“What? You don’t think it’s enough? Well, either you get up and help me, or we do it my way.” I looked back at the bedroom like I was expecting an answer. I kept hoping he would wake up.
“No? You’re not gonna help? Okay, then quit complaining.” I set about taping the parachute along the top edge of the fuselage so it hung down and covered the opening. I finally secured the last edge in place using up almost the entire roll of tape, but I was satisfied it was not going anywhere. It would keep out rain and bugs and hopefully deter anything larger from sneaking in.
Sitting down in the only chair left in the living area, the one I had been sitting in when we crashed, I listened to the night sounds of the jungle as the sun slipped below the horizon. I separated out the sounds of monkeys chattering as they traveled from tree to tree above our heads. I heard several different birds. Some so close they could be right outside the plane, and others sounding like they came from far away treetops.
As I sat there resting, things started to hurt. I felt bruising on my waist and chest from the seat belt and harness. My hands, knees, and feet transmitted pain from every cut and scrape I had gotten since we crashed.
“Kinsey?” I almost didn’t react as the weak voice interrupted my reverie. I had been imagining talking to Mason, so hearing his voice calling from the bedroom, I just assumed it was my mind playing tricks on me.
“Kinsey? You there?” The call came again, stronger, and I realized it wasn’t my imagination.
“Mason?! You’re awake!” Running to the bedroom, I slammed open the door. There he was, awake and sitting up. I collapsed into his waiting arms.
Chapter 15
Mason
When I woke up lying on a backboard on the floor of the Gulfstream, I was a little confused.
Calling out for Kinsey, I heard her respond from the cabin, and then she came flying through the door and the collapsed into my arms in a puddle of tears. Five minutes passed, and she still hadn’t stopped crying. Her whole body shook with big, heart-wrenching sobs. A couple of times she tried to speak, but couldn’t seem to form words.
“Shhh, Kinsey. Shhh. It’s going to be okay. We’re alive. We’re both alive.”
“Bah-da-pla-cr-and…” Her words were garbled, incomprehensible. Her nose ran like a faucet. With her eyes pinched shut, tears streamed down her face and soaked my wrinkled shirt. I rubbed her back, making slow, soothing circles as she hiccupped and sobbed. Eventually, her breathing slowed and she managed to get herself under control.
Just like when I bumped into her coming out of the elevator at her dad’s office, she looked up at me, her big blue eyes swimming with tears. “Thank you for waking up, for not leaving me here alone.”
I started to stand up so I could move her to the more comfortable bed and look outside, but she pulled me back down and climbed into my lap. “No! Wait, Mason! Don’t go out yet.”
“Where are we, Kinsey?” I really needed to know where we were and what condition everyone was in. I needed to find Ricardo, Matt, and Marie and ask them what they remembered.
“We crashed somewhere in the jungle.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “They’re dead. They’re all dead. The pilots. Marie. It’s just us.”
“Help me up. I want to see.” I set her off my lap, to the side and slowly started to get up again. Grabbing onto the bed for support when one ankle threatened to buckle, I made my way to the door.
“Mason, wait.” Kinsey followed me as I looked through the door at the rest of the plane, which wasn’t there. The floor and ceiling ended about fifteen feet from the bedroom door, just past the one remaining chair. The jagged edge of the fuselage was covered in a thin opaque material, loose and rippling in the wind. The hole in the floor where my chair had been was covered in a garbage bag. Silverware, books, clothes, leaves, dirt, and bits of airplane were strewn across what had once been a beautiful Persian rug. The remaining windows were cracked, and I couldn’t see much more than blackness outside. The jungle was that dark. We had to be really far from civilization for there to be absolutely no ambient light visible.
“What’s out there?” I asked her, unable see anything out the window.
“Jungle. I never saw anything but jungle.”
