Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
'Home and safe' turned out to be 'in the hospital, getting checked over' for most of the day.
Colton politely refused bloodwork because shifter genetics didn't necessarily show up as weird to human doctors, but none of them liked risking it if there was any way to avoid it.
Fortunately, he and Jo were pretty clearly in good health, if a little hungry and dehydrated.
There were a lot of comments about their miraculous survival, and he found himself trying to both avoid Jo's glance while also trying to catch her eye so they could share a smile over the secret of that survival.
He'd gotten on the phone to his family in the helicopter, and Jo had been right: they were in contact with the Talbotts, and already knew he'd survived, but that didn't make the call any less teary.
Nor did it make their reunion any less emotional when the entire crew, all twenty-six of them, arrived in a crush just before he and Jo were released from the hospital.
By then Colton was old friends with Jo's parents, who had gotten to the hospital, along with her brother Josh, before Jo and Colton themselves had arrived.
The older Talbotts—Laura and Ben—were a vivacious couple in their sixties, and Josh was just a couple years older than Jo herself.
He caught Jo and Colton exchanging those glances, and a few minutes later, as his own family poured in, Colton heard him say, "So it's like that, is it? " to Jo.
Her ears turned red. "Like what? It's not like anything!"
Josh's, "Uh-huh," was the last thing Colton heard for a while, or at least, the last thing that wasn't his family crying and hugging and shouting and generally being very loud and happy that he was alive.
They're stirring again, his chimera moaned. Loudly. Can't we go back to the nice quiet mountain?
'Fraid not, buddy, Colton said gently. For once he didn't mind the extreme noise, although he did think he needed to ask if any of the other chimeras wished the whole family would be just a little bit quieter all the time.
"We're fine," he told every single person in the family over and over, and when they were finally released into the parking lot, managed to acknowledge the truth to his parents: "Yeah, I had to shift, to save us.
But it's okay, Mom. Jo is my fated mate. "
If he thought they'd been loud before, he was deeply, profoundly mistaken.
A whole new joyful shriek arose from everybody in the family who had overheard, and then like a herd of elephants, the whole Drew clan trampled over to Jo and hugged her in welcome.
She cast him one wild-eyed look and he grimaced, mouthing, 'Sorry! '
Jo's voice came out of the giant hug: "Did you tell them?"
Colton called, "I did," apologetically, and Jo submitted to being the center of adoration for several minutes while her parents turned to Colton and said, "Tell them what? What did we miss?"
"He and Jo are a thing," Josh announced. "True love under duress."
Jo's mom squinted at Colton, which made her look quite a lot like her daughter. "Is this a Speed thing? Relationships developed under duress rarely last, you know."
"Please," Josh said. "Jo isn't nearly as hot as Sandra Bullock."
"Well, you wouldn't think so," their mother said with a sniff, and gave Colton a good once-over. "You could give Keanu a run for his money, though."
"That may be the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me," Colton said with a laugh. "But I appreciate your concern, and I know you'll probably doubt me when I say I'm sure this is a forever thing, not just a 'thrown together in a stressful situation,' but it is."
"I knew the first time I saw Laura," Ben Talbott said complacently. "I believe in you two kids. Now if we could just find somebody for Josh."
"Josh is perfectly happy being single," Josh said firmly.
Then the Drew family washed back toward them like a tide and suddenly all the Talbotts were being included in the giant hug-fest that was Colton's family.
He couldn't help watching his sisters and one of his brothers to see if lightning struck a second time—more metaphorically this time, Colton thought, reminded of how the plane had crashed in the first place—but it appeared Josh Talbott wasn't going to join the Drew family as anything more than an in-law.
Somehow, gradually, they all got into different vehicles—Jo ended up in a car with her parents, which made sense but was disappointing—and emptied the parking lot, heading out to the Talbott ranch, because they'd insisted the Drews join them there at the ranch so they could all get to know each other better.
From the chat in the car, though, it sounded like they already knew each other pretty well: apparently they'd all been on the phone together almost constantly since Jo and Colton had been reported missing.
His phone, which had charged at the hospital, rang with his boss's number, and with a jolt, Colton realized he hadn't thought about the case or calling Jerry at all.
He'd been too overwhelmed. He picked up with an apology ready, and Jerry's deep voice barreled over his.
"Colton, thank God. I just saw on the news you'd been rescued. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. We're fine. I'm sorry I didn't call. It's been—" Exhausting, actually: Colton hadn't realized how tired he was until just that moment. "I'll be on a flight in the morning, Jerry. I'll be useless if I try to sleep on a flight."
"Don't be ridiculous. I've pulled Elle and Marci from their cases and they're getting up to speed.
Or they were," Jerry said. "Right now everybody's popping champagne and crying with relief that you're not dead.
They'll be back at it in the morning. If you can make it back to step in as co-counsel that'll be fantastic, you know this better than anybody else, but they've got it under control. "
A thread of tension Colton didn't even realize he'd been carrying snapped, and he slumped, eyes closed. "Thank you."
"Christ, Colton, don't thank me. I was afraid you were dead."
Colton chuckled. "So of course you had to pull somebody from another case to cover for me."
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 had seen her: 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, rangy limbs, 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 was very loud, and the Talbott dining room seemed remarkably full, even if only half a dozen of Colton'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—"
Jo put her fork down, expression growing tense and disbelieving and hopeful. "Mom, are you…are you telling me the ranch is…it's saved?"
"Well." Laura Talbott sat back with a blink, then blinked around the room. Everyone, even Colton's parents, was holding their breath, waiting for her answer as much as Jo was. "Well," she said again. "Well, yes. Yes, I guess so."
A cheer erupted in the kitchen, and Colton pulled Jo into his arms for a hug that squeezed the breath out of her. "Congratulations. I'm so glad for you, Jo. I can't wait to be done with my case and back here at your side to watch it all work out."
"Me either," Jo whispered breathlessly. "I love you, Colton Drew."
"What an amazing coincidence. I love you too, Jolene Talbott."
They were pulled apart then by happy, cheering people, but a sense of certainty settled into Colton's heart. Everything was going to work out just the way it should.