Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

T here was not supposed to be a kid in this group.

Aoife wanted to grind her teeth and yell. It was nearly impossible to pitch a conservation project to adults with a kid along. No matter how cute the kid was, and Molly was a cutie. But reassuring her about Bambi was not the aura of confidence, competence and professionalism that Aoife needed to project when she was trying to convince investors to lay down hundreds of thousands of euros to increase the park's bottom line.

Worse, the kid's mother, Cindy Collins, was the lead investor they were pitching to. Aoife couldn't even ask somebody to distract the little girl without putting the mother off. Not that Collins, who had a tablet, an earbud, and a frown, seemed to be listening at all. She was just writing on her tablet.

Maybe Aoife could find out who all the shifters on the island were and have them line up and put on a show that would charm and impress the kid, who would then convince her mother to give the park all the money. Because by the time Aoife had walked them around to where a herd of bison were trying to itch their winter fur off on bristling rollers, it was clear that her audience was, in order of enthusiasm, Molly, Elliott, Mr. Mustache, and…then nobody, it seemed.

Ms. Collins had barely lifted her eyes from her tablet. The hippie girl had started out by watching Elliott like he was a snack, which, like, Aoife couldn't blame her for that. He was the snackiest man she'd ever seen.

He had, however, clearly indicated that he wasn't interested in the hippie girl. Aoife almost felt sorry for her. It was a strange feeling, really. Aoife didn't think of herself as terribly confident around men, especially tall, fit, incredibly handsome ones with hair she wanted to sink her hands into and legs that went on for days. But there was something about Elliott Harkness that she was just sure of. He was, she felt, the peanut butter to her chocolate.

Which was a phrase she absolutely wouldn't have come up with if he wasn't also American. It wasn't that she didn't like peanut butter. It just wasn't really a thing in Ireland, whereas Aoife had the vague idea that everyone in America ate it for at least two meals a day.

The point was, there was something about how Elliott looked at her that made her feel absolutely certain he would never look at any other woman in any way that meant anything at all.

That was obviously ridiculous. On the other hand, Hippie Girl was cute, and Elliott hadn't even looked twice at her, so maybe Aoife was on to something.

She just wished she could be on to it without a bouncy eleven-year-old and her uninterested, purse-string-holding mother. Molly was in the lead as they approached the bison enclosure, a huge, multi-acreage space that the bison were currently lined up on the far side of, waiting their turns at the enormous bristly rollers that made great scratching posts for the big animals.

"I love them," Molly whispered in heart-stricken awe. "They're so big and fluffy ."

Aoife couldn't deny that. The bison were in fact big and fluffy. She launched into her speech about their territory, dietary needs, original range, current numbers—everything she was supposed to say to convince the money people that they should cough up the money. She was good at this. Young, charming, pretty, Irish. The entire group was American today, which usually meant the Irish thing went a long way toward delighting them.

And yet Ms. Collins literally didn't look up from her tablet. Aoife's ears slowly heated up, as if getting frustrated would do any good at all. She cast a look toward Elliott, who was hanging on her every word and at least seemed genuinely interested. Maybe she could get him to repeat everything to Ms. Collins. If the investor could resist her youthful Irish charms, maybe she'd crumple before Elliott's brawny American ones.

No. It would be fine. Aoife was not going to rope the hot American lad she'd just met into helping her seduce money out of rich people.

Seduce was definitely the wrong word there, but she couldn't think of the right one at the moment. Finagle. She'd go with finagle , because that was safer than thinking about handsome Elliott Harkness and seduction, for heaven's sake.

It was becoming increasingly clear that she should have told him not to join her tour. She'd never had such a hard time keeping on track with her cheerful chat about the Shamrock Safari park animals. Fortunately, Mr. Mustache asked whether the bison were the same as American ones, and Aoife said, "No!" brightly, getting back on track as she explained the differences.

Hippie Girl interrupted with, "Oh my God," in a tight, horrified voice. Aoife, who had her back to the bison, looked over her shoulder where the other young woman was watching, and felt her stomach drop.

