“I’ll be quiet,” Eli promised.

Brynne lay with her eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply.

Even after twelve hours in labor, she was so beautiful Eli wondered how he would bear it.

This woman. The mother of his children.

Walking quietly, Eli stepped close to the bed and bent to brush his lips across the crown of Brynne’s head.

She opened those indigo eyes of hers. Smiled.

“Sorry,” Eli whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” his lovely wife confided. “I just wanted Mom and Dad to go home and get some rest. They’re both exhausted.”

Eli grinned, though his heart felt as if it would burst with love. “How like you, Bailey, to worry about other people when you just spent half a day delivering our sons.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Now that it’s over, anyway, and we have two beautiful baby boys to show for our hard work.”

“Our hard work?” Eli had never been a “we’re pregnant” kind of guy. Brynne had been the one to carry twins to term, while being the best wife imaginable, purchasing the Anderson farm, overseeing the ensuing construction projects and entertaining Davey and Maddie Nicholls. They’d visited the Creek twice in the past year, first in April during a school vacation and then again in June, to participate in the wedding, and Eli had come to understand his bride’s lasting love for them; they were great kids. “Seems to me, Mrs. Garrett, that you’re the one who should get all the credit. All I did was have a lot of fun.”

Brynne smiled, placed her hands on either side of Eli’s head and drew him down for a kiss. “We’re in for a wild ride, Sheriff,” she told him. “Identical twin boys growing up in rural Montana. They’re bound to be a little wild.”

“Tricky, too. Telling them apart might be quite a challenge.”

Brynne frowned prettily. But, then, she was always pretty. “What are we going to do about that?” she asked seriously. “They’ll fool us constantly if we don’t figure out a way to defend ourselves.”

Eli chuckled. “Sweetheart, they’re little boys—very little boys, at the moment—so I don’t think we need to worry about being fooled—or defending ourselves. We’ll come up with something.”

“Like what?”

“Tiny tattoos?” Eli suggested, grinning. “Don’t look now, Bailey, but this is definitely a first-world problem.” He kissed her forehead. “Suppose you get some sleep now.”

“Later,” Brynne said. “It’s almost time for a feeding.” A pause. “You’re not serious about the tattoos, right?”

He laughed, low and gruff. “Sure, I am,” Eli teased. “M for Michael and J for Jesse. One tiny initial each, maybe on the inside of their wrists. That way, when they’re trying to pull a switcheroo, all we have to do is ask them to show us their palms.”