Page 60 of Surviving Love

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“But… you’d still be you. You’d still be the same person.”

“He didn’t see it that way.”

“What a jerk,” he growled.

His vehement reaction felt kind of good. It was nice to have someone seeing things from my side. When I’d broken up with Tony, Mom had simply rubbed in the fact I never should have been dating to begin with.

“It’s easy to judge others. I like to think I’d stick with the person I love if something horrible happened to them, but I don’t really know what I’d do in that situation,” I said.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You’d never abandon someone you love because it would be hard. There’s no way I’m buying that.”

I was flattered, and that warm feeling returned. “You sure have a lot of faith in me, considering we don’t know each other very well.”

“I can read people.”

“I see.”

He leaned closer. “And we know each other pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

A warm flush went through me, and I avoided his gaze. “Anyway, Tony took a hike when things looked bad for me and my arm.” My tone was flippant. “Then, when I recovered, he came back to see if we could work things out.”

“You havegotto be kidding,” Jack rasped.

I laughed at his reaction. “I wish I was. It was extremely uncomfortable having to tell him no. But he’d shown his true colors by then, and I wasn’t about to let him back into my life.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Like you, loyalty means a lot to me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said quietly.

We both jumped at the sound of voices outside of our shelter. Jack moved faster than me, and he was out of the lean-to quickly. I followed more slowly and found four burly-looking men approaching.

“Mason? Jack?” one of the guys called out.

“Yes,” Jack said, standing with his hands on his hips. “Who are you?”

One older guy with a black goatee seemed to be in charge. “I’m Rick. We work on theDevious Islandcrew. The producers sent us out to find you two.”

“You’re here to rescue us?” I couldn’t keep the excitement from my voice.

“We’re here to bring you back to the main camp.” Rick smiled, hoisting the red rope he held higher on his shoulder. “Rescue might be a bit dramatic.”

“So, the show is still going?” Jack asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Rick smirked. “The show must go on. Shep wouldn’t shut down production unless someone died. I’m very happy to see you’re both alive and kicking.”

I was conflicted about the show still going. Part of me had almost hoped they’d given up filming, if only so I could go take a hot shower and eat a big meal. But I guess torture was what I’d signed up for, and I had many more days of it to endure.

“James knew you’d crossed the creek, so that’s how we knew where to find you.” Rick gestured to the other men with him. “We’ll get you guys safely across. The water has calmed down a lot, but we’ll still use a pulley system to get you guys over to the other side.”

Jack glanced at me. “Looks like we’re still in it.”

“Yep.” I grimaced.