Colton hunched his shoulders and smiled. "I'm not going to say wedon'tlike a nice fluffy hollow in the ground, but we do have one of those huge family tents, yeah. You're less likely to be caught sleeping in a chimera-pile if you can lock the door on strangers."
"Good point. Anyway, so…" Jo shook the sleeping bag out of its own tiny wrapper. It was both longer and wider than he expected after her description, and she held it up demonstratively. Itdidnarrow at the foot, and clearly had a hood-like thing at the top, but it looked plenty big for one person comfortably and two if they were friendly.
Possibly very,veryfriendly.
She's our mate,his chimera said.Of course we're friends!
Colton didn't even try to explain that one, asking, "Does it unzip into a blanket?" cautiously instead. "I just don't want to make you uncomfortable."
"Nope. The thing about mummy bags is the zippers stop around the chest, because they're the weak point in a sleeping bag's insulation. So…" She spread the bag out, unzipped it as far as it could go, then laughed. "Getting us both in there at all isgoing to be an exercise in squirming. You're going to have to go first, I think."
"Well, not yet. It's not late yet, even if it's getting dark."
"I can fix that, too." Jo dug back into a bag and came out with a box of tea-light-sized lanterns that she tapped on with a fingertip as she scattered them around the tent. To Colton's delight, they were warmly yellow instead of the bright hard LED white he expected, and he let out a sigh both of relief and pleasure.
"Those are great. You're incredibly prepared."
"Small plane pilots should be. I like to camp, too, and spend a lot of time out on the range," Jo said with a shrug. "But if something goes wrong with a flight, assuming you survive at all, you really should be prepared and comfortable with your tools."
"Looking at your preparation, I now think I'd probably starve or freeze to death in about six hours."
"Maybe if you were stuck in one shape, but I can't imagine that giant chimera can't hunt. Or at least scare things to death by jumping out of the bushes."
I can hunt,his chimera said with offended dignity.I'm very fast and fierce.
"That's true," Colton said to both Jo and his chimera. The chimera settled down, and Jo offered him one of the snack bars, which claimed to have real chocolate and peanut butter. He took a bite as she found water bottles, accepted it, made a face, drank some, and said, "That's not bad, actually, but it's pretty dry, isn't it?"
"Yeah. On the positive side, there's plenty of snow to melt for water if we need it."
"I thought you weren't supposed to drink snow water," he said vaguely. "Too cold, or something."
"Ideally you'd warm it up next to your body, yeah, although then of course you're melting snow with your precious bodyheat. Fortunately," Jo stressed, "I don't think we're really all that far from a road. I hope."
"And if we are, we'll figure it out," Colton promised. "But in the meantime, since we're stuck in about thirty-six square feet together for the night, do you want to, like, split the tent down the middle, or…?"
"That'll be tricky with the single sleeping bag," Jo said with a smile. "No, I'm good. This has got to be deep dark secret time, right? We share our most closely-held secrets with a stranger we'll never see again, it's very romantic, or something. Although you've kind of beaten me to the punch, haven't you? I don't think I can top 'turns into a chimera.'"
Maybe not, but she could certainly punch him in the heart with a few words. It was perfectly reasonable of her to think of him as a stranger she would never see again, but the idea took Colton's breath away.
Tell her we'll be together always,his chimera prompted.
Can't do that, buddy. The last thing I can do right now is tell her something like that, when we're stuck here together. It's kind of coercive.
Co-what?
It means it might make her feel pushed into a situation she can't avoid,Colton said gently, and he could feel his chimera's repulsion at the idea.
Oh. Oh no. We want her to feelsafe, not co-hearsed.
Coerced,Colton corrected, but he'd been quiet too long already, even in the brief, silent conversation, and Jo was starting to look worried. "'Turns into a chimera' is kind of hard to beat, yes," he agreed. "And I'm all for hearing Jo Talbott's life story, but only if you want to share it."
"I don't, usually," Jo said thoughtfully. "I mean, it's not terrible or anything, I just don't like talking about myself very much. But somehow I feel differently about you. Like…like I'mgoing to tell you everything sooner or later anyway, so why not get started? What do you suppose that's about?"
"Kismet," Colton suggested. "Sometimes you meet someone and you just hit it off."
"True. Old souls meeting again, maybe. Seriously, though, my story isn't nearly as interesting as yours. I grew up on a bison ranch with my brother and parents, went to college in Bozeman, came back home and found out—" She broke off abruptly and Colton's eyebrows drew down.
"Something bad? Not that you have to talk about it, but…"
