Stranded with the SEAL

by Elana Johnson

  Because you need time to figure out if I’m good for you or not.

  Iris didn’t respond immediately, and he knew he’d spoken true. Messaged true. Whatever. The point was, she did blame him for dragging her off that boat and condemning her to an island life for a few days. And the fact was, she had gotten very ill on the way back, and if something had happened to her….

  Justin blew out his breath. He knew better than to play the what-if game, and he pushed the thoughts away now too.

  His phone rang next, and his heart hammered in anticipation. “Can’t be Iris,” he muttered, and sure enough the screen had Theo’s name on it.

  “Hey, boss,” Justin said, trying to infuse some enthusiasm into his voice. He did too good of a job, because he sounded absolutely delighted to have his boss calling him. “Am I late?”

  “It’s not even seven yet,” Theo said.

  “Right.” Justin paced over to the window and looked out. The sun was coming up, the same, relentless way it did every day. He turned away from the golden light, which he usually found so comforting.

  His stomach growled as Theo said, “You’re not coming in today.”

  “Okay,” Justin said.

  “Wow,” Theo said. “I was expecting that to be harder.”

  “When do you need me back by?”

  “Well, I’ve assigned Cruise Hawaii to someone else, and I think you were on the Umbrella Project next, and we’re weeks from that.”

  “Weeks.” Justin didn’t want to be alone for weeks. But he easily could be. He could leave the island, and no one would know. He could stay right here in this apartment, and never shower, and never leave, and one day someone might smell something and come knocking.

  Misery wept through him, and he sighed. “I’ll be in tomorrow. Think you could give me something to do?”

  “Absolutely,” Theo said. “But only if you’re up to it.”

  “I have to…have something to do.” A reason to get up and get out of the house. But he didn’t say that.

  “I’ll have food at the office tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Theo.” The call ended, and Justin decided he would not be spending the day inside this apartment. He wanted to eat as much as he could—bacon, eggs, turkey sandwiches, chicken fried steak, French fries. All of it. And then he was going to figure out what to do with his life.

  He did just that, walking down the boardwalk between East Bay and Getaway Bay with tacos in his hand once and then a smoothie the next time. The trees kept the boardwalk between the two bays shaded, and he liked watching the people who’d come to the island for vacation, as well as the locals who came to this section of the beach to eat.

  The day passed before he got another message from DragonFruit. Why wouldn’t you be good for me?

  A flash of annoyance and anger ran through him. Maybe because I’m a meathead who made you jump off the boat.

  As soon as he sent the message, he regretted it. But it was done now, and the Getaway Bay Singles app told him when she’d read it.

  And she had. Nothing he could do to take it back now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Iris blinked at her screen, pure alarm ringing through her. Maybe because I’m a meathead who made you jump off the boat.

  He’d heard her. She’d said that her family, yesterday morning in the hospital on Maui. He’d heard her.

  Regret lanced through her, even as another message from him came in. I was trying to save you, by the way. I’m not perfect, and I’ve apologized a bunch of times.

  She’d never said he hadn’t apologized, nor had she ever accused him of being perfect—though he was pretty darn close to that. And she may have put some blame on him on the island, gone through a rough time where she thought maybe they wouldn’t be able to get off the island, maybe thought he was a little barky sometimes. Thought things should be done his way.

  But when he’d pulled rank on those officers with the Maui Harbor Police, Iris had wanted to kiss him.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she said out loud, typing the words into the dating app. She hated with every fiber of her being that she had to communicate with him this way. There was so much going on in the hospital room, and she’d seen the look on Ivy’s face, and Eden’s, and her mom’s, and she’d said it.

  She sent the first message and quickly added, Can I call you?

  I’m tired, he sent back. Maybe tomorrow.

  Tomorrow came, and with it all the regular frustration of Iris’s life. She hadn’t gotten her two weeks of blissful vacation, and when she walked into We’ll Weed That at eight a.m. the next day, the receptionist rose from her desk like she was seeing the dead.

