True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam

True North

Book Three

Finding Now

Kate and Sam

Allie Juliette Mousseau

Copyright ©
2014 by Allie Juliette Mousseau.

All Rights Reserved

Published by Allie Juliette Mousseau

Edited by Nicole Hewitt

Cover design by Tattoo Custom Cover Designs

Formatted by Mike Mousso

All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.alliejuliettemousseau.com

Please enjoy the teasers from my good friends;

th Snyder  “Cursed Love” and M Clark / Mary Ting  “Something Great”

Dedication

To my readers <3

You’re the ones who make it all happen.

You bring the ink on the paper into breathing life

and give the characters their souls.

Table of Contents

Chapter One               - Going Out In Style ~ Dropkick Murphys

Chapter Two – Through Glass ~ Stone Sour

Chapter Three – Hapless ~ Seven Day Sonnet

Chapter Four – Lost in You ~ Three Days Grace

Chapter Five – Use Somebody ~ King of Leon

Chapter Six – She Talks To Angels ~ The Black Crows

Chapter Seven – Away from the Sun ~ 3 Doors Down

Chapter Eight – Broken ~ Lifehouse

Chapter Nine – Paralyzer ~ Finger Eleven

Chapter Ten – Come to Me ~ Goo Goo Dolls

Chapter Eleven – Beneath Your Beautiful ~ Labrinth (featuring Emeli Sande)

Chapter Twelve – Look After You ~ The Fray

Chapter Thirteen – You Found Me ~ The Fray

Chapter Fourteen – She Will Be Loved ~ Maroon 5

Chapter Fifteen – Moves Like Jagger ~ Maroon 5 (featuring Christina Aguilera)

Chapter Sixteen – Rabiosa ~ Shakira (featuring Pitbull)

Chapter Seventeen – Carry On ~ Fun

Chapter Eighteen – If You Only Knew ~ Shinedown

Chapter Nineteen – Raging Fire ~ Phillip Phillips

Chapter Twenty – Mirrors ~ Justin Timberlake

About and More Books by Allie Juliette

Chapter One

“Going Out In Style”

Dropkick Murphys

Sam

It was early Saturday morning when my brothers and I busted into the guest house on my parents’ ranch, where my sister Jules and Nate, her fiancé, were staying. Their wedding was next weekend so it was time to steal the groom for the next three days and drag him—kicking and screaming if necessary—to his bachelor party.

“Sorry, Jules, but it’s time for this boy to get the royal treatment,” I announced rubbing my hands together, full of excitement.

“OH, SHIT!” Nate exclaimed and tried to run, knocking down the bar stool he was sitting on as my oldest brothers, Caleb and Josh, tackled and pinned him to the floor.

Nate was a big man—around 6’4—and strong as an ox, but we were prepared. Will laughed as he secured Nate’s wrists in a pair of police issued handcuffs, and Jake wrapped a rope around his ankles.

“Just like roping a steer,” Caleb chuckled.

“
Handcuffs!?
Are you fucking kidding me?” Nate shouted as Josh and Caleb lugged him up onto their shoulders. Yeah, he was pissed. He’d get over it soon enough.

“Where are you taking him?” Jules asked calmly, giving Nate a sympathetic look and standing on her tiptoes to give him one last kiss goodbye.

“Can’t tell you that, little sis,” Jake said, smiling cockily.

“You hardly need to worry. Caleb here wouldn’t allow us to hire any strippers,” I complained good-naturedly.

“He’s marrying our sister, Sam,” Caleb protested. Nate started to bitch loudly while trying to wriggle free from his bonds, so Josh shoved a bandana in his mouth to shut him up. “Do you really want to get him drunk in a room full of strippers?”

“I don’t think you understand,” I replied.
“I
want to be drunk in a room full of strippers.”

Josh made a noise and waved Caleb off. “He’s only thinking that Piper will kick his ever lovin’ sad ass from here to Saskatoon if he’s caught hanging out—”

“Ha! Literally,” Will interjected.

“… with exotic dancers,” Josh finished and looked at Caleb. “Which is what they’d prefer you to call them.”

“Whatever.” Caleb rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“Don’t worry, Nate.” I leaned into his ear. “I may have been able to score a few hula dancers.”

“SAM!” Jules’ eyebrows knitted together.

I walked over and mussed up her finely coiffed hairstyle as I cooed, “We’ll bring him back in one piece before the rehearsal dinner.”

“Maybe,” I heard Will mumble mischievously.

Jules slapped my hand away.

I caught a look at Nate who shrugged and watched Jules apologetically.

I rolled my eyes and my head with them. “Oh come on, you two! You haven’t been separated since Canada. We have to take him. This is a rite of passage … it’s tradition!”

“It’s part of the entire wedding experience,” Jake put in.

“Yeah!” Josh agreed. “You wouldn’t want to deny him his last bit of real freedom.”

Livie rolled her eyes. “Oh man, that’s rich.”

A little over a year ago, after Jake returned home from the Army and his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he and Livie—Nate’s little sister—had gotten married. They were now expecting the first addition to their family, and Livie sported her baby bump proudly. Jake had gone through hell over in the Middle East and come home seriously messed up. If it hadn’t been for Livie’s love, I don’t know what would have happened to him. I was grateful to her for giving me my brother back, even though it meant he was now tied to her at the hip. Jake ran his own business, Extreme Sky Adventures, where he taught people how to skydive, so I had to admit married life hadn’t squeezed
all
the fun out of him.

