Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Our mate, the mistress of the sky, Colton's chimera said dreamily. The sovereign of storms. The queen of—
It hesitated, and Colton waited a moment, too, wondering if the chimera could come up with another alliterative title. After a few seconds, it muttered and subsided in his mind, clearly annoyed that it hadn't thought of a third phrase to describe Jo Talbott's flying skills.
Because she really was a good pilot. Completely confident in the low visibility. More confident than Colton himself would have been, and he had actual wings attached to his actual body. At least, part of the time, he did.
Warm weather flyer, the chimera reminded him.
I remember, Colton replied dryly. Otherwise we'd be flying to Great Falls on our own.
The chimera gazed at him steadily until Colton felt abashed. All right, maybe Great Falls is a little far, anyway.
You bet it is. His chimera settled down again, and Colton smiled out the windshield, which was within touching distance.
He was, in fact, in what he supposed was the copilot's seat; there were two more just behind him and the pilot's seat, but Jo had offered him a headset and the seat next to hers, and Colton hadn't been about to turn down the opportunity to sit right beside her for a couple of hours.
He adjusted his headset's mouthpiece and said, "Am I allowed to talk while we fly? "
Jo chuckled. "Yeah, that's fine. I'll tell you if I need you to be quiet."
"I've never flown in a plane this small before. It's louder than I expected."
"Tell me about it." She tapped her own headset. "That's why these. Technically we can talk without them, but it's much easier to with them. Also I'd have lost half my hearing already if I didn't use them. You warm enough?"
As long as she kept casting quick looks and smiles his way, Colton thought he could never be cold again. Instead of cracking out that incredibly cheesy line, though, he lifted a booted foot and waggled it. "Warm as toast."
Nobody said that. He winced. "I mean, toasty warm."
He could hear Jo's grin as clearly as he could see it. "I kind of like 'warm as toast.' Good. We've got a headwind, so it'll probably be closer to an hour than forty minutes, but I should get you safely to Great Falls pretty soon here."
Colton had never heard such simultaneously good and terrible news.
He did need to get back to New York. He also never wanted to leave Jo Talbott's side again.
"Don't rush on my account. I mean, I'm not going to get out of Denver before this evening anyway, so if we have to detour around a storm front or something, let's not try to fly through it. "
"I wasn't going to," Jo promised. "So how'd you get into environmental law?"
"Outdoorsy kid," Colton said, which wasn't a lie. It just didn't exactly cover the whole truth. But explaining shifters was always difficult, even if one wasn't a mythological animal to boot. "I want my potential kids to have the same opportunities I did, so I decided I'd better work for it."
Under her breath but still directly into the headset's mic, Jo breathed, "Well, that's sexy," and sounded like she meant it.
Colton, trying not to make it obvious he'd overheard, turned his head to shoot a grin out the window.
Aloud, Jo went on, "Good for you. Putting your money where your mouth is. I hope you win the case."
"Thanks. So do I."
CLOUDS!
Colton flinched, gaze darting around the plane, which was indeed surrounded by clouds. Clouds???
Queen of clouds! His chimera sounded very, very smug.
Colton's mouth opened to voice a protest, then closed again on it.
Partly because he didn't want Jo to think he'd lost his marbles.
Partly because although queen and clouds didn't start with the same letter, he couldn't deny the sound of them was alliterative and pleasing to the ear.
Queen of clouds, he agreed with a smile that turned into a chuckle.
Jo glanced his way. "Winning the case is funny?"
"No, not at all. I was just thinking about and admiring your piloting skills," Colton replied honestly. "Coming up with nicknames for you. Mistress of the sky. Queen of clouds."
"That's flattering. You should add 'avoider of humans' into that list."
Both Colton and his chimera stuttered mentally at that. Our mate is not a shifter…?
