Free Texas Tornado (Freebirds Book 5) by Lani Lynn Vale

me.
    “Marjorie!” He roared.
    I flinched at the vehemence in his voice. God, but I just couldn’t freakin win. My life was one huge clusterfuck to the tenth degree. Here I was, twenty-six, going on twenty-seven, and I was about to die. Alone. Unloved.
    Hooray.
    Fuck it. If I was going to be shot, I damn sure won’t be going out without trying to fight.
    ***
    James
    “Okay, where the fuck are you?” I growled as I came back down the stairs of Shiloh’s apartment.
    I rounded the corner to the diner and my heart nearly stopped.
    Shiloh had her hands hanging down limply at her sides standing next to the bar. A young woman, twenty two at most, was behind the bar, mouth slack jawed and her hands up by her ears, and a man in his late sixties who resembled a grizzly bear with his wild brown hair and large round body stood in front of them both with a .357 revolver pointed straight at Shiloh’s face.
    My basic survival instincts, the ones that were honed to a razor sharp point in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ones that kept me and most of my brothers alive during the most brutal of times, took over. My vision sharpened, my hearing fine-tuned, my adrenaline coursed thickly through my veins. The rapid beat of my heart thumped an erratic tattoo against the wall of my chest.
    When my eyes stayed locked on the man with the gun, even when Shiloh’s scream ripped down my spine and settled deep in my gut. My hand tightened minutely on the gun that I had in my hand, even though I had no knowledge of pulling it. Nor did I have knowledge of aiming it.
    However, I found myself with one eye closed, staring down the length of the barrel. Tritium sights framing the large man’s center mass, ready to pull the trigger. With one breath, I found my calm. The next, I pulled the trigger.
    ***
    “Mr. Allen, can you please repeat what happened again one more time?” Detective Pierson Howell asked with condescension dripping like acid from his every word.
    “Are you arresting me?” I finally asked.
    “No. I’m just trying to procure what happened here. Some things don’t line up.” He ground out.
    “I’ve already explained the encounter in its entirety. I’ve explained what I saw happen. I explained that I couldn’t afford to wait, that I felt like the situation would deteriorate very fast. Therefore, if I’m not under arrest, then I’ll be leaving. I have a young daughter at home, as well as an inconsolable woman to take care of. If you’ll excuse me, Detective .” I snapped and turned.
    Detective Pierson didn’t like the way I said detective, and I saw his hackles rise as soon as I said it. “Oh, yes. I’ve heard about the allegations that are being filed against you. Tell me, is it true? Do you rape your daughter?” He droned from directly behind me.
    I froze. My hands clenched, and my body tensed in anticipation.
    My eyes rose and my mouth opened, but Shiloh, who was standing to my right, erupted. I say erupted, because there were no other words for what happened next. She simply exploded.
    “You have got to be kidding me!” She screeched.
    The men and women loitering, as well as the crime scene techs, male and female officers, and brothers, froze and watched the explosion unfold.
    “This man,” Shiloh gestured to me with her pointer finger. “This man saved my mother fucking life! That man was about to blow my head off. He had a fucking .357 pointed at my face. Do you know what a .357 does to a watermelon? It fucking explodes. Every fucking inch. There is no way you would ever be able to fit those pieces together again.”
    She got closer as her temper raged. The next thing I knew, she was in Pierson’s face, finger millimeters from his chest. She knew better than to touch him, but that didn’t stop her from rising on the tips of her toes and getting in his face.
    “And the nerve. The guts it takes to imply that this man,” Another finger pointed in my direction. “to say that this man rapes his