Special Ops Shifters: Dallas Force: The Complete Series Collection (Shifter Nation) Read online

  Frustrated, she flung the covers off and let the cool air of the ceiling fan wash over her. Eventually, she pulled them back on again. She rolled over onto her back, her stomach, and each of her sides. Nothing was working. Insomnia wasn’t a completely unusual experience for Sabrina. No matter how tired she was from work, there’d always been times here and there when she couldn’t sleep. She’d learned a long time ago that the best therapy was to get up out of bed and find something else to do. Sabrina would clean the house, throw in a load of laundry, or study up on something she’d been interested in. Before long, her eyes would get heavy and she’d be ready to try sleeping once again.

  Done with fighting with herself, Sabrina chucked the covers off once again and launched herself out of bed. She marched to the bedroom door and then stopped in her tracks. Max was on the other side of that door. She couldn’t just go out there wearing nothing. Even if she tossed on a robe, she wasn’t sure she’d feel comfortable with him seeing her like that. Damn it. She was trapped in her own room.

  Still, Sabrina needed something to do, and she put her robe back on just for good measure. She went back to the bed and kneeled next to it, pulling out the plastic tote that was now her memory box. Her baby photos and trophies from high school had been stashed elsewhere. This was the time capsule of her adulthood, of all the time she’d had ever since she’d moved out of her parents’ place. Setting the lid aside, Sabrina dug through the more recent editions and down into the past of a few years ago until she found the stratum that indicated her life with Max.

  Maybe it was all stuff she shouldn’t be dwelling on, but she’d been unable to stop thinking about him anyway. Sabrina knew there was a good reason the two of them weren’t together, and she needed that reminder. This would put her in the right frame of mind to deal with Max as a professional she had to work with and not her ex.

  The first was an invitation to a graduation party. Sabrina ran her hand over the embossed letters, remembering the red dress she’d worn for Maria’s big day. It was of a much more daring cut than she usually allowed herself, but she’d been feeling bold. If she was honest with herself, she was even more rebellious because Max had refused to come with her. The two of them were new to each other, and she’d been excited to show him off to her friends.

  Max hadn’t wanted anything to do with it, and he’d been almost rude about it when he’d turned her down. Out of spite, she’d put on the sexiest thing she owned and went out anyway.

  “Wow, Sabrina! You look amazing! I thought this was supposed to be my party, but I think you’re about to take center stage.” Maria handed her a red cup full of something strong.

  “Oh, don’t be silly.” But Sabrina enjoyed the compliment. She spent most of her time in a lab or the library, and no one really talked to her like that. “But do tell me if there are any good-looking guys here tonight.”

  Maria cocked a dark eyebrow. “I thought you were with that Army guy. What’s his name?”

  Sabrina flicked a hand in the air, watching the way the colored lights sparkled in her jewelry. “Max? Well, we’ll see about that.”

  “That’s not like you.”

  “What do you mean?” Sabrina frowned at her friend.

  “You just don’t seem like the kind to love ‘em and leave ‘em,” Maria replied with a shrug.

  But it wasn’t fair that everyone always expected so much from her just because that was what she always delivered. Just because she was a good person didn’t mean she didn’t want to have a little fun now and then. Sabrina flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “I’m a grown woman, and I don’t need to depend on a guy like Max to have fun tonight. And if I'm honest, he said he didn’t want to come.”

  “Oh.” Now it was Maria’s turn to frown. “Why? Did he have other plans?”

  Thinking about it only made it even more of a sore point. “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t want to be here, but I am. So I’m not going to worry about it. Now let’s celebrate all that hard work you did in school and the hard work you’re about to do at that law firm!”

  But try as she might, Sabrina just couldn’t get into the party. She saw other couples pairing off to dance or snuggle, and she wished she was one of them. Her friends were there for her, but she really only wanted to be with Max. The real kicker was when Maria’s hot cousin Rob came over to talk to her. He got her another drink. He asked her to dance. He flirted. But he just wasn’t the same. Rob didn’t create that animalistic urge inside her, the one that made her feel like she was so much more than a regular woman.

