Best of My Love (Fool's Gold) by Susan Mallery

together to play cards, but kept her lips carefully pressed together. Aidan had been clear. Just like she’d had to get permission to bring him to Destiny’s baby shower, he’d had to ask if she could join the game. The guys had agreed, as long as she followed the rules. Apparently rule number one was no conversation.
    So here she was, at a big table with eight burly guys, each one better looking than the last. Under other circumstances, she might be intimidated. But they were all in committed relationships and none of them especially appealed to her. Except for Aidan, of course. He appealed to her a lot. But in a friendship kind of way.
    She thought briefly of the almost kiss they’d shared. For one heart-pounding second, she’d been so sure he was going to do it. Kiss her. Lips on lips. Anticipation quivered ever so slightly at the memory. But of course he hadn’t. Because they weren’t involved. It was for the best. But still...a kiss would have been pretty darned nice.
    She returned her attention to the game, placed her bet and resisted the urge to check her hole cards. She knew what they were and looking at them over and over again didn’t change that. She had two kings. And the object was to get the best five cards possible using any combination of hole and community cards. If one of the community cards was a king, she would have a great shot at the pot. She mentally crossed her fingers.
    “How’s Isabel?” Justice asked.
    Ford Hendrix, Isabel’s husband, grimaced. “She’s okay. It’s still relatively early in her pregnancy and she’s bigger every day. I don’t know how her body’s going to stand it. I know my mom went through the same thing and was okay, but shit. It’s tough to watch.”
    Shelby wasn’t sure what shocked her most. That there was conversation, or the fear and concern in Ford’s voice. She’d seen him with his wife and knew they had a loving marriage. In her head she got that of course he would worry about her. But hearing it articulated was very different.
    “Have you talked to your mom?” Jack McGarry asked. “She might have some insight.”
    “It’s not a conversation I want to have with her,” Ford admitted.
    “What about talking to Dr. Galloway?” Josh Golden, a former world champion cyclist and current real estate tycoon in town, asked. “I know her from Charity’s pregnancies. She’s down-to-earth. I doubt anything would shock her. Make an appointment and go in to see her. She’ll be straight with you.”
    “Trust me,” Kipling said with a grimace. “She won’t hold back.”
    Ford picked up his bottle of beer. “Yeah, I should do that. I don’t want Isabel to know I’m worried. She’s got enough on her plate right now with the business and all.”
    Shelby glanced at Aidan, who winked at her. She smiled back. Their brief interaction caused a little warm glow in her belly. He was so nice, she thought happily. A really great guy. She hoped he was getting as much out of their relationship as she was. Not only was he fun to be around, she was learning a lot. About how men and women were different. She trusted him more each time she was with him, which was her goal. To know there were good guys out there.
    “Aidan, you hear from Del much?” Josh asked.
    “He emails every now and then. He and Maya are still in China. They’ve posted some raw footage on their Facebook page. It’s good.”
    “Funny how that all worked out,” Ford said. “Del running off and you taking over the business.”
    “It turned out in the end,” Aidan admitted. “Of course when Del first left, I wanted to hunt him down.”
    Josh glanced toward the open door, then lowered his voice. “Nick still doing his artwork in secret up in the mountains?”
    Aidan’s look of surprise told Shelby that that wasn’t supposed to be public information.
    “How’d you know?” he asked.
    Ford placed the fifth card faceup. Shelby saw it was the king of hearts. It was all she could do not to