Finding Us (26 page)

This is the fourth time that I’ve had to write these and you would think it would get easier but it doesn’t.

First, my husband deserves an award for putting up with me and my craziness. I’ve ignored you for days at a time, especially these last few ones as I wrapped up Finding Us. Thank you for supporting me and my dreams. I love you!

Monkey, I love you more than life itself. You’ve changed my life forever. Thank you for always dancing your little heart out every time a favorite song of yours comes up. I’m so glad you enjoy music as much as I do.

My parents and sisters, thank you for helping me out when I needed someone to fill in for me while I was in my writing world.

Sommer and Toski, thank you for creating me a beautiful cover and always getting me exactly what I’m looking for.

My beta readers, you know who you are. Thank you for letting me talk circles around myself and enjoying the ride with me. When you’re writing your book you see it all in your head and sometimes it doesn’t always make it all out on the paper but you each get it out of me and it makes the story that much better. THANK YOU! LOVE YOU!

Sarah Jones, what would I do without you? Seriously? Your editing make all the difference and you just get what I’m trying to say when I can’t get it out quite right. THANK YOU!

Kelly Elliot, thank you for being there for me when I needed someone to pull me off the ledge. You knew exactly what to say and you understood where I was coming from. Thank you for being such an awesome friend. Love you to the moon and back.

To all my author friends, thank you for the support that you haven’t shown me and all the help you provided as well.

Heather Davenport, Thank you for setting up my blog tour and release day launch. This is my biggest one to date.

To all the bloggers who have helped share
Finding Us
thank you from the bottom on my heart. I’m not sure where I would be without you.

My Magnificent’s, thank you for all your love and support with all my work.

You can help other readers find
Finding Us
by recommending it to friends and family. You can also review it on the site that you purchased it from to help as well.

Other books by Megan Smith:

The Love Series:

Trying Not To Love You

Easy To Love You

Hard To Love You

Let Me Love You
—coming summer of 2014

The Finding Series:

Finding Happiness
—coming fall of 2014

USA TODAY bestselling author Megan Smith is a New Jersey native managing purchasing for an award-winning business IT and software development firm - and by night creating the memorable characters her fans have grown to adore. Smith’s The Love Series introduces readers to MacKenzie Cahill - a hopeful young woman who experiences adversity, challenges and the bittersweet triumph of true, authentic love.

Smith is a wife and mother, who makes time for her family, professional life and the creation of the Cahill’s world. Fans of The Love Series —
Trying Not To Love You, Easy To Love You, Hard To Love You
—are captivated by relationships, special bonds and family ties pervasive in Smith’s emotional, energized and engaging work. Smith is also the author of the 2014 releases,
Let Me Love You
—continuations of The Love Series,
Finding Us
(Finding Series) and a few top secret projects.

Literary Agency: Jamie Bodnar Drowley of Inklings Literary Agency

Turn the page for a sneak peek of

Strip Me Bare

by Marissa Carmel

I don’t know how long I wait; minutes, hours, days maybe for Sean to wake up, and just when I think I can no longer take the frigid temperature or the heartrending scene in front of me, he stirs. He moans softly as he shifts and moves, like he’s trying to remember how to use his limbs. I just stand there statically, watching him come back to life. Finally, he opens his eyes and takes in a deep breath. He looks around a little disoriented, like he’s not sure where he is, then his eyes fall on me. They’re bloodshot and hollow, and they have purple rings around them.

“Alana?” he croaks, staring at me vacantly, trying to decipher if I’m a mirage or truly flesh and blood.

“Sean?” I answer. My body goes numb, and it has nothing to do with the temperature in the room. He looks like a blood starved vampire.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, the question rippling with so many emotions—fear, concern, terror, dread.

“You need to come with me,” I tell him, not wasting any time with small talk.

“For what?” He gets to his feet and straightens his sweatshirt, pulls at his baggy pants, then yanks his hood over his head.

“Don’t play dumb. Ryan’s in jail, they rejected his deal.”

Sean paces the small room like a caged cat. Back and forth and back and forth, agitated and uptight. “I can’t Alana, I’m sorry.”

I step towards him cautiously. “Sean, listen to me. Ryan needs you-”

“No, Alana,” he snaps his head up, and I see so much sorrow in his eyes.

“Sean, don’t abandon him,” I plead earnestly; careful not to spook him. “He’s already given up his future for you, now you’re asking him to give up his life.”

Sean takes one slow, tentative step towards the door. “I’m so sorry, Alana,” he says with such intense grief, it strikes my chest like lightening, shattering my heart.

“Sean-” I say trembling, circling around him.

“For what it’s worth,” he adds quickly and solemnly, “I never thought you were going to hurt Ryan, you really are the only one who’s ever loved him right.” Sean’s words rattle me straight to the core, because they sound like a goodbye. Then he bolts.

