Page 3 of Off-Limits Love
Finn shook his head again, the stress and adrenaline setting his blood and brain on fire even as it locked him up from the inside. The cop jerked a thumb to the closest patrol car.
“You hand over ID and cooperate,” the cop said, “or we put you inside until we figure out why you’re roaming the dark when a little girl is missing.”
Finn silently cursed again, because his wallet was in his jacket—which was still in the truck he’d abandoned when he heard the woman scream.
He lifted his hand to point toward his house, but he moved too quickly. The cops began yelling, and two pulled their weapons while the others put their hands on their guns to be ready.
Finn quickly spread his hands wide and slowly lifted the other away from his body, aware of the woman’s wide-eyed gaze on him and the horror on her face as she watched one of the officers step up to cuff him. Like he was the reason her daughter was missing instead of a neighbor trying to help.
The cops kept asking him questions, demanding ID, but his throat wouldn’t cooperate. Stupid freaking stammer. He’d hated his impairment his entire life, but right now, it appeared it was going to land him in jail until the mess was sorted out.
His heart pounded, anxiety riddling his body with a mixture of past and present and the nightmares that came from the police presence.
One of the cops moved close enough to empty Finn’s pockets and found several dozen business cards for Haven. He’d taken them from the soft opening tonight so that he could put them up on the notice board outside the barn and to set out at the market Saturday morning. To help promote Elias’s new restaurant.
“He’s got a bunch of these on him,” one of the officers said.
“Soft opening was tonight,” another said. “My wife’s mom is a waitress there. Could be why he’s dressed up.”
“Is that why?” cop one asked.
Mortified by his weakness and beyond angry at himself, Finn nodded, vaguely wondering if the cop would call the restaurant and ask to speak to someone. Maybe Elias or one of his brothers would come to the phone and understand when the cop described the situation. Then again, the last thing he wanted was for his brothers to know about this.
The other cops stood grouped around the woman as she told them that she and her daughter had let Sam’s dog out to potty. The woman looked away for a second, and both were gone. Her uncle, the owner of the house, had gone to look for them.
Finn frowned, not realizing Sam had a niece or any family. Not that it mattered.
A few of the cops left and spread out to go look for the girl while two stayed behind with him and the woman.
“You live around here, buddy?” This question came from the cop on his right.
Finn nodded again and jerked his head toward his farm. If Sam returned, he’d be able to identify him, but Finn hadn’t visited in a few weeks, and he certainly hadn’t met Sam’s niece.
“That’s Blackwell Farm,” one of the older cops said, squinting at him as though he took a harder look at Finn. “You a Blackwell?”
He nodded again.
“Mak! I found her! I found her!”
Every head swiveled in the direction of Sam’s voice as he broke through the darkness at the edge of the house not far from where Finn had emerged.
Finn watched as the woman let out an anguished cry and ran toward Sam and a little girl, who looked dirty and teary but otherwise okay.
Sam turned the little girl over to his niece the moment she skidded to a stop in front of them and dropped to her knees, clutching the child tight to her chest.
“Emi, where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” the woman said.
“Max,” the little girl cried.
The woman hugged the girl tight again, kissing her and squeezing her like only a frantic, loving mama could.
“You scared me to death. Don’t ever run off like that. If Max goes off somewhere, we find him together. Do you hear me? You don’t ever,evergo alone.”
Finn watched as the little girl’s face scrunched up, and she quietly sobbed, her hands curled near her chin as she stared at her mother.
The woman hugged her daughter tight once again and then rose and settled her on her hip, holding the girl while she burrowed into her mother’s neck and clung like a monkey. Both were shorter than average and adorable, and across the distance, the woman met Finn’s gaze, worry evident in hers as she took in the cuffs and the two cops still shadowing him.
“What’s going on here?” Sam asked, his bushy eyebrows pulling into a solid line above his nose as he finally got a look at Finn.
