by Meg Ripley
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 m
uch,” Hudson agreed. “There’s no real limit to the types of missions we run, either. 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.”
“And I imagine it needs to blend in with the surroundings,” Gabe added.
Hudson nodded. “Absolutely. There will be four of you, so we know we need at least that many apartments within the HQ building. The new comm officer will need to work closely with Hudson, and our med sergeant can do all the exams since Drake can’t be here. That just leaves Amar and Jude. We don’t have any information about your immediate families yet, though.”
Gabe understood what they were asking, and he shook his head. “It’s just me.”
“I’ve got a few places lined up to evaluate this afternoon if you’d like to come along,” Garrison offered. “There’s nothing for us to do until everyone else gets here, anyway.”
“Sure. Let’s go.” Now more than ever, Gabe was desperate for something to do. Checking out buildings for sale would give him the chance to see more of the city while also getting to know some of the men he’d be working with for the foreseeable future, even if it was only by long distance.
Garrison drove as they checked out the first place, an ample office space that took up one level of a massive glass building, but Gabe’s mind was on anything but real estate. Somehow, the question of whether or not he lived alone had struck a chord with him. Growing up, Gabe had been incredibly close to his mother. His father had left when Gabe was just a kid, leaving her to raise her three cubs on her own. Gabe had immediately taken up the position of man of the house, but at first, he had no idea how to do it. He didn’t know how to provide for them, and he wasn’t even old enough to learn that lesson.
It hadn’t really hit home for him until he’d gotten out of bed one night when he couldn’t sleep. Gabe could still see the memory clearly instead of all the palm trees and glittering glass around him. His mother sat at the kitchen table with papers spread all around her. Her back was hunched over, and at first, Gabe thought she’d fallen asleep. But then he’d noticed her shoulders shaking and heard the sound of her weeping.
“Oh, Gabe,” she’d said when he came forward and put his arm around her shoulders. “There are many things I hope for you and your sisters, but the one thing I want for you most of all is not to have to choose between feeding your family and paying your bills.”
Gabe’s mind had drifted to the pantry, which he knew was nearly empty. His sisters had been complaining about it earlier in the day, and so had he. Guilt washed over him.
“Life isn’t easy, Gabe,” his mother had continued. “And kids are wonderful, but they’re also very expensive. I want you to make me a promise.”
He was only ten; he didn’t know what to make of any of this. Gabe had never seen his mother cry unless they were watching a sad movie. She hadn’t told him she couldn’t pay the bills, and in that moment, he wished she hadn’t. He didn’t know what it meant or what he should be doing about it, but he didn’t feel he could ask, either. “All right.”
“Promise me you will never start a family and then leave them behind. Family always takes care of family. It might not be easy. We won’t always get along and agree on everything. But you must always take care of your family.” Her dark eyes, eyes he hadn’t inherited from her, implored him to do as she asked.
“Okay.” He hadn’t known what he was agreeing to at the time; Gabe only wanted to make his mother feel better. In time, he’d come to understand that she meant she didn’t want him to make the same mistakes his father had. At the moment, though, he’d understood it in a completely different way.
Within a week, Gabe had a job delivering papers. It meant getting out of bed before the sun came up, taking his bike across town to fold and stack his newspapers for the day, and feeling like he’d had a complete workout before he’d even started school. He got home just in time to help his sisters get ready, something that always seemed to take a few of the worry lines out of his mother’s face.
At the end of his first week, he once again found her at the kitchen table with her bills spread out on the battered surface. He set his pay down in the middle of all of it, a smile on his face.
“What’s this?”
“It’s what I earned this week, and I’ll do the same again next week. Mr. Robinson even gave me a tip.” He’d felt so proud of himself, knowing he was keeping his promise to his mother.
“No, sweetheart.” She gently pushed the cash back toward him. “That’s not right. You keep your money.”
He’d stared at those crumpled bills, bewildered and confused. “But there are bills to pay. I want to help, Mom. I can do this.”
She pressed her lips together, still uncertain, but finally, she nodded. “All right. You have enough here to take care of this one.”
He watched as she filled out the payment slip and put it along with the money in an envelope. Gabe went to bed that night knowing he was a real man, one who took care of his family the way he should. And from that point on, he’d never looked back.
“What do you think?”
“Hmm?” Gabe had let himself get so lost in his thoughts that he’d hardly paid attention as they toured the building.
Garrison gave him a look. “I was asking what you think of the place. We can do whatever we want with this floor when it comes to remodeling and such, but being in a district full of office spaces might pose a problem.”
He looked around, suddenly realizing he’d come a long way without paying a lick of attention. He hadn’t officially started his new job with the SOS Force, and already he was failing. “I agree. Something a little more out of the way might be better.”
They followed the realtor to another building that they wouldn’t have to share with anyone, but it was still located at a major intersection. Another warehouse had ample space and wasn’t too close to traffic, but it didn’t meet Garrison’s expectations on something he could make habitable.
The realtor, Mrs. McKeal, stood on the sidewalk flicking through listings on her tablet, her long fake nail tapping faintly against the screen each time. “I think I have one more place. It might not be quite wha
t you’re looking for, as it’s currently a residential building, but if you’re running a private business that doesn’t require a lot of foot traffic, I think you’ll be okay.” She’d seemed a bit sour over the fact that they didn’t like anything yet.
Garrison nodded. “We’re open to anything.”
“Okay, but it’s a little expensive.”
Her sedan slid through a gate and into the driveway of a sleek and modern house. It didn’t look like much from the road, but the fact that it butted up against state park land was certainly a bonus. He got out of the rental car and smiled, finally starting to feel good about moving there.
“We’re looking at six bedrooms and seven baths,” Mrs. McKeal announced as she let them in through the front door. “It’s just over four thousand square feet. This is the perfect place if you like to be outdoors with the number of patios and outdoor living places it features. Here.” She strode through the main room, sailing past the fireplace and the twelve-foot ceilings toward the back of the house.
At the push of a button, large sections of the back wall began to move. They receded into themselves like pocket doors, making the living room more of an outdoor space with not so much as a door separating them from the private pool out back.
It was impressive, and it was certainly a nicer place than Gabe had ever lived before, but what intrigued him most was when they made their way up to the second floor.
“Like I mentioned, there are a lot of outdoor spaces,” Mrs. McKeal reminded them before opening a patio door with a flourish.
Gabe stepped out, warm fingers of sunshine brushing against his skin as he took in the scenery. The wild hills, with their scrubby brush and soaring trees, were calling to him already. The grizzly bear that lived inside him lashed and growled, demanding that he shift immediately and jump over the rail. He’d make it safely to the ground, and then it would only be a short run before he was in those hills that called to him.