Damn it.

I dart after him through the long, narrow kitchen and out the back door where the sun is setting like a dying fireball behind dull, ashy clouds. He’s so goddamn fast, maneuvering effortlessly through the backyard that’s scattered with old tires and junk. He scales the six foot chain-link fence at the back end of the property, and I know then that I’ve lost him.

“Sean!”
I shout slapping the fence with my palms, the links jingling and clinking. “Sean, come back!”

But he quickly disappears out of sight.

“Shit!” I scream, shaking the fence furiously. Hopeless and defeated, I sink down onto the cold ground, and all I want to do is fucking cry.

You Don’t Know Jack

Pink plastic penises.

That’s what’s bouncing around like two alien antennas on top of my Cousin Emily’s head. Two pink, rubbery, penises attached to a cheap headband.

I don’t know how people celebrate bachelorette parties in other parts of the world, but in the North East they dress the bride-to-be in sashes and tiaras, force them to wear pink penis paraphernalia, and sacrifice them to male exotic dancers. Emily doesn’t seem to mind though. She’s sipping champagne happily in the back of an Escalade stretch limo as we drive through New York City.

“Alana,” says Jill, Emily’s maid of honor, whose personality is just as fiery as her red hair, “we were taking bets as to whether you were going to come or not.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask curiously.

“I don’t know?” She holds her hands up like she’s balancing a pair of scales. “Cutting a yearlong trip to Europe short, or staying and hanging out with all those hotties on the French Riviera?

“Sun and Speedos get old after a while,” I joke.

“Well maybe some American Speedos will revive your interest?”

“I doubt it.”

“Is the straight-laced Alana Remington too prim and proper for a male strip show?” Jill digs.

“She’s only prim and proper on the outside.” Emily jumps in, defending me.

Thanks Em, but I can take care of myself.

“Why would you say that? I’m here aren’t I?” I interject. “I’m just not partial to tiny male underwear. And I think the politically correct term is
Male Revue.
”

“Whatever.” Jill laughs at me. “This is the perfect night to let your hair down and get a little action between your legs.”

“Jill!” Emily chastises. “They don’t sleep with you.”

“I’m sure if you paid them enough they would.”

“You’re so crude,” Emily admonishes.

“I’m just real. And I’m pretty sure all they’d have to do is take one look at Alana’s blonde hair, brown eyes, and long legs, and they’d pay to sleep with her.”

“Well just don’t let my father find out if that happens,” I say dryly. “I don’t think he’d respond well to me pimping myself out.”

“I have a feeling you don’t need monetary transactions for sex,” Jill says as she pours herself another glass of champagne while we haul down 5th Avenue.

I glance at Emily, and she gives me a sympathetic look.

“Where did you tell him we were going tonight anyway?” Emily giggles, her bright blue eyes sparkling; her long dark hair pouring over her shoulders. She’s five foot two and one hundred pounds soaking wet, but she has the persona of a supermodel; beautiful, confident, sexy, fun.

“I told him we were having an early dinner, then seeing a Broadway show. I almost choked on my granola when he asked me which one. Most of the time, he barely recognizes I’m alive, but of course the one time I’m not prepared with a cover story, he catches me.” I shift around in the cream leather seat, trying to pull down the clingy hem of my gold pleated tube dress without much success; if I’m not careful I’m going to end up giving everyone a pre-show.

“So a male strip club would have been a no-go with him, huh?” Jill asks sarcastically.

“Like I need to answer that.”

I’ve known Jill most of my life, and she’s fully aware of my family situation; my father, the strict, detached man who has stern expectations of his daughter, which includes an impeccable social image.
Me, going to a male strip club?
No-go is a drastic understatement, and she knows it.

“My uncle has very firm views about how his daughter should act,” Emily says annoyed. “What she should wear, who she should date,
how she should breathe
. And he’s colder than damn ice. I swear I don’t know how our fathers share the same DNA.” Both our fathers are prestigious figures in the law community. Mine is a superior court judge in New Jersey while Emily’s is a big shot lawyer in New York City. They both have a reputation to uphold, but my Uncle John is very personable and laid-back. He and Emily have a great relationship. My father is the exact opposite; stringent, disconnected, career driven. I don’t even think he has emotions. And we have no relationship.

“So no little lost strippers following you home then?”

“
Jill
.” I roll my eyes.

“Not unless they have a seven figure paycheck and republicans as parents,” Emily adds wryly.

Everyone in the limo looks at me, and I’m not exactly sure what they’re thinking; it’s probably a toss-up. They either feel incredibly sorry for me, or think I’m some tight ass who’s going to ruin the fun. If they take one look at my dress, they should know it’s not the latter.