About an hour and a half later, Jack returned from the store, carrying a fussy Finlea. He brought her inside and stripped her down.

"What's going on?"

Elizabeth walked in to the room and looked at them. "Oh, nothing that a nice bubble bath won't fix."

"Blowout?"

"Yeah. I had only taken two diapers and she went through both of them. One in the store, so I had to leave my groceries inside and take her out to the car. When I came back, my cart was gone. Then the second one as we got into the car to come home. So, needless to say, I had nothing to change her into. The only other diaper that was in there was Joey's. That won't work."

"I'll give her a bath." She held her hand out for Finny to take. "Come on, naked baby. Let's go take a bath."

"I'll get the groceries and start dinner."

"Why don't we just order pizza? There's a coupon on the counter."

"Deal!"

Jack brought the groceries in and put them away and ordered the pizza. Then he loaded the diaper bag with four diapers for each kid and wipes, making sure next time wouldn't be as crazy.

"Dada!"

He turned around and smiled. "All clean?" He picked her up and kissed her cheek.

"Yep, pizza ordered?"

"Yes. Should be here in about ten."

They headed into the kitchen and Elizabeth smiled. "Beautiful flowers, cowboy. For anyone special?"

"Oops. Those are for my girlfriend. I didn't want you to find out this way."

She smacked his rear. "Very funny."

He winked and slipped Fin into her chair. "Of course they are for you." He slipped his arms around her and held her tight. "I appreciate all the hard work you do, sweetheart. Two babies under two is not an easy thing and you are an amazing mother and a wonderful wife." He kissed her forehead and then her lips. "I love you very much."

"I love you too. You are just as wonderful."

"Nah."

"You just spent a week on call and you came home and took the kids to allow me to sleep. Then you cleaned, did laundry, did the dishes, took Fin grocery shopping and ordered pizza. That's incredibly sweet." She kissed him this time. "I don't deserve you, Jack Thornton but I'm awfully glad I have such an amazing husband to go through life with."

Joey cried in the monitor and Fin dropped the spoon on the floor Jack had given her. "Duty calls, Mama." He smiled and gave her another kiss before they separated.

…..

Two weeks later…

Mike was formulating a plan. "Honey?"

"Yes, babe?" Julie walked in the room and started washing two bottles. The girls were taking to eating out of bottles quite well. She had started pumping a week before and had tried the bottles. She only had three weeks left of her maternity leave so she was trying to get them prepared for her to be gone all day.

"Tomorrow, will you go out to dinner with me?"

"You want to go out?" She was shocked. He never wanted to spend money.

"Yes. I miss having you to myself." She smiled and placed the bottles, rings, and nipples on the drying rack and turned toward him.

"Me too. I would love to go to dinner with you, Mike."

"Great."

"Who will watch the girls?"

"Bill and Charlotte. They will come here."

"Ok." Julie smiled. She had been a mother for all of nine weeks, but a wife for a year. Almost. She still thought of them as newlyweds and having time alone was hard to come by. It had been quite a while. "I can't wait."

The next afternoon, Julie took a shower and dressed in a little black dress she hadn't worn since before the girls, surprised and delighted she could zip it up. She slipped on a pair of comfy heels and twisted half of her hair back, leaving the rest flowing down her back. She put a pair of silver earrings on that Mike had bought her in Oahu and with a spritz of perfume, she was done. "Not bad, Jules," she said as she turned and looked at herself in the mirror.

She walked into the living room to switch places with Mike.

"Wow," he said as she walked in. "I'm a lucky, lucky man." He put Claire in her swing and walked over to Julie. "You are gorgeous, Julie."

"Thank you," she said accepting his kiss. "Now go get ready. We need to leave in twenty."

"Yes, ma'am." He looked at her one more time and hurried away to shower and change.

Julie heard a knock and went to open it. "Hey there. Thank you so much for watching the girls."

They walked in and smiled. "Our pleasure, sweetie," Charlotte told her with a hug.

