Short Rides (Rough Riders 14.5)

“Jack. I’m—”

“Let me finish. You are my world, you are my everything, and I’d never recover from losing you. Never. I don’t think you understand—”

“I do understand; trust me, because I feel the same way.” She touched his face. “Hey. I’m right here with you. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He lifted his head. “I’ve already talked to Doc Monroe about scheduling a vasectomy as soon as possible.”

“You’re serious.”

“Completely. We have four kids and that’s plenty. You went under the knife today so it’s my turn to ensure that I never have to go through another day like today.”

The nurse came in, checked her over, administered the painkiller and made arrangements to move her.

“So tell me about our boys. Weight, length, hair color.”

“Ah…I haven’t seen them yet.”

Keely’s tired eyes widened. “What? Why not?”

“Because you and I have this tradition of seeing our babies for the first time together, so I waited.”

“That’s so sweet. That’s so...you.” She motioned him closer for a kiss. “Thank you.” She rested her forehead to his. “As anxious as I am to meet our sons, I’m really wrung out. Can we wait a little longer?”

“Of course.”

Her eyes drifted shut but her grip on his hand tightened. “You’ll stay with me?”

“Always.”

Three hours later the nurses wheeled two bassinets into Keely’s private room. “The baby with the blue tag around his ankle was born first.” Then they left.

Keely scooted the head of the bed upright. “Does it give the birth info on there?”

“Yeah.” Jack peered at the sticker. “This one was six pounds even. Nineteen inches long.” He leaned over to look at the other sticker. “Wow. Exactly the same for this one.”

“Okay, let’s see ’em.”

Jack gently placed the small bundles side by side on the middle of the bed and sat on the opposite end. “Unveiling on the count of three.”

“One, two, three.”

The light blue hats came off first. Jack laughed, looking back and forth between the babies. “Black hair. I’m surprised one’s isn’t black and the other’s brown. Then we’d have every color of hair represented in the Donohue household.”

“Not happening with identical twins, GQ.”

During the barrage of tests Keely had endured, they’d learned the babies were identical. “So let’s see how alike they really are.”

The boys squalled when they were stripped down to their diapers. But Jack and Keely examined every inch of them. They looked at each other with complete bewilderment.

“How on earth will we ever tell them apart? They are identical in every way.”

“Maybe we can have India give one of them a tiny tat so they can’t pull the twin-switcheroo on us when they get older,” Jack suggested.

Keely whapped Jack on the arm. “A tattoo?”

“I was joking.”

“Good. ’Cause I was thinking we should have one circumcised and one not. That way we’ll always be able to tell them apart.”

“So when one of them comes home past curfew when he’s sixteen, you’ll stand on the porch and say, drop your drawers, son, so I know which one of you to punish?”

She laughed. “I guess that is a little ridiculous.”

“How about if we just leave the blue band on Jack Jr. for a while?”

“That’ll work.” She wrapped up the baby closest to her and smooched his cheeks before snuggling him close. “JJ Donohue, you’re gonna be a handsome sucker like your daddy. I just know it.”

Jack wrapped up the other baby, the one without the blue band and tucked him into the crook of his arm. “So we’re still naming him Liam?”

“Yep. But I’d like his middle name to be Carson. After all the grandsons my dad has, not one has been named after him. It’s time.”

“Daddy’s girl to the core,” he murmured.

“Speaking of girls...”

“Your mom promised she’d bring them tomorrow.” Jack noticed Keely’s frown hadn’t gone away. “You starting to hurt again?”

“A little.”

“But that’s not it, is it?”

She shook her head. “How on earth are we gonna handle four kids? We’re outnumbered.”

“No idea.”

“That’s helpful.”

Jack shrugged. “Just being honest. But the next eighteen years ought to be interesting.”