Today we are sharing an excerpt from FIVE YEARS GONE, a romantic standalone title by Marie Force. Five Years Gone will be releasing on October 9th! Pre-order links can be found below.
FIVE YEARS GONE by Marie Force
Coming October 9
ABOUT THE BOOK
The most brazen terrorist attack in history. A country bent on revenge. A love affair cut short. A heart that never truly heals.
I knew on the day of the attack that our lives were changed forever. What I didn’t know then was that I’d never see John again after he deployed. One day he was living with me, sleeping next to me, making plans with me. The next day he was gone.
That was five years ago. The world has moved on from that awful day, but I’m stuck in my own personal hell, waiting for a man who may be dead for all I know. At my sister’s wedding, I meet Eric, the brother of the groom, and my heart comes alive once again.
The world is riveted by the capture of the terrorist mastermind, brought down by U.S. Special Forces in a daring raid. Now I am trapped between hoping I’ll hear from John and fearing what’ll become of my new life with Eric if I do.
From a New York Times bestselling author, Five Years Gone, a standalone contemporary, is an epic story of love, honor, duty, unbearable choices and impossible dilemmas.
PRE-ORDER IT NOW!
PURCHASE IN PRINT: Marie's Store | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Chapters Indigo
PURCHASE IN AUDIO: Amazon | Audible US | Audible UK | Audible AU
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Read this excerpt from Five Years Gone.
Prologue
Ava
Ava
We met in a
bar, of all places, a dingy hole-in-the-wall favored by military members from
the nearby Navy base in San Diego. I went with a friend from school who was interested
in one of the military guys. Before that night, I’d never been there, and I’ve never been back. John was celebrating the promotion
of one of his buddies. He crashed into me as I left the ladies’ room and kept me from falling by grabbing my arms to
steady me.
Just like in
the movies, our eyes met, and my spine tingled with the kind of instantaneous
awareness I’d only read about
but never experienced personally.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, gorgeous and fierce in his fatigues.
I noticed
gold on his collar, a hint of late-day scruff on his jaw and the name WEST in
bold black letters on his chest. Intense electric-blue eyes made it impossible
for me to look away, even when I was safely back on my feet.
“Are you all
right?”
he asked.
Realizing I’d been staring at him, I blinked and reluctantly broke
the connection. “I…
Yes, I’m fine. Thank you
for the save.”
And then he
smiled, and the tingling began anew.
“I’m John.”
I shook his
outstretched hand. “Ava.”
Keeping his
hold on my hand, he tipped his head. “You come
here often?”
“Never,” I said, laughing. “I’m a first-timer.”
“What do you
think so far?”
“I wasn’t impressed until about thirty seconds ago.”
As if he had
all the time in the world to give me, he leaned against the wall. “Is that right? What happened thirty seconds ago?”
I thought
about taking back my hand but didn’t. “I was saved from certain disaster by a man in uniform.”
“The guy in
the uniform is the reason you needed saving in the first place, because he wasn’t watching where he was going. Least he can do is buy
you a drink.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” I was proud
of my witty responses and got the feeling he could more than hold his own in
the wittiness department. Across the crowded room, I noticed my friend talking
to the guy she’d come to see, and
her brows lifted in interest when she saw me with John. He guided me to the
bar, placing a proprietary hand on my lower back, and told one of the guys to
give me his stool.
“Yes, sir.” The younger man bowed gallantly to me as he took his beer and moved
along.
“Do people
always do what you say?”
“If they know
what’s good for them.” His teasing grin kept the comment from being overly
cocky. “What can I get you?”
Deciding to
live dangerously for once, I asked for a cosmopolitan.
“Go big or go
home,”
he said with admiration.
“That’s
my motto.” I was so full of shit. I wondered if he could tell I
was all talk or what he’d think of me if he knew I usually err much closer to the side of
caution than the wild side. I wondered if he could tell I was just barely old
enough to drink. I’d turned twenty-one only six months earlier.
When my
cosmo and his Budweiser had been delivered, he offered a toast. “To new friends.”
I touched my
glass to his bottle. “To new friends.”
“So, where’re you from, Ava?”
“New York.”
“I thought I
heard New Yawk in your voice.”
I batted my
eyelashes at him. “So four years at the University of California San
Diego didn’t scrub the New
York out of me?”
Laughing, he
said, “Hardly. I know some guys from New York. One of them is
from Staten Island, which is about as New York as it gets. I know New York when
I hear it.”
“I’m from Purchase, upstate from the city. What about
you?”
“I’m from all over. My old man is a retired general. You
name it, I’ve lived there.”
“Where’s home?”
“Right here.” He turned that intense gaze on me, and I went stupid
in the head. I couldn’t see anything but him. We might as well have been alone in the crowded
bar for all I knew. Unlike my friend, who loved men in uniform, I was never turned
on by the uniform. Until then. Until John. “You want to
get out of here?”
I swallowed
hard. It wasn’t like me to leave
a bar with a man I’d just met. “And go where?”
“Somewhere we
can talk.”
“What do you
want to talk about?”
He leaned in
so his lips were close to my ear. “Everything.
I want to know every single thing there is to know about you.”
