Tigers Meet Harlequin: The Woman He Couldn't Forget

The Hero: Yoenis Cespedes

What You Need To Know: In 2011, after some serious bidding for his five-tool services, to the shock of everybody (OK, maybe just me?) Cespedes landed with the Oakland Athletics.  Billy Beane obviously found some extra coin under the sofa cushions and Cespedes' career in Oakland, which began in 2012, was highlighted by winning back-to-back Home Run Derbys and a slew of sick outfield assists.

Then in 2014 Billy Beane decided to push all of his chips in and, in a blockbuster deal to land pitcher Jon Lester, Cespedes was sent back to Boston.  In the off-season, in need of pitching help and frankly with a crowded outfield, Boston sent Cespedes packing to Detroit for former Tigers Meet Harlequin All-Star, Rick Porcello.

His Baggage: He's Cuban and defected with ten of his family members in the summer of 2011.  Getting out of Cuba is never a picnic, but after establishing residency in the Dominican Republic, he was able to declare himself a "free agent," that's when the Oakland contract came through, and the trouble began.  Now signed with Oakland, Cespedes was able to secure a visa but his family members were on their own with theirs.  Complicating matters, Cespedes and his agent got in a wee tiff over how much money said agent should be receiving from the Oakland contract. Fearing the agent would use them as leverage, the family took off - afraid of being deported back to Cuba.  You can read all about their struggle to get to the US in this San Francisco Chronicle article.  12 months later, the family was finally reunited in the United States.

Proposed Category Romance Plot:  He's in the United States, he's playing baseball, he just cannot remember how he got there.  He remembers leaving Cuba.  He remembers making a shady deal with equally shady characters.  What he doesn't remember is the journey to Arizona or what happened to his family.  The team doctors have declared him physically healthy and ready to go, but fear that his mind will crack under the pressure.  So they send him to a specialist who deals in post-traumatic stress and repressed memories.  Hoping she's as smart as she is pretty, his fears are soon realized.  Because the smart doctor has started to unlock some answers to the questions he's been asking himself for months - and now some very bad men are looking to silence them both.....permanently.

The Heroine: She's spent her whole life trying to convince people that the pretty package contains actual brains.  After her father came home from the Gulf War, a changed man, she was determined to help people just like him - people who had suffered from trauma that left them mentally, although possibly not physically, scarred.  She's worked with countless crime victims, veterans, and first responders.  A baseball player is a new one for her, and even though she finds him attractive and interesting, her ethics keep her firmly at arm's length - until they're thrown together when dangerous men storm into her office one quiet, sunny afternoon.  Running for their lives, sharing close quarters, and trying to unlock the secrets of his mind finds her succumbing to an attraction she knows she needs to deny.

What Category Romance Line?:  Amnesia! Wendy finally cooked up an amnesia plot!  So for that reason I'm skipping the Intrigue line and going with the longer word count in the Harlequin Romantic Suspense universe.  Oh Cespedes - bad men, hired goons, a missing family, and a sexy doctor?  Baseball is so much easier.