Meant To Be Yours. Susan Mallery

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      He was still chuckling when he approached the table. Carol rose and hugged him.

      “You made it back! Welcome home. Did you miss us?”

      “I did.”

      Mathias held out his hand. “Good to see you. How was the tour?”

      “Good. Long. Plenty of stops.”

      “And adoring fans?” Carol asked, her voice teasing.

      “There were some.” Jasper turned to Renee. “Mind if I join you?”

      She smiled and waved to the empty chair. “Please. Your reputation precedes you, so I’m happy to be on the same team.”

      Whatever weirdness had existed before—or hadn’t existed—was obviously gone.

      He raised a shoulder. “I haven’t played board games in a few months. I’m probably rusty.”

      “I doubt that,” Carol said as she sat down. “Speaking of rusty, I want to warn everyone that this is my first night away from Devon. I’ve been away during the day, but never at night.”

      Jasper wanted to ask how one was different from the other, but knew there was no point. Her reasoning might be based on the fact that her baby was maybe five months old, or it might be a female thing, or it could be something everyone else understood intuitively.

      Mathias reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “You know she’s fine, right? And it’s not like she’s with someone we don’t know.”

      Renee smiled and leaned toward Jasper. “Pallas and Carol share a nanny. With their kids only ten days apart in age, it makes sense. The woman is terrific and does a great job, but they’re both uncomfortable being away from their babies.” Her tone softened. “You know what new moms are like.”

      He nodded rather than say something along the lines of “not really.” He knew even less about young mothers than women in general. His stint in the army had given him a range of skills that could be useful in a wartime situation but they hadn’t been much on training him for life with regular people. As for that small town where he’d grown up...well, that was eight lifetimes ago.

      He studied Renee, taking in her freckles and the cute way her nose turned up a little at the end. She had green eyes—although hers were more gray than his. There was something about her smile he liked. If he were to describe her in a book he would probably mention her long bangs and...

      And what? Her height? Her eyes? The shape of her mouth? Did anyone care about that kind of crap? Dammit—he was a number one New York Times best-selling author and he couldn’t describe a woman? His career was obviously over.

      He pushed that thought away. He would dwell on his inability to write later. Tonight was about having a good time.

      “What’s the game?” he asked as several of the servers started passing out board games. “Ah, Monopoly. Excellent.”

      Carol picked up the piece of paper that had been left on the table. “Traditional rules,” she read. “Whoever has the most money at the end of an hour goes on to the next round. After that, rounds are thirty minutes.” She glanced at her teammates. “That sounds easy enough.”

      Renee nodded and turned to Jasper. “While you were gone, we had a Monopoly Junior tournament and odd number rolls didn’t count. Things got quite heated.”

      “I’ll bet.”

      Her conversation was completely normal. He must have imagined whatever had happened before. Only was she leaning toward him or was he imagining it?

      They unpacked the game and chose tokens. Mathias counted the money and passed the right amount to everyone, then they rolled to see who would go first. As usual, Jasper rolled the highest number and got to start. He rolled double sixes, followed by a five. He bought the Electric Company property, then collected two hundred dollars from the Community Chest card he drew from the top of the stack. Carol was on his left, so he handed the dice to her.

      She stared at him. “I’d forgotten what it was like to play against you. I don’t think I like it.”

      He flashed her a smile. “What can I say? I’m a lucky guy.”

      She made a huffing sound and rolled a seven. “How did the cleanup go yesterday?” she asked Renee.

      “We are back to normal. The water is gone, everything is dried out and there’s not really any serious damage.” She glanced at Jasper. “We had a little accident at the firefighter wedding on Saturday night. Someone bumped the hose fountain and nearly flooded the place.”

      “What’s a firefighter wedding?”

      She took the dice from Mathias and rolled. “Weddings Out of the Box does theme weddings. In this case, the theme was firefighters. The wedding colors were red, yellow and orange. The flower girl carried flowers in a fireman’s helmet. That sort of thing.”

      “People do that?”

      Renee grinned. “Jasper, you’ve driven by Weddings Out of the Box. One side of the building looks like a Tuscan villa and another looks like a castle. What did you think was happening there?”

      “I thought Pallas was quirky.”

      “Theme weddings are big business,” she told him. “There are the usual ones. Princess, pirate, weddings based on books or movies. This fall we’re having a Halloween wedding, a football wedding and an apple wedding.”

      “What’s an apple wedding?” he asked.

      “They’re apple lovers.” She laughed. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

      An apple wedding? Was that really a thing? He felt as if there was a whole world out there, about which he knew nothing. First women and now weddings. He needed to work on his life skills education.

      Mathias rolled the dice and then moved his token. “I’m going to make a quick call to our nanny,” he said, then shrugged sheepishly. “Like we said before, it’s the first time we’ve left Devon at night, so...”

      “You should absolutely check in,” Renee told him. “You’ll feel better.”

      Carol watched him go. “It’s funny. All the things I worried about before we had Devon haven’t been a problem. Instead there are so many other things to worry about. Like leaving her alone.”

      Renee patted her arm. “It will get better. You’re a terrific mom. She’s lucky to have you.”

      “Thanks.”

      Jasper looked at Renee. “Do you have kids?”

      “Me? No. I’m not married.” She flushed slightly. “Not that you need to be married to have children. I wasn’t saying that. Or judging. I just mean...” She cleared her throat, lowered her gaze, then looked at him. “Um, no. You?”

      He shook his head.

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