Chapter 5
T ara hadn't really intended to spend most of her Irish vacation at a wildlife park, but she thought she might not actually mind, as long as it meant she got to spend time with Declan McCarthy, Bonafide Irish Hottie. Even if he was a peacock for most of the day, which was incredible and unbelievable and, as it turned out, really funny. As a peacock he had so much attitude , and it seemed clear that the peacock kind of had a crush on her. Any time he wasn't getting in the way of Colette Snootypants, or whatever her last name was, he was fluffing up his tail and doing what Tara was pretty sure was a mating dance for her. It was utterly charming.
Ms Snootypants was furious, though. Tall, narrow, with black hair tied tightly to her skull in a way that Tara thought was particularly fashion-designery, she tried to bribe some kids into looking for peacock feathers, and when an adult picked one up, the designer actually offered them a hundred dollars for it. Or euros, she guessed, since that was what they used in Ireland. The person took the money, and Snootypants very carefully tucked the feather into an expensive-looking carrying case and treated it as if it was made of gold.
Tara, thoughtfully, went over to crouch next to Declan, who fluffed his tail even more enthusiastically. "So can you shed feathers and re-grow them when you shift?" she whispered. "Because I'm thinking you'd have a profitable cottage industry in selling peacock feathers if you can."
The peacock tilted his head and regarded her with a beady brown eye, turned that look on his exceptionally beautiful tail, and finally looked back at her again with an expression that clearly said "Are you out of your mind? Sacrifice this for any reason?"
Tara couldn't help a laugh. "I guess it doesn't grow back, then."
The peacock looked a bit guilty, which she hadn't known a bird could do. "Oh, it does grow back?"
"I'm sorry," Colette Snootypants said, "but is that bird your pet ?"
Tara blinked up from talking to Declan. "Um, no?"
"You're talking to it," Colette said. "And it seems to be responding to you. If you'd just get it to hold still for a minute, I could pull out some feath?—"
"No! God, that's so rude! It's just friendly to me," Tara said, offended on Declan's behalf. "There must be some kind of market in peacock feathers, if you need them so badly."
"It's a very tight market," Colette said, in a voice as tight as the market apparently was. Saunier, that was her actual last name, Tara thought. She sounded Irish to Tara, despite the French name. "Never mind. I have other sources."
A spike of alarm shot through Tara, who breathed, "Shed a feather if you can," at Declan, and stood to follow Snootypants Saunier a few steps away. "Hey, um, excuse me, Ms. Saunier? Sorry, you know, American and everything, but I was wondering—I really love peacocks and take a lot of pictures of them, and if you have sources, I was just wondering, that must mean you know where I could go to take pictures? I'd love any pointers. And here, look," she said as Declan shed a tail feather with an expression that suggested it had taken a lot of effort. Tara picked it up and offered it to Saunier. "One just for you. Maybe I'm a lucky charm."
Saunier's eyes glittered as she glanced between Tara and the peacock-shaped Declan. "Maybe you are. A peacock-whisperer?"
Tara thought, Oh God, clearly, and glanced at Declan, trying to will him to understand that she needed him to collect a bunch of peacocks and have them all come hang around her.
He stared at her. She offered a fake smile with a lot of teeth, and swore that the beautiful bird heaved a huge sigh. Tail dragging, he walked off, and when Tara looked back toward Colette, it was to find the woman's sharp features tightening with irritation. "Or maybe not," she said coolly. "Too bad. I could use a peacock whisperer."
A moment later, half a dozen peacocks—which had to be nearly every single one in the park—converged around Tara, who smiled brightly at Colette and said, "Whisper whisper," like an idiot.
The peacocks all gave each other really magnificent glares, and then with similar sighs to the one Declan had uttered, shook their tails and dropped some feathers. Colette's eyes gleamed and she all but leaped to snatch the feathers up, tucking them into her case, which looked more like it was meant to hold a guitar than peacock feathers. "Grand," she said to Tara, with a greedy glint in her gaze. "Can you meet me at Blarney Castle at nine tomorrow morning?"
"I'd be delighted," Tara said in the most transparent lie she'd ever told, but Colette didn't seem to notice. Instead the designer gave a sharp, snake-like smile and stalked off, leaving Tara surrounded by peacocks.
After a few seconds, once she was sure Saunier Snootypants was out of earshot, she whispered, "You're not all shifters, are you?"
One of them shivered, glanced around, and changed into Declan, whose eyes were bright with laughter. "Sure and they wouldn't admit to it if they were. Maybe I'm just good with birds."
"Can you talk to them?" Tara asked, fascinated. "To not-shifter peacocks?"
"They don't have much to say," Declan confessed. "So we're going to Blarney in the morning, are we?"
Tara threw a glance after Colette Saunier. "I don't like that woman. I think she's up to something. I want to make sure it doesn't work, whatever it is."
The tall Irishman nodded. "I can tell you this much for free: it's illegal to buy, sell, or trade in genuine peacock feathers. You're not even meant to collect them when they fall. We could call the guards on her right now."
"The guards?"
"The police," Declan said with a quick smile. " An Garda Síochána , we call them. Guardians of the Peace. Guards, for short."
"Ahn garda shee-oh-kahna," Tara repeated carefully. "That's pretty. Would they actually do anything to help?"
"I don't know," Declan admitted. "I absolutely know there are people who deal in rescuing trafficked animals, but the truth is, I wouldn't know who that agency was unless I looked it up."
"Which we will if we can't handle her ourselves," Tara said firmly.
