Stranded with the SEAL

by Elana Johnson

  He swiped and tapped three numbers, so many emotions flowing through him it was very hard to focus.

  Chapter Eleven

  Iris didn’t like the blackness in her mind. She couldn’t seem to shake it off, though, even when someone kept calling her name. She seemed to be moving, and then a man was talking again. Saying all kinds of things about a deserted island and being in a boat for over twenty-four hours.

  She swam closer to the surface, finally breaking through right when the man stopped talking. Iris groaned, and someone said, “Iris? Can you wake up?”

  Justin’s face appeared above her, and everything inside her burned. Her head ached, and sharp pain moved through her neck.

  “We’re almost back,” he said. “I need your help. Can you sit up?”

  She sure liked hearing him say he needed her help, but she couldn’t manage to get herself sitting up. He moved around the boat, jostling her from side to side, as he took down the canopy. “I called nine-one-one, and they’re going to send emergency vehicles to the three ports on this side of the island.”

  One corner, then the next, and the wide sky gaped open above her. Iris wanted to flinch away from it, go back to sleep.

  “I’m going to try to wait to go over the break until we see one. Then we can get to it easier.”

  Iris wasn’t sure what he was saying. She managed to get upright and press her back into the seat behind her. “What?”

  “I need your help to find the emergency vehicles. And to get over the break. We won’t be able to see it until we’re nearly on it, and that’ll be when I need to row the most.”

  He finished taking down the canopy and sat in his spot beside the oars. Iris looked ahead, finally realizing what was going on. “Justin, there are lights up there.”

  “I know,” he said. “We made it back to Maui.”

  She twisted to find him smiling. “We made it back to Maui. How long have I been asleep?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, nodding to his left. “I see some red flashing lights over there. Do you think that’s the closest place?”

  Iris turned too quickly, and vertigo overcame her. “Whoa,” she said, covering her face with both of her hands. The spinning finally stopped, and she dared to look toward the island again.

  “I don’t see any other lights,” she said, her voice weary.

  “I’m going to get us back,” he said.

  “Seems that way,” Iris said. A bright white light streamed out from a spot just to their right. “But that’s closer.”

  “That’s a boat,” Justin said, making an adjustment. “Maybe we won’t have to go over the break.” He stopped rowing completely, and Iris felt like she was going to be sick.

  In fact, she scrambled for the edge of the boat so she could throw up over the side. After she finished, she hung onto the boat and moaned. “I don’t feel so great.”

  “You’re sick,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry, Iris. Just hang on a little longer.”

  Hang on, she did. The boat definitely came closer, and Justin just let the waves push and pull them wherever they wanted to. He turned the flashlight on his phone and lifted it above his head, waving it slowly back and forth in a wide arc.

  “Vessel ahead, this is Maui Harbor Police,” a man said over the intercom as the boat came closer. “Identify yourselves.”

  “We need help,” Justin yelled, causing Iris to flinch away from the noise.

  “Please stay there,” the man said, and within a couple of minutes, a smaller boat headed toward them. Relief filled Iris, and she hoped she’d never have to see or eat another piece of dragon fruit again.

  “Take her,” Justin said. “She’s not well. Temperature over a hundred degrees. Neither of us have had enough water, and we’ve been eating only fruit for days.”

  “Ma’am? Can you tell me your name?”

  Iris blinked at the man on the other boat. Wow, they’d gotten here fast. “Iris….”

  “Just take her,” Justin snapped. “Her name is Iris McLaughlin. She just threw up, and she needs fluids, food, meds.”

  Iris turned her head toward him, but every moment felt so slow, as if she were moving under quicksand.

  Justin pulled his arm away from the man trying to help him. “Get her off this boat. I am Commander Justin Brunner, Navy SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One. I’m fine. She needs help.”

  Iris tried to stand up, but everything beneath her swayed. She lurched, and someone grabbed her arm. A man kept asking her questions, but she didn’t have the energy or mental power to respond.

