Chapter 3
T ara was short on sleep. She knew she was short on sleep. Very short on sleep. She hadn't thought she was 'peacock turns into man' short on sleep, though.
On the other hand, either a peacock had just turned into a man right in front of her, or she was, in fact, that short on sleep. Of the two, the second one seemed more likely.
The man—tall, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and really genuinely devastatingly gorgeous, with black hair and green eyes, heavy eyebrows and a roguish smile framed by a square jaw—stepped forward with that smile doing its best to be reassuring. It worked very well, in fact, although when he said, "I can explain," in a delicious Irish accent, Tara couldn't decide if the reassurance factor increased or decreased. The accent helped, for sure. The fact that he said he could explain sort of suggested she wasn't that short on sleep after all, which wasn't reassuring at all.
"You didn't—did you…you didn't. Did you?"
No one in the history of language had ever constructed a sentence that poorly, but the guy grinned, bright and apologetic. "I did."
Tara nodded and took a moment to review every possible permutation of what she'd said. 'You didn't' had started out as a question: you didn't just turn into a peacock, did you? Well, that wasn't what he'd done, but that was what her fumbling attempt at a question had been. The next part had been going to be did you just turn into a peacock, and she was definitely having problems with the order of things there, because once again, he had turned from a peacock into a person, but somehow the whole thing seemed like it should be phrased in terms of being able to do it again.
And then she'd been going to repeat the whole thing all over again, with the second did you leading into more of a statement about the whole thing, not a question, because you didn't just turn into a peacock seemed like it was something that needed to be made as a flat statement. A person shouldn't question that kind of thing. Except then she'd added that last did you with an actual question mark audible in her voice, so even if she hadn't managed very many individual words there, she was pretty sure she had gotten what she meant across.
And the very handsome man had said he did. He did, in fact, turn into a peacock. Or into a man, from being a peacock.
So either both of them were very short on sleep, or possibly delusional, or…
Tara had to take another moment to brace herself for this thought: or, she thought with effortful clarity, this guy could turn into a peacock.
She said, "Oh," faintly, and found somewhere to sit down. The ground. That was where she could sit down, because all the picnic tables and things were around the front of the snack shop.
The peacock man's brilliantly green eyes widened in alarm and he leaped forward like he'd catch her, although he seemed to recognize it was a controlled kind of sharp sitting, and didn't actually grab her. On one hand, Tara appreciated that. On the other, he looked very strong and supportive and she thought she wouldn't entirely mind being rescued by him if she was really falling down. She said, "Um," and, with a sheepish twist to that roguish smile, he sat in the dirt across from her.
"I'm Declan McCarthy," he said. "And I'm a shifter. It's not the sort of thing a fellow usually leads with in a conversation, but now I've no secrets from you."
Tara nodded a couple of times. "That seems unlikely."
Declan McCarthy gave a big laugh and shrugged his nice wide shoulders as he turned his palms up. He had big hands, too, a little rough-looking, like he worked with them. Tara, who didn't quite consider herself a prude but who wasn't prone to thinking things like I could think of a few places I'd like to feel those callouses, thought exactly that, and blushed. Declan leaned in, conspiratorial and smelling incredibly good. "All right, I might have a secret or two left, but I'd be lying if I said that wasn't the big one."
"Yes, that, I can…" She was having a very hard time getting through sentences. "I can see that. I, um. Tara? Tara," she said more decisively. "Tara Lynch."
His dark eyebrows rose and a fresh smile splashed over his face. "Tara Lynch, is it. You couldn't be more Irish, with that name, could you?"
Tara whispered, "No, not much, but…American," as if Declan McCarthy who could turn into a peacock hadn't figured that out all by himself.
"I know. You talked to me," he said, still smiling, and Tara remembered, with a shock, that she'd told him he was gorgeous. Well, she'd told the peacock he was gorgeous, and…
"…you, um, you understood me? You…how?" she added a bit plaintively.