Bracing myself against the wall, I sank down to the floor and pulled her down with me. Tucking her against my side and pulling her close, I buried my nose in her hair. She was sweaty and dirty, but her hair still held the faint scent of her strawberry shampoo. I felt myself stirring and tamped down that response. This isn’t the time. We could explore our feelings for one another later if we ever got out of there alive. “Kinsey, I want you to go into the next room and go to sleep.”
“No, Mason,” she started to protest.
“Kinsey, you are exhausted, and I just woke up. You’ve done a great job taking care of me and keeping us safe. Now let me take care of you. I want to look around here in the plane. I won’t leave it, but I want to take stock of what we have. I’ll come to bed in a little bit.”
It took a while, but I finally convinced Kinsey to lie down. She was emotionally and physically exhausted after the day’s events. I ended up sitting on the bed next to her, rubbing her back until she finally drifted off. I had never been in this position with a woman before, never wanted to take care of them. The feeling was new and unsettling, but then again, so was Kinsey. In just a few weeks, she had completely turned my staid, boring life upside down.
I still don’t really understand how she managed to haul my 200 pounds of dead weight from where she’d found me and got me up into the plane, but I was definitely impressed by her ingenuity and tenacity. She had really stepped up to the plate better than I ever imagined a sheltered, pampered twenty-two-year-old could. I was twice her size, and after a plane crash and discovering everyone else was dead, I’m not sure I would have done as well at her age.
Limping around the small space, I took stock of our situation. Once morning came and there was enough light to see, I would check outside, but for now, I would have to be happy with the contents of the fuselage.
The coolers along the walls had some bottled water, granola bars, and bags of mixed nuts, along with mini alcohol bottles. The remains of our meal lay strewn across the floor. We had one remaining parachute, the backpack Kinsey had used when hauling me, a flashlight, a fire extinguisher, and our luggage in the bedroom. It wasn’t a lot to work with, but I was confident we could figure something out.
My knees creaked as I stood to the first aid kit. I wasn’t going to be much good tomorrow if I didn’t treat my sprained ankle and get some rest too. After just an hour or so awake, I was already exhausted.
I wrapped my ankle tightly, which made it was much easier to walk on. Reaching into a pocket on the wall next to where I had been sitting during the flight, I pulled out my iPad. I said a silent prayer of thanks that it was there and functional.
Then I settled into the only chair left and pulled up the route tracking software. The GPS in the iPad still connected to satellites for location data even when there was no cellular service, and based on the flight map, we were nowhere near cellular service. The dot put us on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, smack in the middle of the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, a largely unexplored area. It was one of the worst places to crash. We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. I had no idea how we were going to get out of there. Hopefully, I could figure something out in the morning.
I quietly hobbled into the bedroom, shut the door behind me, and eased into bed next to a sleeping Kinsey. She was cute, looking much more relaxed in sleep than she had when I woke up earlier. The remains of dried tears glistened on her cheeks, but the worried groove between her eyebrows had relaxed, and she looked closer to sixteen than her twenty-one years.
Pulling her close, I wrapped my arms around her and rested her head on my bicep. I spooned her from behind, nestling my hard-on into the cleft of her cheeks, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Th
e jungle rose early. The sounds of parrots squawking as they flew from tree to tree woke me up shortly after sunrise. The piercing cry of howler monkeys echoed through the vegetation, and I heard the roar of a jungle cat coming from somewhere not far off.
Easing my arm out from under Kinsey, I rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up. Dizzy for a moment, I gently probed the knot on my head. It seemed a little less swollen, and my headache was mostly gone. What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower right about now!
I stood up a little unsteadily, but my ankle held while I tiptoed out of the bedroom. Loosening the tape on one side of the parachute, I carefully hopped down out of the plane and took my first look at the crash scene.
I had to grab on to the side of the fuselage to keep from falling. There were pieces of jagged metal, broken trees, and charred remains of engine everywhere. Some were big pieces like the tail we’d slept in while others were no bigger than my fist. Oh my god…. It’s a miracle we survived.