"So you won't be going from mild-mannered reporter to international woman of mystery?" Declan asked.
Tara tossed her hair, which she felt would have worked better if she didn't almost always wear it in a ponytail. "I can be mysterious." Then, unable to help herself, she laughed and shook her head. "I'm not in the least mysterious. I'll just have to be a regular law-abiding boring girl."
"There is nothing boring about you," Declan said in a warm, low voice.
Delightful heat splashed through Tara, making her blush—of course—but mostly making her feel all glowy and happy. "I think you're wrong, but thank you."
"Why?" Declan gazed down at her, his green eyes genuinely curious.
Tara squirmed under the intentness of that look, but finally shrugged. "I just don't think 'secretary moonlighting as photographer' is all that interesting. I'm good at what I do—at both jobs—but it's almost impossible to make a living doing artsy things. I mean, you must know that, if you're a sculptor?"
"I do," Declan agreed. "But I'd say the fact that you do it anyway makes you the very farthest thing from boring in the world. It takes real passion to pursue something artistic, when so much of the world is determined to grind it out of us. Eh." He made a face. "That sounded self-aggrandizing, and I didn't mean it that way. Not 'look at me, struggling against the odds, how admirable I am,' like. Especially?—"
Tara laughed and leaned her shoulder against Declan for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the brief contact. "I didn't take it like that. How did you get all those other peacocks to come over, if they're not all shifters and you can't talk to them? And they dropped tail feathers when you asked them to!"
Declan, guiltily, said, "I didn't say they weren't shifters…"
Tara's eyes widened and she looked around for the peacocks, which had disappeared from view. "Are you telling me they really all are? How many peacock shifters are there in Ireland?"
"About a dozen," Declan mumbled. "Four or five in Cork, because we can come here or go to Blarney to shift, and most of the rest live in Dublin where they can go to the zoo. We don't usually all turn up on the same days, but…"
He was blushing. Tara was almost certain she could see dark red scalding its way up his jaw. "But?"
Declan cleared his throat. "But I might have mentioned on the group chat that I'd met a fantastic woman and I might need a wingman to help me charm her a bit, and everybody came over this morning."
Two or three things fought to leave Tara's mouth at once, and she managed a spluttered, "Group cha—you don't—really? You ? Needed help charming someone?" that made Declan turn a wonderful deep rosy shade all the way to his excellent cheekbones.
"Yes, we have a group chat, although of course we're very careful about what we say on it. And I thought—" He was really blushing now. Tara thought she might explode with glee. She blushed. She wasn't used to men blushing much at all, but especially not over trying to impress her in some way. Declan cleared his throat again. "I thought maybe some sort of Disney-esque coordinated…peacock dance…ah, Jaysus, the idea gets worse with every word I utter, what was I thinking?"
"That I'm the kind of person who likes those geometric-style kaleidoscope dance numbers in movies?" Tara grinned so hard her cheeks hurt. "You'd be right. I do like that. It'd be wonderful with peacocks. Especially real ones. Now I'm going to need that to be the entertainment for our wedding, you know."
Declan's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, are we getting married, then? I'll do as your random Irishman to marry so you get four weeks of holiday every year instead of two?"
Tara clapped her hands to her face, partially to massage her aching cheeks and partially to hide surprised dismay. "I forgot about that. I didn't mean anything by it!" Although she could certainly do worse than tall, dark, handsome Declan, whose accent and eyes set her toes to tingling. "You're just very nice," she said apologetically. "I kind of forgot we haven't known each other forever and aren't…casually flirty?" She didn't even think of herself as a casually flirty person, but it was difficult not to be with Declan.
Particularly when he moved in a little closer, as he was doing now, so that the warmth of his body was almost pressed against hers and his eyes were the same deep green as forest shadows as he murmured, "Does that mean we're intensely flirty?"
Tara's entire body went alight, as if she'd been set on fire, and whatever part of her that usually made wise choices fled her fiery soul as if its survival depended on it. That was the only explanation she could think of for how she put her hand on Declan's chest, rose to her toes, and kissed him.
For a moment, a heartbeat, she could feel his surprise. Her wisdom came crashing back through her like a bucket of cold water, and she had almost long enough to think what the hell am I doing?! before Declan's hands closed gently around her face and he answered that kiss with a sweet hunger that built astonishing desire through Tara's whole body. She felt his smile in the earliest moments, but it faded into a careful, tasting exploration of her lips, sending shivers and tingles up and down her spine, and all at once she was melting in Declan's arms, no longer in control of that kiss, or her thoughts, or anything except living in the moment and trembling with thrilled anticipation.
They were both gasping, almost laughing, when the kiss ended, though Tara couldn't say they'd broken apart. Not with the way Declan curved his arms around her like she was fragile. Not with the way he smiled down at her from just a breath away. Not with the way his voice, deep and seeming to rumble, wrapped her in its warmth. "So that would be a yes to the intensely flirty, then?"
She couldn't clap her hands to her cheeks again, because she was too entangled in Declan's arms, so even though she blushed, Tara also nodded, then managed to whisper, "I think so, yeah."
"That's the best news I've heard in my entire life," Declan murmured. "Now, I wouldn't want to rush things, so I'll wait until after we've banjaxed that Colette woman's peacock designs to propose?—"
Tara's heart stuttered and nearly stopped, because she was almost, insanely, certain that he meant it, and even more insanely, almost equally certain she would say yes if Declan McCarthy asked her to marry him.
"—but in the meantime," he went on, still curving that wonderful, gently protective smile at her, "why don't we go to dinner?"