The green of his eyes darkened into a generous kind of sympathy. "I did so, yes. There's a whole human mind in that tiny peacock brain when I'm shifted." His gaze went briefly distant and he laughed. "I'm to tell you that bird brains are much more complex than human brains and also thank you for recognizing how lovely I am. He is. We are."
Tara blinked very slowly, and, with careful thought and clarity, said, "Um," again. "Are you, ah. How do I put this delicately. Dissociative?"
Declan blinked back at her before that incredible roguish grin of his turned rueful. "Not the way you mean. Okay, c'mere to me now, I'll give it to you all at once and you can take as much time as you need to process like, yeh?"
"Oh sure. Go ahead. Give it to me all at once." That was not a phrase Tara was accustomed to saying aloud, and once she had, it sounded much dirtier than she'd meant it to. She felt herself blush hot pink, and blushed even more at Declan's brief, sly smile.
He didn't lean into it, though he did lean toward her a little, gaze intent. "There's loads of shifters, all kinds of different species. More than you'd think, but still not enough of us to get noticed like. We can shift back and forth from human to animal form, but nothing in between. And our animals, they're part of us, but a bit separate as well like. I can talk to my peacock, and he can talk to me."
Tara nodded a few times. "That's absolutely bonkers."
"Well…it is so," Declan agreed after a breath of thought. "I'm used to it, though."
She laughed. "I guess you would be, yeah. Okay, is that…everything?"
"It's certainly enough for now. Are ye fresh from America then?"
That, Tara could handle. "I flew in to Dublin this morning and took the bus down, yes. I'm staying in—Cove," she said carefully. "It is Cove, right? Not Cobb?"
"It is. Last stop for the Titanic before it met its fate on a cold Atlantic night. Although it was called Queenstown, then."
Tara's eyebrows rose. "The Titanic was called Queenstown?"
Declan laughed. "No, Cobh was."
"But…" Tara squinted, trying to do the math with a sleepy brain. "But Elizabeth wasn't queen yet? She hadn't even been born, had she? Oh, probably Queen Victoria, huh? Was she still queen then?"
"No," Declan said with amusement. "But Cobh had been Queenstown for fifty years when she died, and they didn't change it to 'Cobh' until the War of Independence twenty years later." He paused momentarily, and then, as if he couldn't help himself, added, "That spelling is just an Irish-ization of the English word 'cove,' though. It doesn't mean anything in Irish. Before the British started mucking about with it, the village was called Ballyvoloon, but that was nearly three hundred years since."
"Wow." Tara couldn't find anything else to say for what felt like a long time. Declan was a peacock who gave history lessons. That was a lot to take in after a sleepless overnight flight.
While she was searching for something to say, Declan smiled and got to his feet, offering her a hand. "You're looking shattered, love. When can you check into your hotel?"
Tara put her hand in his, and found out she'd been right. The callouses on his hands were rough, in a reassuring way. He pulled her to her feet effortlessly, and suddenly she was right next to him, gazing a long way up into fiery green eyes. He looked down at her in turn, a searching expression in his eyes until he smiled again, bright and sudden. "Hazel."
"What?"
"Your eyes. They're hazel. I couldn't decide, earlier."
"Oh! Yeah, they're finicky. Sometimes they're almost brown, sometimes they're really green. Not like yours." Declan's were the greenest eyes Tara had ever seen. "Yours are the color of Ireland."
Sheer delight splashed across his face, not quite turning into a laugh. "Good God, love, have you already kissed the Blarney Stone, then?"
Tara felt another blush crawling up her face. "No, it's just, you know, Ireland is supposed to be forty shades of green, and yours have all of them."
Declan put a hand over his heart. "Thanks a million. You're dangerous already, with that kind of charm. I'd best keep you well away from the Blarney Stone, now that I'm thinking about it."
"Oh, but it's on my list of places to go," Tara said, suddenly feeling stubborn. "I know it's touristy, but I'm a tourist. I want to do all the tourist things. Blarney. The Cliffs of Moher. The Giant's Causeway. Waterford Crystal."
