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Prologue

Thanks to a fatal plane crash in the Andes, Yank Morgan had been raising his sister's children for the last two years and as a result, even his chest hair had turned prematurely gray. Ages fourteen, twelve and ten, the girls were independent little scrappers and didn't hesitate to tell him exactly what they thought. Which was why Annabelle, the oldest stood before him, hands on her hips, her breasts obvious in her too tight shirt. When the hell had she developed boobs, he wondered and ran a hand through his wiry hair.

At the moment though, his niece's face concerned him more than her chest. Black eye liner smudged around her bright blue eyes and though normally he didn't mind letting the girls make their own mistakes, her racoon-like appearance was too humiliating to contemplate so he decided to step in.

Keeping his assistant and one time lover, Lola's words in mind, he opted to tread gently with the young girl. "Dang it, Annie you look like Jim McMahon getting ready to throw a pass."

Her blue eyes filled with tears and she ran from the room. He raised his gaze toward the ceiling. "What the hell did I do wrong now?"

"Way to go, Uncle Yack." He glanced over to see the youngest, Micki, standing in the doorway glaring at him.

"It's Yank," he muttered, though they both knew that the nickname she'd started to use the day she'd come to live with him gave them a special bond.

"You insulted Annie," Sophie, the middle one said, joining them.

Figures they'd gang up on him. "You think so?"

He turned towards them for the first time and his gaze zeroed in on ten year old Micki immediately. Or rather his gaze zeroed in on her tits.

"What the hell are those?" he asked, pointing to the overly round, out of proportion, different sized melons poking from beneath her shirt.

"Like 'em?" She squared her shoulders.

Yank winced.

Lola, his assistant and one time lover, strode into the room. She showed up on weekends to do the girls' laundry along with her own. Despite the fact that having her around meant he was aroused and forced to remember their short lived affair, Yank was grateful for her help and he couldn't imagine his life without her. Not that he'd ever admit as much. The woman and his feelings for her scared him worse than raising the girls.

"Who's been stealing things out of the laundry basket?" Lola asked.

Sophie snickered. "Ask Micki."

"Michelle?" Calling the kid by her given name, Lola strode over and glanced down at Micki's protruding chest. "Do you have my bra?"

Yank groaned.

"Nope. No bra." Micki chewed on her lower lip, a sure sign the kid was lying.

"Yes you do to have it! You see?" Sophie reached a hand down the front of her sister's shirt, pulling out the padding. Then she glanced down at her hand and frowned. "Hey those are my socks you stuffed your boobies with!"

"Are not!" Micki said, crossing her arms over her now flat chest.

"Are too!" Sophie retorted.

Yank felt a headache coming on.

"Well you gave them to me," Micki shouted, tears filling her eyes.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"You know the rules. Once you give, you can't take back!" Micki cried and darted out of the room, following Annabelle's earlier lead.

Sophie took off after her.

Yank met Lola's amused gaze and desire flared between them. A strong yearning flickered in her deep set eyes, an echo of the spark he'd spent the last two years working hard to suppress. Though they'd once had a hot affair going between them, the girls' arrival had put everything on hold. Now, knowing he was a father for life scared the pants off of him. No way would he add a wife, as well.

Before Lola could get any ideas in her head about all of them being one big happy family, he decided she needed a reminder that only the agency and the girls would ever bind them.

"Micki's something else," he said and gestured to the doorway his nieces had stormed through.

"All three girls are something else. They need guidance."

What she meant was a woman's guidance. But Yank had no problem deliberately misinterpreting her words if it helped him put distance between them. "I think you got a point. Micki does need guidance. So maybe you'd better go give the young one a few pointers on being one of the guys," he said, deliberately misinterpreting her earlier comment. "You know, since you do it so well."

She scowled at him and stormed out of the room, probably ticked off that he'd insulted her femininity. He let out a groan. Well, she'd steer clear of him for awhile which was exactly what he wanted.

And with those words, Yank sealed both Micki's upbringing and his own fate for the next sixteen years.

