Bearing The Long Road Home (Ice Bear Shifters 7) by Sloane Meyers

dispatcher and sat in one of the rickety chairs in the office to fill it out.
    “You don’t have to fill it our right this minute,” the dispatcher said. “You can always take it to your room and bring it back later, after you’ve had time to complete it.”
    Seth shrugged without looking up from the form. “I’ve got time now. Might as well get it done,” he said. “I hope this damn storm blows over quickly so I can get back to work.”
    “Don’t worry,” the dispatcher said. “It happens now and then, but these blizzards usually blow over quickly.”
    Seth bristled when he heard the dispatcher say “blizzard.” He had purposely avoided using the word, but others had no idea what kinds of bad associations it stirred up in his minds. He finished the form as quickly as he could, and then handed it wordlessly back to the dispatcher before leaving the office.
    He shivered as he stepped out into the cold. Despite his warm layers of clothing and his parka, he still felt the chill. This kind of weather was something you never fully got used to. You just learned to cope the best you could. Seth made his way back toward his room, trying to figure out how he was going to pass the time today. He had meant to go into town and buy some new books before training ended, but he had never gotten around to it. Seth looked up at the sky. It didn’t look like the storm was too bad here in Yellowknife. Maybe he could borrow a pickup from someone and head into town.
    Thirty minutes later, Seth was behind the wheel of a borrowed pickup, heading to the local shopping mall. He searched for a book but didn’t find anything that particularly drew his interest. Not wanting to go home empty-handed, he grabbed a few at random and hoped one of them might prove interesting. He did find quite a few things that drew his interest in the shopping center’s smokeshop, and he spent quite a bit of time choosing cigars. By the time he was done shopping, it was nearly lunchtime, and he decided to eat while he was out, just for a change of pace. He had a heaping plate of sweet and sour chicken from a Chinese restaurant, which he thought was surprisingly good. With nothing further in town drawing his interest, he got back into the pickup and started heading back toward the trucking base.
    But as he turned the engine on, a little seed of an idea took root in his mind: he should go to the hospital and visit Chloe. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it away, horrified. No matter how attracted his bear was to her, she was a Blizzard. And no matter how little responsibility she’d had for her clan’s actions, he couldn’t be friends with someone like her. That was that. Seth resolved to head back to his room and start reading one of his books. He would do whatever he could to make sure his path crossed with Chloe’s as little as possible over the next three months.
    Seth’s resolve lasted all of about three minutes. His bear’s demands were too strong, and Seth’s heart was somehow tangled up in knots over Chloe Powell. He turned his vehicle toward the hospital, telling himself he just needed to make sure he had detailed everything accurately on the accident report. Yeah, right. He was falling for Chloe and he knew it. He hated himself for parking in front of the hospital and walking up to the receptionist’s desk to ask if she was able to have visitors. But he couldn’t stop himself.
    The receptionist called up to Chloe’s room, and Chloe apparently gave her the go-ahead to send him up. After donning a sticky nametag with his name and the word “Visitor” scribbled on it, Seth headed to the room number that the receptionist had written down for him. When he reached the room, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He had no idea what he was going to say. This whole situation was nuts. What was he, a Northern Lights shifter, and former clan member of a now completely wiped out clan, doing knocking on the hospital room