No. No, I'm sure she isn't. Shifters generally had a sense about other shifters in their vicinity, and Jo Talbott was as human as they came. Or at least, Colton thought she was. Cautious and a little confused, he said, "Avoider of humans?"
"Well, you know, people in general, but dogs are fine. Birds. Bison. Cats. Whatever. Humans are hard."
Colton, still trying to tread very carefully, said, "But…you're human?"
She laughed, a big sound that almost drowned out the propeller's roar. "Last I checked, yeah, but that doesn't mean I like hanging out with other humans all that much. Present company excepted," she added with a smile.
But we're not human! Colton's chimera wailed.
I don't think she knows that, Colton said, still cautiously. Aloud, he said, "Why not? You seem pretty great, to me."
Pretty great? his chimera asked disbelievingly. You think our mate is just 'pretty great'?
She's obviously incredible, Colton said. But it might be coming on a little strong to just say that right out loud.
How else could you say it? the chimera demanded, and Colton fought back a laugh as Jo smiled, shrugged, and adjusted the mouthpiece of her mic.
"Thanks. I just got in the habit of hanging out by myself when I was in high school, I guess, and now I've kind of forgotten how to people. Being in the air a lot means I don't have to, and the rest of the time I'm usually working on the ranch."
"Oh, yeah? What kind of ranch?" For a moment Colton flashed on the idea of being able to go out into the fields and shift into a chimera whenever he wanted. He had to fight off a sigh. The chimera in his head didn't fight it at all, and sighed gustily.
That would be wonderful, it murmured. Cities are boring.
"Bison," Jo said, and although Colton agreed with his chimera, his attention was drawn by her answer.
"Bison! That's why you put bison in that list! I was going to say, one of those things is not like the others, but then I got distracted by humans being difficult."
She flashed him a quick smile, big and bright and raw. "Difficult humans are distracting."
"You're distracting, but in a fantastic way." Colton hadn't meant for that to slip out. It just did, like his entire soul just had to make sure she knew it.
Her eyebrows flew up and she redirected her attention to the windshield. It took her a moment to say, "Thanks," in a discomfited tone that made Colton wince.
"Sorry if that was weird. I just—well, look at you, out here piloting and bison ranching. That's pretty distracting and fantastic!"
His chimera eyed him. Why not just tell her you love her?
You can't just tell people that when you've just met them!
Fortunately for Colton, Jo didn't notice him wheezing over the chimera's animal simplicity. Instead, she spoke again, still in that slightly baffled tone. "No, it's—well, it was a little weird, but in a nice way. Sometimes I forget that people don't see me the way I do."
Whatever other ideas the chimera had were put aside as Colton wrinkled his eyebrows at her. "Something about how you said that suggests you don't see yourself as a statuesque force of nature with an incredible laugh and amazing eyes."
Those amazing eyes jerked his way, emerald green disbelieving and—thank goodness—amused. If she'd thought that had been an awful thing to say, the rest of the flight would have been very awkward.
"No," she said after a moment. "But I like that version of me.
You can keep going, if you want." Her wide smile flashed again and she shook her head, dismissing the request. "Or not.
It will get weird if you do keep going. But thank you.
Although I do kind of want to know how you got to 'force of nature' in our interactions so far. "
"Aside from the fact that you're flying us out of a storm?
" Colton gestured behind them, like he was conjuring up images of the airport.
"It was just how you came in from the storm, down there.
You had this incredible physical presence, like you could walk into anything and take charge of the situation. "
"That was probably the gigantic snow coat and boots, which make me look like Baymax," Jo said wryly.
Colton laughed. "I don't think it was, but heaven forbid I should argue with the woman flying the plane."
She flashed him another smile. "Smart and good-looking."
A thrill like he hadn't felt since his teen years zinged through Colton and he grinned foolishly. "Good-looking, huh?"
Jo snorted into her headset's mic, which was unexpectedly loud. "Please. First thing I said to you was whether you had to get back for a photo shoot or a movie, so don't pretend you don't know you're attractive."
