2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups self-rising flour
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chipsPreheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Slowly add in the flour while mixing on low. Then add in the chocolate chips. Drop 2 tablespoon-sized balls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are browned.Please note: Mag’s mom makes these with butter-flavored Crisco rather than butter, and so does Mag. Evie, however, makes them just like this!Click here to return to the table of contents.MagOne month before…His back was to the floor and Evie was moving on top of him, his jeans were at his thighs, her jeans, panties and red Chucks had been kicked across the room.
Their hands were linked and pressed to his heart.
The engagement ring he gave her that she never took off—not ever, not showering, not doing the dishes, not ever—was digging into the webbing of his fingers.
“Trust you to take the bottom when we’re on the floor,” she breathed as she took it slow.
Too slow.
“Baby, go faster,” Mag encouraged.
She didn’t go faster.
She said, “Trust you to put bacon in the first recipe you make up for a cookbook.”
“Evie, beautiful.” He drove up his hips, and he got too fucking off on it when she gasped as he did. “Go faster.”
But again, she didn’t go faster.
“Trust you to do a cookbook for charity at all.”
Shit.
He was going to have to flip them.
“Evie,” he warned.
“Love you,” she whispered, her eyes filled with the meaning in her words aimed right at his.
Yeah.
He was going to have to flip them.
He did that and her reddish-brown hair spread out all over the long, narrow colorful Navajo rug she had in front of the sink.
“Trust you to take over,” she muttered.
He grinned down at her before he kissed her, took over, and went faster.
It took it out of him, she was sleek and wet and had her legs wrapped tight around his thighs, but he got her there before he let himself come.
He was working her neck with his mouth when she pulled her shit together and stated, “We need a dog.”
Although he had no idea what brought her to that thought, Mag had long since given up trying to keep up with Evie’s brain.
So he just lifted his head and agreed, “Yeah, we do.”
“And a cat.”
Before he could reply in the negative to that, she kept going.
“And a bird.”
At this juncture, he needed to stop her, and he did this saying, “Babe.”
“You’re going to protest, then you’re going to give me what I want, because you’re Danny, and I’m yours, and that’s how it goes. So let’s just move past the protest part, eat Cheesy Bacon Knots, and research birds and no-kill shelters.”
She was not wrong with any of that.
Shit.
“Let’s start with the dog,” he suggested.
“Okay,” she agreed.
Easy as that.
But that, too, was Evie.
Oh yeah.
He loved this woman.Two hours later…Evie was curled up in an armchair that had a big, chrome dome light arched over the top of it, gabbing on the phone.
“I know, right?” she said.
And then she cackled.
She was talking to Ryn.
About the cookbook.
Her brown eyes strayed to him.
And the look in them…
Fuck.
“Our guys,” she said softly into the phone.
Mag held his woman’s gaze for a very long moment.
Then, sitting on their armless leather couch among a shit ton of fucking toss pillows, he cast his gaze down to his laptop and continued researching recipe ideas.KAOne month later…“What’s your favorite recipe?”
This I ask to Mag.
“The Monte Cristo Sliders,” he answers.
“What’s Evie’s?” I ask.
“The Cheesy Bacon Knots.”
“Do you have a dog?”
“Yup,” he answers. “And a cat. And a fucking bird.”
I smile at him.
And Mag smiles back at me.Bonus from Mag and Evie for the PuppersDog Treats2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup water
2 tablespoons honeyPreheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients until combined. Roll out on a floured surface to 1-inch thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut out the cookies and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.Click here to return to the table of contents.Chapter TwoNot a House, a HomeBooneThree weeks earlier…“So?” Ryn pressed.
He really didn’t know why she was asking.
If she wanted to take it on, she knew he’d say yes.
But he looked around the house anyway.
It was a disaster.
Eyeing it, his first thought was that his Ryn wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.
And on that thought, he really took in the space.
Some of the drywall was punched in like someone had lost their shit and taken it out on the sheetrock. The carpet was old, worn, stained, and had to go. When whoever was there last cleared out, they took the light fixtures, the cabinetry in the kitchen and baths, the sinks, plumbing apparatus, and even yanked some of the copper pipes out of the walls.
