Plain Jane's Texan

By Jan Hudson

ONE DETERMINED TEXAN

From the moment their gazes collided at a family wedding, and their lips met in a passionate kiss, plain Jane Eve Ellison wondered if a man like Matt Crow could truly desire her. Sophisticated, sexy, and super wealthy, he could have any woman. But after their first magical encounter, he claimed he wanted her .

Eve didn't give her heart easily All her life she'd been the brains to her sister's beauty. Often overlooked. Never the object of anyone's affection. But Matt was different. He made her feel beautiful. And cherished. Yet could Eve trust that this Texan was not merely enjoying the thrill of the chase, but was motivated by true love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460861073

Jan Hudson

Except for a brief sojourn in Fort Knox, Kentucky, when her husband was in the army, Jan has lived her entire life in Texas. Like most Texans, she adores tall tales. One of her earliest memories is wearing her footed flannel pajamas and snuggling on someone's lap as patrons sat around the pot-bellied stove in her grandparents' country store-the same store where her mother once filled Bonnie and Clyde's gas tank. She remembers listening, engrossed, as the local characters that gathered there each evening swapped tales. People and their stories have always fascinated her. All kinds of people. All kinds of stories. And she loves books. All kinds of books. Her house is filled with scads of bookshelves, and books are stacked in odd places here and there. As a five-year-old, her great sorrow was the loss of her big fairy-tale volume to a hurricane. She didn't care about clothes or furniture-or even dolls. She wept buckets over that book. Jan has always had a vivid imagination and an active fantasy life, perhaps as a result of being an only child. Her curiosity is boundless and her interest range is extremely broad. In college she majored in both English and elementary education and minored in biology and history. Later she earned a master's degree and a doctorate in counseling, was a licensed psychologist and a crackerjack hypnotist, and taught college psychology (including statistics) for twelve years. Along the way she became a blue ribbon flower arranger, an expert on dreams, and a pretty decent bridge player. Yet, she had a creative itch she had to scratch. The need to write had always been there, nagging. Her mother always swore that her labor with Jan was so long and difficult because her daughter was holding a tablet in one hand and a pencil in the other and wouldn't let go. After years of daydreaming and secretly plotting novels, she took a few brush-up courses, joined Romance Writers of America, and plunged in. Now she writes full time, sees a few hypnotherapy clients on the side, and spends a lot of time reading-and daydreaming. Though her friends swore that their "love at first sight" romance would never last, Jan and her husband have been living happily ever after for more years that she likes to admit. After a brief career as a rock drummer, their tall, handsome, brilliant son is an ad agency creative director. His most creative production is an adorable grandson who loves the stories his Nana tells him. Her most memorable adventure was riding a camel to the Sphinx, climbing the Great Pyramid, and sailing down the Nile. Her favorite food is fudge. With pecans. Chocolate eclairs are a close second.

Book preview

One

As Matt Crow stood at the altar of a small Episcopal church in Akron, Ohio, gussied up in a tuxedo and his dress boots, he saw an angel, an honest-to-God angel. He hadn’t seen anything so beautiful since he’d left Texas at dawn. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Matt forgot about the crowd gathered for the wedding. The music preceding the bride’s entry became a faint melody somewhere in the back of his mind. His total attention was on the angel coming toward him.

Instead of a diaphanous white robe, she wore a wine-colored gown, and he didn’t see wings sprouting from her back, but otherwise she was absolutely celestial. Sunlight shining through the stained glass window shimmered around her head like a halo and turned her hair to strands of spun silver and pale gold interlaced with pearls.

Spellbound, he watched as she slowly approached the altar, her gaze lowered, her hands clutching a large bouquet of lilies and roses. Only when she took her place beside the others gathered there did she lift her chin. Her long lashes swept upward to reveal the most gorgeous eyes he’d ever seen in his life.

An angel’s eyes.

So pale and haunting a blue that against her golden skin they seemed like liquid sky. His mouth went dry. The world stopped.

Totally terrified, Eve Ellison clutched her bouquet as if the flowers were a lifeline in the turbulent sea of emotions threatening to engulf her. Why had she ever agreed to be the maid of honor? She’d tried to talk Irish out of it, tried to convince her sister that one of her poised and glamorous friends would be much better, but Irish wouldn’t hear of it.

Eve, don’t be a goose, Irish, had said. I wouldn’t dream of having anyone but my little sister for my maid of honor.

