Experience Irelandâthe dramatic beauty, the warm hospitality...and the smoking-hot local guys!
Imagine nursing a pint in a cozy, authentic country pub, far from Corkâs busy city pulse. Getting here took you a plane, bus, taxi and...um, bicycle. But just as youâre resigning yourself to drinking beside grey-haired farmers, you see himâa man with the looks and charm to soothe any heartbroken girl.
Heâs your bartender. Your really, really gorgeous bartender.
For American Jamie Webbârecently dumped and housesitting for two weeksâConnor Kelleher is like a six-course feast after a 23-year starvation diet. But itâs gotta be casual. Sheâs just begun rerouting her life after a three-year man-related detour. Still, a sexy romp (or twenty!) with Sexy McBartender?
But what happens when Jamieâs best laid plans for no future plans with any man begin to change?
Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women.
Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon
www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo
Dear Reader,
Welcome to my what-could-have-been love letter to Ireland!
When I visited with a girlfriend when I was younger, I was in love with a guy back home who, in retrospect, probably didnât deserve the gig. Looking back...damn! To be twenty-two again, with a chance to do that trip over. So many shameless, sweet, occasionally unintelligible young men! Writing this story, I got to gift my heroine with the circumstances I wish Iâd hadânewly single and eager to make the most of it. I hope youâll enjoy Jamieâs adventure, and the brazen bartender who gives her exactly what sheâs after. And then some!
Happy reading!
Cara McKenna
Chapter One
Jamie slid onto a stool and dug her wallet from her messenger bag. As the bartender approached, she mustered a smile. âGuinness, please.â
Without a word, he started her pour. He was handsome enough...for a guy her dadâs age. She stole a sidelong glance down the bar at her fellow patronsâall gray-haired old men nursing identical pints, eyes fixed on the TV mounted above the bottles.
This was so not the vacation sheâd envisioned.
But itâs only the first night. And Jamie had arrived at an Irish pub just like the ones sheâd been daydreaming about. Arrived by plane, bus, taxi and bicycle, though for such an epic journey...yeah, this was all wrong.
For one thing, Kate wasnât here. At the last moment, Jamieâs best friend had snagged a summer internship, turning a girlsâ trip into a solo excursion. That in itself wasnât the end of the world. Jamie needed an adventure, badly, and she could go it alone. But since sheâd landed, nothing about Ireland had matched her expectations.
She was staying at her momâs best friendâs house, which, as it turned out, was the only structure for miles in any direction, aside from the lonely Crossroads Pub. The farmhouse was old, and too quiet, and a touch creepy. Still, free lodging was free lodging, and since Donna was away for all of June, Jamie had the use of her car. There was a pulse in County Corkâsheâd just need four wheels to find it! Find the bustling stone streets of a romantic old walled city, and all the hot Irish guys who traversed them.
Only the second sheâd opened the driverâs side door, sheâd found tragedy in two words.
Stick shift.
Driving on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of an unfamiliar car, in a foreign land crisscrossed with narrow country roads...yeah, Jamie wouldâve been down for that. Sheâd learned to drive just outside Boston, after all. But a stick? She was only half-confident she knew which pedal the clutch was in an American car.
In the end, sheâd ridden a bicycle to the pub. Ten minutesâ bumpy journey down a rutted lane that left her favorite jeans and Chuck Taylors splattered with mud, but heyâsometimes a girl really needed a beer. Her smile turned genuine as the barman set a glass before her.
âThanks.â
Youâre here. Youâre in Ireland, in a pub, with a Guinness in front of you and soccer on the telly. Authentic, if nothing else. Youâre doing what you wanted this summerâwinging it. No plans until the fall.
And no Noel.
No Noel, not since heâd dumped her three months ago. Heâd had a planâa ten-year planâand Jamie had known her place in it. Sheâd trusted his road map enough to hit pause her own grand designs, to put her architecture education on hold in her sophomore year to follow him to Los Angeles and work her butt off to pay their bills while he attended med school. The plan was that once heâd graduated and the income was flowing, itâd be her turn to finish college.