To A Macallister Born

Call It Love #213

To Have It All #237

Picture of Love #261

Pennies in the Fountain #275

Dawn’s Gift #303

Brooke’s Chance #323

Betting Man #344

Silver Sands #362

Lost and Found #384

Out of the Cold #440

Sophie’s Attic #725

Not Just Another Perfect Wife #818

Haven’s Call #859

JOAN ELLIOTT PICKART

is the author of over seventy novels. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys watching football, knitting, reading, gardening and attending craft shows on the town square. Joan has three all-grown-up daughters and a fantastic little grandson. In September of 1995, Joan traveled to China to adopt her fourth daughter, Autumn. Joan and Autumn have settled into their cozy cottage in a charming, small town in the high pine country of Arizona.

Contents

Chapter One (#ud6523812-732d-52e0-8cce-4617157fb07e)

Chapter Two (#u8d8d1e2b-dfae-5f59-b566-7e957670f7e2)

Chapter Three (#ufe9db341-fed6-5609-954b-5216dbc003e0)

Chapter Four (#ueef67e20-8cdc-545b-b2b0-31e3ba4d7708)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One

Jennifer Mackane stretched leisurely, then snuggled deeper beneath the blankets on the bed with a sigh of contentment.

She wasn’t scheduled to work today, or tonight, at Hamilton House, she mused, and would be able to spend the free hours with her precious Joey. They’d straighten up around the house and run errands, then indulge in dinner at Joey’s favorite fast-food restaurant.

She’d have the luxury of tucking a fresh-from-his-bath Joey into bed that night and reading him a story as he drifted off to sleep. Bliss. Sweet bliss.

A faint aroma of freshly brewed coffee reached Jennifer, and she knew the automatic timer on the machine had produced the hot, beckoning brew.

No, she thought. She’d stay in bed a while longer, be sinfully lazy. Then again, the coffee smelled so deliciously tempting.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” she said, laughing. “That coffee is calling my name.”

She threw back the blankets and left the bed, poking her feet into enormous yellow slippers that boasted the head of a smiling Big Bird.

Joey was so proud of those slippers he’d given her for Christmas last year, she mused. He’d gone shopping with his Uncle Brandon and Uncle Ben, the outing producing the bizarre slippers as Joey’s gift to his mom.

Jennifer had shot dagger-filled looks at Brandon Hamilton and Ben Rizzoli when she’d opened her present, and had seen the merriment and mischief dancing in their dark eyes. But she’d become accustomed to the pair’s nonsense while the three of them had grown up together. Here in the pretty little town of Prescott, nestled high in the mountains a hundred miles above Phoenix, they’d enjoyed an idyllic childhood.

Jennifer thudded her way toward the kitchen as she smoothed her red flannel nightshirt down to her knees. Big Bird’s heads bobbed up and down with each step she took.

Joey would be checking to see that she was wearing these silly creations, she knew, despite the fact that it was nearly a year since he’d given them to her.

In the large kitchen of the old, three-story Victorian house, Jennifer poured herself a mug of hot coffee, then opened the refrigerator to find the carton that would provide the splash of milk.

She hesitated and frowned, her gaze falling on the bridal bouquet on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. She added milk to the coffee, retrieved the bouquet, then settled at the kitchen table, staring at the lovely flowers as she took her first sip.

She could clearly recall the shock and dismay she’d registered when the bouquet had come sailing through the air at Megan and Ben’s wedding reception yesterday and somehow landed in her hands. She’d stared at it in wide-eyed horror, as the other women in the assembled group cheered for her, telling her she was now officially destined to be the next bride.

“No way,” she had said, poking the flowers with one finger. “Not a chance.”

She had planned to quietly slide the bouquet behind the stack of wedding gifts on the table at the reception and forget it. But Joey had been jumping up and down with excitement, declaring his mom to be a great pass catcher, just like whomever he had said caught the football from some quarterback he’d named. Joey had insisted on holding the touchdown bouquet all the way home.

Jennifer got to her feet, went to one of the cupboards and rummaged through it until she found a vase. She filled it halfway with water, then returned to the table and began to carefully dismantle the bouquet, sticking the flowers into the water.

They would now be just flowers in a vase, she decided, with no old wives’ tale connotations connected to them. Not that she actually believed in the whoever-caught-the-bouquet-is-the-next-bride theory, but why take unnecessary chances?