by Meg Ripley
“Of course.” Moving out of the way so that she could retrieve the garment from the back of the couch, Jude felt something surge inside him. Whatever was happening there was none of his business. As the future Alpha of his clan, it was up to Jordan to take care of his family. Even so, Jude was overcome with the urge to sweep her up into his arms and fix whatever was bothering her.
“You don’t need your jacket,” Jordan barked. “It’s late, and you need to be in bed. We’ve got a meeting in the morning.”
“I don’t care. It’s not like anyone cares about what I have to say, anyway.” Annie shoved past her brother and left once again, slamming the door behind her.
Jordan plopped back down on the couch and took a swig of his beer. “She kills me, man. I worry about her. This asshole Dakota that she’s dating isn’t any good for her.”
Jude was still staring out the door Annie had gone through, feeling as though his heart had gone through it, too. Annie had always been a pretty girl, but something was different. He grabbed his beer to drench the desert that now occupied his throat. “How old is she now?”
“Eighteen, but that doesn’t mean she can just do whatever she wants. The clan comes first, you know?”
Jordan rambled on about responsibility and how important it was for shifters to stick together, but Jude wasn’t listening. He was thinking about Annie, and how strange it’d felt to be around her. She wasn’t just Jordan’s little sister anymore. Never before had she evoked that strange, swirling feeling in Jude’s gut that made him want to shift just to get past it.
“…kick the ass of any guy who tries to take advantage of her.”
That part caught his attention. “Right. Of course.” This was Jordan’s younger sister, not just some hot little piece of ass. That was difficult territory to navigate.
“Are you there?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I’m here.” He hardly even knew what to say. Why would she suddenly call him after all this time? “How have you been?”
“Not good, actually.” Her voice was thick, as though she was trying not to cry. “I know this is a really slim chance, but have you spoken to Jordan lately?”
Jude ran a hand through his hair and then quickly put it back in place, even though she obviously couldn’t see him. Hell, his hand was shaking. “Can’t say that I have. He seems to be pretty busy now that he’s a Hollywood big shot.”
“Damn. Okay.”
“What’s going on?” Jude realized Annie wasn’t just calling to catch up on old times.
Annie sighed. “Jordan’s missing. He was supposed to be back in town after shooting a movie on location. His flight landed yesterday, but he never called to have me pick him up at the airport. No one has seen or heard from him, but the rest of the clan thinks I’m just overreacting. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll help you.” His reply came automatically, without even thinking about it.
A heavy pause sounded over the line, but when Annie spoke again it was with disbelief. “You will?”
There was no doubt in his mind. “Absolutely.”
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xx Meg
Preview of Secret Baby For The Soldier Bear
Have You Read book 1 of the Special Ops Shifters: L.A. Force series? If not, flip the page for a preview…
1
Gabe Vinson scanned the dusty parking lot just before he stepped into the bar. It was a force of habit that he doubted he’d ever be able to drop. His time with the Delta Force had kept him constantly vigilant. Sure, there didn’t seem to be any threat from this place. Vance wouldn’t have invited him there if that were the case. Gabe smiled, thinking of some of the times they’d shared before Gabe had moved on to Delta and reconsidered. Or maybe he would have…
He found his old friend at the bar and slid onto the stool next to him. He glanced at the chalkboard menu on the wall and the clean tables scattered around the place. “This isn’t quite like the shit holes we used to frequent.”
Vance laughed and took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, it’s a little cleaner than those. And hey, you won’t get any sand in your whiskey here.” He gestured at the barkeeper to pour Gabe a drink. “How are you holding up?”
“Well enough,” Gabe said with a sigh, scratching his fingers through the short beard he’d grown out ever since his medical discharge. “You know how it is. You think when you get out that everything will have stayed the same, but it’s all different. All the girls you used to date have gotten married and had kids. Some of them even married your buddies, so they’re not interested in going out, either. Your family wants you to come visit, but they don’t know how to talk to you anymore. And even though they say they want to hear what you’ve been up to, you can only tell them so much.” He nodded at the bartender for the shot of whiskey and took a sip, enjoying the burn.
“I’m sure it’s even worse for you. The Delta Force doesn’t fuck around with that sort of stuff,” Vance agreed. “I’m mighty glad you made your way back around through Dallas, though. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. You said you were trying to figure out what to do with yourself now that you’re out.”
“Right.” Gabe knew that Vance was a member of the Special Ops Shifter Force, a group of veteran soldiers with special skills on top of their ability to shift. It was supposed to be a secret, and it still was when it came to the human population, but the more work the Force did, the more word spread about them throughout the shifter community. Right now, they’d essentially achieved rumor status. It sounded like just the kind of work Gabe would enjoy, but it wasn’t as though the Force just stuck a ‘Now Hiring’ sign in the window when they had a vacant spot.
Vance looked casually over his shoulder. The bar was loud, and no one had been rude enough to sit down right next to them. “Well, have you decided where you want to live?”
