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supposed to kick her out?”
    Reno gritted his teeth so hard he was surprised he didn’t crack a tooth. His right hand curled into a fist and it was all he could do to keep from punching Darren’s nose. “First, you won’t find her in your bed. And second, well, there is no second. She just won’t be there.”
    His brother scoffed. “Since when are you an expert on Magda Hobbs?”
    There was no way Reno would tell Darren about how well he actually knew Magda, and he did know her well.
    He knew about the Celtic tattoo for strength she had high on her inner right thigh. That the rose tattoo on her left wrist was for her mother and the bull on her right wrist was for Zeb. He loved the angel wings tattoo that covered her entire back and knew it represented her belief in a guardian angel.
    He knew that Magda loved to have her breasts sucked.
    He knew that running his tongue around the rim of Magda’s ear made goose bumps jump up on her arms.
    And he knew about her fear of rejection. She would always be the first one to leave, be it a relationship or a party. If she was the one to walk away then she couldn’t be rejected, right?
    “I know her better than you do,” Reno said. “We got to know each other this summer. As friends,” he added. “Nothing more, so leave her the hell alone when she’s in our house.”
    “Touchy, touchy. Fine. I’d rather have a housekeeper than a bed partner anyway. A good housekeeper is so much harder to find.”
    Reno shook his head. One of these days, some woman was going to come along and clip his brother’s wings, bring him to his knees. And Reno couldn’t wait to see Darren fall.
    Magda was scheduled to move in and start to work on December twenty-seventh. She’d wanted to stay with her father through Christmas since he’d been released from the hospital.
    Reno made Darren help him clean the house so she wouldn’t go running back out and leave. Reno spent a little extra time in the small bedroom with its attached bath downstairs that they’d designated for her. He wasn’t picky when it came to his own comfort, but the last thing he wanted was for her bathroom to be moldy or nasty.
    He didn’t have any expectations that Magda would be interested in taking up where they’d left off this summer. If she was, she wouldn’t have stomped on his heart with her Doc Martens and left.
    And, yes, there was a small sliver of resentment about how she’d walked away without a goodbye, an it’s been fun or anything. But he swore he wouldn’t let her know that she’d hurt him and he wouldn’t do anything to get back at her. He just hoped he could keep that promise.
    There was more than a little nervousness about her taking up residence in his life twenty-four-seven. But once his mother, with all good intentions, had hired Magda, what could he say? “No, thanks. We don’t need a housekeeper.” He knew, and his mother knew, that was bullshit.
    He collapsed into a living room chair at close to ten p.m. on the evening before Magda was to arrive. Darren sat on the sofa, his legs stretched out on the coffee table.
    “Damn, I’m beat,” Reno said.
    “I’m not surprised. If you’d cleaned the house like this before now, we wouldn’t need a housekeeper.”
    “Don’t even think that I might be interested in doing this on a fulltime basis.”
    Darren laughed. “I know exactly what you mean. But it will be nice to have clean clothes again, won’t it?”
    “And dinner that doesn’t come from a can.”
    Both men sighed and settled back to watch a little late-night television.
    By six the next morning, Reno and Darren were out of the house and in the field repairing a fence that’d taken on a huge tree limb during the ice storm last week and lost. There’d been no cattle in the pasture, so they’d been in no hurry to fix it. However, Reno had pushed Darren into getting on it today, mostly so Reno didn’t have to face Magda just yet.
    They’d left a note on the front door for Magda