Hot Item

The third book in the Hot Zone series, 2006

To everyone at Harlequin-

Donna Hayes, Randall Toye, Dianne Moggy, Katherine Orr, Marleah Stout and Tracy Farrell for believing in me. And a special thank-you to Brenda Chin for pushing me harder and making me better (I hope!) with each book.


PROLOGUE

YANK MORGAN LEANED back in his favorite chair and puffed on a Monte Cristo cigar. Damn, life was good. At least, as good as it could be with his three nieces sick with colds and too quiet for his peace of mind. He’d been caring for the girls since their parents died in a plane crash a little over a year ago and he’d done his best to maintain normalcy for them and for himself. Hence, his weekly poker night with the guys.

“Hey, Morgan. You folding or what?” Curly asked.

“Depends on your hand.”

Curly glanced at his cards and rubbed his hand over his bald head, a sure sign the man’s hand sucked. “What the hell. I’m in.”

“Me, too.” Spencer Atkins, Yank’s friend and business rival, tossed his bet onto the pile of chips in the center of the table and pulled a long drag of his cigar.

“Better not inhale,” a small female voice warned.

Yank frowned and turned to the doorway. His middle niece, Sophie, stood in her flannel nightgown and glared, arms folded across her chest.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Yank said.

She shrugged. “My nose is stuffed. I want Lola,” she said, speaking of his assistant and one-time lover, not that any of the girls knew that last part. Lola was the only female influence the girls had.

Yank didn’t discourage their relationship. But the woman complicated his life to no end and reminded him of their once-hot affair. He had his hands full with three little women. He didn’t need a fourth female making demands on his time and forcing him to give up the important things. Things like cigars and poker.

“Can I call her, Uncle Yank? Please?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, can she call her?” Spencer asked, laughing. “As if you’d say no. It’s no hardship having that beautiful woman around twenty-four/seven, is it, Morgan?”

Yank scowled. “Take some aspirin instead,” he told his niece.

“Aspirin’s no good for children. There’s a new study out that shows it can cause something called Reye’s syndrome. Lola would know that,” Sophie said in an accusing tone.

He groaned. “You wanna call her, call her. Just make sure she knows I’m tied up with the boys.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “She knows. Everyone knows Tuesday night’s poker night.” Sophie ran over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Uncle Yank. I promise not to bother you again.”

He hugged the little girl tight. “You never bother me.”

She clasped her hands behind her back. “You mean that?” she asked in a serious voice, one too old for her eleven years.

Losing parents did that to kids, Yank had learned. Annabelle, the oldest, had taken over the mother role whenever Lola wasn’t around, bossing her sisters and making sure everyone behaved. Micki, the youngest, tagged along with him everywhere he went, never giving him time or space to breathe, obviously afraid if she did, he’d run away and never return. And Sophie lost herself in books as if she could escape into another world. But she also used the knowledge she learned to try to control everyone and everything around her.

Yank figured she thought if she orchestrated life, she wouldn’t lose people around her the way she lost her parents. When had he turned into a damn shrink? he wondered. “Go,” he said softly. “The sooner you call Lola, the sooner you’ll get some sleep.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She ran out of the room and he heard her chattering on the phone from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Let’s get back to business.”

Spencer lifted his glass and took a sip of the whiskey Yank kept in the bar. “Son of a bitch. I’m out.” With a scowl, he folded his hand. “I’ll just have a smoke and watch Yank take the rest of you suckers for all you’re worth.”

A few hands later, Spencer reached for his cigar, then narrowed his gaze when he came up empty-handed. “Winning’s not enough for you, Morgan? You have to stoop to stealing stogies for fun?”

Yank tossed his cards onto the table. “I take offense to the implication. I’m winnin’ fair and square. And I didn’t take your damn cigar. Maybe you’re getting old and you forgot whether or not you lit one.”

Curly rose to his feet. “Come on, boys. We don’t need to fight amongst ourselves. Spence here can have my cigar. If my wife smells it on me she’ll douse me with kerosene and light a match.” He glanced down. “Hey, wait a second…”

Yank winced. “Yours is gone, too?” he asked, a sneaking suspicion dawning.

The other man nodded.

“Mel?” Yank turned to the fourth man.

“Mine’s gone, too.”

