Texas Tornado (Freebirds Book 5) (13 page)

“Busy.” He snarled.

Oopsey, must’ve hit a nerve with that one.

We started circling each other, neither one willing to make the first move. The crowd was chanting ‘Shiva’s’ name, urging him to ‘kill that motherfucker!’ and “Don’t hurt the pretty boy’s face.’

“Is that so?” I laughed. “You and your brother have a lot in common. Sam decided that he didn’t want to have anything to do with her either.”

Sebastian came to a stunned stop, and I took advantage of his temporary lack of attention and struck. My fist met his face with a satisfying crunch, and his nose sprayed an arc of blood over the concrete floor.

Not one to be outdone, Sebastian struck out moments later with a right hook to my face, but I deflected it enough that it only grazed my jaw.

We traded punches like that for ten more minutes, and finally, the rage that had been present since finding out that Anna would be seeing my daughter started to fade. With each punch, hook, jab, and block, I started to think beyond my rage. That’s when the real fight began.

***

“You have a baby. In a bar.” I joked.

Shiloh’s eyes regarded me with annoyance before she turned and did another circuit in front of the bar in her brother’s office. The boy sleeping in her arms was much larger than the tiny little infant that we’d seen two years ago.

“Don’t use Sweet Home Alabama quotes on me. They won’t work.” She growled.

I was in a good mood for the first time in what felt like two weeks. I’d needed that fight more than anything, and I appreciated Sebastian for giving it to me, even if it wasn’t for the same reasons as I’d had.

“Where’d Terry go?” Sebastian asked as he shrugged his cut back on as he entered the room.

Shiloh mumbled something derogatory, but the only thing I’d made out was ‘crazy bitch.’

“Your lovely sister sent Terry home.” Jordan, the man who’d nearly lost his life earlier when I’d seen him on top of Shiloh, said.

Jordan was a prospect, and although I know he was doing his job and protecting Sebastian, I didn’t give a fuck. It would take me a long fucking time to think of him in any other way other than hatred.

Sebastian’s glare returned to his sister, and I barely contained the chuckle that was forming in my chest. I know how that felt. My sister did ‘things for my own good’ all the time, whether I wanted them or not.

“If you need someone to watch my nephew from now on, please call me. I don’t think it’s good to have the sitter giving a blowjob to some burly man drunk on God knows what, while my nephew is in the same room. Especially when the man is saying, ‘yeah, baby. Suck my fat cock. Get up here and sheathe that hot cunt over my throbbing pork meat.’ I think not.”

Sebastian’s face turned hard as stone, and then he turned and left the room abruptly. Seconds of silence followed, and then the sound of a large bodied person being dragged kicking and screaming could be heard. Then said man was unceremoniously dumped inside the office.

“You’re telling me you fucked the help while my kid was in the goddamned room?” Sebastian bellowed.

My eyes went to Shiloh, and the young toddler in her arms, wondering if the sound of his father’s bellow would wake him, but it didn’t. Which made me wonder what the boy had witnessed, in his young life, to not even to flinch at such a commotion.

“Awww, man. Johnny was sound asleep.” The man sporting a broken nose, and most likely a broken rib or two, whined.

“Johnny’s my goddamned kid, not yours. I decide what is and isn’t good for him. If he’s fucking sleeping, then you leave him the fuck alone. Go find someone else to fuck, and make sure it’s not the fucking babysitter, either. I trusted you to watch over him. What the fuck would’ve happened if someone had come in while you were fucking the help. What could you have done with your dick in someone, Torren?”

Torren’s face went red with embarrassment at his lack of attention.

“Oh, he found that out first hand when your sister yanked Terry off his cock and threw her out the back door naked. Then came back for Johnny, all the while giving poor Torren the lecture of his life.”

“Get out of my sight.” Sebastian growled.

Shiloh started for the exit when Sebastian sighed, superbly exasperated. “Not you, June. Torren, get the fuck out and don’t show yourself for a couple of days.”

“Yes, sir.” Torren nodded and left.

“Take a seat James. Shiloh.” Sebastian gestured to the couches across the room.