Eve had peered over her glasses and scowled. "I am not by any stretch of the imagination your little sister. I’m damned near six feet tall and not the type for ruffles and sweetheart necklines. I’ll do the flowers, I’ll bake the cake, I’ll even make cutesy little bags of birdseed and potpourri for the guests to toss, but please don’t ask me to put on a Scarlett O’Hara dress and walk down that aisle in front of everybody. Irish, you’re the beauty of the family, you’re the model who loves the limelight, not me. I’d feel like a fool."

But Irish had planted her fists on her hips and gotten that determined look on her face, the one that said she planned on getting her way, no matter what. Eve Ellison, I don’t know where you get your dumb ideas. You’ll be a lovely maid of honor. You’re much more beautiful than I ever was.

Eve had snorted. Yeah, sure. Everyone’s talking about how I have to beat off the hordes of men with a baseball bat. Sis, I haven’t even had a date in almost a year.

Then the men in Cleveland are blind. Anyone can see that you’re lovely. I suspect that it’s your attitude rather than your looks keeping them away. And...well, you could do a little something with your hair.

Her hand had automatically gone to her head. What’s wrong with my hair?

Other than the fact that it looks as if it were last cut with a weed whacker, hasn’t been brushed thoroughly in a week, and is tied into a lopsided mess with a shoe string?

Eve had jutted her jaw. Yeah, other than that?

Irish had burst into laughter. I swear, Eve, I think you go out of your way to look grungy. No makeup, shapeless clothes. What are you trying to prove?

Actually Eve wasn’t trying to prove anything. She simply didn’t think much about her appearance. Never had. Irish had always been the beauty; Eve had the brains. Not that Irish was dumb, of course. She wasn’t. Irish was very bright, but she’d always been more interested in clothes and makeup and drama. Eve had been content to hide away with a book or her paints or a stray cat. She’d always cared more for digging in the dirt among the flowers and vegetables than polishing her fingernails.

Predictably, Irish had decided that the time had come for Eve to pay some attention to her appearance, and nothing would do but for the two of them to spend a week in New York. The prospective groom, Dr. Kyle Rutledge, agreed that it was a splendid idea and insisted on bankrolling the excursion.

Now here Eve was, her hair styled, her nails polished, her face made up, wearing new contact lenses and a Scarlett O’Hara gown and feeling like a damned fool. Sure that everyone must be staring at her, she’d kept her eyes on the toes of her satin pumps as she walked down the aisle to the altar, praying earnestly that she wouldn’t throw up or keel over. Terrified as she was, the walk had seemed ten miles long.

The first thing she saw when she finally looked up was a pair of flashing black eyes staring at her. The man, who she assumed was Kyle’s cousin, wasn’t just staring, he was gaping. He probably thought she looked like a damned fool, too. She wanted to disappear in a puff of smoke.

Automatically, she began to draw in her shoulders to protect her heart, but the new bra Irish had insisted she buy was taut as a bow string. The blasted thing gouged and pinched her and prevented her familiar postural shield.

So instead of drawing in like a turtle, she lifted her chin and defiantly gaped back.

Gaping at him wasn’t difficult. The man was gorgeous. Six and a half feet of gorgeous. Thick dark hair, cleft chin, sexy mouth, shoulders a yard wide.

He winked at her, and she almost pitched over on her nose. Heat rose from her chest and spread over her throat. Before she made a complete idiot of herself, she turned quickly as the congregation rose and Irish and their dad started down the aisle.

This must be Matt Crow, Eve thought as the wedding march swelled. She’d met Kyle’s cousin, Jackson Crow, at the rehearsal and subsequent dinner the night before, but Jackson’s brother couldn’t make it to Ohio until that morning, and Kyle’s brother Smith hadn’t been able to make the wedding at all. Even so, never had Eve seen so many tall, handsome men as the bunch of Texans Irish had met on her jaunt to find a millionaire. Eve had thought that Jackson was particularly good-looking, but his younger brother was unbelievable. He took her breath away.

Little colored dots began to dance in front of her eyes. Eve shook herself, sucked in a deep breath, and turned to face the priest.

Matt couldn’t keep his eyes or his thoughts off the maid of honor. She must be Irish’s younger sister. Ann? Karen? Lisa? For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. When Irish or Kyle had mentioned her, her name hadn’t registered. Everything about her registered now.

