Book Details

Harlequin Enterprises,
Paperback original, August 2004, ISBN: 0-373-77001-4

Thorndike Press,
Large print, June 2006, ISBN: 0-786-28603-2

Prologue

Yank Morgan was a bachelor, a gambler, a bookie, a ladies man and completely unprepared for the sight sitting before him. Three little girls in descending height and matching dresses stared at him with wide eyes and expectant expressions. Ages twelve, ten and eight, they were his sister's children. Nieces his assistant Lola bought birthday and holiday gifts for, signing his name to the cards. Kids he saw a few times a year for an hour at a time. That was about to change.

Damn his sister, her husband and their traveling lifestyle. Thanks to a chartered plane crash in the Andes, the couple was gone, leaving Yank as guardian of their three girls. Frustrated by the notion and emotionally drained by the loss, he balled up the note left by the attorney and tossed it across the room, not even aiming for the garbage can.

The oldest girl, Annabelle, shot him a scowl, then quickly schooled her features into an unreadable expression. He wondered if she was afraid of him but before he could ask, one of her sisters chimed in.

"Mama was right about him. Uncle Yank's a pig," Sophie, the middle one, said.

"Shh." Annabelle placed a hand over her lips. "Don't be rude. He's the only relative we got left." Her eyes, big and wide, showed all the fear inherent in those words. So much so that he was determined to do his best by all three of them.

The youngest, whose name he thought was Michelle, bent down and picked the paper up off the floor. Before she tossed it into the trash, Yank caught sight of her white panties beneath her short dress.

"Well I'll be damned. You've got a bow on your butt," he muttered aloud.

His niece turned. "You have a foul mouth, Uncle Yack."

"That's Yank and you're darned right I do. Any of you got a problem with that?" He asked all three girls.

Annabelle immediately shook her head. She obviously understood the value of staying on his good side. He liked her intelligence in a bad situation, but worried about how he'd handle her as she got older. It wouldn't do to have a kid smarter than him living in the house, he thought wryly. Maybe the other two weren't as swift.

"If you can curse, does that mean I get to do what I want too?" The youngest faced him, hands on her hips, a determined tilt to her chin.

"Ditch the dress!"

Yank chuckled. Maybe this parenting business wouldn't be so hard after all. "I think that can be arranged. You're Michelle?" he asked.

"Nobody calls you Micki and besides that's a boy's name," her middle sister complained.

"Micki it is," Yank said, thinking of his idol, Mickey Mantle.

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Tomboy," she called her sister.

"Barbie Doll," Micki yelled back.

With each word, their voices escalated and Yank cringed. Annabelle jumped between them and stamped her feet. "You two behave," she said, but in trying too hard, the words came out as equally loud and whiny as those of her sisters'.

And that was Yank's introduction into the world of little women. He had no clue what to do with any of them.

Chapter One

"The meeting will come to order." Yank Morgan slammed the gavel against the rubber plate, calling The Hot Zone weekly meeting to order.

As president of their sports agency/PR firm located in a high rise in midtown Manhattan, Uncle Yank liked to assert his authority. He used the gavel, an engraved birthday gift given to him by Judge Judy often and with zeal. Unfortunately, the gavel didn't change the fact that he was a man outnumbered by three women. Four if he counted Lola, his personal assistant, who liked to tell him what to do and when to do it.