After Tia fell asleep, I got out my computer, wrote a long note to Julie as Ranger cleaned up the kitchen, cuddled in to Ranger afterwards on the sofa, and pulled up my Pinterest board. I showed him the pictures that I had liked best, and we picked a pale pink room with one wall papered in a display of large flowers in gray, cream and pink. The second room we picked was similar, but in blues. Accents in the room were pale pink and a warm white. We liked the idea that all the girls would have pink in their rooms. It was a little stereotypical, but pale pink was such a pretty color and we thought the babies would like it. Even Julie had pale pink as an accent color in her room.

We then started to search for quilts and furniture and other accessories, and by the time we had finished we had picked all the things needed for the babies. We were feeling much better about the state of our readiness. We also contacted the interior decorator that we used for the rest of the apartment, sent her the pictures, and tasked her with finding people to do the work and sourcing out the wallpaper and paint that was needed. We also told her that we needed it done as soon as possible. Ranger and I were worried about those three centimeters, and we suspected that the babies would come soon.

By the time it was bedtime, I was exhausted. It had been an emotional few days. However, after cuddling with Ranger for the previous hour and a half, I felt far more comfortable with both him and myself again. It was a good change, and I could feel how relieved that Ranger was to feel that change in me.

"I really want you to sleep in tomorrow", said Ranger quietly as we settled in bed. "Tank and I are meeting at four-thirty in the morning to work out together. We are going to spar for a while so that we can both work out our upset, and we are going to work out on the heavy bag and do a weight workout. I expect that I will be gone for a couple of hours. When I get back, I will look after Tia so that you can sleep. Okay?"

"Thank you. I am tired."

"I know, babe. That's why we are going to bed at nine. I'm just going to let you sleep until you wake up."

I smiled. "Thank you, but what happens if I don't wake up until one?"

"Then you don't wake up until one."

"What happens if I don't wake up until five?"

I could feel Ranger's smile as he kissed me on the back of my head. "Then you don't wake up until five. Babe, you need your sleep and, if you don't get it, you will make things hard on yourself. Remember, you are sleeping for three."

I sighed.

"Ranger? Do you think we can do twins? Do you think we'll be able to do it all?"

I felt him smile again. "If anyone can do it without dropping any of the balls, it will be you. You care so damn much. Our children will be well loved and well parented, your department will be well led, and your projects will be well researched and the results comprehensive. I wouldn't worry about it. Do you think we are going to struggle?"

"I don't know. I mean, you are a true partner, and you do everything with Tia and give me lots of time off. You do an amazing amount around the house and we have help for the rest. However, I'm just so damn tired now, and I can't imagine adding the needs of two babies to the mix. Sometimes I feel like I am struggling with the demands of just Tia."

"I think we'll be okay. Tracy is a wonderful support who looks upon our children as her nieces. She is happy to help as much as she can. We have some good friends who are also happy to help. Mellie can't help as much with just having had Michael five months ago, but if we really needed her she would be there. And we could rely on Tank and Joe as well as our first line of defense, and pretty well any of the Rangeman staff as our second. Can you imagine, if we needed help, Dirk or Miguel turning you down? Hal not stepping up? We have lots of help. And that's not including Julie. She would love to help out as much as she can. She would come up every weekend if we needed her to. I think your level of intimidation is more related to your depression than the identification of a true problem." He rubbed my tummy. "We're going to be okay, babe. I have faith."

"Okay." I paused. "Thank you."

He kissed me again. "You're welcome", he said softly.

I fell asleep shortly afterwards, content and secure in Ranger's arms. When his alarm went off the next morning, I realized that I hadn't woken with Ranger's nightmares, nor had I woken with mine. I'd had a good sleep, although I was still tired and wanted more. I rolled away from where I was intertwined with Ranger, settled on my other side, and went back to sleep.

Ranger was as good as his word. He returned from his gym session at six-thirty and, since Tia normally slept until seven-thirty, he had time for a shower before looking after her for the morning. I slept until eleven and, although I didn't feel much cheerier when I woke up, I definitely had more energy. I took that as a win.

I padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, yawned, and poured myself a decaf coffee. Tia was down for her morning nap, and I wandered through to Ranger's office to see him working on paperwork for the office. He smiled as he looked up at me. "Better?" he said.

"More energetic, anyway."

Ranger grinned. "I'll take it." I laughed. "Do you still want to go shopping today?" I smiled and nodded as I dropped onto a chair in front of his desk. "I heard back from the decorator. She said she already knew where to get most of the things, and she will order them today. She still has the blueprints, and the dimensions of the rooms are on there. She said that she will calculate the amount needed from that, and she has a team of decorators who can come in next week to do the work. She predicted that the rooms will be ready by the end of the week. And she wished us congratulations."

