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

door of a Blizzard?
    Chloe’s voice called for him to come in, so he pushed the door open and closed it behind him, standing awkwardly next to it as though he might need to bolt and run at any moment. Chloe was sitting up in bed, looking much less frightened then yesterday. Her hair, which had been pulled back into a tight bun the last two times he had seen her, now hung loosely around her shoulders in a beautiful, curly mess. She was stunning. Absolutely stunning. Seth told himself for the thousandth time to get a grip, but his self-admonitions were useless in the presence of such a magnificent woman.
    “Hi,” Chloe said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
    “Yeah, well. I, uh, just wanted to tell you that I had to fill out an accident report. Um, so, yeah. I did that,” Seth said, trying unsuccessfully not to sound like he was rambling. He thought he saw a hint of amusement pass across Chloe’s eyes.
    “Okay,” she said. “Hopefully you were in a better mood when you filled it out than you were last night.”
    “Yeah, sorry about that,” Seth said. “I guess that’s kind of the real reason I came by. I feel badly for storming off like that. It’s just a lot to process, you know? I never expected to run into…one of your clan out here. And I certainly didn’t expect to hear a story about how your alpha was an insane dictator. It was, uh, quite an interesting day yesterday, to say the least.”
    Chloe nodded. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I never expected to run into a shifter from the Alaskan clan wars out here. I came here to get away from that mess. I understand if you hate me. I guess I’d probably hate me, too, if I were you. But I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair. I’m only here to make enough money to get far, far away from Alaska. Farther away than here, because this isn’t far enough, obviously. I hope you can just forget that I’m here and let me be. I promise that as soon as I have enough funds to start over somewhere, I’ll be long gone.”
    Seth nodded, but inside his bear was going crazy. He wanted to tell Chloe that he couldn’t forget her. He wanted to tell her that she should have yelled at him, and told him he could go to hell if he thought she actually had anything to do with the bloodshed the Blizzards had caused. He wanted her to make him feel ashamed for treating her the way he had, so that he could tell her she was right, and he was sorry, and did she think they had a chance?
    Damn it all, what the hell was wrong with him?
    Chloe sat looking at him with a neutral expression on her face, waiting for him to say something. She was probably hoping that he was going to leave, and tell her that he wanted to avoid her, too. But for some reason, he couldn’t tear himself away. Instead, he felt a confession bubbling up inside of him, and inexplicably making its way to his tongue. Before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth, he said them.
    “I have a lot of scars. No matter how far I run, they will always be there.”
    Chloe stared at him silently, seemingly unsure of what to say. Seth decided he had done enough damage here. He was babbling, and telling her things about himself that were painful and deeply personal. He turned to leave, but paused briefly with his hand on the doorknob when he heard her speak. Her voice sounded sad, and resigned.
    “I have a lot of scars, too. You can’t see them, because they’re on my heart, not my body. But I’ll never outrun them, either.”
    Seth stood still for several long moments, trying to decide whether he should say anything else, or acknowledge her statement. But he finally turned the doorknob and walked out without any further comment, leaving Chloe alone in the hospital room.
    It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the pain she was obviously going through. It was that he cared too much. He didn’t know how to stop the flood of emotion that overtook him every time he saw