Plain Jane Macallister

JOAN ELLIOTT PICKART

presents the powerful romance of a Plain Jane

single mom burdened by a fourteen-year-old secret

and the devastatingly handsome M.D. who makes

her want to believe all things are possible—

even second chances at love!

Praise for Joan Elliott Pickart

“Joan Elliott Pickart delivers an old-fashioned romance complete with appealing characters and…passion.”

—Romantic Times

“Joan Elliott Pickart leaves you breathless with anticipation.”

—Rendezvous

“[Joan Elliott Pickart] makes love magical, special, real, natural and oh, so right!”

—Rendezvous

“Joan Elliott Pickart weaves a sensitive love story….”

—Romantic Times

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire! This month we’ve created a brand-new lineup of passionate, powerful and provocative love stories just for you.

Begin your reading enjoyment with Ride the Thunder by Lindsay McKenna, the September MAN OF THE MONTH and the second book in this beloved author’s cross-line series, MORGAN’S MERCENARIES: ULTIMATE RESCUE. An amnesiac husband recovers his memory and returns to his wife and child in The Secret Baby Bond by Cindy Gerard, the ninth title in our compelling DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS continuity series.

Watch a feisty beauty fall for a wealthy lawman in The Sheriff & the Amnesiac by Ryanne Corey. Then meet the next generation of MacAllisters in Plain Jane MacAllister by Joan Elliott Pickart, the newest title in THE BABY BET: MACALLISTER’S GIFTS.

A night of passion leads to a marriage of convenience between a gutsy heiress and a macho rodeo cowboy in Expecting Brand’s Baby, by debut Desire author Emilie Rose. And in Katherine Garbera’s new title, The Tycoon’s Lady falls off the stage into his arms at a bachelorette auction, as part of our popular BRIDAL BID theme promotion.

Savor all six of these sensational new romances from Silhouette Desire today.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Plain Jane MacAllister

Joan Elliott Pickart

JOAN ELLIOTT PICKART

is the author of over eighty-five novels. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys reading, gardening and attending craft shows on the town square with her young daughter, Autumn. Joan also has three all-grown-up daughters and three fantastic grandchildren. Joan and Autumn live in a charming small town in the high pine country of Arizona.

For my grandsons,

Jeremiah, Frankie and Wolf,

The next generation

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Prologue

Home, Mark Maxwell thought as he set his heavy suitcase down. He was finally back in Boston after living and working in Paris for what had proven to be a very long year.

The research project he’d been invited to take part in had been fascinating and challenging, and it had certainly been an honor to participate. The problem with his stay had been that the preconceived vision most Americans had about the city had turned out to be absolutely true. Everywhere he’d gone, it seemed, he had been surrounded by couples who were deeply in love.

Maybe the same could be said of Boston, but he’d sure never noticed it if it was. He’d gone to Paris with a mind-set which no doubt made him more aware of the love-in-bloom, or some such thing. To his own self-disgust, he’d also been thrown back in time to when he, too, had been in love, had lost his heart and youthful innocence to a sweet smile and sparkling brown eyes.

They had made plans for a future together, a forever, had talked for hours about the home they would share, the children they would create, the happiness that would be theirs until death parted them.

But none of it had been real…not to her.

She’d smashed his heart to smithereens, leaving him stunned, bitter and determined never to love again.

He’d been convinced that he’d dealt with those painful ghosts, had long since forgotten her and what she had done to him. But while in Paris in the crush of the clinging couples, the pairs, the twosomes, the old memories had risen to the fore, taunting him, making him face the realization that he really had neither forgiven nor forgotten her.

He strode across the living room toward the kitchen. While he’d been gone, he’d rented his apartment to his buddy Eric, a recently divorced doctor at the hospital, and Eric had told Mark on the phone the other night that he’d have some food in the refrigerator when Mark returned. He’d also put the magazines and junk mail that had come in Mark’s absence in a box in the corner of the kitchen.

