His boss spluttered. "That's not what I meant. Although yes, that too."
"I know it's not what you meant. I'll call tomorrow, all right? There's a lot going on here."
"I saw. Take care, Colton. Glad you're not dead."
"Me too." Colton hung up, and although he didn't think he fell asleep, it seemed to only be a blink between hanging up and arriving at the Talbott ranch. People once more poured out of vehicles, shouting and hugging, and as Laura and Ben Talbott started a tour of the premises, Jo appeared at Colton's side.
His heart lurched, he was so glad to see her. She looked pale and tired, the usual red roughness of her cheeks more flushed than usual, but her smile was ready and waiting for him. "I bet if we go to sleep now nobody's going to notice we're even gone for at least an hour."
"I have literally never heard a better idea in my life." Colton let Jo take him by the hand, and followed her around the side of the house to an outbuilding a snowball's throw from the main building. He had time, and energy, to glance around at what looked like a one bedroom apartment before they went into that bedroom and both collapsed on the bed fully dressed, and went to sleep.
Somewhere in the middle of the night he woke up enough to get his shoes and coat off. Jo had done the same, and rolled closer to him when he lay back down. He tucked her close and fell back asleep immediately, to the point that he woke up disoriented because he didn't recognize the ceiling.
We're with our mate,his chimera said contentedly.Everything is okay.
That was hard to argue with, although a sense of responsibility made Colton check his phone to see if Jerry needed anything, back in New York.
The first message was, in fact, from Jerry. It said,We're fine. Go back to sleep.
Colton chuckled tiredly and drifted off again for a few minutes, waking when Jo got up and started padding around. He opened his eyes lazily, watching her through his lashes, and it struck him that it was almost the first time he hadseenher: they'd been bundled in five layers of clothes most of the time they'd been together, and separated at the hospital for a lot of the previous day.
She was wearing a t-shirt that came to her thighs, and snug sleeping pants beneath that. She really did have long, rangylimbs, just as he'd thought from how she'd moved, and her hair turned out to be much longer than he'd realized: it fell to the middle of her back in rough curls that had been pulled back or tucked away as long as he'd known her. She was slim and muscular and tall, able to effortlessly reach up to pull something off a high shelf. Then, as if she suddenly became aware he was watching her, she turned with a curious smile.
"Morning," Colton rasped. "You're beautiful."
"You're delusional," she told him, though she was obviously pleased. "I haven't had a shower in four days. Five? I've lost count."
Colton had to close his eyes to figure that one out. "Five," he said after a moment. "Plane crash, hypothermia, cave, hospital, today. That makes today day five."
"I'm incredibly impressed you were able to figure that out. I keep losing track. The shower," she added, heading into the bathroom, "is this way."
She was less impressed when it took him another three minutes to realize that was an invitation, but he made it up to her, and by the time somebody knocked on the front door, yelling about breakfast, they were both washed, dressed, and ravenous. "It's going to be loud," Colton warned as they headed for the main house, then slowed as he realized how tremendous the view was. "Wow. God. No wonder you want to stay here."
"Not bad, is it?" Jo slowed, too, leaning against him and smiling as they looked out over the ranch. It was mostly low hills and unbroken snow from here, with the mountains rising up in the distance, all blue and white and gold in the sunrise. "Too bad beautiful doesn't pay the mortgage."
"Yeah. We'll figure something out, though," he promised, then kissed her hair before they headed inside.
He had been right: it wasveryloud, and the Talbott dining room seemed remarkably full, even if only half a dozen ofColton's family were still there. That wasn't surprising: very few people had enough space to accommodate twenty-six people on no notice, so only his parents, three unmarried siblings, and his oldest sister had stayed over. They all leaped up, somewhere between scolding because he and Jo had snuck off to bed without saying goodnight, and concerned that they'd slept enough and felt all right and and and?—
"Sit," Jo's mother said in a commanding enough voice that even the Drews obeyed. "Eat."
A vast stack of blueberry pancakes appeared from the kitchen, which was basically the other half of the dining room, and then an unending procession of eggs and bacon joined it. A lot of the bacon got snitched, but Colton guessed most of his family had already eaten, because his dad was doing dishes and not much besides bacon was being nibbled on.
Jo's father, Ben, was standing next to Colton's dad, drying dishes. Above the clinking of tableware, Colton heard "—always wanted to be a spelunker—" and Jo's mom snorted.
"You did not."
"I did too! Don't you remember I took those caving courses in college?"
"I remember you got stuck in a not-all-that-narrow passage and had a panic attack," Laura Talbott said, and exchanged a knowing look with Colton's mom.
"Who's spelunking?" Jo asked around a mouthful of pancakes, and all the parents stopped what they were doing to beam at her.
Her dad turned away from the dishes to dry his hands like it was a lifestyle choice, his smile huge and enthusiastic. "Didn't you hear, yesterday? There's a whole archaeological and anthropological team who are going to come out and set up on the land. They've got spelunkers and other people who explore caves to find out how deep the system under our property goes.We've already had people from the National Park Service call to set up meetings about how much of the land we'll want to sell, and to discuss developing a heritage site down near the caves."
"But…what…?"
"It'll depend on how extensive the cave network is, of course," her mother said reassuringly. "But we haven't hidden the fact that the ranch is in trouble, Jo, so we hope you don't mind to much if we pivot toward being caretakers for a heritage site and maybe setting up a little bed and breakfast for tourists to stay at. Town's a long way away, and we can make a whole experience out here, with the ranch for riding lessons and?—"