  When she got home later that evening and found a text message from him, apologizing and even hoping that she still had a great time, she knew she only wanted to be with Max.

  Sabrina growled her disgust as she pitched the invitation back into the box. That wasn’t what she was looking for. She needed something that would remind her of exactly why they weren’t together, not why they should be. Max was simply irresistible. It didn’t matter if she was considering his dark eyes and hard body, or the way he made her feel.

  Ah, that was the problem. It had always been about the way Max made her feel. Love was pure emotion, but a successful relationship had to be based on more than that. She needed logic, order, and sensibility. Sabrina knew she couldn’t possibly find that with a man like Max Jennings, and the proof of it was somewhere in this box.

  She flicked past several receipts and movie ticket stubs until her fingers found a photograph. In the day and age of digital photography, a real picture was a pretty rare thing. Sabrina couldn’t remember the last time she’d had one printed out, and the photo she held in her hand could’ve very well been it.

  The two of them were grinning at the camera, their smiles so cheesy it looked painful. Light and love were in their eyes, not to mention excitement and hope for the future.

  “Where are we going?” Sabrina asked from her seat in the helicopter. Max had just recently taken a job with Luxury Air Tours. She knew he was a capable pilot, so she wasn’t worried about that. But she didn’t want him to get into trouble.

  As he always did, he sensed her tension and laid his hand on her thigh. “Just relax and enjoy the ride. Mr. Stephenson knows I have the chopper out for the day.”

  That only assuaged her worry a little. Max was a wonderful guy in many ways, but he also liked to push the envelope any time he got the chance. Sometimes that made him fun, and other times, it just made her concerned. “All right. If you say so.”

  Max laughed and shook his head. “You’re so uptight sometimes, Sabrina. I know that makes you a good surgeon, but you can’t be Dr. Barrett all the time.”

  “I’m not!” she protested. “I do lots of other things, too.”

  “Such as?” he challenged.

  “Well, I…” She trailed off when the only things she’d done recently included reading medical journals, doing research online related to the latest trends in cosmetic surgery, and volunteering at an underfunded clinic. “Oh! I had lunch with Melanie and Astrid the other day.”

  “Doesn’t count since they’re also in the medical field,” he replied with a grin.

  She scowled playfully at him. “It does, too.”

  “Did you talk about anything remotely related to medicine, patients, anatomy, surgery, or health insurance?”

  “Maybe.” Sabrina could see the ocean coming into view on the horizon. It wasn’t a complete surprise, considering how long they’d been flying, but it made her sit up and look around a little more. “Okay, really. Where are we going?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, kitten.”

  She wasn’t a patient woman, and she knew that about herself. He knew it, too, and he enjoyed torturing her that way. But when he added ‘kitten’ to the end of any sentence, it made everything better, no matter what was happening.

  Sabrina watched her surroundings, looking for something familiar. Stretches of sand mingled with the blue-green of the ocean, like Earth’s natural tie-dye. It was beautiful, but she
still didn’t understand why they were there.

  Not until Max swooped lower and massive letters appeared in the sand. ‘Sabrina, Will You Marry Me?’ had been carefully written below them, but they blurred and almost disappeared as tears filled her eyes.

  “Max! How did you do this?”

  He grinned. “I don’t think that’s the most important question right now.” He was holding out a tiny black box. The ring’s impressive blue diamond was flanked with alternating blue and white ones down the sides of the band. “Don’t look so surprised. I pay attention.”

  “You really do,” she said. It hadn’t been anything they’d discussed, just something she’d mentioned in passing when they’d seen a jewelry commercial on television. The usual white diamond engagement rings from chain stores were what everyone else had, and she didn’t like to follow trends. “Yes, Max. Absolutely yes.”