Chapter One

Publicist Micki Jordan strode into the locker room of the New York Renegades, the sports world's best prospects to win the World Series, and looked for her client. In her hand, she held a copy of today's New York Post which she'd folded open to the headline, Nails, Nails, Nails. Will John Roper's manicure interfere with his willingness to catch fly balls?

Most days she loved her job as a partner and publicist in The Hot Zone, an offshoot of her uncle's sports agency that she co-partnered with her sisters. And then there were days like these when she wondered why she always ended up handling the more high maintenance players instead of turning them over to one of her sisters. Even if this high maintenance player had ended up being her best guy friend.

Micki already knew the reason Annie and Sophie delegated the tougher athletes to her. You're like one of the guys, Micki, and they respect you for it. She shook her head in frustration that had been building for awhile, but she'd have to worry about her own image later. Right now she was worried about her client's.

"Hey, Micki," one of the players called as she passed the first row of half naked men and their open lockers.

She waved and kept walking, keeping her gaze straight ahead. When people asked how Micki could be so at ease around a men's locker room, she always countered with how could she not be comfortable in the atmosphere in which she'd grown up?

Micki had been eight, Annabelle twelve and Sophie ten when their parents passed away. From then on, their uncle had provided them with the only stability they'd known. As the oldest, Annabelle had taken over as the mother figure and mediator whenever Micki and Sophie bickered, which had been often.

In an effort to keep their small family together, Annabelle had kept them both in line and attended to everyone's needs, often at the expense of her own. As a result, Annie had been close with both of her siblings but Micki and Sophie's relationship had always been more distant.

While Annabelle and Sophie had been girly girls, Micki had latched onto Uncle Yank, tailing after him everywhere he went. Locker rooms included. Growing up with her sisters, Micki had been the odd girl out, a pattern which continued in school where she found herself trying to keep up with the boys, playing sports and challenging them with her knowledge of all games. In fact her comfort level never faltered with the opposite sex – as long as dating wasn't involved. Then Micki became out of her element all over again.

"Hi, Mick," Juan Sierra said, flicking her playfully with a towel and reminding her of her mission to find her client.

"Where's Roper?" she asked him.

"Holding court at his locker." Ricky Carter, the back up center fielder jerked a finger towards the back of the room, answering a question she hadn't directed his way.

Micki and Carter had never been formally introduced but she'd heard plenty about his cocky personality. She'd also caught wind of his certainty that he'd replace Damian Fuller by the end of the season. Micki held back a snort. She'd pay good money to see Ricky Carter try and take on the team captain and come out whole. If Carter was lucky, he'd only be knocked down a few pegs. If he pushed too hard, he'd probably end up back in Triple A.

That's how much his teammates respected Damian Fuller. That was how much his fans loved him, as did most women, Micki thought wryly. Herself included.

Especially since their New Year's Eve kiss six months ago. She closed her eyes and could almost feel the star center fielder's lips on hers. What had begun as Micki's attempt to take him outside and sober him up before he made a scene destined to hit the papers, had ended up shaking her world and showing her all she was missing in her all-work, no-play life. Unfortunately, he'd either been too drunk to remember Micki's magic moment, or he did recall the kiss but it had meant so little to him he'd put it out of his mind. Worse maybe he wanted to forget.

And why wouldn't he? The man was only seen with gorgeous women. His models, actresses, and even Playboy bunny dates were all well endowed arm candy. All unlike every guy's pal, Micki Jordan. And so she'd been tiptoeing around the secret kiss and it's effect on her ever since. Because that kiss had shifted Micki's perception of her world and forced her to face the contented but unfulfilled feeling she had about her life.

Even Uncle Yank sensed she'd grown more edgy and restless lately and had begun to ask why. She didn't want to hurt him and so she refused to admit the truth. That Damian Fuller was the one man who made her wish she'd spent less time with her uncle and his friends and more time paying attention to her sisters and the hours they'd spent locked in the bathroom, laughing, giggling, putting on makeup and talking about boys.