I carefully picked my way through the wreckage to the cockpit. Not even 24 hours had passed since the crash, but Ricardo and Matt were already starting to smell. Eyes watering, I climbed up through the cockpit door and quickly searched for anything useful. I wrestled the crash ax off the wall behind the left seat. Breathing through my mouth, I went through the pilots’ pockets and the cockpit around them. The co-pilot had a tiny Swiss army knife in his pants pocket, and around him, I found another flashlight, a couple bottles of water, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a pair of sunglasses. I took Marie’s whole purse for Kinsey. Marie wouldn’t be using it anymore. Tossing the stuff I found in the top, I threw Marie’s catchall over my shoulder and carefully made my way back to Kinsey, dropping it by the one remaining club chair before silently slipping back into the bedroom.
Leaning on one elbow, I reached over and brushed Kinsey’s hair out of her face. She was so beautiful, and she was sleeping so soundly I really hated to wake her up.
“Kinsey.” I gently shook her shoulder. “Kinsey, wake up.”
“Grmmmunmph,” She rolled away from me, burying her face in a pillow.
“Babe, we need to get going.” I shook her a little more forcefully this time, and her eyelids fluttered.
“Mmmph. What time is it? I just want to sleep a little longer.” Burrowing deeper in the soft mattress, she made it obvious she wasn’t a morning person.
“Kinsey! I need your help! Remember the plane crash?”
She suddenly sat up, and I dodged just in time to avoid her head connecting with my nose. “Oh my god! I can’t believe I fell asleep!” Wide awake now, she looked at me, a question in her eyes.
Kinsey
Mason jerked me from a sound sleep. I was dreaming we were at a resort in the Caribbean with palm trees, sunscreen, and coconuts. Waking up to reality was harsh; I preferred the dream.
In the harsh reality of daylight, I threw myself at Mason, and he enveloped me in a hug. I took a minute to get myself together, enjoying the feel of his strong arms around me. He made me feel safe and protected. It was a fleeting feeling, but denial is a strong motivator.
Leaning back, I left the warm circle of his arms and suddenly felt cold despite the jungle’s heat already penetrating the metal shell of the plane’s remains. “What are we going to do?” I asked Mason. “How long do you think it will be before they will find us?”
“I don’t know, Kinsey,” he said. “They might not.”
“What do you mean, ‘they might not?’ They might not find us?” That thought had never occurred to me. They had to find us. Weren’t there people in control towers all across the world watching airplanes on radar?
“Well, we are in the middle of the jungle. Somewhere on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, much of which is largely unexplored. Neither country has the resources to come find us. Back home they will have a general idea where we are, but they won’t know our exact location. It’s a large area to search, and often crashes like this are never found. The jungle will quickly recover and grow up over the plane, and 50 years from now, some hikers will stumble across it. I don’t want to still be here when that happens. We have limited food and water, so we can’t just sit here and wait.”
I had nothing to say to that. Wordlessly rolling out of bed, I groaned as the muscles I had over-used yesterday began to ache. Slipping on my tennis shoes, I turned to face Mason. We had to get out of there. “Ok, what do we need to do?”
Startled by my sudden transformation, it took Mason a minute to change gears. Once he did, he was all business, bringing that cool, unflappable executive persona to the surface.
“We need to make a plan. We need food, water, and shelter, and it all needs to be portable. This tail section is great, it’s comfortable and protected, but we can’t take it with us.” He started pacing, his limp barely noticeable as he counted things off on his fingers.
I dug a notebook out of my carry-on and started taking notes.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Writing this down. I don’t want to forget anything.”
He laughed. “Ever the organized one. Ok, let’s see what we have.” He leaned down and grabbed our luggage, which had fallen in a pile on the floor. He tossed the bags and suitcases on the bed. Unzipping them, he started digging around and throwing things in piles. “Ties, suit coats, dress shoes, worthless… ah! My gym shoes, I’ll wear these.”
