Hot Property (Irish romantic comedy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the ‘full Irish’ for breakfast. Well, she could put up with that for a while.
    ~ ~ ~
    The door of The Blue Door was red. Megan rang the bell of the white stucco house, where hanging baskets crammed with geraniums adorned the façade.
    No reply. She rang again, then pushed at the door, peering into the deserted wood panelled hall. She tiptoed in and put her suitcase on the floor.
    “Hello?” Her voice echoed up the wide staircase. There was a faint smell of fried sausages and smouldering briquettes. A smell she remembered from staying in B and B’s in her childhood. She hadn’t stayed in such a place since then, boutique hotels being her preferred accommodation when on holiday. She thought fleetingly of spa hotels, of sinking into a pool somewhere in the sun but pushed the thought away. She had to live for the moment, not yearn for those halcyon days of a job and an expense account.
    A door flung open. A thin woman with light-blonde hair in a ponytail, wearing tight jeans and an orange tee-shirt, rushed into the hall. “Hello. Sorry, I was outside taking in the laundry, so I didn’t hear you.” She spoke with the hard R’s and thick L’s of an East European accent. She studied Megan through pale blue eyes. “Have you booked a room?”
    Megan smiled and nodded. “Yes, I just arrived. I booked a single room for the weekend.”
    The woman held out her hand. “Hello and welcome. I’m Beata.”
    “Hello, I’m Megan O’Farrell. Um, but—”
    “Yes?”
    “I was going to ask why you call this place The Blue Door when it’s red. The door, I mean.”
    Beata shrugged. “They were out of blue at the hardware store, but we had to stick with the name because everyone knows it. Anything else?”
    “No.”
    “Good. I’ll show you to your room.” Beata raced up the stairs and down the corridor at breakneck speed with Megan at her heels. She flung open a door. “Here’s your room. The keys are in the door. Breakfast between eight and ten tomorrow morning. Have a good stay.”
    Megan fought for air. “Okay. Thanks. Could you just tell me where I might get something to eat around here?”
    Beata hovered on the threshold. “Mulligans. Out on the Maharees. It’s a pub, but they have great food too. If you have nothing better to do tonight, maybe you’d like to join Boris and me when we go out there later?”
    “Boris? Your husband?”
    Beata let out a snort. “You think I’d marry a Russian? Nah, he’s okay to ride but marry him? No way.”
    Megan blinked. “Uh, I see…”
    “So how about it?”
    “Why not? Thanks, I’d love to.”
    “Good. See you downstairs at seven. You’ll love their food. They do great fish.” Beata rushed out of the room and banged the door shut.
    Megan put the suitcase on a chair and looked around the sparsely furnished room. A double bed with a colourful quilt and many cushions. A bedside table. Two easy chairs and a long padded seat by the window overlooking the bay. Everything painted a distressed white, even the floorboards with a Scandinavian look. Stark but peaceful.
    No time to linger. She had stopped off at the solicitor’s office when she passed through Tralee. A chirpy receptionist handed her an envelope with ‘keys and deeds, as instructed’.
      Megan pulled the envelope out of her tote bag and took out the deeds. It gave her a thrill to see her name as the owner of the house at ‘Kilshee, County Kerry’. The keys were old and rusty. My house , she thought and stuffed them into the pocket of her shorts. She changed her sandals for running shoes, pulled on a sweatshirt and was ready to take possession of her new home.
    ~ ~ ~
    The house looked exactly the same. Megan got out of the car, banged the door shut and jumped over the broken fence. She squinted at the mountains in the afternoon sun, listened happily to the gurgle of the stream and breathed in sweet, salt-scented air. Not wanting to tackle the inside of the house just yet, she sank down on the back