  “Iris,” she said, one hand going to her mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  “I own this company,” she said, hating the way her high heels clicked against the floor. She’d used to love that. Loved her power suits on office days. Loved getting her hands dirty on outside days. Loved sitting down with her project managers and watching a yard or an outdoor space come to life.

  A longing for what she’d once had radiated through her. She had no idea what it was directed at, though, and no way to go back in time and get it.

  The morning passed with her reassuring everyone that she was fine. Yes, she could work. Sure, send over the phone call.

  She left by lunch, utterly exhausted. The doctor had told her to take it easy for a few days, but Iris couldn’t stand to be idle for long. And being alone with her thoughts was an exquisite sort of torture she did not want to endure.

  Her first instinct was to call Justin and ask him if he was working. Maybe they could grab a drink and watch the waves come in. But that sort of date held very little romance for Iris anymore. She’d seen enough waves come in to last a lifetime.

  So she got her own drink from Two Coconuts and went home. Ivy had been there, as evidenced by the fresh loaf of bread sitting on Iris’s countertop. “Mom and I made this. Call me when you get home.”

  Ivy would come over if Iris asked, and she suddenly needed to talk through everything with her sister.

  “Hey,” she said when Ivy picked up. “When are you off?” Her twin worked as a retail manager at a boutique downtown, and she had a flexible schedule.

  “It’s so slow today,” she said. “We just need to wait for Twitchy to show up, and I can come over.”

  Iris liked how she said “we,” as if she and Iris were still a team. They had been their whole lives, and Iris wished she’d just told Ivy the truth in the hospital yesterday.

  She buttered bread and ate it, changed into her yoga pants, and had just started to doze on the couch when Ivy showed up. She’d brought Indian food from The Indian House, and the scent of butter chicken made Iris’s mouth water.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” she said, hugging her twin with a fierceness that made her throat close with emotion.

  “You said you never wanted to eat fruit again,” Ivy said, holding Iris tight too. “And you’ve seriously lost fifteen pounds.”

  Iris didn’t argue even though it wasn’t true. She stepped back and accepted the container of food before putting it on a plate and taking it to the couch. Ivy joined her, tucking her feet under her before digging into the chicken and rice.

  “I have to tell you something,” Iris said, pushing her food around inside the Styrofoam container.

  “Yeah?” Ivy finished chewing and swallowed. “Work? Man? Island?”

  “Island,” Iris said. “And man.”

  Ivy paused, and their eyes met. “So it’s about Justin.”

  Iris nodded. “We sort of connected out there.” She shrugged, trying to make it seem like no big deal. But it was a big deal, and she hated that she’d just tried to downplay their relationship again. “I met him on the cruise, obviously, before the whales attacked. He was a little…Navy SEAL.”

  Ivy played the perfect twin, listening to Iris’s story and nodding in all the right places. When Iris said, “And we kissed, and it was magical a
nd wonderful, and so hot all at the same time.”

  She paused, hoping Ivy would tell her what to do now. “So you didn’t want to tell me, because you thought I’d be upset.”

  “He was yours first,” Iris said. “And you’ve always hated me for coming in and stealing guys from you.”

  “So you’re admitting you did that with Jake.”

  “We were fifteen.”

  “You’ve never admitted it, Iris.”

  And she didn’t want to now. But she desperately didn’t want this guilt either, and she did want Justin.

  She opened her mouth to speak, realizing what she’d just thought.

  She wanted Justin.

  “Yes,” she said. “Okay? I stole him from you when we were teenagers. But this wasn’t that, I swear.”

  Ivy pursed her lips and said, “Mm hm,” as she scooped up another bite of chicken and rice.

  “It wasn’t. I didn’t even know you two had a thing until we’d been on the island for a day or two.” Or shorter. Longer? Iris couldn’t even think of how long she and Justin had been out there. Had it really only been a few days?