  Carefully keeping control of the chopper, he managed to extract the ring from the box and slip it on her finger. It felt cold and solid, a perfect reminder of what was about to happen.

  Sabrina put her thumb over Max’s face and focused on herself. There were elements of the girl in the photo that were still the same as what she saw in the mirror now. It wasn’t as though she’d aged considerably. But the Sabrina who existed when that photo was taken seemed to exist in a completely different lifetime, or even a different dimension. She most definitely wasn’t the same now.

  She slid her finger aside and studied Max. He wasn’t the same either, especially if she only went off the photo. In it, she could see the light and happy side of him. But Sabrina knew he very rarely let that out to play back in those days, and she had a good feeling it was still the same.

  Laying the photo gently back in the box and feeling angry with herself for finding all the wrong memories, Sabrina picked up a piece of cardstock wrinkled with glue from all the magazine photos that’d been cut out and pasted on it. This was her mini vision board for her wedding, something she’d pieced together out of bridal magazines as she dreamed of the day she and Max would get married. There was the picture of a model wearing the gown she’d picked out. It seemed simple enough, a V-neck sheath that dropped to the floor. But the elegance was in the details, and the bodice was covered with the tiniest white beads, the pattern dripping down into the skirt. A picture up in the corner showed the white lilies and pale orange roses she wanted in her bouquet. Another image showed the shoes she’d hoped for, even though she knew she’d pass up something as expensive as Louboutins and grab something from the local department store. She’d included a photo of Malaquite Beach where he’d proposed, hoping for a seaside ceremony. The bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, the table decorations, her jewelry, the cake, it was all there together. That piece of paper made it look so easy to throw a wedding together.

  But that wedding had never happened.

  There were no physical mementos to remind her of how things had gone down over the last couple of months of their relationship. Sabrina needed only to close her eyes to remember how it all felt. She’d been incredibly busy with her work at the hospital. The administration was becoming aware of her talent and wanted to use her as much as possible to keep their ratings high. She’d been glad to accommodate them, considering it also meant more money in her pocket and better chances for promotions.

  “Jesus Christ, Sabrina. Are you ever going to get a day off?” Max was still up when she got home. A couple of empty beer bottles indicated how he’d been spending his time while he’d waited.

  “Why are you still up? You should’ve gone to bed hours ago.” She knew he had to get up early and get to work.

  “Not like I sleep well, anyway,” he grumbled. “But we’re not talking about me right now. I think it’s about time you told your boss to give you at least a day or two to sit down and breathe for a second.”

  Sabrina sighed. “It just doesn’t always work that way, Max. You knew when we got together that my career was going to take up a lot of my time.”

  “Yeah, but not all your time. At least tell me you’ve got some time on the weekend.” He stood up and chucked his bottles in the recycling bin. Max wasn’t drunk, just angry.

  “Of course, I…Oh. Actually, I’ve got that dinner I’m supposed to go to for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Why don’t you come with me? We can make it a date!” She rarely got the chance to show her fiancé off to her coworkers, and it’d be fun.

  But he frowned. “I don’t want to go to some stuffy dinner.”

  “It’s not like it’s black-tie,” she countered. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

  “I’m busy.” It was late, and he should’ve been on his way to bed, but he plopped back down in front of the television instead.

  Sabrina crossed her arms. “I didn’t even tell you what time it starts yet.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m busy.” He wasn’t even looking at her now, a sure indicator that he was upset. Not that she didn’t already know.

  “Fine. You complain about me being busy, but you don’t want to go to the slightest effort to spend time with me when I try to make it work. I’m going to bed.” Sabrina stormed off to bed, angry that he’d always put her in situations like this. Why should she have to be the one making accommodations for their relationship all the time? Shouldn’t both of them be making compromises? She twisted the sparkling ring on her finger, wondering just what she was getting herself into for the rest of her life. The wedding was only a few months away.