Gabe let out a snort of laughter. “One place is about as good as another to me as long as it’s stateside. I came from a military family, so I’ve never been in one spot for very long.”
“How do you feel about Los Angeles?”
“L.A.?” The grizzly tossed back the rest of his drink and let is swirl on his tongue as he thought about it. “I guess that would be all right. Just like any other city, right?”
The cowboy tipped his head from one side to the other. “Sort of. It’s got a hell of a lot of people in it, and a decent percentage of them just happen to be shifters. There are more of them than the local conclave has been able to keep track of, actually, and it’s recently come to light that some of them are forming gangs. It could be incredibly dangerous for shifters as a whole if this is allowed to get out of hand.”
“What exactly do you want me to do about it?” Gabe had spent his entire military career trying to hide his true identity from anyone who was pure human, and the other soldier shifters he managed to find were few and far between. The idea of connecting with so many more people like himself was an intriguing one.
“Not just you, but a group. See, the SOS Force was started in Washington, D.C. by Dr. Drake Sheridan, a Special Forces Medical Sergeant. As the need for the Force expanded across the country, the Dallas unit was formed. After you came to see me on the ranch, I talked a bit with the guys in Dallas and with Drake himself. It seems that we may need to start up yet another unit, this time in L.A. We’ll have to find all the right people to staff it, all shifters, all former Special Ops.” Vance pointed at him with the mouth of his beer bottle, his eyes steady. “I’ve recommended you.”
Gabe lifted his empty glass to get the bartender’s attention. He
watched the liquid swirl in the glass for a long minute as he thought. Gabe was the type of man who liked to take action. Not only did he not mind being busy, he lived for it. There was nothing worse than sitting around idly, and even in the Delta Force, he’d had his share of that. This could be one hell of an opportunity, and he didn’t think he could dare pass it up. “You’ve got yourself a recruit, Vance.”
“Hell, yeah!” Vance rang his beer against Gabe’s glass. “We’ll be working on a list of other potential members, and we’ll get you set up with a headquarters building out there in L.A. Garrison, who’s part of the D.C. unit, is great with construction, so you’ll have everything you need.”
Gabe smiled. When that mortar had blown him up and left his ribs peppered with shrapnel, he thought he’d lost everything. His job and the missions he’d worked so hard on for the U.S. Army had all gone down the drain and left him with no direction and no future.
But he was about to have it all back and more.
In theory, commercial flights should be downright luxurious compared to the planes he’d been on with the Army. The seats were more comfortable, someone brought a snack and a drink, and the chances of having to jump out the side door were pretty minimal. Even with a normal landing, there was no concern about having to head straight off to war.
But being seated in front of a small child who couldn’t sit still and continuously kept kicking his seat made Gabe wish he was flying with good old Uncle Sam again. The talkative man to his right wasn’t making things any better.
“Ah, the good old city of Los Angeles,” he announced in a voice worthy of a cheesy game show. He ran a hand through his bleached hair and flashed a blinding white grin. “Is this your first time?”
Gabe nodded. He’d gotten used to talking to all sorts of people in his work with the Delta Force, learning to connect, despite cultural and lingual differences. So many locals from the various countries he’d worked in had been kind and welcoming, but this character was something else. “Yes, it is.”
“Whoa, baby! You’re in for a real treat. You haven’t traveled at all if you haven’t been to the City of Angels.”
Gabe stifled a laugh. This sleaze with a fake spray tan would’ve shit his pants if he'd hopped a plane to some of the places he’d seen. “You don’t say.”
“I have to ask: are you here for business or pleasure?” He nudged Gabe’s elbow on the narrow armrest suggestively.
“Business,” Gabe quickly affirmed. “I’m here for a new job.”
“Oh, you’re moving here? Even better. Tell me, where are you from?” The man was leaning forward, grinning enthusiastically as he waited for Gabe’s answer.
There was no point in trying to ignore him now. Gabe had baited the bear, and now he had to stay for the rest of the circus. “A little bit of everywhere, actually.” He’d moved around enough in his life, both as a child and an adult, that he didn’t have a place he could call his hometown.
“Well, let me tell you, the nightlife here is crazier than you could ever imagine. Hell, there’s plenty to do during the day, too. I’m sure you’ll start with all the touristy stuff. Everyone does. You check out the beach and the museums and the shopping, but the more you look, the more you find. I swear, you could do something different every day and never run out of new things to do. The clubs are absolutely wild, and there are gorgeous babes around every corner.”
“Great.” Gabe didn’t really care. He had work to do, and that was far more important than drinking too much or getting himself in trouble with a woman.
The man nudged him once again. “Come on, man. A young guy like you? You’ve got to be excited about being surrounded by chicks with the best tit jobs in the entire world. Seriously, the honeys are absolutely dynamite!”
What year was this guy from anyway? “I’m good, man.”
“You married or something? I mean, not like that should matter.” He chuckled as though they shared some stupid inside joke.
