Off-Limits Love (The Blackwell Brothers #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

A nd another one bites the dust,” Finn Blackwell heard his youngest brother say as they stood shoulder to shoulder and watched as Elias, Finn’s twin, proposed to the woman he loved.

Hudson’s hand clapped across Finn’s shoulder and squeezed.

“You know you’re next, right? Because I’m certainly not getting married anytime soon,” his kid brother said with a wicked grin. “I’m having way too much fun for that.”

Finn narrowed his gaze at Hud and shook his head. “You’ll wind up with something not so fun if you’re not careful.”

Hudson’s grin widened. “I’m being careful. No worries.”

Hudson paused and then jerked his chin toward Finn’s left. “Looks like tonight’s your night. She’s eyeing you hard, bro. And…now she’s coming over.”

“Don’t,” Finn bit out, knowing Hud’s welcoming grin and flirty attitude had undoubtedly encouraged the woman in question to make a move.

Finn had seen her staring at him but had purposefully avoided eye contact after that initial look. Mostly because he already knew the outcome.

“You’ve got this. Don’t be nervous,” Hudson said in a low tone. “Just…do that strong, silent, broody thing you do so well. She’ll love it.”

“Wow, talk about romantic,” the woman said as she joined them.

Finn practically vibrated with frustration when he watched Hudson flash them both an easygoing grin.

“Isn’t it? Excuse me, but I’ve got somewhere to be. You two have fun,” Hud said. “Talk to you later, Finn.”

“Oh, I like your name. Finn,” the woman repeated, blinking up at him. “I’m Gabby.”

She held out her hand, and he reluctantly lifted his to shake, releasing it quickly to glance outside again. Quinley looked ready to cry as she nodded and said yes, and Elias placed the ring on her finger.

The crowd gathering inside the newly designed restaurant for the soft opening erupted in cheers and applause. Finn clapped along with them before turning to find the woman who’d spoken to him staring up at him, waiting for him to carry his side of their conversation.

She was strikingly beautiful. Her long blond hair curled softly around her shoulders, and her dark-eyed gaze was direct and self-assured. Expectant. Yeah, she didn’t look to be the type of woman who ever got dismissed or ignored. And while he knew he held his own because of the way bolder women approached him the rare times he left his “safe zone,” they never stuck around once they heard him speak.

He inhaled a breath, feeling his pulse pick up speed when her full lips curved in an alluring smile.

“Wait a sec; are you the twin? I heard that Elias had a twin,” the woman said in a sultry voice, her head turning to gaze out at the happy couple before shifting toward him once again. No doubt comparing them.

Finn opened his mouth to speak, to say that he was, when he felt his tongue and vocal cords lock up. He clamped his mouth shut to avoid the stutter that plagued him whenever he felt the slightest bit anxious or stressed, and he tried desperately to calm the anxiety that had appeared with her arrival.

Around his family he was fine. He could speak clearly and freely without issue unless angered, but to anyone else? To gorgeous women?

He grimaced at the life-wrecking flaw and then watched as the woman’s expression changed when he still didn’t speak. He tried—he really did—but then just shook his head and made a low grunt as he turned on his heel to walk away, hearing the woman’s sharp gasp at his rudeness and catching the flash of disbelief that crossed her face before he ran away like a coward.

Another woman apparently joined the first because he heard them talking about him as he dodged the people gathered. He heard the woman call him a jerk and a caveman having no manners.

Finn made his way to a far corner of the penthouse restaurant, snagging a drink along the route to wait until Elias and Quinley reentered the restaurant and the soft opening officially began.

Finn downed the drink and snagged another as the happy couple reentered Haven and greeted their guests. More cheers erupted as they were surrounded with hugs and congratulatory murmurs.

He remained in the corner, tucked deep into an alcove where most couldn’t see him, and took it all in.

Hudson’s earlier assessment was spot-on. His brothers had fallen like dominoes over the last few years. Brooks was first and early on, considering he now had three baby girls and a son to raise, but more recently Dawson, followed by Alec and Cole. Now his twin.

He stared at his brothers and realized they looked happy. Ridiculously so as they stood with their wives and fiancées pressed to their sides. And they deserved that happiness. His older brothers especially, since they were the ones who’d given up the most to work long, hard, grueling hours to make ends meet after their parents had died in a car accident when Alec had just turned eighteen.

Maybe that was the key. They deserved to find love and settle down whereas he…didn’t.

Not when it was his fault their parents had died in the first place.

Hours later, Finn rolled to a stop outside his house, feeling more than a little out of sorts after watching Elias propose to Quinley.

In the last six months, Elias had been more like his old self, more the soft-hearted, laidback kid Finn remembered from before their parents’ deaths. It was good to see the change after so many years watching Elias lock himself away from anything and anyone that might cause him to feel too much. To risk the pain of being left behind again.

He was happy for his twin. Jealous, too. He’d embarrassed himself horribly at the grant dinner last year and again tonight when he’d tried to converse with the beautiful woman who’d approached him. Yet another example of him being cursed to be alone.

Finn got out of his truck, the screech of its salt-corroded hinges combining with that of a woman’s scream.

He thought he imagined it at first or that the sound had come from one of his farm animals, but he scanned the area in the sudden stillness and silence that followed.

