A Promise To Bear (Second Chance Shifters 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the kitchen table, confused by this turn of events. “What did she mean just in case? And what does some random bears wandering around have to do with you?” Just then, Twila remembered seeing the bear right near the lodge yesterday. “Oh my God, I should’ve told her. I saw a bear yesterday, when I was in Gram’s office. He was walking up the mountainside, but nothing looked off about him. And he wasn’t anywhere near the guests, so I didn’t think anything of it. Not that he didn’t terrify me, because he did.”
    “You’re terrified of bears?”
    She nodded slowly. “Wouldn’t you be? A bear killed my parents. I know the damage that they can do.”
    “You don’t know anything,” Jasper said before he left the cabin, slamming the door behind him.
    Twila stood from the chair so quickly that it rattled against the floor. She flung open the door and yelled after him. “Then tell me! You’re so goddamned secretive all the time that I don’t know what’s going on. So why don’t you just clue me in? Maybe then…”
    He turned around, looking at her, green eyes almost glowing in the morning sunlight. “Maybe what?”
    She sighed heavily, “I don’t know. Maybe then whatever we had, what I think we still do have, could be something more. We could be something more, Jasper, you know it. Why won’t you just accept it?”
    He crossed the grassy hill that led back to the cabin in seconds. Now they were so close that it was hard not to touch him. To reach out and stroke her hand along his stubble.
    “You think that I haven’t accepted it? I knew who you were to me the minute that I met you. There hasn’t been a single day in the past three years that I haven’t thought of you. That I haven’t dreamed of going to Montana and bringing you back here. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t right.”
    “Why? What’s so different about us?”
    He set his lips into a thin line for a moment, shaking his head and looking away.
    “You’re human,” he finally said, looking back into her eyes.
    “Of course I am.” She paused, confused. “Wait, are you telling me that you’re not?”
    He put his hands around her shoulders, trying to convey the heaviness of his burden. “No Twila, I’m not.”
    Her eyes grew wide, but she didn’t flinch or step away like he expected. “You’re a shifter.” She said it like it didn’t surprise her. He didn’t understand.
    “You knew?”
    “No, but I suspected. I remember when you went looking for Britney in the woods, you went by yourself, with no tools, and I don’t even remember you taking your jacket. No supplies, but yet you said you’d be staying out overnight. These woods are dangerous. I suspected then. But I didn’t have any confirmation until just now.”
    “You just told me that you’re terrified of shifters, which makes this situation difficult. But I know how I feel, and there’s nothing difficult about that. I’ve missed you so much.”
    She broke free from his hold and pushed herself into him, his arms enveloping her. He had just told her his biggest secret, and even though she’d suspected for years, she knew it took a lot out of him to finally admit the truth. Jasper had always been different, but in a good way. He wasn’t like any other man she’d ever met. There was just something about him that made her whole world shift when she was around him. He made her feel things that no one else ever could.
    “I want to make this work. And I know I have to be honest with you.”
    “Then be honest.”
    “I love you.” He said it so smoothly, like he had been holding it in his whole life. For a moment he, and his bear, felt relief.
    She held her breath for a second. This incredibly sexy man that had been the source of all of her sexual fantasies for the past three years had just told her that he loved her. And that he was a bear shifter. But the thing that worried her the most about the situation was that she wasn’t concerned about either of those