"I don't think so. He is home. He's ours."
Ali simply stared. "But we can't have pets."
With a smile, Laura adjusted her boxes. "He doesn't seem to agree with you."
"Do you mean it?" Kayla rose. The expression of stunned joy on her face carved itself into Laura's heart. "Do you mean he can be our puppy and we can keep him? Forever?"
"That's exactly what I mean."
"Mama!" In one leap, Kayla had her arms wrapped around her mother's waist. She clung hard, fierce. "Mama, thank you. I'll take such good care of him. You'll see."
"I know you will, honey." She looked over at Ali, who remained still, staring. "We all will. He needs a good home and lots of love. We'll give him that, won't we, Ali?"
Inner conflict held her back. Her father had said pets were a nuisance, messy. They shed hair all over the rug. But the puppy was sniffing at her leg, wagging his tail and trying to jump into her arms.
"We'll take good care of him," she said solemnly. She started to step forward, stopped. Her mouth went lax in shock. "Mama, your pockets are moving."
"Oh." With a laugh, Laura set her boxes down, reached in and plucked out two furry balls, one silken gray and the other sassy orange, from her pockets. "What have we here?"
"Kittens?" Kayla squealed, grabbed. "Kittens. We have kittens, too! Look, Ali, we have everything."
"They're so tiny." Gently, cautiously, Ali took the mewling gray. "Mama, they're so tiny."
"They're just babies. Just over six weeks old." Every bit as much in love as her daughters were, Laura stroked a fingertip down the sleepy gray. "They needed a home too."
"It's really all right?" Half afraid to hope, Ali looked up into her mother's eyes. "It's really all right for us to keep them all?"
"It's really all right."
"More!" Tuning in to the sounds coming from the cardboard boxes, Kayla pounced.
"No, those aren't ours. Those are barn cats, for Michael."
"I'll take them to him." Desperate to share her fabulous news with anyone who would listen, Kayla handed her kitten to Ali and hefted both boxes by the straps. Grunting a little, she headed toward the stables. "Come on, cats. Come on, I'll take you home."
"Do they have names?"
"Hmm." Absently Laura stroked her daughter's hair, then made herself look away from the comical picture of Kayla, bobbling along with two boxes full of impatient felines and a puppy racing around her legs in clumsy, big-footed circles. "They will have, when we pick them out."
"Can I name one myself? Pick out the name all by myself? For the little gray kitten?" Ali lifted it to her cheek.
"Of course you can. What name would you like?''
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"It's—I don't know," Laura realized. "I forgot to ask. It's probably on one of the papers I filled out." With one arm around Ali's shoulders, she walked after Kayla. "The puppy's a boy, and both big cats are boys because that's what Michael wanted."
"Because he likes boys better?"
Uh-oh. "No, honey. I guess he figured tomcats would be meaner, and he wanted mousers."
Her eyes went huge. "He's going to let them eat mice?"
"Baby, I'm afraid that's what cats do."
Ali pressed the little ball of fluff to her cheek. "Mine won't."
Kayla's voice was already echoing in high, excited chirps, accented by the yaps of the pup, who had raced inside the stables with her. When Laura stepped in and her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw Michael and Kayla crouched together on the brick floor, taking stock of Templeton House's new mutt.