Texas Bossa Nova (Texas Montgomery Mavericks Book 5) by Cynthia D’Alba

as his but popped up nonetheless. “I got me some muscles too.”
    Reno laughed softly. “Yeah, tough girl. I see your muscles. I also saw the way you set that heavy pan down. After dinner, let me take a look. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
    She blew out a loud and long frustrated breath. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
    He muttered something under his breath. She didn’t catch it completely but she thought it might have been, “I’ll always worry about you.”
    Reno ate his stew, mad at Magda for possibly hurting herself doing his job, but more mad at himself for letting her. After dinner, he insisted that she put an ice pack on that shoulder and he’d clean the kitchen. Of course she argued. He’d expected nothing less from her. In the end, she grabbed the ice pack he kept shoving at her and went into the living room.
    It was possible Reno spent more than seven minutes cleaning up after dinner, but he doubted it. Best described as spotless, the only things needing cleaning were two bowls, two spoons, two glasses and a knife. He knew better than to tackle the cast-iron skillet, so he covered the leftover cornbread with aluminum foil and left it for her. The stew was already in a deep casserole dish with a glass lid, so he shoved that in the refrigerator. Done. Easy as pie.
    Pie? Yum. He wished he had some. Since Magda had arrived, there were almost always cookies or pies or something sweet to eat. He started looking.
    “What are you doing?”
    Reno’s head caught the corner of the cabinet door when he jumped in response to the question.
    “Who? Me?” When he turned toward Magda, he was sure his face looked as guilty as the time his mom had caught him and Darren with a Playboy magazine.
    “Who else is going through the cabinets if not you?”
    “Oh, yeah.” He gave her his guilty chuckle. “Looking for something sweet.”
    “You still hungry?”
    “No, but my sweet tooth is killing me.”
    With the ice wrap on her right shoulder, she walked to the deep freezer and opened it. From under a couple of packages of frozen purple hull peas and a package of frozen sausage links, she pulled out a plastic container. She popped off the lid. Inside were balls of uncooked cookie dough.
    “I got bored one day,” she said with a shake of her head. “I made way too much dough, so I froze these to cook when needed.”
    “That’s too much trouble. Don’t worry about it.”
    “Ha. Watch this.”
    Magda removed a small glass cooking dish, dropped in a couple of balls of dough and put the dish in the microwave for forty seconds. When it was done, she put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
    “There,” she said. “One gooey cookie with ice cream.”
    Reno moaned with the first bite.
    God, he loved this woman.
    He stopped chewing. What? He didn’t love Magda. He loved her cooking. Yeah. That was it.
    “Taste okay? You’ve got a funny look on your face.”
    “Sorry,” Reno replied. “I was in nirvana for a second,” he lied.
    Magda restored the cookie dough and ice cream and went back into the living room. Reno followed, scooping and eating and moaning the whole way. As his spoon scraped the last drops of melted ice cream and the very few crumbs of cookie, he sighed and then licked his spoon.
    “That was delicious. Don’t show me how to do those. I’ll gain fifty pounds by Valentine’s Day.” He dropped on the end of the sofa. “How’s the shoulder feeling?”
    She rotated it in a circle. “Better. I guess I’m a little more out of shape than I thought.”
    “Scoot over here. Let me have a look.” He patted the sofa cushion next to him. When she didn’t move, he added, “I promise not to gnaw on your neck.”
    She snarled. “Ha. That damn hickey you gave me last May looked like I’d had a fling with a vampire.”
    He grinned and loudly snapped his teeth together a couple of times. “Chomp. Chomp.”
    She rolled her eyes.
    “Scout’s honor. I won’t bite you.” The fact he’d