As Mark scrambled four eggs in a frying pan, adding shredded cheese and chunks of ham, he inhaled the delicious aroma, then frowned as he scooped the mound of eggs onto a plate and carried it to the table at the end of the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of milk, then settled onto a chair and took a bite of the hot, very-needed food.

Yep, he thought, after a nourishing meal and hours of sleep, he’d be the same ol’ Dr. Mark Maxwell who’d left Boston a year ago.

But he was still frowning as he stared into space as he chewed, then swallowed.

The same ol’ Dr. Mark Maxwell, his mind echoed.

Dr. Mark Maxwell, who had avoided becoming involved in any kind of serious relationship with a woman for the past fourteen years.

Dr. Mark Maxwell, who had buried himself in his work, who was the whiz kid of medical research at only thirty-two-years-old.

Dr. Mark Maxwell, who was just as lonely here in Boston as he’d been in Paris, but who hadn’t admitted that to himself until right this second.

“Damn it,” he said aloud, then shoveled in another forkful of eggs. He was so thoroughly exhausted that he was emotionally and mentally vulnerable. He didn’t seem to possess the ability to recognize that he had had no time to nurture a partnership with a woman because he’d been centered on his career.

His hopes and dreams had become a reality beyond his wildest imagination. But emotionally? He was forced to accept what he could no longer deny. He was still a kid, eighteen years old, wounded and raw, disillusioned, bitter and mad as hell.

“Well, isn’t this just great?” Mark said, shaking his head in disgust. “So? Now what, Maxwell? How do you plan to free yourself of her ghost?”

He didn’t have a clue. But, by damn, he’d figure it out once he’d had some rejuvenating sleep, because he had no intention of spending the rest of his life alone and lonely because of her. No way.

“I’ll get back to myself on this later,” he said, getting to his feet. “Damn straight, I will. But for now I’m not thinking about it anymore because I’m definitely brain-dead.”

He went to the box in the corner, snatched up the magazine lying on the top of the pile and looked at the cover.

“Across the USA,” he read, then sat down again and flipped it open.

Taking the last bite of eggs, Mark turned a page in the magazine and stiffened, every muscle in his body tensing as he stared at the story headline.

“Ventura, California, Cousins Marry Royal Cousins in Romantic Fairy-Tale Fashion,” he read aloud.

His heart thundered as he looked at a color picture of a multitude of people whom the caption identified as being the two families…the royal one from the Island of Wilshire and the one from Ventura.

And there she was.

She was standing in the row behind the two recently married couples.

It was her.

Mark got to his feet so quickly, the chair fell to the floor with a crash he didn’t even hear, his gaze riveted on the photograph.

This was creepy, really weird, he thought frantically. He was fighting an emotional battle over her and now her picture was staring him in the face?

Get a grip, he told himself, setting the fallen chair back into place and sinking onto it. Maybe this wasn’t weird. Maybe this was a…yeah…a sign, a directive, telling him that the only way to be truly free of her was to see her one last time, making it possible finally to close the door on what had happened so very long ago. Then he’d be able to move forward, find his soul mate, fill his life with love and laughter, hearth, home and babies, and erase the chill of loneliness consuming him.

He’d sleep on this concept, he thought. But if it still had this much merit when he was well rested, he was going back to Ventura, by damn. He would fly to the opposite end of the States and get his heart back because somehow, somehow, she’d managed to keep it.

Mark picked up the magazine and stared at her picture, seeing the smile he knew so well, the blond hair and big, brown eyes, those lips…oh, those lips that tasted like sweet nectar.

She was so damn beautiful, he thought. She was a mature woman now, not a child of seventeen. She’d gained weight over the years, but it suited her and…she was really, really beautiful and…

He smacked the magazine back onto the table and pointed a finger at her smiling image.

“You are going to have a visitor,” he said, a rough edge to his voice. “It’s payback time, Emily MacAllister.”

One

“Grandma,” Emily MacAllister called as she crossed the sunshine-filled kitchen. “I’m here with the flowers as promised, and they’re gorgeous. You’re going to love them. You can sit on the patio and supervise while I stick them in the ground. Grandma?”

“I’m in the living room, dear,” Margaret MacAllister answered.

