have clung to my own fears and even recently harbored anger against You in my heart. I want to do more than follow You. I want to be transformed . . . I want the abundant life You promise.”

  The woman nodded. “With the confession of your sins, you are forgiven and transformed.” She held out her hands.

  Grace grasped them as the woman dunked her, quickly, into the ocean. She surfaced, blinking into the sunlight, water streaming down her cheeks. She took a breath of the warm, fragrant air, and it filled her lungs, overflowing.

  “Do you love Him, sister?” the woman asked.

  Grace nodded, her eyes hot despite the cool water. “I do.”

  “Then feed His sheep.”

  Grace closed her eyes, the salt sinking into her skin, ocean water dripping down her back.

  My heart belongs to You, O God.

  With the confession, she could almost taste the sweetness of His grace.

  She stayed on the beach, singing with the congregation until her clothes dried. Then she changed, checked out, and caught the hotel shuttle to the airport.

  She finished her book on the plane ride home, with not a hint of airsickness. Eden met her at baggage claim at a terribly early hour Monday morning and drove to her Minneapolis apartment.

  When Eden mentioned Max, Grace told her simply that it hadn’t worked out.

  Grace finally entered Eden’s apartment, the fuzzy fatigue of too much travel pressing into her bones. She curled up on her sister’s couch and prayed that the life she’d found in Hawaii had followed her home.

  GRACE COULD NOT IMAGINE a more beautiful bride than Eden. Her sister stood on the bridal shop platform, holding up her arms as the gown attendant fitted her. The woman lifted the train. “We’ll gather it in a bustle for the dance, of course. But do you like how it flows?”

  Eden skimmed her hands down the bodice and over the long layer of white, creamy satin. The dress accentuated all her curves, with an embroidered floral overlay that sculpted her body and dropped to just below her hips. Elegant and simple, with exquisitely lacy cap sleeves and a V-neck frame, the dress would take Jace’s breath away.

  “What do you think, Grace? Do you like it?”

  Grace could hardly speak. After all, her sister was a vision of beauty, and she wanted to smile. In fact, she did smile. She did put warmth in her eyes. She did answer, “Yes, I love it. You’re so beautiful.” But it seemed that her heart had turned to ash with the question.

  Five days since she’d last seen Max, and the pain of it had the power to sour her reawakened relationship with God. She wanted to hold on to the abundant life, the joy that the pastor had talked about, but it all seemed to be slipping like sand from her grip.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Grace got up, walked over to her sister, and turned her around to face the three oversize mirrors. “Look at you. You’re absolutely a vision. Jace is going to flip.”

  “I don’t know. I still can’t believe this is happening. And so soon.”

  Grace frowned, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “What do you mean so soon? You have five months before your wedding.” She made a face. “On second thought, yeah. Five months and a to-do list as long as one of those novels you’re writing—”

  “Actually, no . . . I need to talk to you about that. I wanted to call you in Hawaii, but I thought it might be better to talk face-to-face.”

  Eden handed the attendant the veil she’d tried on, shaking her head. “We moved up the wedding. The Blue Ox have offered Jace a coaching position, and he has to report early for practice. He wants to get married before the season starts.”

  “That’s great . . . but oh, boy. When is practice?” Grace said, trying to buoy the sinking feeling in her chest.

  “It starts in less than two months. So, leaving time for a honeymoon, we’ll have the wedding in . . . six weeks?”

  “What?” Grace stepped back. “No. You can’t possibly pull a wedding
together that fast.”

  Eden looked at the attendant. “Well, actually, we’ve already talked about it. We have two more fittings, right?”

  The woman nodded.

  “And we’re doing just fine. Look, the dress is perfect, and we have the venue, even the band—the Blue Monkeys are playing. They can’t wait.”

  “Yes . . . ,” Grace said, her voice low. She felt as if she were speaking through molasses.

  “Well, this is what I need to talk to you about.” Eden came off the podium and tugged on Grace’s hand to make her follow her back to the dressing room. Eden disappeared behind the curtain with the attendant while Grace stayed on the other side. Probably a ploy to soften the blow because Grace knew what was coming next.

  “I’m serious about you catering the wedding.”

  “No—Eden, I know you said that, but you can’t expect me to be the maid of honor and cater your wedding—that’s crazy. It was a nice idea, and yeah, I’m glad I went to Hawaii, but if you remember, I missed Darek and Ivy’s wedding, and . . . this could very well be a disaster.”

  “It won’t be a disaster. You’ll just plan everything and get Raina and Ty to do it.”

  “Eden, really. Let’s just whiz past the absurdity of catering a wedding that I am in and think. Six weeks. That’s so soon. I can’t possibly pull it together by then.”

  The attendant emerged from behind the curtain, carrying the dress. The curtain fell back. Eden’s voice came through again. “What do you mean? Of course you can. Just a week ago you pulled together an entire course in thirty minutes using crazy ingredients—and nearly won! If anyone could pull this off, it’s you!”

  “Oh, Eden.” Grace looked at her own visage in the mirror. Tan, lean, looking healthy. Why, then, did she feel so dead inside? “This is way over my head.”

  “You only think it is.” She poked her head around the curtain. “Listen, the venue has a serving staff, and I know you could get people to help you in the kitchen. What about students from the local school? All you have to do is plan and prep. Raina can do the rest.”