Hanging out with Uncle Yank hadn't prepped Micki for flirting with men nor had it taught her how to be one of those females who automatically caught a man's attention in the ways that counted. Damian was drawn to overtly feminine women and his reaction to Micki, or lack of one, reduced her to feeling worse than an awkward teenager with no ability to charm or seduce a man.

She'd tried to hide her frustration with herself and her lack of feminine abilities, and as long as she didn't deal directly with Damian face to face, she'd been successful. It helped that the Renegades were Annabelle's clients and Micki could avoid the sexy center fielder.

Leave it to John Roper to misbehave and put her directly in temptation's path. So far though, she hadn't seen any signs of Damian and since she hadn't tripped or fallen over an obvious bench, Micki figured he wasn't anywhere around.

She followed Carter's direction and found Roper freshly showered and joking around with reporters. She halted behind them and waited, not wanting to read him the riot act in front of the press and cause any more problematic headlines.

The New York press was an entity unto itself, creating celebrities out of athletes and saving headlines for the players' personal lives. Like their cross town rivals the New York Yankees, The Renegade players knew how to work the media and they enjoyed keeping their names in the papers. None more than Damian Fuller who frequently graced not only the sports section but the gossip columns. His headlines kept him alive and vibrant in the public eye. If Damian had a slump, the fans came to cheer him out of it. He was a huge stadium draw and a necessary commodity to team management. Noting which woman he had on his arm, how often he'd dated her and when he'd move on was every New York columnists favorite pastime. The difference between Roper and Damian was that Damian's press was always flattering.

As a friend, Roper was the best. As a client, the man was the ultimate pain in the ass. He'd hired her to help him maintain a masculine image yet he did everything possible to screw with her plan. He obviously liked the attention he received when he did something Metrosexual and outrageous, but they'd been over and over the need for him to keep a low maintenance profile, and the media's focus on his baseball game.

"We're meeting in ten minutes, so wrap up the interviews." Coach Donovan's voice boomed throughout the locker room and Micki knew she had a short time to knock some sense into Roper's head.

She cleared her throat and stepped into the crowd. "I think Roper's finished answering questions for today," she said, asserting her authority.

He scowled. "But I was just -"

"Shutting the hell up," a familiar masculine voice drawled. "Unless you want your publicist to kick your ass," Damian Fuller said, laughing.

His deep tenor sent Micki's body into sensory overload, her skin suddenly hot and prickly, her breath heavy and her stomach churning with excitement. It might have been easy to ignore the other half dressed men in the room, but not this man.

She tensed as Damian strode forward, his demeanor sure, his appearance sexy. Freshly showered, a towel hung low on his hips revealing a tanned, muscular chest and coarse hair with just the right sprinkling of gray.

Her breath caught and her throat grew dry. She was totally aware of all six foot three inches and two hundred and fifteen pounds of him. In a weak moment the day after she'd kissed those sculpted lips, thread her fingers through that thick brown hair and scraped her cheeks against his short, scruffy beard, she'd read the stats Annie had in her press folder on Number 22.

Just thinking about that moonlit New Year's Eve turned her on all over again. She cleared her throat and glanced into Damian's chocolate brown eyes but he barely acknowledged her presence. Her stomach plummeted and her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, yet somehow she maintained her composure. Micki schooled her expression so that nobody would view her disappointment or realize she'd been hurt.

"Sorry people. No more questions for today." Roper's voice drew her into the present as he deferred to his captain and called an end to the impromptu press conference.

Before the media took off, Ricky Carter sauntered up to Roper and slung an arm over John's shoulder. "I guess good old Fuller's right about you, Roper. You are afraid your publicist will string you up by your - - - "

"Shut up," Damian said, abruptly cutting Carter off. "We're in mixed company." He and the rest of the guys stared beyond her to the newest person in the room, Veronica Butler from Esports Network.