Emily went through the formal dining room and on to enter the living room, a smile of greeting for her beloved grandmother firmly in place.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks, feeling the color drain from her face and her breath catch as her heart thundered.

In that second, that tiny tick of time, as she stared wide-eyed at the tall man who had risen to his feet when she appeared, her life as she knew it ceased to exist.

She wasn’t thirty-one-years old, she was eighteen.

She wasn’t a pudgy woman with fat cheeks and a hint of a double chin, she was a slender teenager with a figure to be envied.

She wasn’t wearing clothes that looked as though she’d borrowed them from a bag lady, she was dressed in the latest designer jeans with a well-known brand name stitched across the pocket on her trim, tight bottom.

A wave of dizziness swept through Emily, and she gripped the top of an easy chair with one hand as the room spun around her.

This, she thought frantically, was not happening. It was a nightmare, and she was about to wake up and start her day in a normal manner.

Mark Maxwell was not, not, not, standing on the other side of that room, looking at her with no readable expression on his face. No.

“Isn’t this a lovely surprise, Emily?” Margaret said pleasantly. “Mark is here to visit us after all these years.”

No…he…isn’t, Emily thought. Oh, why didn’t the alarm go off and wake her up? No, no, no, Mark Maxwell is not here.

“Hello, Emily,” Mark said quietly.

Yes, he is, she thought, pressing one hand to her forehead. But this wasn’t skinny, gangly, endearingly geeky, Mark Maxwell. Nope, not this one. This Mark was at least six feet tall, had drop-dead-gorgeous rough-hewn features, broad shoulders and was wearing perfectly tailored dark slacks.

Where was the adorable plastic pocket protector jammed full of pens he always wore in his shirt pocket? Where was the cowlick in his light-brown hair that formed a cute little curlicue on the crown of his head? Where were the arms and legs and enormous feet, all of which were much too big for his still-developing body?

“Emily?” Margaret said. “Aren’t you going to say hello to Mark? I realize that you two parted on, shall we say, terms that were at best confusing to the rest of us but, my stars, that was years ago. Old news. History, as the young people say. And you’re not being very polite.”

“Oh.” Emily drew a much-needed breath, only then realizing she’d totally forgotten to breathe. “Sorry. Yes. Polite. Hello…Mark.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why on earth are you here?”

“Emily, for heaven’s sake,” Margaret said. “That was extremely rude.”

“That’s all right, Margaret. I’m sure that my arriving unannounced like this is a bit of a shock to Emily.”

Emily, Mark’s mind hummed. There she was. He could hardly believe he was here with only a matter of feet separating them.

There was that silky blond hair he used to sift his fingers through, now worn in gentle waves to just above her shoulders.

There were those classic MacAllister brown eyes that could sparkle with merriment, turn smoky with desire, shimmer with glistening tears when she was very happy or terribly sad.

She was dressed like a walking rummage sale, weighed a lot more than when she was a teenager, didn’t appear to have on a speck of makeup and one toe was actually poking through a hole in her about-to-fall-apart tennis shoes.

Oh, yes, there she was.

Emily.

And she was absolutely beautiful.

He wanted to cross the room, pull her into his arms, kiss her senseless, then…

Hold it, Maxwell, Mark thought. This was Emily MacAllister, who had somehow managed to keep a stranglehold on his heart and he was there in Ventura, by damn, to get it back.

“Mark just returned from a year in Paris, Emily,” Margaret said, “where he was part of a carefully selected team of medical researchers. His position in Boston was filled when he went to Paris but before he decides where to work next, perhaps even leaving Boston, he’s taking a much-deserved vacation, which included stopping in Ventura to say hello. Isn’t that nice?”

“Just too nice for words,” Emily mumbled, then inched around the chair and sank onto it as her trembling legs refused to hold her for another moment.

Mark sat back down on the sofa and propped one ankle on his other knee. Emily’s gaze was riveted on the taut muscles visible beneath his slacks as he completed the masculine motion. She blinked and redirected her attention to the fingernails of one of her hands as though they were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.