  Justin was talking, and he’d tell them everything they needed to know. On the bigger boat, Iris let the people take her wherever they wanted, and she made it to an office before she passed out.

  When she woke up next, the first thing she heard was Ivy’s voice. “…I mean, can you believe that?”

  Eden’s lower tone chimed in, but Iris couldn’t make out the words. She opened her eyes, and she saw her sisters huddled together several feet away. The steady beeping and horrible fluorescent lighting testified that she was in the hospital.

  “Aunt Iris,” her niece said, and everyone swung their attention toward the bed.

  “Heya, Tesla,” Iris croaked. Her throat felt like someone had packed it with wet sand, and she coughed.

  “You’re awake,” Eden said at the same time Ivy squealed and launched herself at the bed. She let her sister cry, Ivy’s tears wetting Iris’s face. “We had no idea where you were,” she said. “No idea. The rescue boats came back day after day with nothing.”

  “Ivy,” Orchid said, nudging her back. “She’s fine.”

  “She’s not fine,” Ivy said, her blue eyes flashing in a familiar way. “She fainted once she got off that boat, and she’s been asleep for hours.”

  “I’m fine,” Iris said, trying to push herself up. She didn’t quite have the strength and stopped trying. “Where’s Justin?”

  “Who?” Ivy asked.

  “He’s not here,” Eden said. “He wasn’t nearly as…sick as you. They checked him out and he left.”

  “He left?” Iris looked at Eden, so many questions running through her mind. “Where are we?”

  “Maui,” her mother said. “We came as soon as the cruise line notified us that you weren’t on board.”

  Iris wanted to know everything that had happened after she and Justin had jumped off that cruise ship, so she said, “Tell me about it,” and listened as the story got told by everyone, each saying a line or two, contradicting each other, and bickering until it was all out.

  Yes, she and Justin were the only people unaccounted for on the lame boat. It had limped back to the port in Maui after the whale attacks before anyone noticed they weren’t there.

  Calls had been made. A new boat sent. The Coast Guard and Maui Harbor Patrol notified. Her family had come immediately, and several of Justin’s friends.

  “You have got to introduce me to some of them,” Ivy said with a toss of her blonde hair. “Did you know Navy SEALs are called Frogmen? I’ve been messaging my Frogman, but he hasn’t responded.”

  Iris, buoyed up by the energy of her family, looked at Ivy, almost afraid to tell her. “I know who he is.”

  “Yeah, who?” Ivy leaned forward. “Because not a single one of his friends will admit to even being on Getaway Bay Singles. But that can’t be true, can it?” Ivy leaned forward, and Iris couldn’t believe this was the conversation she was having in the hospital after being stranded on an island for days.

  “It’s Justin,” she said.

  For once, her family remained silent for several seconds. Then Eden started laughing, and it didn’t take long for Orchid to join in.

  “The guy she was stranded with,” Eden said, getting right in Ivy’s face. “I don’t think Frogman is going to be calling you back.”

  “You don’t call on the app,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes. “And why wouldn’t he message me back?”

  “It’s obvious,” Eden said, casting
a look over her shoulder. “He and Iris have a thing.”

  “No,” Iris said, not wanting to hurt her twin sister. “He’s just the meathead who grabbed me and made me jump off that boat.”

  “Oh, she’s still a bad liar,” Orchid said as a nurse came in. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s leave Auntie Iris alone for a few minutes.”

  Everyone started to leave as the nurse checked monitors. Ivy stayed, her eyes searching Iris’s. “Tell me the truth, at least,” she said, glancing at the nurse. “He hasn’t come to see you, and you’ve been asleep for fifteen hours.”

  Iris tried not to let that information hurt her, but it stung way down deep in her lungs. She didn’t have her phone, or even Justin’s number. How could she get him to come see her? Why hadn’t he?

  She looked up into Ivy’s eyes, and said, “It was nothing.”

