One More Night. Jennifer McKenzie
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With this fling...
Wedding planner Grace Monroe has her own happily-ever-after all figured out. She even has a five-year plan for getting there. But Owen Ford can’t be part of it—no matter how attractive she finds him. Owen isn’t the marrying kind. Even if he was, he doesn’t have the qualities she’s looking for in a husband.
But resisting Owen is impossible—and one night of passion isn’t nearly enough. Yet expecting more isn’t an option, either. Grace needs to end things and get back to her plan. She’s looking for Mr. Right, and Owen can only ever be Mr. Right Now...
Owen rattled her.
He didn’t check any—well, okay, he didn’t check many—of the boxes on her future husband list, but Grace still wanted him. But to what end? Was he looking to settle down? In a year? In five years? Did he want kids or a dog? But these weren’t the kinds of questions to ask when they hadn’t even been on a real date. Talk about getting ahead of herself.
Owen leaned forward. “I think we could have some fun together.”
They could. “I’m not looking for fun,” Grace told him. She planned to treat her love life with the same meticulous care that she ran her business. “Dating someone is serious.”
“It’s supposed to be fun, too.” He reached out and placed his large, warm hand over hers. “Tell me you’ll think about it.”
It’s hard to be the middle child, or at least that’s what I learned from The Brady Bunch. For Owen Ford, it’s the struggle to be more than the filling in the sibling sandwich and find his own place and his own space. Lucky for him he’s got Grace Monroe in his corner. Even when she doesn’t want to be.
I hope you’ll enjoy spending a little more time with the Ford family. I know I did.
If you’re curious about the music I played and the actors I pictured while writing the book, visit my website, jennifermckenzie.com.
Happy reading,
Jennifer McKenzie
One More Night
Jennifer
McKenzie
JENNIFER McKENZIE lives in Vancouver, Canada, where it rains. A lot. Which means she gets to purchase many pairs of cute boots without guilt. She spends her days writing emails, text messages, newsletters and books. When she’s not writing, she’s reading or eating chocolate and trying to convince her husband that it’s a health food. He has yet to fall for it. Visit her on the web at jennifermckenzie.com.
This book is for my uncles who have stolen my socks for fun, thrown me like a football for fun and read my books for fun. I won’t name any names...oh, wait. For Brian, Ken, Rick, Dan and Jens.
Contents
Dear Reader
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OWEN FORD SAT in Elephants, one of his family’s wine bars, enjoying the cool reprieve from the July afternoon and the opportunity to do nothing. It seemed over the past few months he’d done nothing but work, work, work. And then work some more. He’d recently taken on a larger role in the management of Elephants, trying to show that he was ready for more, ready to add one of the family’s other properties to his responsibilities. But so far, Elephants was where he remained.
Owen had been surprised to find he didn’t actually hate the work. Something that had shocked him as much as everyone else in the family. In fact, as he leaned back against the tufted padding of the booth in the bar he knew and loved, seeing his accomplishments filled him with a sense of pride.
Though it was only three in the afternoon, Elephants was already half full. People who’d slipped out of the office a bit early, summer tourists—anyone looking for a respite from the hot sun. And Owen knew the rest of the seats would fill up in the next hour as people got off work and looked for a little slice of relaxation after a hard day.
Owen knew he wasn’t solely responsible for the bar’s success, but he was part of it. It felt good knowing that his suggestions had been implemented and that they worked. He hoped to introduce similar changes at the other properties owned by the family company, the Ford Group, which included three wine bars and one fine dining establishment, but his older brother, Donovan, had been dragging his feet. Both about setting up a meeting and listening to any of Owen’s suggestions other than those for Elephants.
Owen tried not to take it personally. Donovan was recently engaged and the new owner of a property he planned to turn into a gastro pub, the first in a string that would dot the Vancouver landscape. But Owen had hoped the fact that Donovan was busier than ever would encourage him to put more on Owen’s plate. He’d proven he could handle it with Elephants. And yet, his brother seemed loath to allow further changes.
But he didn’t need to think about that now. At this moment, all he needed to do was order something to eat and something to wash it down with.
He smiled at the pretty server when she swung by to take his order. The old Owen would have done more than smile, would have flirted outrageously with the promise of taking it somewhere later, but the new Owen was an upstanding businessman who had learned to keep a bit of distance between himself and