Taking a Chance ...Part 2 ....Once in a Lifetime

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
― Henry David Thoreau

Gulf Dream

I’m not a risk taker and cling to the familiar, but I had to face it—I was stuck in a rut.

Toronto is a beautiful city but in winter it can sometimes be bleak, especially when the cold winds blow and the snow lingers.

Cat Eaton, the wife of my publisher, persuaded me to escape my ennui and fly south to Florida’s Anna Maria Island.

Like me, she’s a hopeless romantic and believes I just might find love in those warm gulf breezes. For once, I’m willing to do something mad rather than follow my reason.

And so I did.

A week later, I’m sitting at an umbrella table eating lunch at The Sandbar Restaurant at Holmes Beach, watching the lonely white waves come in, and letting the wind punish my hair.

“Mind if I join you?”

I look up to see a girl in her mid-thirties, tanned, with sun-bleached hair, smiling down at me.

“Of course,” I stammer, “please, be my guest.”

Already, I’m feeling like a jerk—be my guest—who says that? Me—that’s who—I just did—what a klutz.

“I’m in the cottage just down from you—I recognized you and thought I’d take the opportunity to meet you and chat. Are you renting, or are you the new owner?”

She’s incredibly beautiful—I love staring at her like I do the waves.

“Actually, I’m the owner,” I hear myself telling her, as if one part of me is on auto-pilot and the other part just wants to sit and stare.

“So, are you intending to live in the cottage or just use it as a vacation home?”

“I haven’t really made my mind up yet—it’s fully furnished—I really wouldn’t have to touch a thing—it’s perfect.”

“It is,” she smiles.

And so are you, I want to say, but instead I just nod and look out to sea.

“You really love it here, don’t you? I mean, I see you each night at sunset taking a glass of wine down to the beach.”

“Guilty as charged,” I say, and wonder why the hell I said that.

The waitress brings two identical meals—hamburgers, onion rings and vanilla shakes. I look surprised, but the girl laughs, a gentle musical giggle, that reminds me of a glass wind chime.

“I saw you order and asked the waitress to bring me whatever you were having.”

“I hope you weren’t expecting anything exotic,” I say lamely, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

“Oh no, I’m just a country girl at heart—I love simple food—and I like wine with sunsets too.”

She looks directly at me then and I feel everything inside me melt.

I seem to be under a spell—the sun, the wind, the waves—her.

“Well, aren’t you going to eat?” She teases, and again the musical laughter seems to rob me of my senses.

I pick at my food, but honestly, the last thing I want to do is eat. I just want to stare at her—all afternoon, all night and frankly, for the rest of my life.

Fall in love, just once, Cat whispers inside my head.

“You haven’t told me your name,” she giggles.

“It’s Daniel,” I say “and yours?”

Damn! Why did I ask it like that?

“Lucinda,” she smiles. “Oh, I know it sounds so formal—so, you can call me Lucy.”

I feel the wind disorienting me—as if my hearing is lost by the constant shudder of the wind. She seems to sense my distress.

“It’s very windy here—maybe we should walk back to the cottages,” she suggests.

I nod and leave two twenties on the table safely tucked under a milkshake glass.

As we start back up the beach, the wind buffets us, and she leans in and loops her arm around mine.

“Musn’t get blown away,” she laughs.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci has you in her thrall, I muse grimly to myself, and half-believe it, but don’t care.

“I don’t think you’ll be toasting the sunset tonight,” she remarks and points to a squall heading our way.

We barely make it home before the first black drops begin splattering the paved road leading up from the beach.

“Come inside, and get out of the rain,” she suggests. “You’ll get soaked even walking the short distance to your place.”

I don’t need encouraging. She sits me down on her porch swing with a towel to dry my hair while she goes inside to change.

A few minutes later, she’s back, hair tied up in a colorful scarf and wearing a black cutout sundress with wide straps. She’s brought two glasses of cab sav and sits down beside me on the swing, smiling at the storm.

Don’t you just love elementals?” she enthuses.

I nod and stare. I am enthralled with the rain—lost in the mist—lost in her.

And what happened then? Cat stares at me, concerned.

I raise my hands and let them fall in a gesture of futility. “I have absolutely no idea,” I confess.

We’re sitting in The Coffee Mill in the chic part of downtown Toronto and the thought of Florida now just a misty blur.

“Do you think you were drugged?” she asks.

“I don’t know—maybe—I have no idea. But then, to what purpose? Nothing was stolen.”

“And nobody in the cottages knows about the woman?”

I feel a fool. In my mind, I’m again staring at the dilapidated shack I thought was a Craftsman’s Cottage from the Thirties.

“It’s bizarre, Daniel. Why don’t you take a few weeks off from writing? —Tom would understand.”

“Tell Tom? Not on your life—I already feel humiliated—but more than that, I feel stupid—you know, really dumb.”

She gets a fierce look in her eyes. “You are not dumb, Daniel Gregg—you’re one of the sweetest, most romantic men I know—and if you’re dumb, what does that make me?”

“A hopeless romantic like me, I guess.” I smile weakly.

She smiles at me compassionately, and we both look out the window and watch the rain.

“On the plus side,” she purrs, “You fell in love for once in your life.”

© 2026, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

Photo