A/N: another chapter!

Chapter 33

"Where you going, Mommy?" Katrina asked as she watched her mother walk down the stairs, her purse over her shoulder.

"I'm going to Lucy's." Alison shuffled some papers around the coffee table. "Rafe, have you seen my cell phone anywhere? I can't find it."

"I think you left it on the kitchen counter."

"Oh that's right." Alison left the room.

Katrina turned to her father with a big grin. "Is Mommy going to her surprise party?"

"Shh! Not a word, Princess!"

Katrina giggled. She loved secret surprises.

Alison walked back into the living room. "Found it. I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached."

"Guess what, Mommy!"

"What?"

Rafe turned pale, fearing Katrina would spoil the surprise.

"Daddy and I are going to the pet store! Daddy says we need some things before we bring Tiger home."

"Well that sounds like fun."

Just then, they heard a car horn outside. "Well, that would be Livvie. I'm off." Alison kissed Rafe goodbye. "See you tonight."

"Bye. Have fun."

Alison bent down and kissed Katrina on the head. "Bye, baby. Have fun with Daddy."

"Bye, Mommy." Katrina watched her mother as she walked out the door. "Mommy's gonna love her surprise party!"

Rafe smiled. "I'm sure she will."

"Daddy, can we go now?"

"We haven't finished our list yet."

"But the sooner we go to the store and get the stuff, the sooner we can bring Tiger home!"

Rafe smiled. "But if we don't finish our list, we might forget something Tiger needs."

"Let's finish the list in the car. That's what Mommy does when we shop for groceries." Katrina hopped up from the couch and grabbed her shoes off the floor.

Rafe gave in. "Alright, princess. I suppose once we get there, we'll figure out all we need."

Katrina looked up at her father and gave him a big smile. "And then we can bring Tiger home! Right?"

"Right."

"Tonight?"

Rafe frowned. "Not that soon, princess."

"Tomorrow?"

"We'll see."

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"Well, here we are," Livvie said as she drove up to the lighthouse and slowed the car to a stop. "It was such a good idea of Lucy to have a girls' night out thing." She couldn't wait to see the look on Alison's face when she realized this was actually a surprise baby shower for her.

"Yeah, it was. I wonder what movies we'll watch," Alison said, playing along. Livvie still had no clue this was a surprise shower for her.

"My vote's for Dirty Dancing," Livvie said with a smile.

Alison opened the door and slowly eased herself out of the car. It was getting so much more difficult to get around these days. She hoped her due date would hurry up and get here so that she could at least see her feet again.

Livvie waited for Alison at the front step, then knocked on the front door. She waited for a moment, but no one answered.

Then Alison knocked on the door. "Lucy? It's Alison and Livvie."

"Door's open! Come in!" Lucy called out.

Livvie opened the door and the two walked in.

"SURPRISE!" Everyone called out.

Balloons and flowers were everywhere. On the table was a huge bowl of punch and snacks. On the opposite table, there was a mountain of presents. And across the room, a huge banner was hung. "Congratulations Livvie and Alison!" it read.

"Oh my gosh, what is this?" Livvie said.

Alison looked across the room, seeing her grandmother smiling at her. It dawned on her what this was all about now. "Lucy, this was supposed to be a surprise for Livvie. Not me too!"

Lucy smiled. "Oh don't be silly. You really think I was going to pass up the opportunity to give both of your girls a baby shower?"

"Lucy, you don't need to give me a shower," Livvie protested. "This should be for Alison. She's the one about to give birth. I'm only a couple of months along."

"Oh nonsense, it's more fun this way." Lucy took both Alison and Livvie's hands and led them to the couch. "Besides, I've never planned a double shower before."

Alison and Livvie gave each other a smile as someone handed them each a glass of fruit punch.

"Okay, now we can have fun!" Lucy announced. "Someone hand me that tape measurer. Who wants to go first and guess how big Alison is?"

"Oh god, not this game," Alison muttered.

Livvie laughed. "I'm so glad I'm not as far along as you."

"Don't worry, Livvie," Lucy said, tape measurer in hand. "We have fun games planned for you too."

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"How was it?" Rafe asked, seeing Alison walk through the front door. "Did you have fun?"

"You knew. You were in on it."

"Lucy swore me to secrecy."

Alison sat down on the couch beside him. "It was great. And a nice surprise."

Katrina ran into the living room, having heard her mother's voice. "Mommy! Mommy! You're home!"

"Hi, sweetie." Alison kissed her. "Did you have fun with Daddy?"

"Yeah. Did you have fun at your party?"

Alison laughed. "You knew too?"

Katrina shook her head.

"Yes, I had fun."

"Did you practice washing babies?"

"What?"

"Daddy said you and Aunt Livvie were at a baby shower. Did you wash babies while you were there?"

