Love Like This (The Romance Chronicles-Book #1)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Keira spent the rest of the evening in a happy daze. There was something about being in Shane's company that made her feel carefree and relaxed. It was exciting to have someone to flirt with, to feel those tingles of desire, even if it felt like her work was suffering as a result.

The next day he took her to the annual Irish Barbecue Championships, an event that turned out to be very conducive to writing, since it was filled with competitive men trying to impress single women with little more than their ability to shovel copious amounts of meat into their mouths.

After several hours at the Barbecue Championships, it became impossible to tell apart the pink-faced, round-bellied, mucky-mouthed males from the pigs they were munching on. If a drunk female walks home with her arm slung around a hog roast declaring her undying love, I don't think I'll even be surprised.

When Nina received that update email—along with some accompanying photographs that Keira had taken of a group of chubby, drunk guys holding up barbecued chickens thighs, looking somewhere between cheery and menacing—she was thrilled.

More of this, please! Except I want to see what would happen if you dated one of them. Time to get your hands dirty, Keira!

The thought of dating one of those oafish lads repulsed Keira. So she found the next best thing: Lisdoonvarna's Speed Dating Event! She'd never done anything like speed dating. The thought of it made her cringe. And this was speed dating on a massive scale. Fifty participants! It took her two large sauvignon blancs to build up the courage to do more than just observe and take notes. But once she took the plunge, she discovered it a far quicker route to procuring usable information. Nina was right, getting her hands dirty was a good approach.

Keira had three minutes to speak to each man before a bell was rung to signal that they needed to move on. By the end she'd got her opening gambit down to a simple, "I'm a reporter. This is a tape recorder. Okay?"

It ended up being several grueling hours of listening to men drone on about their various careers, their hopes, their dreams.

Each face melds into the next. I'm certain I've already spoken to Craig, the plumber from Dublin. But no, that is Craig, sitting across the hall from me, presumably repeating his spiel about being good with his hands to a woman who looks as equally unimpressed with him as I was. Which means this is a different man I'm talking to. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name," I admit. This is Carl. He's also a plumber from Dublin. And he is to be just one of dozens of plumbers I meet that evening...

Nina responded just as positively to that piece. Bryn, on the other hand, replied with, You should have gone for it, sis. I bet that Craig guy really is good with his hands.

When the speed dating event ended, Keira was supposed to partake in some dancing while the organizers tabulated the yes matches, but she skipped out on that bit. She didn't feel like dancing with any Craigs or Carls, or any plumbers, Dublin based or otherwise. Because there was someone else she wanted to spend the evening dancing beside. And even though she pretended the reason she decided against collecting her list of successful matches was because she was worried that no one would have put her name down as a yes, it was really because she was only interested in one specific man's opinion of her.

*

Keira wondered, as she looked across the bar at Orin, whether this was what it was like to have a father. It was the end of the second week of her trip and the two of them were munching on their breakfast of toast, egg, and sausage; something that had become a ritual for the two of them. Since the rest of the B&B guests came and went, Keira's consistency allowed for a father-daughter friendship to blossom between them. Her own father had left while she'd still been young so she'd never had the chance to find out what that would feel like.