Page 9 of Just for Tonight

It’s Isobelle of the glorious night of unfettered passion. One-time-isn’t-enough Isobelle, as I’ve called her in my dreams. Maybe even one-night-isn’t-enough Isobelle.

And there she is.

Here she is.

I’ve been looking for her in restaurants and in crowds everywhere I’ve gone in the past month, with no luck at all. I have seriously thought about going to Montreal to stare into crowds there, which has to be a long shot of the most improbable variety.

Yet, here she is, in the last place I’d look for anyone interesting, in the last place I’d even think of finding her.

Isobelle.

I don’t stare. I don’t think she realizes I’ve noticed her. She’s doing her best to hide that she’s noticed me. But as I study the menu without really seeing it, a few points get together to make a line.

• I met her at a function celebrating local food producers.

• Mike asked me to attend the event for Cavendish Enterprises.

• That means that she was at the party because of her link to a local producer, which means she can’t really be from Montreal. It’s in a different province and that wee fête was hosted by the province of Ontario.

Chances were actually quite good that she might be from Empire, if I’d thought it through. (I did not.) There are three locales particularly known for their food production in the province, notably Prince Edward County east of Toronto, Niagara, kind of south and west of the Big Smoke, and Empire, way west of the city. She had to be from one of them.

If she’s not really Isobelle from Montreal, and she’s here in Empire, chatting with the locals like she belongs here, she must be local herself. The conclusions are coming fast and thick as I choose my dinner from the array of tempting possibilities.

Given that she is tall and blonde and in possession of classic good looks, she can only be one person.

She’s Mackenzie Rhodes, the granddaughter of my dad’s arch rival, Augustine Rhodes.

We were neighbours when we were kids.

I strain my ears just a little and hear her voice, a wonderful throaty contralto that I remember very very well (albeit with a French accent), and then her words. She’s talking about the wine. Of course, she is. Augustine’s family business is Rhodes Vineyards. I’ve got it in one.

Turns out the elusive Isobelle was never that far away after all.

That may be the best news I’ve heard in a while, which is remarkable when you consider everything else that’s happened.

I order the lamb with the gratin, a big-ass glass of red wine from Rhodes Vineyards, and prepare for my day to show significant improvement in its final hours.

Maybe my whole life will turn around.

I can’t wait to find out.

2

Mackenzie

Jake Cavendish has no clue who I am.

Okay. It was a night. It was a hook-up. It was supposed to be forgettable – but even so, I’m insulted.

He can’t remember the night that’s been haunting my dreams and fueling my fantasies for a whole month? I want to stab a steak knife into his eye.

It’s true that I’m not in evening attire. I’m not turned out in my most glamourous mode. (I haven’t had a day at the spa since that trip to Toronto.) But it’s been just a month since we spent an entire night wrapped around each other. I thought that was pretty memorable, but for him, it must have been routine.

How many women have there been since? It’s not my business, but grrrr.

We didn’t even do it in the dark. The man wanted to see and he’s seen more of me than anyone in a long time. I saw more of him. I touched his appendectomy scar. I know that it’s ticklish.

Yet tonight we could be complete strangers.