Yank groaned. “Sophia Francesca Jordan!” he bellowed. “Get in here now.”

“You don’t have to yell, Uncle Yank. I’m right here.” Sophie’s voice sounded from beneath the card table.

The little sneak. How had she gotten underneath there without them noticing? he wondered.

She tried to stand too soon and bumped her head. “Ouch!” Finally she stood in front of him, guilt written all over her little face. Her cheeks were pink and her blue eyes too wide and innocent.

“Give the boys back their cigars,” Yank demanded.

Her eyes filled with tears. “But…”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t take them. What else would you be doing sneaking ’round under there?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“What were you going to say?” Spencer asked in a surprisingly kind voice considering he’d nearly strung Yank up alive for stealing his cigar. Faced with the midget culprit, his tone gentled as it always did around Sophie. He had a soft spot for the middle kid.

Sophie clasped her hands behind her long flannel nightgown. “The Surgeon General says smoking’s bad for your health. It’ll turn your lungs black and clog your arties.”

“Arteries, doofus,” Annabelle said, walking in from the doorway. “Sorry, Uncle Yank. I fell asleep and forgot to watch her. It won’t happen again.” She grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled, trying to drag her from the room.

“Stop,” Sophie whined. “I’m right and they all know it.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re guys and guys smoke,” the third Musketeer chimed in, surprising them all by walking in from the kitchen. In her hand, Micki held the ashtray with all the men’s cigars.

“Hey, it took a long time for me to collect those without them noticing,” Sophie said.

“But they weren’t yours to take.” Annabelle walked around the room, handing each man a used cigar.

In all likelihood nobody got the right smoke and Yank cringed. “I think it’s time to call it a night.”

“If Lola had come, none of this would have happened,” Annabelle said. “She’d have kept Sophie busy in the kitchen.”

“If Lola had come, she’d be sprayin’ Lysol around all our heads,” Yank muttered.

“That’s not nice, Uncle Yank.” Micki smacked him on the shoulder with her little hand.

“See?” he said to his friends. “This is why I won’t git married ever. I already got three little women telling me what to do.”

Curly shook his head. “It’s more like with three little girls, you couldn’t find a woman in her right mind who would have you.”

“Except Lola. But Yank’s not bright enough to know a good thing when he’s got one,” Spencer said with a laugh.

“This from someone who’s already got one divorce under his belt.”

Sophie pulled the sleeve of Spencer’s sweater. “Really? You were married? To who? When? How?”

“None of your business, little girl.” He softened his words by patting her on the head.

“Like that’ll satisfy her. Sophie needs to know all details about all things.”

“What’d she look like? Why’d she leave? Or did you leave?”

Yank chuckled. At least she’d stopped harassing them about the cigars. Though given Sophie’s inquisitive nature and need to control everything and everyone around her, he should probably lock up the Cubans. Heaven help the man who had to deal with her when she grew up.

CHAPTER ONE

“ACCORDING TO a reliable source, top sports agent Spencer Atkins, of the recently merged firm Athletes Only and its subsidiary PR firm The Hot Zone, is gay.” Sophie Jordan groaned when she saw the line in New York City’s most read gossip column.

How would the players Spencer represented react to the news? How would Spencer handle being outed? But most importantly, how in the world had this secret come out now, well over a month after she and her family had learned the news for the first time?

In the time since they’d learned the truth, Spencer’s revelation had been put aside in favor of more pressing projects: the merger of Yank and Spencer’s sports agencies and the all-important spin that “we’re better and stronger than ever.” Enough time had passed that even Sophie, who normally covered all bases, had dismissed the possibility of the story being leaked.

“Guess I thought wrong,” she muttered. Sophie hated being wrong. It meant she’d miscalculated and the feeling sent her spiraling into an anxious frenzy, the only solution being to regain her precious control.

Problem was, she didn’t see any way to find her center. Sophie, who shone behind the scenes, couldn’t hide behind books or To Do lists now. She couldn’t even push her sisters to the forefront of the storm and handle things in the background. Chaos reigned and she was the only one available to handle the media mess sure to follow.

Annabelle was home on maternity leave with her baby girl, Sydney, and Micki was on her honeymoon with Damian Fuller, her retired center fielder husband. Their receptionist had called in sick, the temp agency still hadn’t sent anyone over to cover and the phones were ringing off the hook.