“There are a couple of reasons that I stopped over in Ventura,” Mark said. “One of them is to extend an apology to you and Robert, Margaret, for not keeping in better contact with you. Sending a Christmas card once a year just doesn’t cut it.

“If you hadn’t taken me in, welcomed me into your home when my father was killed in that accident when I was a senior in high school, there’s no telling what grief I would have come to in the foster-care system. I owe you a great deal, and I feel as though I’ve been remiss in expressing my gratitude.”

“We were delighted to have you here as a part of our family, Mark,” Margaret said. “Even if we had had a crystal ball to tell us what would eventually transpire between you and…”

“Grandma,” Emily interrupted, “let’s not go traipsing down memory lane, shall we?” She looked at Mark. “You said you had a couple of reasons for being in Ventura?”

Mark nodded. Emily waited for him to continue speaking. One second, two, three…

“Is this a guessing game?” Emily finally said, frowning. “Do you intend to share this other…mission, with us?”

“All in good time,” Mark said, then paused. “Margaret told me that you have a very challenging career, Emily, and that you’ve recently moved your business out of your home and into an office downtown.

“You research the history of old homes and buildings, as I understand it. Fascinating. Margaret also said you do quite a bit of work for the restoration division of MacAllister Architects so they can restore old structures in such a manner they will be eligible for registration with the historical society. Not only that but your reputation for excellence is spreading up and down the coast.”

Emily glared at her grandmother. “Did you remember to tell him that I brush my teeth in the morning when I get up and again before I go to bed, Grandma?”

Margaret laughed. “Don’t be silly. Mark asked how you were, what you were doing, and I told him. A proud grandmother has the right to boast. It’s in our job description. We’d already moved on to the subject of the exciting events of Maggie and Alice’s weddings and their new lives on the Island of Wilshire.”

“Good topic,” Emily said, pointing one finger in the air. “There’s nothing like a couple of royal weddings to put a little zing in the daily grind.

“Jessica is married now, too, Mark. She’s a successful attorney, crazy in love with a police detective named Daniel, and became an instant mother to a darling baby girl named Tessa. We MacAllisters have spent a lot of time going to family weddings in…”

“But you’ve never married?” Mark interrupted quietly, looking directly at Emily.

“Me?” she said, splaying one hand on her chest. “Oh, heavens, no. When I was young and immature and such a starry-eyed child I thought I wanted that type of lifestyle but it suddenly dawned on me that it just wasn’t my cup of tea and…”

She flipped one hand in the air. “Well, you know all that because you and I were inseparable from the time you moved to Ventura until you zoomed off to fame and fortune in Boston and… Well, silly us, we were so sure we were deeply in… We were so young and dumb, weren’t we? Oh, my, yes. Well, that’s enough of that subject.”

It was enough of that subject, Mark thought, to slice and dice him, to hear spoken in Emily’s own words an echo of what she’d written in that letter she’d sent him in Boston so many years ago.

His first instinct then had been to get on a plane and fly back to Ventura, confront Emily, make her look him right in the eye and repeat what was in that letter. But he hadn’t had two nickels to rub together, let alone money for airfare. And besides, she’d made it perfectly clear in that damnable, hateful letter that it was over between them, so what was the point?

And now here he sat in the same room with her over a dozen years later hearing her say it all right to his face. And it still hurt. God, it hurt.

Well, wasn’t this an efficient use of time? During the very first meeting with Emily since arriving this morning in Ventura, he’d gotten the cold, hard facts he needed to begin to retrieve his heart from her uncaring stranglehold.

But…

There was something just off the mark about what she had just said. She made it sound as though they’d mutually agreed that their feelings for each other weren’t what they’d believed them to be, and that wasn’t even remotely close to the truth.

He had left for Boston with the heartfelt promise to send for her just as soon as he could figure out a way to provide a home for her while he attended college on the scholarship he’d received.

Emily had vowed to wait for him no matter how long it took, but about a month later the shattering letter had come and…

“Yo in the house,” a voice called in the distance, jerking Mark back to the present. “I’m here as ordered to dig in the dirt.”

