Page 52 of Welker

If Welker was willing to give her a chance to…what? Date? Have sex? Didn’t she owe him an explanation as to why she was such a loner?

“It’s my father,” she finally spit out.

“Your father?” he repeated, gently urging her on.

“Yeah. I have kind of a fucked-up past, Welk. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

She could see his face grow serious in the subdued light of the dashboard. “Yes. I want to hear everything about you, Moira. I’m drawn to the woman you are, not your history.”

It was said so sincerely, Moira took a chance.

“I was dropped on my father’s doorstep when I was a baby.”

Welk’s brows went up, a shocked look on his face, but he didn’t interrupt.

“It seems he had a fling with my birth-mother.” She snorted. And any other woman he could lure into his revolving-door bedroom. “Which obviously resulted in a pregnancy.” Moira sighed. “She was a woman who clearly didn’t want me, because she left me, literally, at my father’s front door, with nothing more than a blanket and a DNA test.”

“Seriously?” Welker looked pissed.

“Yup. Not kidding,” she assured him. Moira took a deep breath and kept going. “I’m not sure why he didn’t put me up for adoption, but some strange sense of duty must have made him decide to keep me. Not that he ever saw to me, himself,” she scoffed. “He immediately started hiring a never-ending train of women to take care of me, fucking the majority of them, and making the ones who wouldn’t fall into his bed miserable, and driving them away pretty quickly.”

“I’m sorry, Moira. It sounds like a hideous way to grow up.”

Moira couldn’t stop now. She had to get it all out.

“It wasn’t great. By the time I was old enough to recognize my ‘nannies’ as nothing more than sleezy hangers-on who were looking to get a hand in Daddy’s deep pockets, I’d already decided to be the opposite of them; look plain and dress down.” Her throat convulsed, but Moira continued. “Lucky for me, as I got older, that strategy also kept my father’s friends from noticing me. Mostly,” she added.

“Mostly?” Welker repeated, growling the word, his fingers gripping the steering wheel, hard.

“Yeah. They weren’t…the best kind of men to be around, and there were a few who were fairly persistent.” Moira wasn’t going to stop, now. “Boob men, my father called his handsy friends. My breasts, even then, were, uh, large.”

“Your father joked about your chest?” Welker’s voice turned frigid.

“Not exactly,” she confirmed. “He just wasn’t concerned over his buddies’ interest; he wasn’t worried, and he wasn’t exactly a nurturer, anyway. He thought, because of the way I dressed, that I was gay. Or as he so crassly put it, a dyke, so he wasn’t worried his friends would ‘get with me’ because of my perceived proclivities.”

“He still lives around here?” Welker asked through clenched teeth.

“Bar Harbor,” Moira snorted. “In one of those huge-ass mansions that the MC targeted. That’s why I was assigned to the case. My father might be an asshole, but he’s kept his finger on the pulse of my life, and knows I’m good at my job. Sheriff Gladstone would never have assigned me to the case in Bar Harbor, but my father hobnobs with and finances the campaigns of several prominent politicians in the area. Gladstone had no choice but to give me the job, just to keep my old man happy.”

“How is it that you managed to get out of your father’s house?” Welker asked, still flexing his knuckles.

“My grandfather.” Moira’s voice softened.

That wonderful man. Other than the cars she learned to love, he’d been the one bright spot in her otherwise bleak childhood, even though she didn’t see him often. “He was a shut-in, but a rich one. Several strokes when he was in his mid-fifties left him confined to a wheelchair, barely able to speak. But his mind was still sharp, and he had a cadre of expensive and savvy attorneys on his payroll. So when my father, who subsequent to Papa’s strokes, took over the family’s manufacturing firm just after graduating college, challenged his competence, Papa retained control over his fortune.”

She chuckled sadly. “My grandfather was a force to be reckoned with, but even incapacitated to the degree he was and the infrequency of me being able to visit, he saw what was happening to me. I was unaware of the fact, and much to my father’s confusion, Papa made sure I’d be able to live my own life the way I wanted to after his death; leaving me a sizable portion of his estate in his will which I inherited when I reached twenty-one.”

“But you…” Now Welker looked confused. “You live so…simply,” he finally managed.

Moira shrugged. “What, exactly do I need?” she asked. “I have two jobs I love, and a roof over my head.” She wasn’t going to tell him that her hobby was finding worthy causes and charities on which she could bestow her money. That was a part of her life that would remain secret. For now.

“I’m happy for you, Moira,” he said, sincerely. “That your grandfather made it possible for you to get out from under that toxic roof, and that you had someone who truly loved you.” He grew introspective. “My own grandfather,” he added, choking up a bit, “took over the role of father in my life after mine died.”

Moira studied him.

She’d shared. Now it was Welker’s turn.

“Tell me about him.”

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