"There is plenty of milk in the freezer. I know you know how to unfreeze it. They should be hungry in about an hour."

"Yep, plenty of experience with that. Anything else we need to know?"

"Nope. Claire in yellow, Kendall in pink, although they look different enough to me now."

"We will be careful."

Bill walked over and picked up Kendall who was waking up. "Hi, Kendall. I'm Papa Bill. You remember me?"

A few minutes later, Mike walked out, catching Julie's eye. "Holy Moly." She loved his black suit, white dress shirt with no tie look. Hot!

"You two look great," Charlotte told them as she picked up Claire. "Now scoot. We have everything covered."

They each kissed the babies and left. Mike helped Julie into the car and then walked around to the driver's side. When he got in, she leaned over the console and kissed him. "You look sexy, husband." She winked at him as his ears turned red.

He started the car and backed out of the driveway and then reached for her hand. "How does Italian sound?"

"Great. Fettuccine please and garlic bread. Mm. Yum." Mike smiled and squeezed her hand. "Mike?"

"Yeah?" He looked over his shoulder and hopped on the expressway.

"Beth told me that Jack registered for nursing classes."

"I heard that."

"She also told me that the county was paying for 80% of his tuition."

"I heard that too."

"I'm surprised you hadn't mentioned it."

"I'm surprised that you're surprised."

"Mike, 80% is huge."

"It is, but in our case, 20% is huge. I didn't see a point in mentioning it if we can't afford to do it."

"If we could, would you have done it?" His resulting silence answered her question.

"It doesn't matter."

"Michael, your happiness means everything to me. If you became a nurse…"

"Julie, registration for summer term is closed. It doesn't matter."

"We can save for Fall term. I think that nursing would be perfect for you and it would help with our finances in the long run. Don't you agree?"

He couldn't disagree. "Yeah."

"Elizabeth told me how much the 20% worked out to be. We can do this."

Julie saw tears fill his eyes. He kissed her hand but kept his eyes on the road. "Thank you."

…..

Elizabeth rolled over and opened her eyes. "Babe? What are you doing?"

"Just reading."

He had bought his anatomy book for his Anatomy and Physiology class that started June 1st. June 1st was a little under a month away but he was excited. She was glad but it was almost eleven. "Jack."

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to get a jump on the studying."

She moved closer and leaned against his arm. "Were you a good student, Jack?"

"Yeah. I guess you could call me a bit of a nerd."

"My sexy nerd," she said with a smile.

"Definitely yours." He kissed her forehead. "I like learning. I like to challenge myself."

"That's a good thing."

He closed the book and rolled to his side to look at her. He traced his fingertip along her temple and down her cheekbone. "For instance, did you know there are fourteen bones in your face?"

She giggled and watched him follow the curve of her cheek with his finger. "No, I didn't. That's interesting. Do you know the names of those?"

"No, but that's the challenge of it." His hand moved down so his finger now touched her collar bone. "This is the clavicle." He moved his finger to the center of her neck and traced slowly down. "Sternum is here." She shivered as goosebumps appeared. "And you have twelve pairs of ribs," he whispered as his fingers found them under her tank top.

"I knew that, smartie," she said with a laugh.

"Mm. Now who's the nerd?" His lips found hers as his fingers found her hip bones.

Joey started making noises across the room. "Its time for him to eat," she mentioned after a particularly breath stealing kiss.

"I'll get him."

"Thank you."

…..

Julie and Mike returned late to their house. Dinner had been perfect and they had talked for a long time after dessert had been served and finished, enjoying the lack of interruptions.

When they entered the house, Charlotte and Claire were in one recliner and Bill and Kendall in the other. All asleep.

Julie took a few pictures and then walked over. "Charlotte," she whispered. Charlotte opened her eyes and smiled.

"Hi, did you have a nice time?"

"Yeah. It was great." She stood up and gently placed Claire in Julie's arms. "They ate about thirty minutes ago."

"Ok, thank you."

Charlotte woke up Bill. "Time to go, dear."