Declan's green eyes sparkled. "You've taken yourself all around the entire island with just those four things, and what about the Rock of Cashel, or the Hill of Tara? Or the Wild Atlantic Way? And did you know we've caves in Ireland? And you shouldn't miss Killarney National Park and Torc Waterfalls. And you can see the Elizabeth Fort in Cork itself, and the cathedral, and…how long is it you're here for?"
Tara had taken her phone out halfway through that and was making notes as fast as she could. "Only two weeks. I thought I had enough time to do things but now I'm not sure. What's the Elizabeth Fort?"
"Oh and Charlesfort at Kinsale," Declan went on. "You could spend two weeks in Cork alone, love. Cobh itself is worth a day on its own. Here now," he said suddenly, pulling his own phone out to check the time. "It's only just gone four. If we catch the next train we can do the Titanic Experience in Cobh before it closes tonight."
"I'd rather not sink!"
Declan McCarthy threw his head back and laughed out loud, then beamed down at her with a smile that made a rush of tingling heat spread from Tara's scalp all the way to her toes. "It wouldn't be that much of the experience, love. No, it's very good though, and it's only an hour or so. A bit longer if you want to linger. Will you let me treat you, as a welcome to Ireland?"
Tara, still tingling, thought she would let him treat her any time, and tried not to let herself dwell on what she meant by 'treat her' in that context. "Yes? Sure? That sounds great?"
"Brilliant." Declan offered her his elbow and a fresh grin. Tara, feeling both silly and thrilled, tucked her hand into his elbow and let him escort her around to the front of the snack shop, where a park employee gave them a look that was somewhere between scolding and knowledgeable. Then she looked Declan up and down, and, with a wink, gave Tara a thumbs-up.
She was almost certain her blush started at her toes and rushed upward, turning her entire body hot pink with embarrassment. It actually made her stumble. Declan glanced down at her, concerned, then lifted his eyebrows. "Overheated?"
"No," Tara mumbled, inwardly cursing her ability to blush like it was a sacred duty. "I just blush a lot."
A smile pulled at the corner of Declan's mouth. "Loads of us do. Fair Irish skin that's never seen the sun and hasn't a drop of melanin to hide behind. You'll fit right in."
"I'm from Boston," Tara admitted. "Lots of Irish ancestry there. A lot of burnable skin."
"And a thousand kilometers farther south," Declan said cheerfully, "so probably more sun to get burned beneath. I've never been. Do you like it?"
"I haven't really ever been anywhere else long enough to decide if I like it better , but yeah, I like it. The drivers are crazy, though." Tara stopped at the gate to get her suitcase, saying, "Thanks again," to the girl, who brushed it off, said, "Dec," to Declan, and also gave Tara a discreet thumbs-up. Tara blushed again, but it was funnier this time: apparently she wasn't the only one who thought Declan McCarthy was a hottie.
"Róisín," Declan said pleasantly to the gate-girl, and when Tara, surprised, glanced at him, said, "I've an annual pass and I'm in and out of the park all the time. I know everybody here."
"Oh! It's that good, huh?"
"It is," and Declan lowered his voice as they headed to the train station, "but it's a safe place for me to shift, as well."
"Oh, sure, of course." Tara heard herself say of course as if she'd known all along there were people who could shapeshift into animals just hanging around, and couldn't help but laugh.
"Here," Declan said, "let me take that? And I know, it's madness, but there are people who come to terms with it straightaway." He took her suitcase, lifting it easily.
Tara smiled up at him. "Thanks. But you sort of have to take it in stride, don't you? Or you have to assume you're crazy, or sleep deprived. I am sleep deprived," she added almost severely.
"Sure and I'll take you to the Titanic Experience and then tuck you all in," Declan offered, and Tara was almost certain she wasn't supposed to imagine 'the Titanic Experience' as something… very different …from going to learn about the great ship that had sunk over a hundred years ago. She blushed again, and was grateful that the train pulled up right then so she didn't have to explain herself.