  Ivy nodded, always so trusting when it came to twin stuff, and started toward the door. “I’ll go get you some chocolate pie. It’s actually pretty good here.” She smiled and left, and Iris faced the nurse.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “You’re doing great,” she said, smiling. “Any pain? Headache?”

  “No,” Iris said. “I feel pretty good.”

  “We need to get the catheter out, and the doctor will need to come check you before you can go.” She made a note on her chart and leaned forward, her dark eyes sparkling. “And just so you know, there was a man here really early this morning before the sun even came up. Big guy. Shaved hair. Tattoos. He held your hand and kept his forehead right there against the rail, murmuring to himself.”

  She tapped the clipboard against the rail. “Looked like he cared about you to me.” With a quick smile, she left the room too. Left Iris to stew over what she’d said and if Justin had really come to see her in the pre-dawn hours.

  By the time she got out of the hospital, night had fallen again, and her parents had booked a couple of rooms at a hotel on the island until they could get back to Getaway Bay.

  “I brought you some clothes,” Ivy said, bouncing on the bed in the hotel room the twins would be sharing.

  “Did someone get my hip pack?” she asked.

  “No,” Ivy said. “Why?”

  “My phone was in there.” Iris hadn’t been able to use it out on the tiny island, but now that she was in a more civilized place, she wanted to use it. Check in with her employees.

  Maybe figure out a way to get in touch with Justin.

  Iris was a little surprised at how much she missed him. She’d never particularly liked being alone, and with Ivy, she never really had been by herself. But she didn’t crave being surrounded by her friends at work, nor her family.

  She wanted to know how Justin was, and who had come to meet him in Maui, and why he hadn’t wanted to come visit her while her family was in the room.

  Ivy made hot chocolate and turned on a movie, and the twins curled up together on the same bed. About halfway through the movie, a knock sounded on the door, and Ivy went to get it.

  Iris expected to see Tesla or Orchid, maybe even Eden. Instead, Ivy stayed at the door, having a conversation, and then she came back into the room alone. She held up Iris’s phone. “That was the guy from the front desk. He said someone left this for you.”

  Iris reached for it even as surprise moved through her. Justin. How had he known where she was? And why didn’t he just bring it up himself?

  Iris was going to find out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Justin walked away from the hotel where Iris was staying with her family, his mood melancholy. Surely she had to know he’d brought the phone back, and as soon as she got it, he wondered what she’d do.

  He hadn’t given her his number. She couldn’t call.

  “Did she get it?” Heath asked, clapping Justin on the shoulder as he joined him on the curb across the street.

  “I’m assuming.”

  “Why don’t you just go talk to her?”

  “I don’t know, man.” Justin tried to give him a smile, and Lucas stood from the bench where he’d been on the phone.

  “We ready to go?”

  “I don’t need a helicopter ride back to Getaway Bay.”

  “But the Navy said we could use it.” Lucas grinned at him like it would be a grand adventure, as if none of them had ever flown in a helicopter before. “So let’s go home. Maui is nice and all, but it’s full of tourists.”

  “So is Getaway Bay,” Justin said, so glad his friends had come for him. He did belong somewhere.

  “It’s not really,” Heath said. “Just a couple of spots. And it’s growing a lot, with real people living there.”

  Justin looked at him. “So are you going to retire and stay on the island? I thought you were going back to Texas.”

  “Well, I’m not retiring,” Heath said. “For years.”

  “You’re maybe eighteen months out,” Justin said.

  “But I’m not taking retirement when I can, just because I can.” Heath raised his right eyebrow at Justin. “And why aren’t you married yet, man? Isn’t that why you got out?”

  “No,” Justin said, though he had wanted to find someone to settle down with. “I got out, because it was time for me to get out.”

  “We just need to get Diego away from the waitress he met during lunch.”

  “Oh, boy,” Justin said with a smirk. “That guy needs to find someone and settle down.”

  “At least he has dates,” Heath said.