The gorgeous redhead in the cream colored suit with gold stitching co-anchored the cable network's most popular prime time show. She was also a friend of Micki's and a colleague who booked many of The Hot Zone's clients. Like Micki, as a woman in a man's world, she demanded respect and received it. Unlike Micki, she also received the deference due a lady, at least where Damian Fuller was concerned. In his eyes, Veronica wasn't one of the guys.

Micki swallowed hard. Considering her upbringing, foul language wasn't a shock to Micki and yet she might have been grateful for Damian's sensitivity anyway - had he been worried about her.

Unwilling to stand around a minute longer, Micki jabbed Roper in the arm. "Private talk. Now."

Her client followed and Micki finished their meeting with a threat that if he didn't cooperate with the PR plan they'd agreed upon and lay off the day spas and back waxes during the season, she was through as his publicist. She then escaped the locker room, male testosterone and humiliation as soon as humanly possible.

#

That night, Micki sat in her apartment's small kitchen across from Roper. His eyes gleamed as he devoured the meal she'd cooked for them both.

"Micki you make the meanest omelette I've ever had the pleasure of eating," he said between the forkfuls of food he shoveled into his mouth.

"No need to suck up, John. I've already cooked for you."

He grinned. "And I thank you for inviting me."

"You invited yourself," she reminded him, recalling his phone message about how he'd be over around seven for some good food.

She knew he meant they'd go out for a bite. She and John often caught a late meal together if they were both free. He was one of the guys she felt most comfortable around because she could be herself with no undue expectations about how she looked or dressed. He accepted her in her after work sweats or old faded jeans. Which was why she didn't mind cooking for them so they could really relax instead of eating in a restaurant surrounded by people.

She glanced down at the Spanish Omelette she'd prepared, frowned and pushed her plate aside.

"No appetite?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Not really."

He switched his empty dish for her full one. "Do you mind?"

She shook her head.

He dug into her portion with equal gusto. "If you want him to notice you then you need to step up," Roper said between bites.

At his words, Micki froze in her seat. "If I want who to notice me?" she asked, feigning ignorance and hopefully buying herself some thinking time.

She and John clicked on many levels and he was a close enough friend that she'd confided in him about many of her deepest insecurities, but she'd avoided discussing Damian Fuller and that kiss. Roper was Damian's teammate and Micki knew the propensity for guy talk in the locker room. Still unlike most men, John had a sensitive side and she didn't think he'd deliberately betray her confidence if she decided to fill him in.

She pursed her lips in thought, still undecided about how much to reveal.

"Hey, Babe, you should know by now you can't put anything over on me. You obviously have the hots for Fuller."

She swallowed and choked on her own saliva, grabbing for a glass of water.

"Easy," he said, laughing. "It's just me so before you try and argue, remember I'm the one who knows how you always felt left out when your sisters would start with the girl talk growing up. And I also know how hard it is for you to date or open yourself up to guys on any level other than friendship. So why wouldn't I notice your reaction when Fuller rolled out the red carpet for Veronica but ignored you."

"Way to watch out for my feelings, Roper." She glanced down at her hands, unwilling to meet his gaze or be forced to admit he was right.

"Hey, you've been dancing around those feelings and I've been ignoring the signs - none of which has helped you up until now, so I decided it was time to bring things out into the open." He raised his eyebrow, challenging her to talk to him.

"I had no idea I was so transparent," she muttered.

"Only to those who love you best." He treated her to his trademark grin and the dimples women loved. Thank God she wasn't into him that way, Micki thought wryly.

She had enough trying to handle her attraction for Damian Fuller. "So what are you suggesting? That I step up ... how?"

"Why hasn't Damian noticed you as anything other than my publicist up until now?" John countered her question with one of his own.

"Because ..." Her voice trailed off. She really didn't want to tread these painful waters, Micki thought. Didn't want to dig into the differences between herself and her sisters, the girly girls versus the tomboy.

