Stranded with the Cowboy Billionaire

by Elana Johnson

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Come back!”

  The yacht moved mostly away from him, and unless someone came around to the stern of the ship, they wouldn’t see him. And he knew better than most that it wasn’t silent on a boat. Even the waves coming ashore were noisy.

  Movement on the boat caught his eye, and he gave everything he had to his voice, yelling again so loudly that it hurt his throat.

  Whoever had come around the back of the ship lifted their head. The yacht was easily a few hundred yards away, maybe more, but he waved his palm frond with everything he had.

  “We need help! Help!”

  The figure pointed, waved both arms above their head, and disappeared.

  Mason dropped the palm frond and fell to his knees, his chest heaving. He wished he had a phone so he could call Ivy and tell her to come to the other side of the island. But he didn’t, and he could barely breathe. He may have muscles, but he was not a runner.

  He turned back toward the beach—and froze.

  Thick, white smoke filled the air above the trees, a much bigger signal than the one he’d given. A smile filled his face, and he started laughing.

  “Way to go, Ivy,” he said to the sky. “You did it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once Mason had gone, Ivy let the tears roll down her face. She worked through the blurry vision, having had a great amount of experience of crying while still getting things done. She’d fill the whole sky with smoke. So much that people sunbathing on the beach in the East Bay would see it and wonder what was happening.

  She would.

  The greenery smoked well, and she tended to it to make sure she didn’t smother out the flame. She eventually stopped crying, but she had no way of knowing if the ship was even facing their island. It could be a crew of one, someone just out for a fun day on the water.

  Of course, if that were true, why hadn’t Iris sent help? Why hadn’t Eden?

  Ivy should’ve checked in two days ago, and she and Mason had come to the conclusion that the storm that had knocked them around had done the same to Getaway Bay. Perhaps the harbors and docks were shut down, something that happened after a big storm. The rescue boats wanted to be able to get around easily, and it was harder with vacationers or islanders out on their boats.

  An astronomical amount of time seemed to pass, and Mason didn’t return. Neither did the ship. Ivy didn’t know what to do, so she darted back into the trees to get more palm fronds. She would keep this smoke signal going until she knew for certain she didn’t need to.

  Her stomach roared with the want of food, because she’d only opened a box of blueberry oatmeal bars before she’d caught sight of the ship. She hadn’t actually taken a bite, and she had no idea where the bar had gone.

  She’d yelled for Mason, who hadn’t heard her, of course.

  She’d waded out into the water as far as she dared, waving and yelling. The ship had sailed on.

  And then she’d decided to build the fire and get as much smoke into the air as she could.

  A strange sound filled the air, and Ivy straightened, looking around her. It was definitely a machine. A motor. Something growing louder and getting closer. Could the ship be coming back?

  Her heart pounding through every vein, she dropped her fronds and ran for the beach. It wasn’t a ship making that noise.

  “A helicopter.” Ivy’s breath left her body even as everything inside her started to rejoice. She tipped her head up as the helicopter approached, laughter spilling from her throat. Waving her arms, she caught sight of Justin in the co-pilot’s chair, his face stoic.

  So like him.

  She didn’t care. He’d come. Iris had sent help.

  “Mason.” Ivy whipped back toward the forest behind her, wondering where Mason was and how quickly he could make it back to the beach. On a helicopter, they could be back to a hot shower in an hour. If that.

  And then they could make arrangements to come back and clean up. Get the yacht fixed. Get it towed. Whatever. Mason had a ton of money, and he’d take care of all of it.

  Just like he’d taken care of her. Tried to fix the radio in the middle of the night so she wouldn’t be worried. Yes, she’d helped him too, and she thought they made a pretty great team.

  The helicopter circled the island, finally coming back toward her. She ducked into the cabin as sand started spraying everywhere, the noise louder than she knew sound could be. She ducked into the corner, both hands over her ears, until the noise subsided a little bit.