Molly had climbed the fence while her oblivious mother tapped away on her tablet. The bison were still on the far side of the field, waiting their turn at the scratching posts, and the tween was cheerfully, but idiotically, skipping her way toward them. Mr. Mustache said, "Jesus Christ," with enough alarm that Ms. Collins finally looked up from her tablet.

All the color drained from the woman's face. "Oh my God. Molly! Molly !"

"She's fine ," Aoife said sharply. "She's in no danger at all as long as she comes back now." It was absolutely true: the bison really had no particular interest in interacting with humans, and were a long way away. Molly just needed to turn around and come back .

Which she showed no sign at all of doing.

Aoife, swearing under her breath, scrambled over the fence, and realized that beside her, Elliott also vaulted it effortlessly, saying, "Get her, I'll make sure they don't come toward you," to Aoife.

He was twice Molly's size, and moving at speed; it only took him a few seconds to put himself between the tweenager and the bison. He kept going, well out toward the middle of the field, and only slowed when he was probably halfway between the bison and where Aoife had now caught up with Molly. "Young woman, if you don't turn around and get your arse back across that fence you'll be banned from this and every other zoo and wildlife park in Europe. Now move it! "

"But I want to pet them!"

"They are wild animals ! Move! Move! Move!" Aoife managed not to shout, but she was furious. Much more furious than frightened, honestly. The bison loved their scratching posts, and wouldn't even notice humans in their space unless they got much, much closer. But an eleven-year-old should know better, and her mother should have been keeping an eye on her, no matter what else was on the woman's agenda.

Molly stared up at her defiantly, then shrieked with rage and ran back to the fence, screaming the whole way. "Mommy! Mommy! Oifee won't let me pet the animals! Mommy, make her let me pet them!" She climbed over the fence with a child's speed and threw herself at her mother.

Ms. Collins lacked Aoife's restraint, and did yell. For a horrible few seconds the two of them sounded like banshees, their anger rattling the trees. Aoife, on her way back to the fence herself, glanced over her shoulder.

The bison truly didn't care that a tween had been skipping through their field, as long as she stayed well away. The Collins's shrieking and shouting, however, did disturb the enormous animals, and a number of them were swinging their attention from the scratching posts toward the disruption of their peace. One snorted, a sound loud and warning enough to carry across the wide enclosure, and then, between heartbeats, they were suddenly running. Thundering across the field, thousands of kilos of weight crashing forward on surprisingly spindly legs.

Straight toward Elliott.

Of course it was straight toward Elliott: that's why he'd gone out there, putting himself between Aoife and danger. Making certain that if the bison were disturbed, he'd be their first target.

Well, that was just grand if he was a lion, Aoife thought in a panic, but right now he was just Elliott .

Just Elliott didn't even try to run, either. He sort of crouched, not exactly like a cat, but not unlike one, either. Aoife, who was at least smart enough to run for the fence herself, tumbled over it and leaped back to her feet, climbing halfway back up it as if she might throw herself back into the enclosure to save Elliott. Somehow.

Molly and her mother were still screaming at each other. The men were staring at the ground uncomfortably. Aoife's heart was so far into her throat she thought she'd forgotten how to scream. That, and she had this thin little thread of confidence that said Elliott would be all right. He was a lion. Somehow, that would make him all right.

The lead bison was almost on him now, and that cat-like crouch he was in turned into an absolutely impossible cat-like leap . He didn't shift, but the grace and strength of his jump was purely lion. He twisted in the air, somehow grabbed the lead bison's horn, and landed on its back like a rodeo rider in a bull pen. With one massive, solid wrenching motion, he twisted the huge animal's head to the side, and suddenly the entire herd was running a different direction entirely.

Aoife did shriek then, or at least squeaked, shock, amazement and a small degree of amusement colliding in her throat. Elliott, still riding the lead bison, yanked it around a few more times, sending the whole herd running in a huge circle around the enclosure. The thing was, bison could run for hours . He'd be out there the rest of the day, playing like a circus champion, if she didn't do something about it.