  Justin wanted to tell them he’d just had a really long date, where he kissed a girl and held her close while they slept on a platform they’d built with their bare hands. Instead, he said nothing.

  He wasn’t sure how to go back to Iris. The guilt he felt ripped through him the way bombs did when they exploded on buildings. He’d put her life in danger, and he didn’t want to be the reason she wasn’t happy.

  “He’s in here,” Lucas said, opening the door to an ice cream shop. A bell rang, and Justin opted to wait on the street.

  Heath and Lucas went in, and Justin pulled out his phone. He hadn’t cheated and taken her number from her phone. He wasn’t sure why. He just knew that things felt different now, and a gulf existed between him and Iris that hadn’t been there before that last night on the island.

  Twenty minutes later, his SEAL buddies came out of the ice cream shop, laughing, and Justin turned toward them. “It’s about time.”

  “Hey, she was really pretty,” Diego said. “And I got her number.” He singsonged the last word, wagging his phone around like the Navy player didn’t get numbers every day of his life. Seriously, he went out with more women than Justin thought possible.

  “And what?” Heath asked. “You’re going to have a long-distance relationship? She knows you work on a different island, right?”

  “There are so many ways to communicate now,” Diego said. “And I get leave.”

  They continued to rib him as Lucas drove to the helipad. Justin didn’t have a bag besides Iris’s hip pack, and he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t given that to the guy at the front desk too. Neither one of them needed the supplies inside it, and he just wanted to hold onto it a little longer.

  He knew why, even if he hadn’t admitted it yet. That hip pack was his only remaining connection to Iris.

  The next morning, he woke up in his own bed, his back aching and his neck stiff. He had no idea why, other than his misery had followed him back to his apartment.

  He sat up, a groan coming from his mouth as he rubbed his neck. His phone flashed with a green light, which mean a notification from one of his social media apps. Probably no one he wanted to talk to, but he swiped the device on anyway.

  Getaway Bay Singles.

  Iris’s sister had messaged him several times, but he hadn’t chatted her back. Surely Iris would tell her twin who he was, and what…they were. But he didn’t even know what they were, so maybe she hadn’t.

  And this message wasn’t from PoisonedApple, but a potential connec
tion request from a woman named DragonFruit.

  His heart leapt to the back of his throat as he tapped on the name.

  Hey, Frogman. I heard you were back in town. When I get back, maybe we could have dinner? There will be no dragon fruit or rambutans.

  Justin really wanted to say yes. He even chuckled at her promise of no fruit for dinner.

  But he decided to be honest.

  I don’t know, he messaged back, checking the time stamp on her message. It had come last night, probably while he was flying back over the ocean to Getaway Bay, his buddies’ laughter in his headset.

  He exhaled, trying to reason through the confusing thoughts in his head. It was impossible. I’m worried we’re not a good fit.

  He stared at the words, because they weren’t quite right. He liked Iris a whole lot. She was strong, and capable, and beautiful, and she kissed him in a way that made him feel whole in a world where he’d always been just a little less than that.

  He erased the sentence, trying to find a better one.

  What don’t you know? popped up on his screen before he could.

  I need some time, he said, sending that before he could second-guess himself.

  Time for what?

  Iris was going to be relentless, he could tell. And it was something he really liked about her. He looked up from his phone, knowing that she’d done a lot for him on that island. Maybe she couldn’t scale the banana tree or open the coconut, but she’d helped him see himself in a new way. Helped him clarify what he really wanted out of life.

  Time to figure out if I’m good for you or not. He sent the message and got up to pace. He moved to the window and back to the bed, the flashing green light already back on his phone.

  Why do you get to decide that?

  He’s just the meathead who grabbed me and made me jump off that boat.

  Her words to her family echoed through his mind. He’d been about to go into the room, right behind the nurse. Announce himself. He’d already been to see her that morning, and her vitals looked good. Her color was better. The nurse had assured him she’d likely make a full recovery.