I sat down on the loveseat, leaving Shiloh the recliner, but she surprised me by taking a seat next to me, scooting close. Leaving me no choice, I raised my arm and she cuddled into my side before laying her head down, and quite literally, falling asleep.

Sebastian sat down across from us with a disgusted look on his face. “Do you have to get that close to my sister?”

“Hey,” I said, shrugging. “This is all her.”

He nodded, watching his sister and son sleep for a few minutes before looking up at me. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

I decided to ignore the demand in his voice, and gave him a recap of the last eight months.

“Goddammit. I told my father this wouldn’t work.”

“What?” I asked, trying to sit forward and forgetting that Shiloh was using me as a bed.

Leaning back against the couch, I waited patiently while Sebastian debated what he shouldn’t and should divulge.

When he finally started speaking, I quite literally had no words.

Nothing in my life could’ve surprised me more than what he said.

***

Shiloh

“Holy shit.” My mind screamed.

It’s amazing what you hear when you pretend you’re sleeping.

Mind blown.

Chapter 11

Ladies- if your men don’t know how to fire a weapon, you have a girlfriend.

-Earl Dibbles, Jr.

Shiloh

“Where’re we going?” James asked again, for the fifth time.

“You’ll see.” I said cryptically.

We were on the ‘date’ that I’d promised, and I wanted to see him in his element, and the only way I could think of doing that was taking him somewhere I knew he would love.

When we’d gotten home from Louisiana, I’d decided to sleep over at James’ place since it was so late, and I would’ve been over early for our ‘date’ in the morning anyway. As I was coming outside this morning, I ran into Sam. He’d apologized, for the seventeenth time, and I took pity on him by trying to make conversation.

I’d asked Sam about the girls, and eventually it’d turned into what James loved doing, and that was how James and I ended up going to the shooting range.

Of course, him having the Y chromosome automatically made him have to drive. So I’d given him directions on how to get where we were going. Once we’d gotten on the last road, his demeanor had changed, and he knew exactly where we were going before we pulled up to the gates.

“Sam told me you’d have a code to get in.” I explained when he just looked at me.

“Yeah, I do.” He agreed.

Lifting his right butt cheek, he fished out his wallet from his back pocket, dug through it, and the produced a card that had
National Rifle Association Member
on it. Once he had it swiped and the gate swung open, he pulled his Bronco in through the gates and waited for it to close behind him before starting down the long drive.

“Where are we going, exactly?” He asked carefully.

“Well, I have two reasons for coming here. One,” I said holding up a finger. “Is that I want to practice with my .38. I have a concealed handgun class next weekend, and I don’t want to make a fool of myself. The other, is that Sam said you’d enjoy coming here. He even sent me with a rifle.”

His eyes shifted to take in the backseat, but looked at me in confusion when he didn’t see anything.

“I had Cheyenne hide it in the back for me. I didn’t want you to tell me no.” I said cheekily.

“I would’ve never told you no. It’s just that...” He started to say before trailing off.

“What?” I asked confused at the emotion I saw in his eyes.

“I had a friend who died while on a mission with me. He was my spotter. Ever since his death, well, let’s just say I haven’t found incentive to get out here.” He said gruffly.

Sam had told me that might be the case, and I didn’t tell him that I had his rifle in the back of the truck. Sam had been holding it ever since his mission failed, and Dougie had died. I’d also gotten the story on Dougie, and I was truly heartbroken to hear of it.

According to Sam, Dougie was James’ spotter. While on a fact-finding mission, they’d been made, and when they were going to the extraction point, Dougie and James had both been hurt. Only Dougie had died, while James had lived. Sam said that ever since, James hasn’t been acting the same.

I wasn’t sure if James would shoot his rifle, but I figured I would let the option be available if he decided to face his fear.

“When was the last time you shot your rifle?” I asked curiously, as he came to a stop outside the handgun range.

I hopped out and went to the back of the truck, waiting patiently for him to take in his surroundings, and then finally open the back hatch with his key.

“A few years.” He hesitated. “Four to be exact.”

Four years ago was when Dougie had died. And that broke my heart a little bit.