  Ivy held onto her anger for another moment. “It’s fine,” she said. “I was flirting with him pretty hard, and he never asked me out.”

  “He said he probably would’ve, eventually.” Iris watched her sister’s face, watched the annoyance roll through her eyes.

  “I don’t want eventually,” she said. “You can have him.”

  “I wish,” Iris said, looking down at her mostly full plate. “He overheard me call him a meathead who made me jump off the boat.”

  Ivy sucked in a breath, her eyes going wide. “That’s not good.”

  “He already feels guilty for doing it, and I knew that. I just…I’d just woken up, and Eden was looking at me like I’d gone and fallen in love with him, the way she did Holden.”

  “Her and Holden were always going to get back together,” Ivy said. “It just took an act of God to make it happen. Finally.”

  Iris agreed, and she wondered if this was an act of God to put a man in her life she would’ve bypassed initially. Not even considered. Warned her sister away from dating.

  And why? Because he had a loud bark and a few tattoos?

  His tattoos were sexy, and Iris could deal with bark, because she also knew what he was like in his most vulnerable moments. Right before he fell asleep and right after he woke up. When he was hungry, and desperate, and pulling with everything he had to save them.

  “Iris,” her sister said, and Iris pulled herself from her thoughts.

  “Hmm?”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” Ivy had put her plate down and everything. She got up and took Iris’s from her. “You like him, right?”

  Iris nodded, her chest tightening. “He said he needed time to figure out if he was good for me.” Her heart shriveled up inside her, and she looked at her sister with watery eyes.

  “Oh, honey, you fell in love with him.” Ivy stared at her, searching her face for the truth.

  “No.” Iris sniffed and wiped her eyes before any tears leaked out. “I’m not Orchid. I didn’t fall in love at first sight. In fact, he was kind of rude the first time I met him.”

  Ivy giggled, which caused Iris to giggle, and pretty soon they were both laughing. Ivy sobered first, and she said, “But you did.”

  “I didn’t,” Iris insisted. “Eden’s the one who holds out on kissing a guy until she’s like, two breaths from falling in love with him. I can kiss and still be in like.”

  Ivy cocked her head and waited.

  “What?” Iris asked. “Honestly, Ivy. I’m not in love with him. We’ve only known each other for a few days.”

  “And you went through some very significant things during those six days,” she said.

  “I asked him to dinner, and he said no. He won’t give me his phone number.”

  “How are you talking to him?”

  “I had to join that singles app.”

  Ivy blinked and then burst out laughing. “Oh, honey, if you can’t see you love him just because of that….” She shook her head. “I can’t help you.”

  “But I need help.” Iris must’ve infused the right amount of desperation and whine in her voice, because Ivy looked sympathetic.

  “Look,” she said, getting up to take the plates back into the kitchen. “You’re smart. I can tell you all kinds of things to do. Like, why was he on the cruise? Could you get him out on another one, and just happen to be there? Where does he work? Could you hire him somehow, and show up and be like, hey, what are the chances?” She tossed her hair like she was a professional matchmaker.

  And honestly, she should be, because both of the things she’d just said would totally work. She knew where Justin spent his time during the day. He built apps—and We’ll Weed That did not have an app.

  Yet.

  And he’d been on that cruise as research for another project. So she could call his boss and find out when the replacement cruise would be happening. Problems sprang to her mind—maybe his boss would send someone else to do the research. Maybe projects couldn’t just be assigned to whoever she wanted them to—but she ignored them.

  “Ivy, you’ve got real game,” she said.

  “I know,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes. “It’s why I’ve been out with every eligible bachelor on this island.” She grinned at Iris. “Hey, maybe I should try going on a cruise.” She lifted her eyebrows rapidly a few times. “Find me a single Navy SEAL.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Iris said. “It was mostly couples and families on that thing.”

