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Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

Welker snapped himself out of his trance.

Moira. Laughing .

She’d been good looking before; sour-pussed, in uniform, with her regulation braid firmly in place. But when she’d appeared in his kitchen with her hair down and swinging delightfully around her face, her body hugged by the clothing he’d given her, she’d taken her beauty to a new level. Nothing, however, had prepared him for how fucking gorgeous she was with all her barriers down, laughing.

“Uh, Vestore?” Moira prodded, coming to her feet, first. “The door?”

“Oh. Right,” he stated, but how could he simply walk away from this Moira? What if he came back, and she’d returned to the reticent woman with whom he’d become familiar? What if this Moira never showed herself again?

His feet refused to move as he stared at her.

But she suddenly looked…confused. “How did whoever is at the door get past your security measures?” she asked. “Welker?” she prodded again, clearly attempting to jolt him back into his right head.

Welker mentally shook himself; then gave his sorry ass a quick, internal pep-talk.

He had days and days with Moira to make her laugh again; untold hours to break down any doors she slammed closed. If he could get her to loosen up once, he’d be able to do it again. Right now, however…

“It has to be my sister. She has all the override codes and apps on her phone since she owns half the property,” Welker finally managed, slowly rising. “She and Sabira come here on the weekends to keep the projects moving. When I talked to her this morning, I told her to give us until later in the day, since we’d had a long night.”

The doorbell rang again, and Welker could almost hear the impatience in it.

“She’s, uh, a little excited to meet you, since she’s heard about you and the rest of the team, ad nauseum.” Welker wouldn’t let on that Moira’s name entered their conversations more often than any other. TMI.

Moira shook her head, losing some of her good humor. “You told her why I’m here, right?”

“Uh, she woke me up from a sound sleep,” he demurred. “I didn’t have the brainpower to explain.”

Moira rolled her eyes, then took the bull by the horns.

She left him stammering, strode through the kitchen and past the island which separated it from the living room, headed for the front door. Welker didn’t stop her. It was her funeral, and the sooner they got the introductions out of the way, the faster Callie’s nosiness could be assuaged.

Moira made fast work of the locks, and Welker wasn’t surprised. Even though she’d been dead tired and out-of-it when they’d come in last night, the canny woman had memorized his codes.

The door swung open to his smirking sister. Sabira, always the more reserved of the two, stood a few steps behind, looking apologetic.

“Hi,” Callie said brightly, her eyes taking Moira in from head to toe, obviously approving of what she saw. “I’m Callie Vestore, and this is my wife, Sabira.” She turned and drew the reluctant woman forward.

Moira stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you both. I’m Moira.”

“What a pretty name.” Callie took her hand and pumped it enthusiastically, as did Sabira, in turn.

Right, Welker scoffed. Be a suck-up, Callie . But what did he know? Maybe this new version of Moira liked being complimented, because Callie’s words had brought another real smile to his houseguest’s face.

“So, where’s that brother of mine?” Callie asked.

“Right here,” Welker called out, not moving from the kitchen. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to see how Moira continued to fare with his outspoken sibling. “I was just making us breakfast.”

“At one in the afternoon?” Callie’s brows went up.

Welker grumbled. “I told you we had a long night, and didn’t get much sleep…” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how they could be construed. “I mean… We were… It was…”

Sabira snorted and Callie beamed, but before they could misinterpret any further, Moira set them straight.

“We had a problem at my house.”

“That’s too bad. Structural issues? Bat infestation?”

Welker almost choked on a laugh. Leave it to Callie.

When they’d begun buttoning up the barn that would eventually be Callie and Sabira’s home, they’d found the winged-interlopers and had to call a wildlife expert to get the bats—of which there were several dozen—to move out and stay out. The process involved nets hung from the soffits but left loose at the bottom, so that the critters could fly down and out, but not back in. It had worked like a charm.

“Neither,” Moira told them. “I got some unexpected MC visitors who decided to trash my place for putting their club president behind bars,” Moira provided, straight-faced.

Callie’s eyes grew wide.

The more timid of the two, Sabira, looked shocked. “Uh, Honey?” she stammered to Callie. “Maybe we should get inside to talk about this?” Sabi glanced nervously down the driveway.

