Alarm bells started ringing in Max’s head. Just how many pancakes was he expected to make?
“I’m assuming that now isn’t the right time,” Max said.
“Nope.” Henry grinned wide and handed Max a wooden spoon. “Now is the time for pancakes.”
Truer words had never been spoken. For the next several hours, Max, Henry, and Mavis’s boyfriend—who Max learned was named Larry—mixed up batch after batch for the tourists and locals who poured onto the pier. Down on the beach, sand sculptures went from modest piles of sand to elaborately crafted pieces of art as the teams in the SandFest competition got busy. In order to qualify for judging, the entries had to be completed no later than noon.
Max had planned on having an early morning breakfast with his uncle and then doing what he could to help the Turtle Team and the college kids they’d enlisted to build their entry for the competition. Not that Max knew the first thing about building a sand sculpture, outside of the drip castles he’d made with his uncle during his childhood summers on the island. But it seemed like a big job to leave completely to volunteers, especially with ten thousand dollars in prize money riding on the results.
Too late now.It was midmorning, the sky shone high in the sky, and Max felt like he was sweating maple syrup.
“Thank you,” a beachgoer in a bikini said as Max piled her plate with a stack of silver dollar pancakes.
“You’re welcome. Enjoy SandFest.” Max turned his attention back to the grill where bubbles were already beginning to form around the edges of his next batch.
The woman’s coquettish smile grew as she lingered in front of Max’s station.
He glanced up. “Can I get you something else?”
She answered with a giggle. “No, I just had to see the real thing for myself.”
“Oh.” Max’s gaze swept the crowded pier. The pancake breakfast was definitely a see-it-to-believe-it sort of affair. “Yeah, this is really something, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.” She glanced pointedly at his chest and licked her lips.
A ribbon of smoke drifted up from the griddle. Great. Max’s six hundredth pancake was burning.
“Well, you have a nice day,” Max said, prompting her to move on with a wave of his spatula.
He scooped the blackened lump of batter from his griddle and tossed it into a metal trash can behind him. When Max turned back around, he found Molly standing at the front of his line, pulling a face.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why you’ve got the longest queue when everyone on the island knows that Hoyt Hooper makes the best pancakes in Turtle Beach.” She gestured toward the charred crumbs clinging to his spatula. “Now I’mreallycurious.”
Sweet relief surged through Max’s veins at the sight of her. He hadn’t liked what he’d seen at lunch with her parents the day before. Not at all. He’d felt an almost primal urge to protect her—ironic, considering she’d been the one to quite literally save his life. But the desire had been there, all the same.
It still was. Max’s fingers itched to toss his spatula over his shoulder, scoop her into his arms, and carry her off into the sunset in a very real, very non-imaginary way, despite the fact that they were supposed to be pretending.
“I have the longest queue?” A grin tugged at Max’s lips as he peered past her. Sure enough, a line of people snaked all the way from his station to the steps that led down to the parking lot. By contrast, Henry, Hoyt, and Larry each only had a handful of people waiting in their lines.
“What exactly are you putting in your pancakes?” Molly tilted her head. She was holding Ursula in her arms, and the puppy cocked her head, perfectly mirroring her mistress’s expression.
“Just the usual stuff, I assure you.” He glanced down at the lettering printed across his apron and back at Molly. “It’s true, you know.”
She tucked a strand of pink hair behind her ear while Ursula’s tail beat against the curve of her waist in a happy rhythm. “What’s true?”
Max leaned closer, until the heat of the grill warmed his face. Or maybe that delicious warmth was simply because of Molly’s nearness. “I pancake my eyes off you.”
She smiled, then appeared to catch herself. “You don’t have to say those kinds of things. My parents aren’t anywhere near us.”
But what if I want to say those things? What if it’s the truth?
Ursula’s nose twitched as someone walked by with a towering stack of pancakes dripping with syrup and topped with a liberal dusting of powdered sugar.
“I was hoping you could take a quick break so we could talk in private for a minute, but from the looks of things…” Molly cast a dubious glance at his queue, still going strong.
“Done.” Max flicked the power switch on the grill to the off position.
“Are you sure?”