“Then I’ll come to Ireland,” she said, meekly. “I don’t mind being the one to travel if you don’t feel able to. I loved Ireland. I can come to you again.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Keira knew what he meant, but she didn’t want to believe it. She wasn’t about to let Shane give up at the first hurdle. Their love was greater than that, more important and special. She’d have to convince him otherwise, even if it meant sounding desperate or becoming, in Bryn’s words, too reliant.

She listened to the sound of Shane take a deep, sad inhalation. “I’m needed on the farm, with my family. Ireland is my home. I can’t move anywhere else.”

“No one’s talking about moving,” Keira replied.

“But we will be, soon enough,” Shane said. “If we want our relationship to work, at some point we’re going to have to live in the same country. I can’t move there. You won’t move here.”

“I could,” Keira stammered. “I’m sure I could. At some point.”

She thought of the beautiful country she’d fallen in love with. She could certainly live there if it was necessary to be with Shane.

“On a farm?”

“Sure!”

The cute farmhouse filled with love and family was a wonderful draw for Keira. Her own family was fragmented, with Bryn always busy, her mom living miles away, and her father completely absent from her life. What wasn’t there to love about the instant family Shane could provide her with?

“With my family? My sisters? My parents?” Shane questioned her. “And all those sheep?”

Keira remembered the sheep dung she’d found herself knee deep in. She thought of Shane’s six sisters, who were all lovely but all still living at home. It would be a squeeze. Hardly the life she’d expected for herself. But neither was sleeping on Bryn’s couch. If she could put up with living with her own sister then she could definitely put up with living with all six of Shane’s! And wasn’t life supposed to be about overcoming the challenges it threw at you? Wasn’t it about embracing the crazy?

“Shane,” Keira replied, trying to sound soothing. “We don’t need to work this stuff out right now. Life changes. Who knows, all your sisters might get married and move out. Your parents might decide to sell the farm and sail around the world on a yacht. You can’t predict the future so let’s just stop worrying about it.”

“Please listen,” Shane replied, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’m trying to end it now so that it doesn’t become even more painful than it already is, later down the road.”

The word end repeated in Keira’s mind, like a hammer on steel. She winced, the painful lump in her throat growing even bigger and harder than it already was.

It dawned on her then for the first time that Shane’s mind was made up. He wasn’t backing down. Nothing she said would change his mind.

“Don’t do this,” Keira replied. Suddenly she was crying, sobbing loudly, uncontrollably, as it finally sunk in that Shane wasn’t going to back down. That he really was breaking up with her. Her One. The love of her life.