She fumbled for the radio at her belt. "Peader? Yeah, it's Aoife, the bison are running mad. Can we ring the dinner bell and give them a treat to distract them?"

Their herbivore expert, whose name was pronounced Payder , just unusual enough that even Aoife sometimes had to think about it, grunted into his radio. "I've got somebody already on the way, but what set them off?"

Aoife eyed the hysterical tween and her flush-faced mother. "Trespasser." Under these circumstances, the word specifically meant someone who had entered an enclosure without permission.

Peader's voice went cold with fear. "Is the trespasser injured?"

"There have been no injuries so far. A second trespasser is among the bison now, but…" Aoife paused, searching for the right way to phrase this. "In control of the situation."

There was a long pause from Peader, too. "Someone's going to have to explain that to me later, but I'll take your word for it for now, Aoife."

A few seconds later, a tremendous clanging sounded at the other end of the enclosure. The bison, recognizing it as meaning food, wheeled that direction, and Aoife cupped her hands around her mouth to yell, "They're going for lunch!" in case Elliott could hear her.

Even if he could, of course, he couldn't actually dismount while a herd of bison was thundering around him. Not unless he was going to Legolas his way across the herd's backs and jump off at the tail end of the stampede. Right now, Aoife wouldn't discount the possibility, but it seemed more likely that he'd dismount when the big fluffy walls of muscle stopped for their unexpected morning snack. "Peader, please tell the feed team that the second trespasser is riding one of the bison and will probably be making a bafflingly impressive leap to remove himself from that position."

This time Peader said, "What the feck?" in the tone of a man who expected no answers, and went offline. Aoife assumed he radioed his team, and was about to go rushing toward the feeding area to make sure Elliott was all right when Ms. Collins's voice rose.

"How could you let this happen to my daughter?"

It was, Aoife thought, good that she wasn't facing the Collins when the question was asked. She absolutely couldn't keep the outrage from her expression for a few seconds. Then she turned slowly to see a red-faced, angry tween, and her pale-faced, angry mother. With all the politeness she could muster, Aoife said, "Sorry?"

"How could you let her climb that fence? She might have been injured!"

"Ma'am," Aoife said very evenly, "she's not my daughter."

"But it's your wildlife park!"

"And I wanted to pet them!" Molly wailed.

"They're wild animals, " Aoife said again, incredulously.

"They're fluffy!"

"I was under the impression," Ms. Collins said, "that this was a wildlife park where the animals were free to interact with people."

"Some of them are! The spider monkeys! The lemurs! Not the thousand kilo bison who live behind a fence! The fences! Are there! For a reason! " Aoife knew she was bordering on hysterical, but she had not previously encountered this particular level of foolishness. Not personally, at least, although she'd heard stories. Lord, she'd heard stories. "Has your daughter never encountered animals she wasn't allowed to pet before? Has no one ever told her no before?"

Ms. Collins drew herself up in clear offense. "My daughter has done nothing wrong! Your carelessness has endangered her!"

Aoife took a deep, deep breath, cast glances at the other three, and found them all studying their toes or the bison or the skyline. Anything but looking at her. Right. She was on her own, then. She exhaled. "Fortunately, Ms. Collins, because someone else was paying attention to your child, Molly was removed from the situation before there was any actual danger to her at all. However, her, and your, behavior after that set off a very dangerous situation indeed. If my friend Elliott wasn't so astonishingly skilled in dealing with animals, we could all have been in real trouble. I think," she said, blood thundering in her ears, "I think that we may have to ask you to leave."

This was above her pay grade. She knew it. Dr. Kelly would probably kill her. But she was not going to stand there and be told she was responsible for Molly Collins's foolish actions when not only was the girl old enough to know better, but her parent was right there .

Ms. Collins's jaw dropped. "You can't do that. You need my money."

"Yes." Aoife's voice was high. "Yes, we do. And you know what, I might lose my job. But somebody else can kiss your arse to make up for it, because I'm not going to do it. Not today. So I think you can find your way back to the entrance. It's not more than a ten minute walk. If the rest of you would like to join me, I want to make sure Elliott is okay."