“Well, don’t laugh at my target shooting skills.” I said lightly, very aware that his mood was taking him down a dark path that I very much didn’t want him down.

“I’ll help you, honey.” He laughed lightly.

Five boxes of ammo, and a thirty-minute search of the immediate surrounding area for the copper casings later, James and I were standing beside his truck staring at the rifle range.

“We don’t have to do this.” I explained hesitantly.

“It’s okay, I’ve put this off long enough.”

With that bold statement, he grabbed the case to his rifle and walked up to the area where he could set up his rifle. He did so with swift adept movements. First came removing the rifle from the case. Then he checked the chamber, the safety, the scopes mount, and finally set up the bipod to where the rifle rested on the table.

Ejecting the magazine, he loaded the shells that Sam had handed me earlier with a hopeful smile, and replaced the magazine into the bottom of the gun. Gesturing to his earphones with his eyes, I reached forward and placed his pair he’d produced from under the seat in his truck over my ears, and stepped back to sit on the concrete bench that was directly behind him.

Since no one was in the rifle target area, he didn’t have to tell anyone that he was walking down range. Using a fancy handheld device, he took his staple gun and a target, and walked downrange. It took him what seemed like forever to walk, and walk until he was at his desired distance.

Once there, he pinned the target to the metal wire that was hanging across the range, and then walked back to me, licking his finger, and holding it in the air as he came back towards me. Seeing that he was in his zone, I stayed quiet, not asking the questions that were barely being held in, practically burning a hole to escape the confines of my mouth.

He took his time setting up, reading the handheld device, and then producing a pen and post-it from his pants. He wrote something down, looked at his scope, and adjusted it in some way that I couldn’t really see from my vantage point.

I was utterly flabbergasted by all that went into the process. The man was stunning when he was in his element.

Today, he was wearing dark washed jeans, brown mud-caked boots, and a fitted gray t-shirt that hugged his muscled torso to perfection. He had on a pair of blue Oakley’s that covered his expressive hazel eyes, and his beard, that just yesterday resembled a five o’clock shadow, now covered the lower half of his face with a scruffiness that only added to his sexiness.

Now, with his cheek snug against the stock of the rifle, his eye close to the scope, and his muscled shoulder cradling the butt of the massive gun expertly, I was sure I’d never seen anything sexier in this world. The man was the picture perfect example of a man.

His hand flicked up in a gesture of ready, and I held my breath, waiting for him to finally break through the barrier that he’d put up four long years ago.

Crack.

The sound of the rifle shot echoed through the tall Pine trees, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“That’s some damn fine shooting there, son.”

My heart leapt in my chest, and I turned sharply to find my father standing behind us. Although muffled, James’ curse didn’t escape my awareness.

“Hi, daddy.” I smiled.

***

James

“Mr. Mackenzie.” I nodded my head warily after switching the safety on my M21.

Silas Mackenzie was an intimidating figure. He was wearing jeans that had holes in the knees, a black t-shirt, and a flannel shirt that was hanging open. A small amount of leather peeked out every time the wind gusted. Which made me notice that he was covering the leather cut that was probably exactly the same as his sons had been last night.

I could make out a shoulder rig over his big burly shoulders as well, most likely hiding the same hand cannon I’d seen him sporting the last time I’d seen him. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp, but it did nothing to hide the silver lines of his hair. His beard was cropped close to his jaw, giving him a rugged appearance.

His arms were crossed closely across his chest, and he was looking at Shiloh with no short amount of love in his eyes. That look changed once his eyes turned from her to me at my greeting.

“I see you finally got back out here, boy. It’s good to know you haven’t lost the touch.” He said, nodding towards the range.

How he knew that I’d gotten a good shot, I didn’t know. From my naked eye, I could barely make out the bullet hole that ripped through the middle of the target. Directly in the center of the 0 at center mass. I could most certainly tell when I had my eye at the scope, but he didn’t have anything but his eyes. Although they were cold and calculating.

“Yeah,” I answered when I could think of nothing else to say.

“May I speak to you in private for a moment, James?” Silas asked.

I nodded in affirmation, and Silas’ sharp gaze turned pointedly in Shiloh’s direction.