Now, Jake smiled at her, swept her up off the chair she was sitting in and kissed her. “Love you, baby, and you know there’s no other freedom like the kind I have in you.”

Nate started making noises behind the gag.

“Yeah, yeah, no one asked you anything,” Will said to Nate without sympathy.

Jules cracked a smile. “Have fun, you guys.”

“We could put him in the truck bed?” Josh suggested when we got outside.

The overcast skies had decided it was time to let go of what they’d been holding back, and the cool rain prickled across my skin and through my white tee.

“Or the trunk of Sam’s car.” Will cocked an eyebrow and I barked out a laugh.

Jake came to Nate’s rescue. “I think the blindfold is enough, guys.”

Josh rolled his eyes disgustedly. “You and Caleb are like old married men now.”

“And Nate will be too in seven days,” I said as we shoved him into the back seat of my ‘69 Charger, which I called Lady. The smooth, sleek, powerfully modified race car was the only sweet woman I wanted to ride with any long-term commitment.

Will slid in next to Nate. “Now as long as you don’t bitch, I’ll take off the gag.” He removed the bandana.

Nate licked his lips and said in a warning tone, “Somebody better have something to drink.”

“Of course we do,” Josh said, sitting down on Nate’s other side and taking a silver flask out of the pocket of his leather jacket. “Ladies first.” Josh tilted the flask up so that the liquid would spill into Nate’s mouth. 

Nate swallowed and shuddered. “So is whiskey my only option or does someone have a Mountain Dew or something?”

“Only whiskey,” Will laughed. “It is our duty to get you completely inebriated before we reach our destination so you won’t complain about what we have planned.”

Nate groaned. “Where is Caleb in all of this?”

“Right behind us in his truck with Jake,” I answered as we pulled out down the road. “They had some last minute phone calls to make so we got you all to ourselves.”

“Alright, alright. Since you have me, can we do away with the cuffs and the rope?”

“Not just yet,” Josh laughed.

Nate cursed and laid his head back in defeat.

We met up at Williston airport and carried Nate onto the family’s private jet. Once we were all boarded and about 30,000 feet in the air, we took off the cuffs, rope and blindfold.

“So where are we going?” Nate rubbed his wrists, looking between us. We met his question with stone cold silence. He sighed. “Not even a hint, right?”

“Right,” we said back.

Josh leaned his head back and closed his eyes to catch a few Zs. Josh was in training for the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) title fight that would be going down next month. He was tougher than fucking iron—a black belt in both Judo and Jiu-Jitsu and disciplined in Jeet Kune Do—plus he was a firefighter back in Williston in his spare time. He had arms like freaking pythons, covered in black tribal tats, and was an unapologetic ladies man like myself.

The rest of us played cards for the next couple of hours while trying hard to get Nate trashed, but he could hold his liquor like a sailor. I looked around at these guys—they were my brothers and my best friends. I fucking loved my family!

Will was my identical twin and we were pretty much alike in every way. After he’d graduated in the spring from the University of Washington, he had gone into professional MotoCross and was loving every minute of it. He got to schmooze with the greatest names in sports while traveling all around the world.

Caleb was more attached to home, like Nate was. Both of them managed the North ranch while working hands-on and held shares in the oil business that the family owned. Caleb, like Nate, had also found the woman of his dreams (or so he claimed), but Nate was marrying his in less then a week while Caleb was still working up to the proposal.

By the time we landed, we had Nate buzzing pretty good. We blindfolded him again, but since Nate had guaranteed his cooperation, we were able to forego the cuffs. However, he may
not
have cooperated if he knew what we were about to do. We all climbed into the back of the black stretch Hummer limousine we had rented for the next 24 hours. The beast was sweet! Colorful neon lights lined the ceiling and floor. It had a stocked bar, a killer sound system, a flat screen and a hot tub—and Caleb and Jake were out of their fucking minds if they really thought the rest of us weren’t going to score in that kind of luxury vehicle.

We headed to our very specific destination. Just the idea of it made me rub the palms of my hands together mischievously. 

“You know, I’m getting pretty frigging nervous with all of this blindfold shit,” Nate grumbled.

“That’s the entire point, buddy,” Jake quipped.

In no time, we were at our destination. We pulled off to the side of the road and maneuvered Nate out of the vehicle toward the party of people waiting for us.

My adrenaline was starting to pump like it did before a race or a concert!

“Okay, man, this is where you’re going to have to sign on the dotted line,” Caleb explained as he set a pen between Nate’s fingers. “And trust us.”

Nate laughed. “I do not trust
any
of you at this moment.” He signed the consent form anyway, blindfolded.

The instructor, an athletic guy in his forties who’d been doing this gig for a long time, smiled and shook his head, and he, Jake and Caleb walked away talking while Will and Josh held onto Nate, one on each arm.

“It’s hot and dry,” Nate said, trying to figure out his surroundings. “No breeze either. Where the fuck are we and what are we doing here?”

“Nate, we couldn’t have strippers,” I lamented.

“Exotic dancers,” Josh corrected.

“
Or
hookers,” I continued, shaking my head in disappointment.

“Professional escorts,” Josh said factually.

“So we had to think of something BIG!” I threw up my arms widely.

I’d been looking forward to this party for the last two weeks! And Nate may have howled and griped, but he was just as extreme as the rest of us.

Jake came running back. “Okay, we’re just about ready! Nate, it’s time to set you up in the equipment.”