Page 1 of Welker

CHAPTER ONE

Dammit. Why did she always have to be right?

The rasping of her ancient farmhouse door’s hinges, followed by a creak of the loose floorboard in her downstairs front hallway, alerted her to the fact she had uninvited and unwanted visitors.

Moira Bliss slipped quietly off her bed. Crouching low, it took only a few fast seconds before the comforter beneath which she normally slept, was smoothed out.

Considering what had gone on that day, she hadn’t dared shut her eyes, hadn’t used the covers upon which she’d been reclining fully dressed, nor had she put her firearm in its normal spot in her safe.

She took a moment to slide her 9 mm Glock 17 silently off the bedside table, and clutched it in a steady hand. Head in the game, Moira. She needed to determine how many individuals were downstairs in her home. The number mattered. If there were one or two intruders, she’d go on the offensive and try to take them out. Three or more, and her best bet was to put plan B into action and disappear off their radar. Moira was no pushover, but neither was she stupid. She knew when to engage, and when to back away.

Making sure her phone was still safely tucked in the pocket of her sweat pants, Moira quietly and cautiously made her way to the partially opened door of her bedroom, where she paused to listen.

Gravelly voices, not particularly quiet, sounded from below.

“Bones, take your boys and go right. The rest of you are with me.”

The interlopers clearly thought they had an advantage of numbers; not concerned with one female sheriff whom they believed needed to be taught a lesson.

Their mistake.

Taking a few deep but hushed breaths, Moira inched her way into the hall and peered down the wide, open staircase, watching her stalkers disburse. One shadow…two…three… And they all had guns. Another three voices came from just inside her living room. Crap. At least six. Too many to take out, even if she had the advantage of surprise.

Time to retreat and regroup. Maybe even call for back-up once she was safe.

Moira’s feet shuffled carefully backward, easily reaching the doorway of her unused guestroom where, earlier, she had removed the screen and made sure the one window was greased to open silently.

Making fast work of her emergency exit, she slunk into the nearly empty room, pushed up the sash and deftly slung one leg out the window. She grabbed onto the heavy trellis she’d judiciously erected just before dark, and hoisted herself up. Wanting to give herself every advantage in her escape, Moira also took the time to close the window behind her, then climbed nimbly to the top of the wooden slats she’d constructed, until she could drop and crawl flat-bellied onto her roof.

Thank God it was September, and still warm-ish outside.

With the easy part of her evading accomplished, Moira pondered her next move. She’d erroneously thought that the 227 MC would send one, maybe two goons to take care of her after being so pissed that afternoon, in which case she would have snuck up on them and subdued the vermin. But with six or more of the bastards roaming around…

Moira inched her way across the roof of her two-story home, making it to the front peak where she peered cautiously over the edge. Seven bikes were parked in her driveway. Seven. They either hadn’t underestimated her, or they’d all been bored. Either way… Yup. She needed support.

Unfortunately, the nearest able-bodied law enforcement person she knew just had to fucking be her highly capable yet supremely annoying SWAT team leader, Welker Vestore.

The man was incorrigible, and perpetually on her naughty list; a well-known and self-acknowledged flirt. He messed with her head at every opportunity, trying to get past her firmly erected barriers, which should have pissed her off, but he also understood boundaries, and never did anything that made her completely uncomfortable. He engaged with her constantly—which she wasn’t used to because she put forth to everybody a demeanor that said, “don’t go there”, yet he continued to treat her in a playful way that was almost…goofy. And she’d come to…like it?

Fuck that.

Most times Welker simply had her rolling her eyes at his antics, knowing the man was trying to get a rise out of her. But she somehow managed to ignore him because…and here was the rub, Welker Vestore was a known womanizer. The last thing she needed was to encourage the man, possibly ending up as one more notch on his bedpost, if there was anything left of the wooden pylon after years of the man shagging the entire female population of his acquaintance.

Not happening.

But did she want his help now? To get her out of a jam?

Moira needed to carefully consider her options.

Bangor, home of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department where her official colleagues worked, was nearly twenty minutes away. Welker lived thirteen minutes to the east. It was only a seven-minute differential, but Moira knew from experience that a mere handful of seconds often made the difference between life and death.

Well, shit. She was going to have to call her LT.

Worming her way back across the roof toward a secure position behind the bricks of her chimney, she settled into a small alcove and withdrew her phone. Shielding the light from the device with her body, she picked Welker’s number out of the many on her SWAT list, and hit connect.

It rang once, twice…

“Bliss? You’re kidding me. It’s…” she could hear fumbling, and hear sleep in his voice, “two in the morning. Now’s the time you decide to show interest in my awesome self?”

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