The Right to Bear Arms: BBW Military Paranormal Romance (Wild Operatives, #1) Read Free

on up on the porch, Daniela, before you catch a cold.” I maneuvered in close until I was beside her, my body between hers and Mike.
    “This has nothing to do with you, asshole, so get back in your damn truck and get the hell out of here. Daniela, you keep your fat ass where it is until I say you can go.”
    I passed the shotgun into her hands and advanced on her ex. “You want to do this? I’m right here.”
    I let him score the first hit. His fists were light and fast without any power behind them, barely more than a swat to my face and a second to the ribs. I knew guys like him from sparring in the military during training sessions. They were the small ones, lithe in build and stream-lined, the sort who favored a lot of fancy footwork. His speed didn’t help him; I only had to hit him once. My fist crashed into pretty boy’s jaw and knocked him backward onto the wet pavement, barely bruising my knuckles in the process. The satisfying crack of impact made me grin.
    “Good enough to bully a woman, but you can’t beat on me, can you? Come on. I’m waitin’.”
    He glared up at me from the ground, his face wet with rain and tears no doubt. I hit like a freight train when I wanted to, and for him, I’d held nothing back.
    “You want to fuck her that bad? You can have her. She only has two tricks, and once you get tired of her laying there, you’ll be ready to give her back and go back to fucking your cousin in the woods.”
    When I stepped toward him to finish what I started, he sprang up from the ground and darted around his truck. He hopped into the driver’s seat and peeled out of the drive. Once he rumbled out of sight, I turned my attention back to Daniela.
    She was mortified, and I couldn’t blame her one bit. Avoiding any chance of meeting my eyes, her trembling hands passed the shotgun back to me while her face turned away.
    “Daniela? You okay, darlin’?”
    “I’m fine,” she lied through her teeth.
    “Why don’t you go on inside and get dry? He won’t be back tonight.” He’d be going to the ER to get an x-ray if he knew what was good for him.
    “Yeah, I should... He didn’t hurt you, right? I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”
    “Ain’t nothin’ to apologize for, ma’am. Give a holler if he bothers you again.”
    I waited for the lock to click into place before I headed back to my truck, wiping water from my face. Once I reached home, I parked under the carport and headed inside to receive a greeting from my best friend. Trigger met me at the door with his tail wagging.
    “Hey there, boy. Missed you,” I rubbed his ears a few times then kicked off my boots while he ran out and handled his business. I shed my soaking wet clothes and tossed them into the bathroom hamper, delaying my usual afternoon routine for a shower.
    I was starved by the time I finished, changed, and poured a couple generous scoops of food into Trigger’s bowl. I settled for a cold sandwich, too hopeless in the kitchen to make much more than stew and chili. Sometimes a little old lady from down the road brought me a casserole and a pie, but I survived the rest of the time on crockpot soup and barbecue from the grill.
    “Met a real jerk today, boy. You’d have had fun with him.” Trigger’s soulful brown eyes gazed into mine with understanding. “But I think I did the right thing.”
    I hoped I did. Back while I was away on my sixth deployment, one of our neighbors gave my wife, Katie, a load of trouble about her songbirds shitting on his car. She’d argued with him, headstrong and stubborn to the very last word, and then one day, she’d gone outside to find little feathered bodies in different corners of the yard.
    Ian had been our other neighbor and home to enjoy his R&R, and after she despaired, he’d taken it upon himself to set up a hidden camera angled into our yard. When the cops wouldn’t take action without proof, Ian did the work and gave the evidence to them. Our bullying neighbor paid