He opened his eyes and yawned and then kissed Kendall's head. "Bye, angel face."

He handed her to Mike and stretched and then followed Charlotte to the door.

"Thanks again, guys," Mike said. "We really appreciate it."

"Anytime. Just give us a call."

Mike locked the door behind them and then grabbed the bottles from the coffee tables and shut off the lights. "Here, I'll go wash these out if you want to take Kendall." She held out her arm and then walked away with both babies.

She set them down, one at a time, in their crib and then changed into her silky robe and chemise. As she removed her earrings, she heard Mike walk in the bedroom.

He walked over and kissed her slowly, untying her robe and slipping his fingers underneath. She slipped his suit jacket over his shoulders and set it on the chair. "Thank you for dinner."

He nodded and opened the top drawer of his dresser. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to her.

She opened the envelope and unfolded the paper, her hand around his waist, keeping him close.

JULIE,

ITS ALMOST BEEN A YEAR SINCE OUR WEDDING. WHAT AN AMAZING YEAR ITS BEEN. THAT DAY I MARRIED MY BEST FRIEND, THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. SINCE THEN, YOU'VE NEVER STOPPED SUPPORTING ME AND LOVING ME. YOU'VE GIVEN ME THE CHANCE TO BE A FATHER TO THE TWO SWEETEST BABY GIRLS I COULD EVER IMAGINE AND FOR THAT I WILL BE ETERNALLY GRATEFUL.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SWEETHEART. HERE'S TO MORE BABIES AND FIFTY MORE YEARS OF LOVE AND HAPPINESS.

I LOVE YOU

MIKE

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "Happy Anniversary. I love you too. You're so wonderful."

…..

THE NEXT DAY, MADISON

Grace looked over at Will and smiled as the nurses in the room clapped and cheered when she rang the bell. She was finally done with her twelve long weeks of treatment. In her mind, the cancer was gone. The tests would confirm in a few days time but she had a good feeling about it.

"Congratulations, my love," William said as he bent down and kissed her, causing more cheering from the nurses. Will and Grace just laughed.

He picked her up and gently placed her in the wheelchair close to the door. Then he covered her lap with a blanket. "Ready to go?"

"Yes. Let's go home." They took a few moments to thank the nurses.

When they got to the Escalade, Robinson opened the door. "Congratulations, Mrs. Thatcher."

"Thank you, Robinson."

Will placed her inside the back door and gently shut it and then walked around the other side.

"Will, these are lovely flowers. My favorite, you remembered?" She took a deep breath in of the dark red roses that had been sitting on the console.

"I remember everything about you, Gracie."

"Very sweet of you." She slipped her hand into his and leaned against him.

"Rest, dear. We will be home shortly."

"Let's call the girls. Please?"

William took out his cell and pressed the skype app. After a moment it connected.

"Bethie!"

"Hi. Give me a moment." Elizabeth put the phone face down so she could put Joey in his crib. "Ok, I'm back. What are you two up to?"

"I just finished chemo," Grace said with a huge smile.

"Oh, Mom! Congratulations."

"Thank you, sweetie. We plan on coming out in August for the food drive. I should be back to normal by then."

"That's great."

"What's new, Beth?"

"So many things. I don't even know where to start. Did we tell you Jack is going back to school to get his nursing degree?"

"No, you didn't. That's wonderful. He'll be a great nurse."

"I agree. He also sold all his cattle and four of his horses. He's officially out of the ranching business."

"Wow!"

"And Bill and Charlotte are building a house on Tom's old property."

"That's a lot of news, sweetheart."

"It is. Life is definitely not boring."

Fin climbed up on her lap and looked at the phone. "Hi!"

"Hi, Finny! You're so big."

"Ya." She nodded and tried to kiss the phone. Joey made a noise in his crib and Fin looked over. "Bebe."

"Well, Joey is waking up and I need to get them both fed. I better go. Congratulations again, Mom."

"Thanks, Beth. We love you. Bye Fin!"

"Bye Bye!"