A Promise To Bear (Second Chance Shifters 4) by Meredith Clarke

1
    Twila
    “ I can’t believe she’s dead,” Twila said in a rush of words. The phrase felt like it was coming out of her mouth without her even trying. She shook her head back and forth slowly, the phone still clutched in her hand. “How? When?” The questions seemed insignificant, yet she felt like she had to ask them. It was her duty.
    The girl on the other end of the line simply responded about how she passed away in her sleep and that it was peaceful and short. An aneurysm they said, so she didn’t even feel the pain. But Twila felt the pain, the stabbing through the heart. She rubbed her chest, wondering if she would feel the warm, sticky blood on her fingers; there must be some physical evidence of the pain she was feeling. But instead her hand came away clean. “I was supposed to come visit her. I was just about to book my ticket.”
    The unknown caller sighed heavily. “Well, you’ll still have to do that. Someone needs to take care of her affairs. And there’s the lodge to think about.”
    Of course. The lodge. It was her grandmother’s life’s work to open a lodge in New England. Twila had moved to Montana with her parents as child, but she spent all of her summers at the lodge. That was until three years ago. Three years ago, everything had changed, and she hadn’t been back since. She had only seen her grandmother for Thanksgiving once since then. She should have spent more time with her. She should’ve made more of an effort—she wasn’t some child that could hide from her past anymore. She was an adult, and she should’ve acted like one. And now it was too late.
    “Of course. I’m sure that she had some arrangements in place?”
    “Yes. There’s a will, but there are some things that I would like to discuss with you personally.” The woman on the other end of the line was Lauren Turner, her grandmother’s lawyer. It was sad that she had been the one to call Twila, but none of her friends had picked up the phone. Twila doubted any of them had her number anyway. This was the most direct route. Besides, no one wanted to call a woman’s Granddaughter to tell her that she had passed. This was reserved for a professional.
    “I’ll check flights today to see if I can get on anything tomorrow. I’ll have to take vacation time with my job so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “It’ll be good to see you again, Twila. It’s been a long time since you visited.”
    Twila chewed on her lower lip nervously. There was a reason for that. But she wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet. “Yes, well, I have a flight to book. Thank you for calling.”
    She hung up the phone and imagined dialing her mother to tell her the sad news that she already knew. Twila’s parents had been killed in a tragic accident while visiting her grandmother three years ago up at the lodge. She struggled with the pain of losing them for so long, and now she felt truly alone in the world. She had no family left. It was just her and her cat, Ice. There was absolutely no funny story behind his name; she just liked the song “Ice Ice Baby” when she got him. Old-school rap was kind of her thing. She sat down on the floor and he padded over to her, climbing into her lap and rubbing himself against her chest. Usually, he settled down into a little ball and fell asleep, but he could tell something was wrong. Instead, he continued to rub his head back and forth on her arms.
    “It’s okay. We’ll be okay. We’ve been here before.”
    She grabbed her phone and started looking for flights. It was time to go back, whether she wanted to or not.

2
    Jasper
    “ I f we get one more order of ugly ass flowers in this lobby, I’m going to kill someone.” Jasper knew it wasn’t a kind thing to say. But he couldn’t help it. There was a part of him that was broken inside about the death of his beloved Grace. And the more flowers that sat around the lobby and made more work for him, the crazier he became. He didn’t want a constant