That’s how we started. We were intense from the first
second we met until the last time I saw him five years ago today. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I looked into those incredible
blue eyes or woke to him on the pillow next to me or heard his voice in my ear,
whispering words that’re permanently carved into my heart as he made love to me.
The worst
part is I have no idea where he is. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, being held captive or if he’s living his life somewhere else with someone else. I
don’t know, and the not
knowing is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with.
I love him
as much today as I ever did. No amount of time could ever change that simple
fact of my life. We had two beautiful, magnificent years together, caught up in
our own little bubble. He never met my family. I never met his. We didn’t make couple friends. We didn’t talk about the future. We didn’t need to. Our future was decided that first night,
and it would take care of itself in due time. I honestly and naïvely believed that.
Now, with
hindsight, I realize the bubble was strategic on his part. He gave me
everything he had to give, including no promise of tomorrow.
Five years
ago today, we watched the horror unfold on live television. A US-based cruise
ship blown up by suicide bombers. Four thousand lives extinguished in a
heartbeat. Our world permanently changed once again, our country declaring yet
another war on terrorists. After 9/11 we thought we’d seen everything. We were wrong.
“I have to
go,” he said, grabbing the duffel that stood ready in the
front hall closet. He called it his “go bag.” I’d thought nothing of it.
“Where’re you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“When will
you be back?”
“I don’t know that either.” He held my
face in his hands and gazed at me, seemingly trying to memorize my every
feature. “I love you. I’ll always love you.” Then he
kissed me as passionately as he ever had and was gone, out the door in a flash
of camouflage.
I never saw
him again.
I’m not his wife or even his fiancée, so no one notified me of his whereabouts. And three
months after he left, when I found a way onto the base in a desperate quest for
information, no one there could tell me anything either. I tried to locate his
parents and other people he mentioned, but it was like they didn’t exist. I could find no record of a retired general
named West in the Marine Corps, Army or Air Force.
Furthermore,
an exhaustive search for information on the John West I had known led nowhere.
No high school, no college, no military service, no nothing.
Sometimes I
wonder if I dreamed the two years we spent together, doing mundane things like
grocery shopping, cooking, watching TV and sleeping together after long days at
work. But then I’d remember the
blissful passion, the scorching pleasure, the desire that ruled us from the
beginning, and I’d know I didn’t dream him. I didn’t dream us. We were real, and he was everything to me.
Sitting on
the floor in our apartment, surrounded by boxes, I take a few minutes before
the movers arrive to memorize every detail of the place where we lived
together. I’ve packed his
things along with mine, and I’m moving home to New York. Today was my deadline. I
gave it five years, and I simply can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit in our home among our things, waiting for
something that’s never going to
happen.
It’s over. It’s time for me to
move on. It’s probably long
past time, if I’m being honest with
myself. And though I know it’s the right move at the right time, that doesn’t mean my heart isn’t shattering all over again as I dismantle the place
where we were us.
My sister is
getting married next month. I promised her I’d be home in time to hold her hand through the
festivities. Other than occasional trips home for holidays and other occasions,
I’ve been gone more
than ten years. I bear no resemblance whatsoever to the girl who left home at
eighteen seeking independence from her overbearing family at a faraway college
out West.
I
accomplished all my goals, finishing college, landing a decent job and falling
in love with the man of my dreams. I found out what happens when dreams come
true and how painful it is when they blow up in your face.
It’s time now to set new goals, to start over, to begin a
life that doesn’t have John at the
center of it the way it did here. It’ll be nice to be back with people who love me and care
about me, even if they tend toward smothering at times. That’s looking rather good to me after years of loneliness
and grief.
The intercom
sounds to let me know the movers are here. I pick myself up off the floor and
steel my heart for the day ahead. I can do this. I’ve been through worse, and I’ll survive this the same way I’ve survived everything else. Despite my resolve, my
eyes fill with tears as I press the button that opens the door downstairs to
the movers.
It doesn’t take them long to pack my belongings into their
truck. I keep with me the things that can’t be replaced—precious
photos, gifts he gave me, the clothing he left behind. After taking a final
look around the apartment, I pack those boxes into my car, turn my apartment
keys into the leasing office and head east, feeling as if I’m leaving behind everything that ever mattered to me.
It’s like I’m losing him all over again. I cry all the way through
the desert of Southern California and well into Arizona. I relive every minute
I can remember, every conversation, every special moment. I think about what it
was like to make love with him and wonder how I’ll ever to do that with anyone but him. Maybe I won’t. Maybe that part of my life ended with him, and even
though I’m only twenty-eight
now, I’m okay with that
possibility. Once you’ve experienced perfection, it’s hard to imagine settling for anything less.
The tears
finally dry up somewhere in northern Arizona, but the ache inside… I take that with me all the way to New York, where I
will try my very best to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and put them
back together into some new version of myself.
After all,
what choice do I have?
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About Marie Force
Marie Force is the New York Times bestselling author of contemporary romance, including the Gansett Island Series, which has sold more than 2.2 million books, and the Fatal Series from Harlequin Books, which has sold more than 1 million books. In addition, she is the author of the Green Mountain Series from Berkley Publishing as well as the new erotic romance Quantum Series, written under the slightly modified name of M.S. Force. Her goals in life are simple—to finish raising two happy, healthy, productive young adults, to keep writing books for as long as she possibly can and to never be on a flight that makes the news.
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