THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT

I liked the heroine in this book immediately. Jessica Hart was one-of-a-kind. As a physical therapist for the New Jersey Sonics, she has a job rehabbing athletes who injured knees, elbows, hands, wrists. . . and sometimes souls.

Enviable, right? She gets to play nurse to a team of gorgeous, cut, brutally fit baseball players. She becomes their pal, their hands-on therapist, their partner in recovery and hope. Makes for lots of romantic possibilities except. . . Jessica is done with baseball players. This is her reaction when she meets Gavin King, a heavy hitter traded to the Sonics when he sustained an injury:

Not even when Jessica turned to the coach, saw the ballplayer beside him, and her heart stopped.
He was exactly her type. Or her former type. As she took in his magnificent physique, black eyes, and Colgate smile, she felt an instant attraction.
Gavin was the kind of guy she used to dream about, drool over, and date. She’d met enough of them growing up, friends of her brothers who started out as decent guys but got caught up in the hype and eventually stomped all over some poor girl silly enough to give up her heart. Unfortunately, she’d had to walk that path herself. She’d made the fatal mistake of falling for an outfielder who played for Cleveland, and eventually played her. Zach had the same dark hair, heart-stopping smile, and killer body.
He’d taught her what the word devastation meant.

They fight the attraction between them even as their friendship grows. Jessica is unlike any woman Gavin’s ever met. She is one of the boys in her workout clothes and brisk manner, but beneath her tomboy façade, he sees a beautiful woman with an even more beautiful heart.

When she realizes he is depressed due to his injury and his change in circumstances, she takes matters into her own hands when she sees him driving a minivan:

Her head swiveled around and she gave his vehicle a double take.
“What the . . .”
“Enterprise ran out of cars. I had to drop off the Lexus I was renting this morning. All they had left was a Chrysler Town and Country.”
Her ginger brows arched and her nose crinkled. “Without kids, there is no excuse to be tooling around in a minivan. Why haven’t you bought yourself a car?”
Her eyes locked with his and he couldn’t escape. “I don’t know. I guess . . .” With those green eyes looking right into his soul, he gave up. “I didn’t want to think this was all permanent. You know, the injury. New Jersey. The Sonics.”
She actually snorted. “Well, that’s ridiculous. Let’s go. Since we can’t do our program, we are going to switch to an interval workout.” She gave him a devilish smile.
“We are going car shopping.”

My kind of gal.
I hope you enjoy the story! The Sonics have a blast at Gavin’s expense, but that’s just part of their charm.
And part of baseball.

Katie Rose