Alison laughed out loud. "No, sweetie. They call it a baby shower because they shower us with baby gifts. That's just a fancy way of saying I got a lot of presents."

Katrina's eyes lit up. "Where? I love presents!"

"They're at Lucy's. I'll pick them up later. But I did bring a few things home." Alison picked up a small bag she had carried inside. She reached inside, pulling out one of her gifts. It was a small stuffed animal.

"Ooo! He's cute!" Katrina grabbed the little elephant. "It's soft."

"It's a rattle."

Katrina gave it a little shake. "Hey yeah, it is a rattle!" Katrina laughed, loving the sound of the little bells inside. "Hey, Mommy, we got some stuff too! For Tiger! You wanna see?"

"Sure."

Katrina threw the rattle back into the bag and hopped off the couch. On the floor were several bags from the pet store. Katrina rummaged through them. "We got a litter box." She showed her mother. "And look. We also got a pooper-scooper. For scooping poop," Katrina laughed, holding up the scooper. "And look, a collar! It's blue 'cause Tiger is a boy cat. And we got some bowls for his food. Daddy said we can write Tiger's name on them!"

"I think that's a great idea. What else did you get?"

"Lots of toys!" Katrina poured out several cat toys onto the carpet. "He's gonna be one happy cat!"

Alison laughed. "I'm sure he will with all of those toys."

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It was half past midnight, and Alison couldn't sleep. It was hard to get comfortable, and when she did, inevitably, Gabe would wake her up with his kicking.

She sat on the couch, flipping through a book and drinking a glass of cold milk.

"Mommy?"

Alison turned to the stairs, seeing a sleepy Katrina walk down the stairs. She yawned as she rubbed her eyes.

"What are you doing out a bed, sweetie?"

Katrina climbed up onto the couch. "I can sleep. I'm too excited about Tiger. Daddy said we can bring him home tomorrow."

"Oh, I see."

"What's that?" Katrina pointed to the book in her mother's hand.

"This? It's Gabe's baby book."

"But Gabe's not born yet."

"We can still add a few stuff to it though." Alison turned a page. "See there? There's a picture the doctor took of Gabe. We can put that picture in there."

"Where's my baby book, Mommy?"

"Go look in that cabinet over there."

Katrina walked over to the cabinet and looked around.

"Do you see it?"

"Oh yeah! Here it is!" Katrina said, taking out her baby book. Every now and then, Katrina liked to look through her baby book, but it had been a long time since she had looked at it. She brought the book to the couch and sat down beside her mother to look through it again.

"There's my hair!" Katrina said proudly, pointing to the little blonde lock of hair on the first page.

"Look at that," Alison said, pointing to the pair of bracelets. "That's the bracelet the hospital made Mommy wear, and there's the bracelet you wore. Look how tiny it is."

Katrina giggled. "I was a tiny baby."

"You were a beautiful baby," Alison said, pulling her daughter close to her and kissing her head.

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"Well, here you go. Take good care of him," Danny said, passing the little orange kitten over to Katrina.

"Hey, Tiger! We're going to have so much fun!" she said, giving the kitten a kiss on his head.

Katrina brought the little kitten home and played with him literally all day.

"See, I told you this would work out," Rafe said, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

"What's that?" Alison asked, taking a pan of muffins out of the stove.

"You said having a kitten around the house would be too much trouble. But as far as I'm concerned, things have gone rather well. Katrina even remembered to feed him. I didn't have to tell her anything."

"That's good."

"That's great. You see? Having a pet is teaching her responsibility." Rafe grinned. He liked when things worked out.

Suddenly, they heard Katrina in the other room. "Uh oh!" she yelled. "Bad kitty!"

"So things are going great, huh?" Alison teased.

"I better go see what happened," Rafe said, rising from his chair.

Rafe walked into the living room to see Katrina standing over the kitten with a pointed finger, scolding him.

"Bad kitty! Bad, bad, kitty! I ought to give you a spankin'!"

"Katrina, what's the matter?"

Katrina turned to her father. "Tiger peed on the floor!"

Alison walked into the living room to see for herself what had happened. She looked at Rafe and laughed softly. "You're helping her clean that up."

"Alright, Princess. Go to the kitchen and get some paper towels, and I'll go get the carpet cleaner."

"Okay."

Rafe looked down at the kitten, who was now rubbing against his legs and purring at him, as if nothing had happened. Tiger looked up at Rafe, giving him an innocent look.

"Bad, Tiger," he said.

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Later that night, as Rafe prepared to go to bed, he went to Katrina's room to check on her.

She was fast asleep, holding on to the kitten. The kitten looked up at Rafe, but couldn't really leave the bed as Katrina was holding him down. "No peeing in the bed, Tiger," he whispered.