  By the time she woke in the morning, she’d gotten over her irritation with his lousy attitude. It was true that she’d been working a lot, and maybe that wasn’t fair to him. There were only so many hours in a day, and their work shifts rarely correlated, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make a few more efforts to do something he wanted. Max didn’t want to be toted around like a little dog in a purse to all her events, and she could understand that.

  But the bed beside her was empty. Sabrina frowned. If he’d spent all night on the couch, then he was committed to this argument. She decided she’d be the one to step up and say she was sorry and headed out into the living room.

  But Max wasn’t there. It was too early for him to have left for work, and an instinctive panic spread inside her. Sabrina raced back to the bedroom and saw what she hadn’t noticed before. His side of the dresser was empty. Flinging open the closet doors and the dresser drawers only told her more of the same story. Max was gone.

  He’d left her. He’d actually left her, without a word. After all the time they’d spent together, after the bond their tigers shared, he’d decided that one little argument was enough to call the whole thing off. Sabrina sank to the floor next to the bed, soaking the sheets with her tears.

  The memory brought a tear to her eye, and she wiped it away. This wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard to try to get past him, and now there he was in her apartment. Worse, he was being paid to be near her, serving as her bodyguard. Somehow, he must’ve thought that translated to also being allowed to criticize her life and her home as much as he wanted. He was selfish and arrogant, and that hadn’t changed a bit.

  So how could she still feel the way she did, even after all this time? He’d hurt her—deeply. Sabrina had nearly put her career in jeopardy after he’d left her, since she’d spent all her time in bed or with her head in the fridge. It hadn’t made things any better in the long run, but it’d made her feel better in the moment.

  Stop being such a baby, Sabrina, she scolded herself. Dwelling on the past isn’t going to do anything to help your future. Go to bed. She reached for the lid to the memory box, ready to slide it back into the dark recesses under her bed.

  5

  Max wiggled his toes on the plush rug. Everything about this apartment was cushy and luxurious, and it was driving him crazy. There was no rational reason for it, but as far as he was concerned, there didn’t need to be. Sabrina was just getting to him.

  He’d seen the look on her face when she’d emerged on t
he rooftop, and he’d sensed the hesitation in her body before she’d boarded the chopper. She didn’t want him to be a part of this mission any more than he wanted to be. It was an awkward situation they’d been put in. It was just too bad she wasn’t being more cooperative about dealing with it.

  They’d eaten dinner at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, sitting two feet apart and hardly speaking. She hadn’t even given him the chance to chip in for his portion of the meal, paying for it ahead of time to show off just how much money she’d been making. As if he hadn’t already been able to tell how loaded she was.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Max liked to keep the ringer off when he could so he wouldn’t have to hear the noise.

  It was Vance. “Hey. Just thought I’d check in and see how things were going.”

  Max was immediately suspicious. Had Sabrina called and complained about him already? No, that was ridiculous. It wasn’t as though just anyone could track down the phone numbers for the Force. Even her conclave probably wouldn’t have given her that information. “Just fine.”

  “No problem making the transition from the conclave guard?”

  “No.” Max had wondered exactly who the guy who’d been assigned to her was, his tiger’s jealousy rippling just under the surface. He’d noticed the warmth and affection with which the guy had looked at her, but he’d restrained himself enough not to pursue that conversation yet.

  “Good. And her place is secure?”

  “As secure as it can be,” Max scoffed. “You know, I haven’t looked up real estate listings for luxury apartments like this one, but if I did, I’m sure I’d find they cost enough to warrant coming with their own bodyguards. And you should see the windows in this place. With just a flip of a latch, they’re open.”

  Vance didn’t say anything for a moment. “You sure you’re all right with taking this job?”

  Was he sure? Of course not. But he wasn’t about to admit that. Max had learned a long time ago that ignoring his weaknesses was often the easiest way to deal with them, even if it wasn’t the best way.