When Kyle finally kissed his bride and turned to grin like a possum at the audience, Matt could hardly wait until the bridal party got outside and he could make the angel’s acquaintance. Moments later the best man, Flint Durham, lucky dog, offered his arm to her, and they followed Kyle and Irish up the aisle. Jackson and one of the bridesmaids went next. Matt crooked his arm for Kim Devlin, another bridesmaid, and they brought up the rear.

What’s Irish’s sister’s name? he asked Kim as they hurried from the church.

Kim grinned. Eve. Beautiful, isn’t she?

You got that right.

Matt tried to make his way to Eve, but the group was herded by a photographer into an area for picture taking, and there was no opportunity to speak with her. Matt prayed that Jackson didn’t set his sights on Eve, and for once he was lucky. His big brother was busy trying to hustle another of the bridesmaids—a dark sultry type named Olivia.

Jackson, the prime stud of Texas who usually had willing women lined up four deep, put his arm around the woman’s waist and whispered in her ear. Olivia looked at him as if he were something she’d stepped in on a walk through the cow pasture and said, I’ve told you for the last time, I’m not interested in anything you have to offer. And if you don’t move your hand, I’ll break your fingers.

Matt nearly broke up laughing, and when the photographer said, Smile!, he didn’t have to put on.

Matt was tempted to carry Jackson high for striking out for once in his life. Jackson never struck out. He was the luckiest son-of-a-gun in the world, and everything had always come easy for him. All his life, Matt had to bust his butt for the breaks. But he wasn’t in the mood to razz his brother; he was preoccupied with meeting Eve. He could only stand and stare at her as she posed with Irish and their family for more pictures.

She had totally captivated him, and Matt couldn’t exactly define what it was that enthralled him so. Sure, she was beautiful, but he’d seen his share of beautiful women. Something else about her struck a chord deep within him. There was a guilelessness about her, sort of an innocence that shone in her pale eyes and made him want to protect her. And possess her.

Matt knew as sure as shootin’ that this was the woman for him. Knew it as certainly as if it had been announced with a blare of trumpets and a voice from the clouds.

As he watched, frown lines marred her smooth forehead. He had the craziest urge to hop on a horse, ride through the crowd, pull her up in the saddle with him, and rescue her from whatever was making her unhappy.

Eve would sooner have had her fingernails pulled out with pliers than pose for pictures—especially beside Irish. Irish was so astflnishingly beautiful, and she herself was so...not. Since she was a kid in grammar school, people had always looked at her with amazement and said, "You’re Irish Ellison’s sister?"

Many nights she had cried herself to sleep after such hurtful comments or after being teased by her classmates for her beanpole gawkiness and her overbite.

Eve had learned soon enough that she had to settle for brains because her sister got all the beauty from the barrel before she arrived. And after Irish became a model with her face on magazine covers, things had gotten worse for Eve, who was in high school with braces, zits, no boobs, knobby knees and a head above most of the boys on the basketball team—though at least the braces had remedied the overbite.

She tried to inch away after the family picture, but Irish grabbed her arm. Oh, no, you don’t. I want another of just you and me.

Good Lord, why? I might break the camera.

Irish laughed. You goose. You’re gorgeous.

You need glasses.

Matt Crow thinks you’re gorgeous, too, Irish whispered as she arranged her skirt. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you. I definitely think he’s interested.

"Him? In me? Get real, Sis. I’m not his type. And don’t you dare do any matchmaking. I’ll put a spell on you, and you’ll grow hairy warts on your nose on your honeymoon."

Irish only laughed.

Before Matt had a chance to talk to Eve, everybody was whisked into limos and taken to a hotel. As soon as they arrived, he strode toward the reception area, his eyes scanning the crowd.

When he finally spotted Eve across the room talking to his grandfather, Cherokee Pete, Matt tried to make his way toward the blond beauty, but his mother stopped him with a firm grip on his wrist and insisted that he meet Irish’s parents.

I swear you look pretty as a picture, Kyle’s grandfather said, a broad smile splitting his weathered, wrinkled face. Puts me in mind of an angel

Eve laughed. The old fellow, who was well into his eighties, was every bit as charming as his grandsons. Close to six feet tall, he stood ramrod straight. With his dark eyes and high cheekbones, a gift of his Native American ancestry, he was still an imposing presence. Thank you, Mr. Beamon. You look very handsome in your tuxedo. And despite the long braids trailing over his shoulders, he honestly did.

He let out a bark of laughter. "Like a damned fool is what you