“I need someone to check on them once or twice a day. Perhaps play with them for half an hour or so. If the weather is nice, they could take them outside to their pen, which I will make sure is completely secure from now on.”
He said nothing, only continued to study her.
“I would be willing to pay them. Would ten dollars a day be sufficient?”
“You want to pay my children to keep an eye on your puppies.” He said the words in the same disbelieving tone he might have used if she had suggested the children join the circus.
Of course he would dislike the idea. He was a coldhearted jerk who obviously couldn’t see how perfectly children and puppies meshed together. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea. Forget I said anything. You are here on vacation and so are the children. They don’t need a job.”
“Don’t be so hasty. I was surprised, that’s all. It’s not a stupid idea. They would enjoy earning a little spending money for souvenirs and they do love dogs. My parents have four Jack Russell terriers. They’re very smart.”
“Amelia and Thomas told me how much they love visiting them. They also told me you don’t have any pets.”
“My late wife was allergic to cats and was afraid of dogs after an unfortunate episode in her childhood.”
She wanted to ask what was stopping him from getting a dog now that his wife was gone but that seemed a crass question in light of their loss.
“If your parents had four dogs, that must have made Sunday dinners difficult when you visited their house,” she said instead.
He gave a smile that looked strained. “Whenever Susan would visit, my parents kept their dogs locked in their bedroom or outside.”
He spoke in such a stiff tone she had to wonder if even talking about his late wife was difficult for him. He must have loved her very much. Still, that was no excuse for discouraging the children from grieving over their mother.
She should say something. But how could she bring that up to him, especially when she was asking a favor of his children?
“It was a crazy idea. I just thought—I don’t know—that they might enjoy playing with the puppies as much as the puppies would enjoy playing with them.”
That seemed to give him pause. “Once or twice a day, you said?”
“Yes. And really, I wouldn’t need them to do anything other than check on them and maybe throw a ball or something for a few minutes.”
“It’s not a crazy idea at all. Amelia is eight and Thomas six. They’re certainly old enough to put out food and water for the puppies, if you should need that.”
That almost sounded as if he was at least considering her request seriously. She was afraid to hope. “Does that mean you will let them help me?”
He gazed out at the water for a moment where the moonlight danced on the waves, then shifted back to her. “I think ten dollars a day is too much. What about five?”
“Five each, then.”
He shrugged. “Fine. But we may be busy some days and they won’t be able to check on them,” he warned.
“Totally understandable. You’re on vacation. If there’s any day that doesn’t work, just let me know or have your nanny let me know and I can easily come home myself. Sundays are my day off when the store is closed so I wouldn’t need help on that day.”
“And you know we’re leaving to go home the Tuesday after Gemma’s wedding.”
She did a quick mental calculation of the dates. “Also fine. The puppies will be ready for their new homes right around then and I will no longer need the help.”
“In that case, I believe they should be able to help you most days.”
“Oh. Thank you!” Okay. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as she had been thinking.
“I’m grateful for the suggestion, if you want the truth. They are in need of a project, I think. To be frank, they’re not enjoying this trip to Idaho as much as I had hoped. They both miss their friends and say they’re bored. I tried to get them interested in my research, but neither of them wants much to do with salmon.”
“How odd of them,” she said, trying to keep the dryness out of her voice.
He gave her a sidelong look, not missing it. “For your information, salmon are fascinating creatures. Kokanee, for instance, are the nonanadromous form of sockeye salmon. Anadromous means a creature that can live in both seawater and freshwater, which is incredibly rare in nature.”
“Okay.”
“Unlike the sockeye, which are born in a freshwater stream and then migrate to the ocean for most of their lives until they return to that same freshwater stream to spawn, kokanee spend their entire life landlocked, though they also go upstream using small rivers and tributaries to spawn.”
“Right.”
“They were likely originally in the old prehistoric lakes that covered this area and then became trapped when the waters receded, adapting to their new environment in fascinating ways. They spend on average about four years in the lake before they return upstream to spawn, in this case to Chalk Creek, which has a high level of calcium carbonate from erosion of the surrounding geography.”
“Good to know.”
“Unlike many other variants of kokanee that spawn in August and September, those in Lake Haven spawn in June. We’re not sure why and that’s what I would like to find out. That’s what I’m here to research.”
He suddenly looked embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m droning on. It’s a bad habit when I talk about my work.”
Oddly, she found she liked that particular chink in his armor. She tended to do the same when talking about her dress designs.
“We all have our passions, don’t we?”
To her shock, she was almost certain his gaze flickered to her mouth.
“Yes,” he murmured. “We do.”
Glittery heat suddenly flared in her stomach, as if he had pressed his finger to her skin instead of just a look.
Where had