The scream came again, the terror and fear in it chilling his blood.

He traced the sound to his neighbor’s home and ran in that direction. Sam was a crotchety old man who lived alone, but that scream had definitely come from the direction of Sam’s house.

The woman’s scream prompted disgruntled murmurs from the miniature donkey and other animals he had yet to put away in the barn for the night, but Finn ignored them for now and vaulted over the wood fence separating their properties.

He kept going, hoping the noise of him clamoring through the brush along the fence line would scare away any snakes that might be underfoot in the pine needles.

The woman’s scream came yet again, higher pitched and desperate, but he couldn’t make out what she said. Possibly a name?

He spied her standing in front of Sam’s worn, small home, whirling round and round as though desperately looking for something, panic etched on her heart-shaped face.

He slowed to a stop in front of her, panting for breath as he watched her eyes widen in alarm at his sudden appearance.

The woman’s entire body trembled, and tears flooded her eyes and glittered as she stared at him. “My daughter. She’s gone. Emi! Emi, where are you!”

Finn turned and listened carefully, straining to hear any rustling or cries over the sound of his heart thumping loud in his ears. Nothing. He didn’t hear anything but the distant traffic from the nearby road leading to the island and sirens rapidly approaching.

Police lights flashed, and in seconds, two patrol cars arrived with a crunch of sand and gravel and dust, rolling to a stop behind the car parked beside Sam’s old truck.

Finn froze at the sight and noise, watching as uniformed officers emerged, their headlights and the flashing lights blinding him and sending his mind ricocheting back to that night so long ago. To the waning evening sky and being trapped in the car with his parents after the accident. How the police lights had hurt his eyes when they’d arrived. He’d screamed at his parents to say something, to talk to him, staring into his mother’s lifeless eyes all the while.

Finn sweated from his run and lunge over the fence, stress and panic sliding through his body as that night and this one blended together like misshapen globs of paint spilled from buckets.

“You reported a missing child?” one of the cops asked.

“Yes, my daughter, Emi. She’s four.”

“You the father?” the cop asked Finn.

He stared at the man, frozen in that space between past and present, as the woman spoke.

“No, he’s not. I screamed for Emi, and he came running out of the woods. I don’t know him,” the woman said.

Four more police officers now joined them as the drive filled with vehicles and flashing lights, and Finn felt all of them staring at him like he was a pervert on the prowl. His head whirled as anxiety filled him, and his throat locked up as tight as the rest of the muscles in his body.

“You’re not exactly dressed for a walk,” the cop said, eyeing Finn’s dress clothes and shoes. “What were you doing in the woods?”

Finn blinked at the man and opened his mouth but struggled to find the words. Frustration roared through him, upping his blood pressure. “Sh-she…” It was all he could get out, and he cursed silently.

“What’s your name, buddy? You got any ID on you?”

Finn released a breath and opened his mouth again, searching the police officer’s faces to find one he recognized. He knew a lot of the local force but not all of them. “F-f-f??—”

“Come on, dude. We don’t have time for this,” the officer said. “Do you know where her little girl is? What were you doing in the woods?”

Finn fisted his hands at his impairment and shook his head in an adamant no. The cop snorted.

“Let’s see some ID. Now. You got any weapons on you?”

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, ever go 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.

“You know him?” the cop to his left asked.

“He’s my neighbor. Known him for years,” Sam said.

“The kid is back,” one of the cops said.

“You thought Finn had something to do with Emi runnin’ off?” Sam asked gruffly, surprise overcoming his expression before he shook his head with a disgusted sounding snort. “Man wouldn’t hurt a child or animal. Get those cuffs off him.”

“Why didn’t he say who he was?” The officer settled a hand on his utility belt.

“Got himself a speech issue,” Sam said as he hurried closer, wheezing, pale, and out of breath, “but he’s good people. Let him go.”

Finn managed to unlock his jaw and took a deep breath before he said, “Heard sc-scream.”

He kept his voice low, hoping Sam’s niece wouldn’t hear him if nothing else. He was embarrassed enough that the cops closest to him heard.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” the first one asked, releasing the cuffs.

Finn wanted to roll his eyes at the cop not understanding that a speech issue, as Sam put it, might interfere with someone speaking, but simply shifted his arms in front of him to rub his wrists. “St-stutter w-wouldn’t l-l-let.”

The men seemed to finally understand and shifted uncomfortably. Like they were embarrassed for him. Stutters in kids were acceptable, even cute. But on an adult man? Not so much.

“Yeah, well, look, we didn’t know what was going on,” the first cop said. “I’m sure you understand why we cuffed you, given the girl was missing and the woman said you came out of the woods. You’re free to go now.”

“A word of advice,” the second cop said before Finn could move. “Carry a card or something that explains your situation. It might help if anything like this happens in the future.”

Finn nodded once but didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look at the woman, didn’t look at Sam or any of them as he stalked back toward the woods and home, vowing not to leave his farm again unless he absolutely had to.

Handcuffed. That’s what he got for trying to help a screaming woman. It didn’t matter that she was Sam’s niece. Or that she’d had nothing to do with the officers’ responses and actions.

It simply proved to him that no matter what he did, he’d never have a normal life, and it was past time to accept it.