Page 18 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Sawyer will come and help you get started.”

“Great,” Finch muttered. He’d have to deal with his brother-in-law, too, but at least Sawyer wasn’t big on talking, just like him now.

“Do you need to call your dad and tell him I’m driving you?” Finch asked Ally, who was now eating her muffin with enthusiasm. He’d never met a Duke who didn’t have a big appetite.

“Why? You’re family—kinda—and I’ve known you since I was born. Plus, there’s the list,” she said, climbing into the front seat of his pickup after waving at Klaus.

“List?” He drove around the curve of the driveway and out the gate.

“Of people Dad trusts. We wrote it years ago. The people in town who I can get help from if I need it. All the McAllister’s are on it.”

He wanted to rub his chest at the spike of warmth her words created. “Nice.”

“I’m sorry you had that accident and left the army, Finch.”

“Thanks, Ally. Me too.”

“But at least Birdie gets to see her big brother more now.”

“You think she missed me?” he teased her.

“Uncle Sawyer told me he was lucky, seeing as he got to have all his family around him all the time, even if sometimes he’d like a break from them. But Birdie had no siblings in her corner until she became his girlfriend and inherited us.”

Finch moved out of his home at eighteen, signed up for the army, and never looked back. Lynx and Blue Jay had been next, and they’d left Birdie here with their parents. Finch hadn’t given her situation a lot of thought, if he was honest. He’d just got on with his life. She’d also had to deal with his dad’s cancer diagnosis, which he still felt guilt over, and the fact she’d not told them she was working multiple jobs to pay the medical bills.

“I think she missed you, but she got us, so it worked out okay,” Ally said, licking her fingers after she finished the muffin, completely unaware that she’d made Finch think about things he hadn’t before leaving the army. “Finch?”

“Ally.”

“Why are you wearing Caleb’s jacket?”

He snorted at that and explained the details to Ally.

“June’s persuasive,” she said.

“And then some.”

The roar of a motorcycle had him looking in the rearview mirror. Two bikers dressed in black leather were behind him. The lead rider then rolled closer until he was beside Finch. The man raised his glasses, studying him. Finch lowered the window, and a blast of icy air hit him in the face.

“Problem?” he queried calmly, because Ally was seated beside him.

“No problem. Just being neighborly,” the man said.

Finch raised his window. The man was no neighbor of his, and he didn’t want him to be. The badge on his arm said Bandit, and they were public enemy number one, no matter what others in this town believed.

The man tipped his chin, which he guessed was goodbye, and accelerated in front of his pickup.

“Uncle Asher told me that no Bandit would ever be on my trusted people list,” Ally said.

“Good call,” Finch said, his eyes still on the bikers. They slowed in front of him and looked to the right, so he did, too, and saw her.

“Oh look, it’s Nina. Can you stop, Finch? She’s got a face cream for me.”

She was sitting on her front step, wrapped in a blanket and drinking coffee. He could think of at least ten things he’d rather do than pull in there and talk to her right now, especially as he’d been a giant asshole the last time they’d seen each other, even if he had mouthed the word “sorry” in the back of Sawyer’s SUV.

“You need that face cream now?” He watched the motorcycles roll by and down the street.

Ally nodded.