Ella sat with Andrew inside the small cabin below deck. It was a good little ship, but not something you’d want to be stuck in a storm in, especially with a baby.

Even with the heat cranked up, Ella could feel the cold closing in. She shivered and rocked the baby’s car seat on the bed. She was worried. More worried than she’d ever been. At least now she had help. Even if it was from the man she’d been running from for almost two years.

The truth was, she missed him. In all the years they’ve been together, turning from friends into something more, she’d loved him a great deal.

She’d known that shifters had fated mates. Since the shifters had come out to the public in the nineteen fifties, most people knew a little bit about their culture. She’d know Tate for four years and loved him like a first love. When he told her that she was his fated mate, she’d felt betrayed. In all those years, he had never told her. Then all of the sudden, he just expected her to marry him.

Sitting in the boat now, she realized she should have known all along. After they first met, Tate had only tried to be her friend. He was older than her and their age difference had been inappropriate. But they had both played baseball at school and their friendship had blossomed out of that.

Ella just couldn’t take the pressure from every side. Her parents wanted her to be a lawyer, just because it was a good paying job. With her parents on one side and Tate on the other, all Ella wanted to do was run.

She had to find her own little place in the world, and make a life for herself. She needed to make her own decisions and stop letting other people tell her what to do.

As she sat looking at her baby, she wondered if her rebellion had been worth it. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what anybody else thought. She’d been taking care of herself and her baby all this time. She’d proven to herself that she could do it, even if it was hard.

After about an hour, the boat began to slow and turned until it stopped. Ella picked up Andrew and climbed out of the cabin. On the deck, Tate was throwing the line over onto a wooden pier. He jumped off the boat and attached the line to the mooring. He stood and helped Ella climb out. They walked down the pier through the marshy beach. Ella looked around to see they’d docked in an inlet on an island out at sea.

There was a small rustic cabin tucked below the hillside. She cringed and held the baby tighter. This place was going to be cold. Tate opened the door of the cabin and flicked on a flashlight as they came inside. She breathed the musty, stale air, damp with the cold and the sea. Tate lit a kerosene lamp and began to build a fire in the fireplace and the wood-burning stove. It was a one room cabin with a big double bed, a table and chairs, a sink with a standpipe, and two windows that looked out the front of the house.

“I guess this can work,” she said, shivering even in her parka.

Tate just grumbled and continued building the fire. Ella sat on the bed and pulled a jar of applesauce from her diaper bag.

She held Andrew on her lap and fed him with a little rubber spoon. Tate looked up at her and smiled for the first time since they’d arrived at the cabin.

“This might not be that comfortable,” he said in a growly voice.

“At least we’re safe,” she said with a deep exhale. “I’m so tired of running. I just want to sleep.”

After she finished feeding Andrew, she pulled the blankets back on the bed. It wasn’t too dusty or damp. She crawled under the covers with the baby and rested her head against the stiff pillow.

She was bone tired and had been running on terror for days. For the first time since she’d left Fairbanks, she felt safe enough to close her eyes.

The feeling of security was definitely because of Tate. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but having him near made her feel like a huge weight was lifted from her shoulders. It wasn’t just because of the Glacier Wolf Pack either.

The whole time she’d been alone in Fairbanks, working to take care of her kid, she’d been right at the edge of her ability to keep her shit together.

She’d done it. She’d proved to herself she could. That didn’t change the fact that she felt like she was about to break down into a puddle of overwhelmed sludge every single day of her life.

Ella had resisted telling Tate about the baby for a long time. She didn’t want to be obligated to him, to have to become his wife, with no choice of her own. Having him near made her reconsider everything she’d been telling herself all this time.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to have someone to depend on. Tate had taken control and had found a solution by the end of the day.

They were still on the run, but now she had some hope that she and Andrew would be safe.

“Are you going to sleep?” Tate grumbled from above her.

“I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m so tired. So is the baby.”

“There’s only one bed,” he said. “I’ll spread out on the floor or find a place to bed down in the woods.”

“Oh. I didn’t even think about that,” she said, yawning. “You’ve already helped me so much, I don’t want to put you out.”

“Believe me. You aren’t.” His words sounded stiff and cold. Ella glanced up at his face. His expression was tight and unreadable.

She’d dropped into his life with his baby, forced him out of his warm home, and out into a remote cabin right before a snow storm.

Ella took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about it now. Tate would have to make sense of things on his own. She could barely keep herself from losing it as it was.

“I’m going out to get the rest of the supplies from the boat. I even nabbed a box of diapers from the lodge. He’s six months, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, her mind moving quickly toward sleep. Diapers. One less thing to worry about.

She heard the door close behind him, and her eyes fluttered shut, Andrew tucked safely between two pillows.