Shifting toward the hedge, Taryn did her best to keep the laughter from her voice when she called out, “Your mother would serve you a bar of Irish Spring for dinner if she heard you say ‘plonker,’ Aeden O’Malley!”
“Shite!” the boy whisper-exclaimed.
Their hasty retreat was hilarious.
“Sure, and how did ya know that would work to give us privacy?”
“I have three sisters, Fintan. We always used the threat of punishment against each other.” Taryn ran her index finger over his upper lip. “Now, where were we?”
“Discussin’ me powerful need to snog ya, but I’m rethinkin’ our location,” he said with a glance at the hedge.
“We’ll be free of prying eyes in your bedroom.”
“Sure, and it’s like we share one mind, it is.”
She laughed during the short teleport to his home. With a quick glance around, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Let’s get to snogging.”
EPILOGUE
FOUR MONTHS LATER…
“Do you still have reservations?” Ardghal asked.
Taryn’s full-length mirror displayed him in all his finery, and she inhaled sharply.
“Ari, you need a warning label.”
He grinned as he approached, his hot eyes raking the length of her. “I’m not half as dangerous as you, love.”
“Pfft. I bet you say that to all the girls at the pub.”
His expression sobered, and his smile turned bittersweet. “Fintan is a lucky bastard.”
“I’m the lucky one.” She smoothed a hand down his shirt, straightening the buttons. “To earn the love of two good men. Once as Elizabeth and again as me.”
“You’ve always been easy to love, Taryn,” he assured her. “Fintan is hopelessly smitten.”
“So am I,” she said with a soft smile.
“Here. I’ve brought you something old for your human-wedding tradition.”
Staring down at the velvet box, her heart tripped. Without needing to open it, she knew what it contained. “Those jewels were a gift from your father to your mother, Ari. I can’t take such priceless items.”
“Mother has long since returned to the sea, love, and she gave them to you—uh,Elizabeth—on our wedding day. They were meant for a woman in love.”
Flipping open the lid, she sucked in a breath. There was a king’s ransom in emeralds and diamonds, but the setting was all new.
“Dude,” she whispered. “If your mother were here, she’d kill you for doing that.”
He chuckled. “Both pieces are charmed and will change shape to suit the woman whose neck and wrist they adorn.”
“I’d forgotten that little party trick.”
He grinned as he handed her the box. After removing the necklace, he held it up before her.
“May I?”
Facing the mirror, she met his admiring gaze and became overly warm. “You’vegotto stop looking at me like that, Ari. Fintan’s, remember?”