Setting down my notebook, I pulled my suitcase over to me, unzipped it, and started sorting. “Well, my Manolo Blahniks won’t do me any good, but I do have a windbreaker.” Digging through, I discarded almost everything—my skirts and blouses, my makeup. Wait! I grabbed a pink toiletry bag from the pile and unzipped it. “I have a bottle of sunscreen and a hand sanitizer!”
“Good finds, Kinsey.” He smiled at me and we added them to his keep pile. We ended up with comfortable jeans, t-shirts, and athletic shoes for both of us. I kept a long sleeve blouse and windbreaker. Mason had a baseball cap, a hand towel, and a long-sleeve running shirt.
We dumped the whole first aid kit into the backpack and added my sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and some soap. Moving into the other room, we started digging through the food.
Mason put together a bag full of water bottles and non-perishable foods. “None of this cheese or fruit will keep,” he told me. “We should probably eat it, and save the wrapped stuff for traveling.”
I nodded. “Okay. Let me see what else I can put together. There’s some orange juice here, and some muffins too.”
Spreading a tablecloth out on the floor, I laid out our feast, and we took a break to stuff ourselves silly with everything we couldn’t take with us.
Chapter 16
Kinsey
“Here. Try some of this.” Mason opened another bottle of fancy French wine. “It would be a crime to abandon this Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Montrachet Grand Cru.”
“What is that?”
“A lovely Chardonnay. Taste it. Let it roll around on your tongue. Tell me what you taste.”
“Mmmmm.” I closed my eyes, cutting off one of my senses, and focused on my taste buds. “I taste vanilla—or maybe honey—and a little bit of…ummmm…” I rolled it around again, “butterscotch?”
“Very good! You might also sense pear, orange peel, or graphite. It’s considered by some to be one of the tastiest wines in the world.” He took another sip, “At almost $5,000 a bottle, it better be.”
“What?!!!” I almost spit out the ridiculously expensive wine. “That’s outrageous!”
“I like to treat myself occasionally. A glass of this at 32,000 feet over the Pacific after closing a multi-million dollar business deal is a great way to celebrate.” Leaning back against the wall, he crossed his legs, raised an eyebrow, and smiled at me over the rim of his wine glass. “So what are we celebrating?”
“Being alive!” Straddling his lap and cupping his face in my hands, I lowered my lips to his. I could taste the wine on his tongue. Pouring my emotions into the moment, I temporarily fo
rgot we were lost somewhere in the jungle after a horrible plane crash. It was just me and Mason, and nothing else mattered for one brief second.
His arms wrapped around me, and his kiss deepened. He pulled me closer, my core pressing into his arousal. I rolled my hips, tearing a groan from his lips. “Oh, Kinsey…” He exhaled as his fingers spanned my ribcage and slid my shirt up until they cupped my breasts. His tongue breached the crease of my lips, tangled with mine before he broke off to place butterfly kisses down my jaw and neck to my collarbone. He sucked gently on the little hollow as my head fell back.
Then reality came crashing back down around my ears. I heard a troop of howler monkeys cross above us, and their earsplitting roars snapped me out of the hypnotic spell of Mason’s lips.
“I’d love to peel the clothes off your body slowly, one piece at a time, exposing every inch of your decadent flesh.” He gently lifted me off his lap and set me to the side. “But we really should get ready to leave.”
“You’re right.” Sighing, I flopped down next to him and began cleaning up our mess. “Should we leave today? How is your ankle?” I looked up at his injuries. “And your head?”
“You have your phone on you?” he asked, ignoring my concerns.
“Yeah. I turned it off, but here.” I slipped it out of my back pocket and handed it over.
Mason powered it up and went to the map app. “It’ll take us several days to hike out of here. I really can’t estimate how long. We might get lucky and run across a small village. We might be alone until we hit a road. This area is largely unexplored. It’s all mountains, rivers, and a huge rainforest.” He zoomed in. “Look. We are roughly here. I can’t be more exact. We need to head east and downhill. At some point, we will either hit a river or the coast. Either way, once we find moving water, it will lead us out of here.”
Mason: The Lost Billionaires, Book 1 Page 10