Moira backed up and reassured them as they both stepped in.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Ma’am.” Moira closed the door behind them. “We covered our tracks. Nobody knows we’re here except our SWAT boss and a few people on our team, so there shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Sabira calmed a bit, giving Moira a little smile. “Please, call me Sabira, or Sabi. And uh, that’s good to know.”

“You two want eggs?” Welker called from the kitchen, attempting to put off any more questions until food was in their stomachs.

“Sure. Why not,” Callie agreed. “We haven’t had lunch yet. I thought maybe we’d order subs. But eggs will work.”

“I’ll help.” Sabira went around Moira, came into the kitchen, and gave Welker a quick hug. “Pancakes and bacon with those eggs sounds pretty good.” She immediately had her head buried in the refrigerator, pulling out meat and the necessary ingredients.

Welker chuckled. “Sounds good to me, too, but we’ll need to make it kind of quick. We have to be back at Moira’s house by three. The rest of the team is convening there to help with clean-up.”

Callie came in and took a seat in one of the four swivel-back bar stools at the dividing bar. “It sounds awful. How about you tell us what happened.”

Moira went to the counter, retrieved her now cool coffee, and took a huge gulp, grimacing.

Did she want him to explain, or would she take the lead. Welker waited…

“I’ve been working a case involving the 227 MC.”

“I’ve heard of them. They’re bad news,” Callie nodded.

“They are,” Moira agreed. “And the entire club needs to be disbanded, especially after what I uncovered.”

“Which was?” Sabira asked, then backpedaled. “Unless you can’t tell us, of course.”

Moira scoffed. “The closed-door trial where I was the lead witness ended yesterday, so I’m sure there’ll be a lot in today’s papers. I have no problem filling you in if you haven’t heard any of the particulars, yet.”

“We haven’t,” Callie told her.

Moira walked to the microwave and stuck her cup in, hitting two minutes, which would heat her coffee back up. As the oven purred, she turned back to their company.

“Over the winter last year, there were an unusual number of break-ins in the empty mansions down in Bar Harbor. You’re probably aware that a lot of them are summer homes.”

Callie and Sabira both nodded.

“Well, we’d been called in any number of times by neighbors and caretakers that the places had been entered, and stripped of valuables. And I’m not talking just TVs and computers. Whoever was doing the jobs, made a point of demo-ing the places, stealing copper wires and pipes right out of the walls, destroying the majority of the interior finish. To say the places were left a mess, is an understatement.” She snorted.

“You might imagine that the insurance companies weren’t happy to pay up on the damage, so they leaned hard on my boss at the Sheriff’s Department to do something about it, and I was assigned to patrol the area every night until we mitigated the problem.”

Welker hadn’t known that Moira had been put on the night shift. She hadn’t shown any signs of fatigue on the numerous call-outs they’d had for SWAT over the winter. His opinion of her went up a few more notches.

“Eventually, I saw suspicious activity at a particularly remote home; a box truck, along with several motorcycles were parked inside an open garage door under the house.

“I was able to leave my department vehicle hidden in some trees, hiked in, and took a lot of pictures; of the van, the bikes, the men dressed in dark clothes carrying out incredible amounts of copper. A lot of the photos were inconclusive, due to poor lighting, face coverings, and such, but I got a really good shot of the MC president, Tormentor, along with his VP and several of his lieutenants, carrying valuables out. By the time I called for back-up to apprehend them, however, the group had disbursed.

“Luckily, the damage to the house along with my pictures were enough evidence to convict Tormentor and a number of his underlings, keeping them in jail until their sentencing.”

“So, if they’re in the hoosegow, who came after you?” Callie asked.

Moira grumbled.

“For an MC like the 227,” she explained, “there’s always a scramble for power after an in-house shake-up. One of Tormentor’s LTs, Mick, stepped forward, clearly deciding if he made an example out of me—the testifying officer—he’d be a shoo-in to fill his boss’s boots.”

“What do you plan on doing, now?” Sabira asked as she whisked up batter, concern in her voice.

“Catch them in the act of trying to harass me,” she said.

“You mean, get them before they kill you,” Welker growled, knowing that if the assholes found her, that’s exactly what they’d do.