"That was nice of her."

"Did you think more about whether you will go off work from now to the end of your mat leave?"

I sighed. "Although it makes me feel guilty, I think going off work is the only thing that makes sense. I know if it was my employee, I would encourage them to take the time off."

"If it makes you feel any better, women in Canada get fifteen weeks off as maternity leave, with another sixty-nine weeks as parental leave that either the man or woman can take. So, if the woman chooses to take the whole parental leave rather than the man taking all or a portion of it, she can stack them on top of each other and take a full eighty-four weeks off. I personally think that is a better system. Also, they get it with partial pay. I was thinking that I would talk to Tank about that for our company. A year and a half would be hard to do. But six months for a mother and three months for the father at fifty percent of their pay seems like a much better idea than the four months without pay that the government requires. In our company, people work hard and, because of that, we earn a lot of money. I think it would be better for everyone if staff weren't coming to work exhausted from the demands of a new baby that isn't sleeping through the night. What do you think?"

I smiled. "I think it is another example of your generosity and your incredible caring about other people. I think it is a good idea to offer staff that option, and I think staff will respond to it well."

"I just think that we are netting tens of millions each year. We can afford to pay a maternity leave benefit. Tank took the first month off with Michael, and he said that it was incredibly helpful. I know it was when I took that time off with both Julie and Tia, and I was wondering about taking more time off this time with the twins. After all, there will be two of them, and we will be doubly tired. I don't know if I will be able to, but I might be able to take one month off completely and one month working part-time from home."

"Are you serious? That would be awesome. Selfishly speaking, I won't worry so much about being able to do it all if you are home as well. You give me confidence."

"So do you think that I should go forward with our maternity leave policy?"

I smiled. "If the company can afford it, I think it's a great idea."

He paused. "I got a surprising email today from a law office in L.A." I looked at him questioningly. I couldn't read his mood. "I inherited another security company."

"Pardon?" I looked at him in shock, not sure I had heard right.

"It is a very successful security company that is in fifteen cities across the west coast and the mid-western states. Tucker died a couple of weeks ago from cardiac arrest. It's upsetting that he died. He was a great guy, only forty. He, however, didn't have children and he wanted me to inherit everything."

"No offense, but why did he pick you to be his beneficiary?"

"He was a Ranger on my team, and I saved his life once."

"What happened when you saved him?"

"He stepped on a land mine and lost his foot. I carried him to safety and got him to the hospital in time to save his life and then, when I got back to base, I started visiting him and talking to him about things that he could still do. I had a two-week leave due to me, and I took my two weeks on base so that I could visit Tucker every day. He said it was my visits that made him realize that his life wasn't over, and that gave him the courage to start up his company. We talked a lot about his company and what he could do with it, and it was based on those conversations that he developed his business plan. It was also, incidentally, what we based this company on. Rangeman and his company, Secure, have similar outlooks and business values. We do basically the same things. When I started up, he was a cheerleader for me just as much as I was for him. His company has been around for ten years and has grown astronomically. We exchanged emails every few days. He was a good friend of mine, and I will miss him."

"Will this mean that you have to spend some time on the west coast?"

"Not much, I don't think. My impression is that the company is in good condition. From what I can tell, the company is a billion-dollar company with a high annual net profit in the hundreds of millions. Their specialties are providing bodyguards and security systems for celebrities. Their headquarters are in Los Angeles and they have been hired by many of the A-list movie stars and movie production companies. It is the company, in fact, that has the other two large-system security designers on staff. We have the other three in the U.S. and now, between us all, Rangeman employs every large-scale system designer in America." He paused and then said, "with this bequest, we are now a nationwide corporation."

"That's a testament to the amount of respect that he had for you to have left his company to you."

"I don't know about that. I think willing the company to me is a reflection of his gratitude for saving his life." He paused, his face a little blank with shock. "Babe? With the bequest is not only his company, but also his bank account and his houses. He was a billionaire before he started his company, more so of one afterwards. He was the last of the Tulsa family and had inherited all of his family's money. He had sold off the controlling interest in his family's company, the Tulsa Foods grocery store chain, when his parents died, and now owns forty-nine percent of the company. He earns millions in dividends each year. He just isn't interested in operating grocery stores. All that money, now, is flowing to us."

I looked at him, my mouth hanging open. Tulsa Foods was the biggest grocery store chain in the U.S. It seemed like every city and town had a store located there.

"This means we are now billionaires and, judging by the information the lawyer sent to us this morning, we are billionaires many times over." He paused as he looked at me. "I'm still stunned."

I slumped down into the chair. "Oh. My. God." I looked at him, dazed, a little longer. "Let's not tell Val or Grandma, okay?"

Ranger laughed.