  “Ivy,” Justin called, and she darted out the front door and into his arms.

  “You came. Thank all the starfish in the sea that you came.”

  He held her right against him. “We got hit with a category four hurricane a few days ago. Looks like you guys took it too.”

  “Yeah.” She stepped back and looked up into his chiseled face. “Iris sent you?”

  “I’ve radioed her already,” he said with a smile. “But yeah. She said you would’ve checked in, no matter what. Wouldn’t leave me alone.” He grinned fully then, and it was clear he loved his wife. “And good call on that smoke. Your location came through loud and clear.”

  Pride filled Ivy. She had done a good thing with the smoke signal. “So you brought a helicopter.”

  He shrugged and turned back to the chopper. “I mean, I know people.” He waved at the man still in the cockpit, and once the blades fully stopped, he climbed down. “You remember Heath Hawkins? He’s available if this little love tryst doesn’t work out.” He lifted his eyebrows, all the questions right there in those eyes.

  But Ivy didn’t want to talk to him about what had happened on the island. So she shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t like Mason?”

  “I mean, we get along okay,” she said, flashing Justin a look that said drop it as Heath approached. She hadn’t lied. She and Mason got along okay. And really well. And she liked him more than she’d thought she would.

  But she tended to fall too fast, and maybe she wanted to hold on a little longer before any decisions were made.

  “Ivy,” Mason said, and she turned toward the wonderful sound of his voice.

  She hurried toward him, joy spiraling through her and making her grin at him. “There you are. My sister sent a helicopter.”

  “The yacht is coming around too,” he said, taking her into his arms when she threw herself at him. He held her tight, and it was so different than when Justin did it. “We get along just okay?” he whispered into her hair.

  Ivy jerked away, her pulse ricocheting around inside her chest. She really needed to take it easy on all the adrenaline spikes. She might end up in cardiac arrest.

  “I only said that—”

  A loud horn covered her words and drew her attention to the water in front of her.

  “There’s the yacht,” Mason said, walking toward the water.

  “What should we take back now?” Justin asked.

  “I can help get it hooked up,” Heath said to Mason, who shook his hand. “Did you ask them to tow it back?”

  “I was thinking we’d go with them,” Mason said. “I flagged them down before you guys showed up.” He kept talking, but they’d moved far enough away from Ivy that she couldn’t hear him anymore.

  Her heart pinched against her ribs, and she wished she could reach inside her chest and adjust it.

  It’s fine, she told herself. She could talk to Mason later. Explain everything. If there was one thing she was good at, it was talking.

  “Ivy,” Justin said, extending his phone toward her. “It’s Iris.”

  Emotion swelled and swirled, and Ivy teared up as she took Justin’s phone from him and said, “Hey, Iris.”

  “Oh, my word, it’s her. It’s her, everyone. Are you okay, Ivy? Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

  But for once, Ivy couldn’t talk. She watched Mason and Heath hoist themselves up onto the other yacht and talk to the man standing at the stern.

&nb
sp; “You fell in love with him, didn’t you?” Iris demanded. “I’m going to assume yes unless you say something.”

  “We got hit by a tropical storm,” Ivy said, swallowing her emotions. “Our phones were soaking wet. Radio shorted out. The wind took off the roof.” It wasn’t exactly a no, but it wasn’t a yes either.

  Mason was a complicated man, though he seemed simple on the surface. And Ivy was simple when she seemed complicated. Could they have a future together?

  Iris’s voice registered in her ear again, and as much as Ivy wanted to tell her everything right that moment, she couldn’t. “Iris,” she said. “I’m okay. Mason is okay. Things are fine. I’m not going to pass out like you did.”

  “Yeah, you guys had food,” Iris said.

  “How’s everything on the island?” she asked.

  “Um, well, the storm that hit Long Bar Island swirled out in the ocean for days and days, picking up strength and speed,” she said.

  Ivy waited, because in this case, strength and speed weren’t good.