“Let’s not get dramatic, Vestore,” Moira rebutted, but her reply—which any other time might have shut him down—was softened by her new look and didn’t faze him in the least.

“No drama, Moira. They had guns. They meant business, and you know it.”

“Okay. Fine. But they didn’t find me.”

“They destroyed your house, though,” Callie interjected astutely.

Moira nodded, unable to argue that point.

Welker continued. “We’re meeting Mason and the rest over at her place in an hour to put things right.”

“So you said,” Callie stated. “And I’m coming.”

“Oh, no you’re not,” Welker immediately replied. “If there’s an MC member watching, we don’t want anything or anyone leading them to you, to us…here or at your place in town.”

Moira glowered at him. “And that, right there, is why I have to salvage some clothes out of the mess of my house, and find a different place to lie low. I’m not comfortable putting any of you in danger.”

Welker glared right back. “We’ve had this discussion, Bliss.”

Yup . He could do the same, last-name-calling thing Moira did when she wanted to put him in his place. “Hotels are too public, and any short-term rental you find won’t have security. You’re better off, here.”

“Putting you and your family in their crosshairs?” Moira’s voice rose.

Wow. There’d already been a lot of firsts today, and now Moira was showing…emotion?

Welker set her straight. “I can take care of myself, and as for Callie and Sabira?—”

“I’ll make this easy,” Callie stated crisply. “We’ll head back to our place until things have been resolved. We were only going to putter here, this weekend, anyway. All the outside work on the barns has been completed, so the structures are buttoned up against the winter weather. With a few more hours of work, the heating system should be finished, too.”

They’d gotten heat pump units installed, purposely so that interior work could proceed during the cold months. “As long as we’re still on target to move in when our lease runs out next April, I’m good.”

Moira looked uncertain. “You shouldn’t have to change your plans for me.”

“Are you kidding?” Sabira piped up gleefully. “This is a gift. We’ve spent every freaking weekend here for the past few months, and I, for one, am looking forward to doing something normal for a change, like…going to a museum, or taking a hike.”

Callie looked at her partner, astonished. “Sweetie, I had no idea. You could have said something.”

The pretty dark-haired woman shook her head. “No. This compound is important to you…to us, but you know I’m not as driven as you are, and I’m not picky. If we get our place as finished as Welker’s before April, I’ll gladly move in and do the rest while we live here.”

Welker knew this was something Callie and Sabira had to work out between them, so he intervened, bringing the subject back around to their safety. “All I know is that you two need to make yourself scarce, and I’ll be more than happy to work on the interior of your place, including getting it more buttoned up for winter. My house just needs insulation in the exterior walls, and I’m good to go until spring.”

“I can help,” Moira chimed in, then looked sheepish. “ If I decide to stay here, that is. I’m pretty handy, since I’ve had to do everything out at my property, by myself.”

Of course she had.

Welker silently added “good with tools” to his list of Moira’s attributes. The inventory of positives regarding this woman was quickly surpassing any negatives. Her normal, standoffish attitude had somehow, in just the past several hours—and much to his stupefaction—slipped.

“Okay, then.” Callie tapped the counter with both hands. “It’s a plan. We’ll eat, then get out of here.” She tipped her chin to Moira. “Should I leave you some more clothes, just in case you find yours in bad shape?” She pointed. “Those fit you really well.”

Moira blinked. “Oh. These belong to you?”

Callie laughed. “Whose did you think they were, Welker’s?”

“I, um… I didn’t…” she trailed off, her face actually coloring up with the barest tinge of red.

Welker huffed, catching her drift, and even though Moira looked cute as hell because of her assumption, he couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Nope. She didn’t think I was a cross-dresser. She thought the clothes belonged to some random woman I picked up and brought home.”

Which hurt.

Welker knew he had a reputation for being a player, but he really didn’t hook up all that often. Certainly not as much as when he was younger. As a matter of fact, Welk couldn’t remember the last time he’d shagged a willing lady.

Callie grinned. “Then it’s a good thing I can tell her she’s the first woman besides family that you’ve ever invited into your home.”

“I am?” Moira’s voice actually squeaked.

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