He could make conversation all he needed, but Gabe wasn’t interested in sharing details about his personal life with a stranger. The guy had no idea how these sorts of things worked for men like Gabe. Shifters were attracted to plenty of people, sure. They had relationships that came and went like anyone else. But that was nothing compared to the feeling of finding one’s true mate, that deep and spiritual moment when two souls that had been created for each other were finally in the same space and could feel each other in their blood. He’d felt that once, but he’d had other obligations that had pulled at him harder.
Fortunately, the crackling sound from the overhead speaker kept him from having to respond. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out the left side of the aircraft, you can see we’re approaching the city of Los Angeles. Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We’ll be landing as soon as possible. Thank you.”
Gabe turned to the window. Sure enough, the baked wilderness of the Mojave had changed into verdant mountains embracing a sprawling city. The plane bobbed and dipped in the air as the pilot changed direction, bringing more and more of the city into focus. The massive skyscrapers were the easiest to spot, and the gridded blocks that surrounded them slowly coalesced into numerous homes with turquoise swimming pools and businesses. Another turn of the plane brought the ocean into view, with miles and miles of beach showing as a crisp white line.
Los Angeles, even from the air, was clearly bustling with life. Gabe peered down at it, wondering just how many shifters made up its population. If Vance had been right when he’d mentioned there were more shifters in L.A. than anywhere else in the country, Gabe would have more than enough to do.
An hour later, when he’d made it through baggage claim and had taken an Uber to his hotel, Gabe spotted two men seated in the lobby. They watched him as he checked in, one of them leaning over to whisper to the other. They were shifters, he could tell. In the short time that he’d been in the city, he’d already encountered quite a few of them.
A knock came on his hotel room door as he was getting settled in. Gabe turned away from his suitcase and looked through the peephole to find the same two men he’d noticed in the lobby. One of them was tall and dark with green eyes and a broad physique. The other was only slightly slimmer, his dirty blonde hair combed back and his clothes neatly pressed. He looked familiar, but Gabe couldn’t quite place him.
Gabe wasn’t one to hide, though he knew there was a chance the two strangers were after him. He’d made plenty of enemies by the time he’d left the Delta Force. You couldn’t fight terrorism or carry out the most dangerous missions on the planet without pissing a few people off here and there. For all he knew, these two men were either seeking revenge for his former work or trying to prevent him from ever getting to his first day on the new job. He checked the pistol tucked into the back of his waistband and opened the door.
The first man grinned as he stuck out his hand. “Gabe Vinson, I’m Garrison Stokes from the D.C. unit. This is Hudson Taylor. May we come in?”
Gabe shook their hands and opened the door wider, laughing a little at himself for thinking they could be anything other than the Special Ops Shifter Force members sent to meet him. He was just too eager for action, and the idea of languishing in a hotel room hadn’t appealed to him the way it did to most people. “Of course. It’s nice to meet you. Vance told me a lot about you.”
“All shitty things, I’m sure,” Garrison joked. He took a seat in one of the chairs near the window, his large body folding into it. “You’re the first one to get here. We’re still working on the rest of the recruits, but we didn’t want to wait to get started. I take it you know what you’re in for?”
“The general idea, at least. Shifters have problems that can’t always be solved by the human authorities or even our own conclaves, and that’s when we step in.” Gabe remained standing, eager to move, but glad that things were getting started.
“Pretty much,” Hudson agreed. “There’s no real limit to the types of missions we run, eit
her. We’ve protected important people, settled arguments within clans or among them, and even hashed some things out between conclaves themselves. I have to say that when we started the D.C. unit with Drake, I didn’t think we’d be that busy. The next thing I knew, we were flying all over the country.”
“And now there will be one more part of the country that’s taken care of,” Gabe added. He didn’t know this city or its people, but he liked the idea of protecting them. “That all sounds good to me. What do we do first?”
“First, we find a place to use for headquarters. We can’t do much of anything unless there’s a building to work out of. Hudson here is in charge of all our communications equipment, and we’ll need a place to put it.”
Now Gabe knew why the blonde man looked familiar. “You’re not Hudson Taylor of Taylor Communications, are you?” He’d heard a lot about the telecom corporation in the news and all the massive efforts its wealthy owner was making to ensure connectivity throughout the entire world. He was rumored to be an absolute genius when it came to the latest innovations in the tech industry.
“For better or worse,” Hudson said with a smile. “I’m excited to show you everything we’ve already established with the other units. I’ll be sure to have everything set up so we can have remote meetings among all the units if necessary.”
“Great. So we’ll need space for meetings. What else are we looking for in a headquarters building?”
“It’s always tricky finding just the right place. We want something big enough to house not only a meeting space, but enough living quarters for everyone involved. Some of the team members might choose to stay in their own housing, but I think it’s important that we have enough space in case anything disastrous should happen. In Dallas, we managed to find a place that had been some sort of showroom. There was a lot of empty space that I could convert and use the way we needed to. Something like that would be ideal.”