More importantly, she found him attractive, but Colton managed not to say that.
Instead, still with that silly grin, he turned his attention out the window again as he searched for something that didn't sound self-centered or vain to say in response.
"Well, thank you," was what he eventually came up with, and Jo chuckled.
"You're welcome. And now we've definitely made it weird, haven't we?"
"In a good way," Colton said hopefully. "Just a couple of strangers—"
Fated mates!!!
Yes, but she doesn't know that yet! "—complimenting each other on a flight.
Perfectly nice weirdness. Was that—" Colton leaned forward, eyes widening as his gaze flickered through the clouds ahead.
Deep grey snow clouds rushing around, blooming and shrinking with the wind, but he swore he'd seen— "Was that lightning? "
Jo went still a moment, scowling at the clouds ahead, then swore quietly when lightning flashed again.
"Yeah, looks like it. Warm front colliding with the storm.
Doesn't happen that often, but it's called thundersnow.
Good news is we're too small to attract lightning, generally, but the ride's gonna get a little bumpy here.
I know you're wearing your seatbelt, but tighten it up, okay?
Probably take us eight or ten minutes to get through, unless it gets really bad, in which case I'll try to re-route around it. "
She sounded quite serious, and Colton murmured, "Yes, ma'am," as he checked his seatbelt. He noticed her casting him a sharp look, and held up a hand placatingly. "Not sarcastic. You're the pilot and I'm taking your orders."
Jo exhaled and nodded once, anger fading from her expression, though the tension remained as she turned her attention back to the flight.
She flipped a radio switch, speaking on another channel, which meant Colton could barely hear her.
Then she flipped another switch, trying again, and after a moment cursed again, loud enough to hear even before she came back to the in-flight channel.
"Mountains are blocking the signal. I can go up to try to get clear of them, or I can just try to go around. I'm inclined to go around."
"You're the pilot," Colton said again. "I trust you."
Jo nodded a second time, and for the next several minutes the only sounds were the wind and propeller and Colton's occasional yelp when they hit a pocket of air and dropped or rose dramatically.
To his relief, the corner of Jo's mouth twitched upward with each of those yelps, so at least he wasn't distracting her, or making things worse, but even his chimera was making little meep!
sounds in his head as they rose and fell.
This would be fun if it wasn't a storm, Colton told his beast gently. We've played in air currents lots of times.
But I was doing the flying then!
Colton couldn't argue with that, although he could and did say, Jo knows what she's doing.
I know, his chimera wailed, and then, as they hit another air pocket, went, MEEEEP!
Jo's radio crackled and she switched to another channel, listened briefly, responded, and then came back to their headset connection.
"Good news, they've got our location now.
Bad news, for a minute I thought maybe I could route south, but Helena's getting thundersnow, too, and I can see more lightning up ahead. "
So could Colton: it was actually incredible, bright flashes turning the clouds purple and electric blue from within, and the snow around them swirling in unexpected illuminated bursts. "So…?"
"So we're on track for Great Falls. I just wish there was a way around the thundersnow.
" She banked the plane away from the lightning ahead.
They immediately hit another air pocket and bounced, causing her to swear, but not with alarm, just irritation.
Colton's chimera meeped again, and he had a hard time not echoing it.
It was less worrying to be the person in charge of the flight, when bumps like these were felt.
"We're not far from the edge of the mountain range," Jo muttered. "Once we get past the updraft and out over the flats it should smooth out. Sorry about this."
"Definitely not your fault," Colton said. "Kind of mine, in fact."
She tossed him a brief smile. "Not unless you're some kind of weather god."
Colton could feel his chimera trying to decide whether being able to fly made it some kind of weather god, and said, No, much to its disappointment. Aloud, but not worried, he said, "Believe me, if I was a weather god, I would put this fancy light show way out of striking distance—"
And that was as far as he got before lightning struck the plane.