Laughing, she turned into the drive at Templeton House. So foolish, she realized, not to have done this before. Old habits, she mused. Peter hadn’t wanted pets, so there had been no pets. But Peter had been gone nearly two years. And that was two years too long not to have made some simple adjustments.

After parking the car, she glanced around at her menagerie and blew out a breath. “How the hell am I going to manage to get you all inside?”

She had a leash for the pup, which she attached to his brand-new collar. She held out no hope that he would understand the purpose. For a brief moment, she considered laying on the horn until someone came out to give her a hand. Which, she assumed, would send her new petting zoo into a frenzy.

So she’d deal with it herself. “You first,” she decided, and opened the door. The puppy cowered, sniffed at the empty space on the other side of her lap. Then, gathering his courage, he jumped. If she hadn’t been laughing so hard, she would have held on to the leash. But the pup landed in a sprawl and looked so surprised that she roared with laughter and the leather slid out of her hands.

He was off and running.

“Oh, damn it.” Still laughing, she sprang out of the car. “Come back here, you idiot.”

Instead, he raced in circles, then cut through old Joe’s pampered bed of narcissus, yapping joyously all the way.

“Oh, that’s going to be a problem,” she realized. Wincing, she walked around the car to retrieve the sleepy kittens. In the back, the toms continued to complain at the top of their lungs. “All right, all right. Give me a minute here.”

Inspired, she tucked a kitten in each of her jacket pockets, then hauled out the cat boxes. “You two are Michael’s problem.” Following the excited barks, she headed toward the stables.

The sight that greeted her when she stepped through the arbor of wisteria was worth every moment of annoyance. In the far yard, her daughters were kneeling on the ground embracing and being embraced by a wildly enthusiastic spotted mutt.

She took the picture in her mind, slipped it into her heart.

“Look, Mama!” Kayla was already shouting as Laura started toward them. “Come quick and look at the little puppy. He must be lost.”

“He doesn’t look lost to me.”

“He has a leash.” Ali giggled—a sound Laura could never hear often enough—as he scrambled into her lap. “Maybe he ran away from home.”

“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.”