Find You: Book 5 of Explore Men of the Hamptons Limited Edition Paperback

Twenty-eight years ago, at age sixteen, a cocky Roland Rouse first set eyes on the Princess, his forever. Now he's swallowed in a chasm of despair after her untimely demise. Can his budding friendship with Neeraja Townsend bring him and his children back to the joy of love again?

This is the final installment in the sensual, heartwarming saga of Sag Harbor. Find You can be read individually, but if the reader longs for a community of Black affluence and rich history, start from Maddy and Jerrell's clash on the sidewalk.

Paperback page count: 318

Tropes: single dad, widower, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, grief and loss, tight-knit friendships, supportive family

*strong language, sex

Heat level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

We arrive at a lovely, manicured, two-story home in Hackensack. Not nearly as massive and stately as Chrissy and Shel’s new palace in Alpine, but the red-brick home is elegant, nestled against lots of winter trees lining a large yard. Pulling to a stop in the circular drive, I get out and yank my coat around me in the below-zero freeze.

“Come on, Halle, baby, get up and we’ll put you in bed.”

Instead of Halle getting out on her own, her head bumps into mine when she spontaneously flings her arm over my neck.

“Mama…” she mutters in her sleep.

“Halle, wake up,” Rome urges while tugging on Isaac.

Using my power squat, I hoist her out of the seat and against my shoulder. With as much care as I can muster in these strappy heels, I carry her up the steps and to the front door. Rome punches in the code, and we all enter.

“Dad?” he yells.

In my arms, Halle stirs.

“Come on, honey, you’re home now. You can go get in your bed.”

Confused, eyes open but not really awake, she mumbles, “Mm…Maa…?”

Hearing that breaks my heart, how she’ll never get her answer.

I quickly scan their house and wait for their father to come down. “Roland? It’s Neera and the kids.” Not getting a response, I proceed through the foyer. “Rome, you want to take them to their rooms?”

At the same time, it seems we all spot a figure laid out on the floor between the couch and a coffee table. My heart might stop.

“Roland,” I whisper.

“Dad!” Rome calls out.

We race toward him, where he lies in what looks like huge stains of bodily fluid on the carpet. And there’s a stench. He’s been here a while.

“Daaaa…” Halle cries as the sight jars her from sleep.

“Dad, wake up,” Isaac whines.

“Hey, hey, Halle, look at me, honey. Look at me.” I turn her little face until it almost touches mine and she can only focus on me. “I bet your daddy’s fine. He just went to sleep is all.”

“Is he dead?” Isaac asks.

“No, of course not.” But my blood cells must be suspended in my veins as I drop down and press a finger to his wrist. A huge sigh blows out of me when I feel the tiny vibrations.

“Dad,” Rome says with a sharp tug on his father. “Come on.”

“You know what, Rome, how about you and I team up? Will you make sure your brother and sister are okay?” No child should have to see this, no matter how mature or well he’s been handling it. “I’ll help your dad, and you take the two of them upstairs and keep them calm. Get your Uncle Shel on the phone and talk to him, huh?” So Sheldon can calm a trembling Rome.

The twelve-year-old young man, every bit the face of strength and resolve, and the spitting image of his dad and uncles, stares back at me. His nod lifts more than an answer to a single question. A final examination of his father, and he urges on his distraught siblings.

“Roland.” I slip off my heels and coat. It takes all I’ve got just to raise his upper body.

All over the side of his face, down his neck, whatever he ejected from his guts plasters his t-shirt to his chest.

“Prinnncess…” A flicker of joy lights him up at the sight of a woman.

His eyes turn to glass when, somewhere in the drunken fog of his mind, he doesn’t process who he was hoping to.

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed. Roland, try to stand.”

“Mm…” He struggles to orient himself.

“Grab the table. Put your arm up…” I place his hand up there, and get underneath him, my legs and knees all messy now, so I can push him. I’m still in my three-thousand-dollar Elie Saab I wore out in celebration of my fledgling relationship. It now has stains along the bodice and the bottom half. “Roland. Get up.”

“Why?” he sobs. “I can’t.” Those muscular Rouse shoulders collapse on mine. “Juuusss leeeeave me…”

His gut-wrenching pain cuts into me deeper than the bitterest cold outside.

“Yes, you can, Roland. Don’t do this to Princess or your beautiful children. They need you. Do you love your kids or not?”