  Ivy sighed, a long, happy sigh Iris had heard her sister utter after so many dates growing up.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Then it was fate you two met.”

  Iris rolled her eyes now, because Ivy had always tended to over-romanticize things. But her mind seized onto that word, and she couldn’t help thinking that maybe it was fate that they were on that same cruise, at the same time.

  “Yeah,” she muttered as her twin looked for a romantic comedy that was “sure to cheer her up.”

  “And maybe he was with you so you didn’t die.” Even if he had grabbed onto her and jumped into the lifeboat with her.

  So now, she just needed to figure out how to get back in the game with Justin. Ivy had listed a couple of great ideas….

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You really don’t need to give Cruise Hawaii to someone else,” Justin said. Theo stood behind three monitors, while his partner, Ben, pointed to a fourth.

  Justin felt like he’d been talking to a brick wall for the past ten minutes. But he couldn’t survive another day like yesterday, where he just wandered around and did nothing. Sure, he’d enjoyed the food. Theo had brought in a full bagel and fruit bar this morning. Justin hadn’t touched a single piece of fruit, and his stomach hurt from the copious amounts of carbs and cream cheese he’d consumed.

  He was drinking fruit, as Getaway Bay really had some of the best smoothies on the planet.

  “Theo,” he said, about to slip into his Navy SEAL voice. The man finally looked over the top of the monitors. “I have nothing to do, and I’m going to lose my fricking mind.” He lifted his eyebrows, hoping the message got through. “I can work on Cruise Hawaii.”

  Theo glanced at Ben and came around to the front of the desk. “You want to go on another cruise?”

  “There was a freak accident,” Justin said. “The boat didn’t sink, though I thought it was going to.” He was trained to assess and act. He did both things quickly, and in this case, a little too quickly.

  So he’d slow down next time.

  Plus, there wasn’t going to be a next time. The company had issued statement after statement that they’d never lost a boat at sea, and that record was still true. The cruises were safe. He felt bad he’d caused so many problems for so many people by prematurely abandoning ship, despite what the captain had said.

  “I can go back ou
t,” he said.

  “Look at the schedule, Ben,” Theo said, and Ben started scrolling on his phone.

  “The schedule should definitely be the first thing you see on the app,” he said. “Their website is awful too. How did we book last time?”

  “Had to call,” Theo said, folding his arms. “How’s the web redesign coming? Maybe you could work on that.”

  “We got two new inquiries this morning too,” Ben said without looking up from his phone. “A landscaping place, and a dog salon.”

  “There you go,” Theo said. “And you’re ready to take a project from inquiry to completion, Justin.”

  “Am I?”

  “Sure,” Theo said. “It would be good for you.”

  “Yes, hi,” Ben said, stepping away to talk to the people at Cruise Hawaii.

  Justin felt a measure of pride move through him. He’d only been working at The Web Developer for a year, and he’d admitted it could be boring. But taking on more of an active role? He’d love that.

  “Okay,” he said. “But I do want to take the cruise. I need a vacation.” He smiled, glad he wasn’t stuck at home or desperate to fill the hours.

  “Next one isn’t until next week,” Ben said, tilting the phone away from his mouth.

  “Okay,” Justin said, and Ben went back to booking it. “And I can start on one of the new inquiries in the meantime.”

  “Fine,” Theo said with a smile. “I want Reuben coaching you on it.”

  “That’s great,” Justin said. He got along fine with Reuben. “Which one is he doing?”

  “Ben’ll know.”

  Sure enough, when Ben got off the phone with the cruise line, he said, “You’re set, Justin. Monday morning, ten a.m.”

  “Which project did Rueben take?” Theo asked.

  “Uh, let’s see.” More tapping and swiping on the phone. Justin swore that Ben had four brains at his disposal, and three of them were in his phone. “We’ll Weed That. They do landscaping projects, simple yard work, weekly, monthly, all of it. They have a nursery too, and they want a shopping component for their app.”