Not that her sisters had ever criticized or belittled her choice to be more like Uncle Yank. In fact Annabelle had coddled and babied Micki. She'd looked out for her little sister and made sure Micki felt safe and loved. And though Sophie had kept more of a reserve, that was her personality. Annabelle reached Sophie more easily because they had more in common. Still when all was said and done, there was a loyalty between the sisters that ran deep.

In their hearts, the Jordan sisters remembered being left alone in the world by their parents with the knowledge that they only had each other to count on. Each other, Uncle Yank and Lola, their surrogate mother.

"I'm going to tell you why Fuller hasn't noticed you yet," John said, intruding on her thoughts.

His soft tone indicated she wasn't going to like what she heard. "I don't suppose you can spare me the details?"

Roper shook his head. "Fuller hasn't looked twice because you blend into the woodwork, doll."

She winced at his too accurate assessment.

He patted her hand. "That's not to say there's anything wrong with who you are. I happen to adore you. It's just that you've fallen for a guy who likes frills. Now take me for example."

"At the moment, I wish someone would."

He shook his head and laughed. "We're hanging out and I'm wearing what?"

Micki didn't have the foggiest notion what he was talking about. "Clothing?" she asked.

He groaned. "A Burberry plaid shirt, Polo pants and Cole Haahn loafers. I've gelled my hair and -"

"Waxed your back and painted your nails with clear polish. I get it. You've done all the things I'm trying to break you of doing until the season's over!"

"Exactly." John leaned back in his seat and smiled contentedly. "If you would put in half the effort, Damian couldn't help but notice that gorgeous face, perfect complexion and those darling curls you hide in a pony tail." He gave a fake shudder.

She glanced at the ceiling, thinking about his valid point. The insecurities she'd often experienced growing up around her beautiful sisters, the same insecurity she'd been hit with around Veronica in the locker room today, surfaced again now.

He leaned forward. "So what's going on in there?" He tapped on her forehead.

"It's just that if I changed who I am on the outside, then I wouldn't be me. Don't I deserve to find someone who appreciates me for who I am?"

"Of course you do." John placed a comforting hand over hers. "And if you did what I just suggested, you would still be you - only more obvious. Once you catch the right man's interest, he'd be a fool not to see all you have to offer him."

She covered his hand with hers. "You're a great guy," she told him. "And I notice you didn't say that Damian Fuller is that right man."

John shrugged, conceding the point. "Fuller's my captain and teammate. I admire him. But he's still living the life of an athlete who just made his first million. He may have the potential to grow up, he may not. I don't want you to get hurt but ..."

"But what?"

"You need to discover Fuller's potential for yourself."

Micki shivered at the prospect.

Meanwhile Roper fidgeted in his chair, glancing at his watch when he didn't think she was looking. "Hot date?" she asked.

"Would you be insulted if I said I had to eat and run?"

She rolled her eyes. A free night during the season didn't happen often. "Of course not but you need to promise me you'll behave. No more antics or giving the press cause to speculate on anything, okay?"

"You drive a hard bargain," he said, as he cocked his head to the side. "How about we make a deal. I won't get the earring I wanted if you promise to consider my advice. You step up a little and see if Fuller notices you." He winked, then rose, collecting their plates and placing them in the sink.

The man was a true find. "Some woman's going to be lucky to land you, Roper."

"I'm nowhere finished sowing my wild oats."

She stood and walked him to the door. "I'm afraid Damian isn't either."

"You'll never know until you try." John wrapped a friendly arm around her shoulders. "Remember Roper's word to the wise: Life is nothing without risks."

She laughed. "I'll remember."

He kissed her head and took off.

Alone in her apartment, Micki rinsed their plates and dried them, her mind preoccupied with Roper's words. He was right about a lot of things but most importantly about her feelings for Damian. She did have the hots for him and had since this past New Year's Eve. Damian's kiss, planted on her in a drunken stupor had been a prelude. One taste hadn't been enough and he'd whet her appetite for more. Once his full lips were on hers, his hard body warming her against the cold winter air, she realized how much she desired the man.

Micki wanted to feel the excitement of a home run with Damian. Unfortunately he didn't even remember reaching first base.

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