  “And you can stay with me and Justin until we find you a new place to live.”

  “My house is gone?” Ivy’s voice pitched up way too high. Justin turned back toward her, alarm on his face.

  “It’s a teensy bit…gone,” Iris said. “That beachside community was totally wiped out. Thankfully, everyone evacuated.”

  “Did you get anything from my house?” She thought of the super-bionic blender she’d spent a month’s earnings on during her smoothie stage. She loved that blender.

  “Sorry, sis,” Iris said. “When the storm turned, it turned. Everyone was scrambling for higher ground.”

  Ivy sighed, though she knew exactly what it was like to live through a hurricane. The days leading up to it, the terrifying time riding it out, the aftermath. The clean-up.

  “Thank you for sending Justin,” she said. “It couldn’t have been easy to get authorization.”

  “I sat outside the Navy commander’s office for eighteen hours,” Iris said. “Justin was so embarrassed.”

  For some reason, that made Ivy laugh, and then Iris did too, and suddenly everything was okay.

  “See you soon,” she said, and they hung up. She handed the phone back to Justin and asked, “How much can I bring?”

  “How much do you have?”

  She shaded her eyes as she looked out to the yacht. Mason was on his now, working with a chain while Heath and the other owner stayed on-board the working vessel.

  “Maybe we can load everything onto the yacht,” she said. “And I’ll just fly back with you.”

  “You’re the boss, Ivy,” Justin said. “Put me to work.”

  “Let’s ask Mason.” She waded into the water. “Mase,” she called. “Should I have him start to bring stuff back to the yacht? We can ride back in the helicopter.”

  He paused in his work and looked down at her from the deck. “Sure, let’s get everything on board the yacht,” he said. “But I’ll go with Joe on his yacht. You can fly back with Justin if you want.”

  She nodded and then looked at Justin. “You heard him. Everything on the yacht.”

  Justin looked around. “You don’t have a boat?”

  “Smashed and then gone in the storm,” Ivy said. “We’ll have to go out with one thing at a time.” She returned to shore, already exhausted, and this day had a lot more hours in it, with so much more to do.

  But she could do it.

  She’d built a fire. She’d kept Mason from starving after the storm. She’d broadcasted their position with smoke.

  She could certainly haul supplies from the beach to the yacht.

  And then she’d get back to civilization, take a hot shower, and tell her family that they’d been right. She shouldn’t have thought she could survive for three months out on a deserted island.

  Or that she could fall in love with the surly cowboy who’d proposed the idea in the first place.

  But maybe you could have, her mind whispered. And maybe you did.

  Warmth filled Ivy, iced when Mason looked at her, his eyes cold. “See you on the island,” he said as the last box was placed on board by Justin. They both jumped back into the water, and Justin came toward her while Mason climbed aboard the other yacht.

  He didn’t look back as they started out slowly, Starlight groaning as she finally moved away from the cliffs where she’d been stuck for over a week.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We get along okay.

  Ivy’s words wouldn’t stop stinging Mason’s mind.

  He thought they got along better than okay. She kissed him like she liked him better than okay.

  I only said that—

  Those four words kept cropping up in his mind too. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to reveal how she felt about him to her brother-in-law. Maybe she wasn’t really sure. Heaven knew Mason wasn’t really sure.

  But Mason wasn’t really sure about anything right now. He knew he wanted to get back to the mainland. Anchor his yacht at the dock and deal with it later.

  Go home.

  Take a shower.

  Find a dog to live with.

  One thing he’d learned about himself out on the island was how much he liked talking to someone else. He wondered if the person—or animal—mattered, or if he just liked talking to Ivy. He had his suspicions, and he found himself wishing she were with him instead of on the helicopter.

  Then he could ask her if he’d become chattier as they grew to know each other better. He could find out what she meant by we get along okay. He could stop wondering if he’d made a huge mistake by leaving Texas and coming to Getaway Bay.