Emily’s eyes widened and she jumped to her feet. “Can’t. No digging in dirt today. Sorry, Grandma, I’ve got a killer headache so we’ll do this tomorrow. I’ll just go tell… Bye, Mark, enjoy your vacation and…”

The front door of the house opened and an adolescent boy came into the living room.

“Oh, dear heaven,” Emily whispered, “no.”

“Hi,” the boy said. “Didn’t you hear me holler? I came right over on my bike when I got home from swimming and saw your note, Mom. Hi, Great-Grandma. We’re going to dig the dirt, plant the plants, do it to it.” His attention was caught by a tall man across the room getting slowly to his feet. “Oh, hi. Sorry. Didn’t know there was company.” He looked questioningly at his mother.

“Yes, well,” Emily said, having difficulty breathing. “I…Mark Maxwell, I’d like you to meet…” She drew a shaky breath. “…my…my…son. Trevor. Trevor MacAllister. Trevor, say hello to Dr. Mark Maxwell. He’s an old school…chum of mine.”

“Cool,” Trevor said, nodding. “Hi.”

“You’re Emily’s…son?” Mark said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears as he stared at Trevor.

“Yep, that’s me. Her genius-level offspring. Do note that I’m taller than she is already. Cool, huh?”

“Very cool,” Mark said. “How…how old are you, Trevor?”

No! Don’t answer that, Emily thought, taking a step toward Trevor.

“Yes, the time has come for this,” Margaret whispered to no one.

“I’m twelve, almost thirteen,” Trevor said. “Closer to thirteen, so just go with that. I’m about to become a bona fide teenager.”

Who looked exactly as he had at that age, Mark thought, his mind racing. Tall, lanky, feet like gunboats, arms and legs seeming too big for his yet-to-fully-develop body, brown eyes, light-brown hair and a cowlick creating a curl on the crown of his head.

This was Emily’s son? Mark’s mind screamed. Oh, he didn’t doubt for a second that she had given birth to him but, by damn, this boy standing a room away from him was more than just Emily’s son.

There was no doubt in his mind. None.

He, Mark Maxwell, was Trevor’s father!

Two

Just after ten o’clock that night, Emily stood in front of the full-length mirror mounted on the back of her bedroom door and sighed as she stared at her reflection.

Blimpo, she thought dismally. The jeans and over-blouse she was wearing made her look like a Pillsbury Dough Girl, complete with pudgy cheeks.

Her hair was freshly shampooed and her light makeup was just enough to accentuate her signature MacAllister brown eyes, but nothing could erase the fact that she weighed twenty pounds more than she should.

She’d been so proud of herself, of the thirty pounds she’d lost during the past months, but tonight the twenty extra she still carried around made her thighs, stomach and bottom look like heavy sandbags and her face like a moon waiting for a cow to jump over it.

“Blak,” Emily said, then left the bedroom, smacking off the light as she went.

She wandered down the hall into the small living room, aware that the sound of Trevor’s stereo had stilled and there was no light shining from beneath his door as she glanced along the hallway.

And now Mark would knock on the door, she thought, sinking onto the sofa. It didn’t require magical powers or a crystal ball to know that he would appear on her doorstep as soon as he was assured that Trevor…that his son…was asleep for the night.

She’d seen the look on Mark’s face when he’d stared at Trevor that afternoon and saw the carbon copy of himself when he was young and skinny.

A shiver coursed through Emily. She wrapped her hands around her elbows as she moved to the edge of the sofa cushion and bent over slightly.

She felt so strange, she thought. It was as though she was standing outside herself watching a drama unfold scene by scene, not knowing what would happen next.

The beginning of the story had starred a pretty, slender young girl and a not-quite-having-it-together teenage boy. They had been deeply in love and had created a child together, a baby boy who the hero knew nothing about.

Fast forward to the present for act two. The hero was now a successful and highly respected doctor in the world of medical research, and the heroine was a fat, unattractive woman, who was struggling to hang onto a modicum of self-esteem she had fought desperately to obtain.