  The yacht cruised along, pulling his broken-down vessel behind them. He was grateful for Jacob Spendlove, who hadn’t hesitated when Mason had explained the situation. He said he had chains, and he could get them all back to Getaway Bay.

  For the twenty minutes it had taken to go back around to the other side of the island, Mason had thought he’d be a hero. Then he’d heard the helicopter blades, and those hopes had faded.

  “They were stupid anyway,” he muttered to himself. Ivy didn’t need him to be a hero. She could take care of herself.

  “Are you hungry?” Jacob asked, his British accent jarring Mason out of his own thoughts.

  “No, I’m okay,” Mason said, though his stomach did complain loudly for food. He glanced down at his shirt as they both started chuckling. “I guess I could eat.”

  “My wife has coffee ready,” he said. “And flapjacks.”

  Mason ate with Jacob and Madeliene, and they talked about whales and the ocean and the storm that had hit the island a few days ago.

  “Tell me more about that,” Mason said.

  “Oh, it was terrible,” Jacob said. “We don’t have hurricanes in England.”

  Madeliene said, “We had to move into the hotel. Our bed and breakfast was too close to the shoreline. And it’s a good thing we did.” She shook her fork at Mason as if lecturing him. “The water went up eight inches. You could see the marks on the walls.”

  “Wow,” Mason said, glad he’d bought an apartment on the tenth floor. Suddenly, the thought of returning to that apartment filled him with dread. He’d be alone again, and while he’d once craved isolation, he found now that he didn’t like it.

  The helicopter would arrive back in Getaway Bay hours before the limping yachts, and he kept one ear on the conversation at the breakfast table while thinking about Ivy. They hadn’t exactly separated on good terms, though he supposed he couldn’t just kiss her openly in front of everyone.

  Why not? his mind whispered. If she’s your girlfriend, why not?

  The truth was, he didn’t know what Ivy was. Extraordinary circumstances had brought them together. They were supposed to have three months to figure things out. They’d had less than a week before the storm hit, and then things had been different. He’d been different. He’d changed as he tried to fix the radio in the wee hours of the night, as they both counted down day
s and then hours. As disappointments became realities.

  The yacht did eventually make it back to the dock, and Jacob helped Mason secured his rig. Then he took the only bag he’d brought aboard and said, “Thank you so much for everything. Really, you’re lovely people.”

  “Do you have a ride?” Jacob asked, looking around the parking lot.

  “I suppose not.” Mason had planned on calling Henley when he was ready to go back to the apartment. He would’ve brought the car, and Mason hadn’t given it a second thought. Until now.

  Ivy’s car was somewhere too. She’d probably gone home with a family member, and he certainly didn’t have a phone he could call or text her with.

  “We’ll drop you,” Madeliene said. “Let’s go.”

  Forty-fives minutes later, Mason sighed as he pressed his back against the now closed and locked door of his apartment. He didn’t have keys to his building or his house, and a manager had to be called.

  Henley hadn’t asked any questions, but they all swam in his eyes. Mason had finally gotten away from everyone once he’d cleared the security questions and been allowed to come up to his apartment with the manager.

  She’d said she’d get him some new keys by tomorrow, and he didn’t plan on leaving the apartment until then. He didn’t have much food, but he could order it. He could send Henley. Whatever it took to just stay behind blinded windows and out of the wind, sun, and elements.

  The island was a bit of a mess, as everyone was still cleaning up from the storm. If Ivy hadn’t been related to a Navy SEAL, Mason felt certain the two of them would still be stranded out on Long Bar Island.

  He showered, the hot water more delightful than he thought possible. He’d always prided himself on being a rough and tumble cowboy. He could eat anything. Sleep anywhere. Go days without showering or shaving.

  But he didn’t have to, and he was starting to realize he liked the more civilized parts of life too.

  He stood at the windows as the sun went down, his partial reflection in front of him. “What do you want?” he asked himself.