On that less than cheerful note, he walked back through the house and found the children with their heads together, Amelia whispering something to her brother. She clamped her lips together tightly the moment she saw him.
What was that about? Ian wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“We should go. Ms. Fremont likely needs to be leaving soon to open her store.”
The children didn’t need to be told twice. They hurried for the door, obviously thrilled that they unexpectedly would be spending at least some portion of their family vacation playing with three cute puppies.
The morning was gorgeous, the mountain air cool enough for the children to need their jumpers. He loved these refreshing mornings. They reminded him of fishing trips he used to take with his father and David in Scotland, when they would rise before dawn and traipse through heather to the fishing spot his family had been coming to for generations.
Grief for his brother hit him out of nowhere, as it did at random moments. It had been three years and he still missed him with a fierce ache. He had so many vivid memories of their childhood, leading each other into trouble. Okay, usually it had been David doing the troublemaking and begging Ian to put away his book and join him.
Two years older, David had been smart, funny, brave, good-hearted. He would have made the perfect Earl of Amherst—unlike Ian, who had been perfectly content being the spare. David had been engaged when he died, two months away from marrying his longtime girlfriend. They had no children, alas. He mourned that, too, not only because it would have meant the child, if it were male, would become viscount instead of Ian and subsequently earl but, more, because he would have loved having any piece of his brother beyond his memories.
He pushed away the sadness, as he had become used to doing over the years, and followed after his children. The lake glistened in the sun, already more active than he had found it that morning when he left before daybreak. He could see a few fish jumping and several fishing boats slowly trolling.
The mountaintops across the way were still coated in snow with high clouds obscuring the highest peaks. He had only seen them out of the clouds a few times since their arrival.
Thomas reached the door first and pressed hard, a long, low sound that echoed through the morning.
Samantha Fremont opened her door before the boy could ring it a second time. She looked cool, professional, wearing a lacy white blouse and a pale blue skirt.
She smiled a greeting for the children and Ian was uncomfortably aware of a curious twitch in his chest.
“Good morning, Amelia. Thomas. I’m so happy to see you. This must mean you’ve agreed to help me out with my puppies.”
“We are. Dad just told us about it this morning.” Amelia’s voice seemed to vibrate with excitement, as if she couldn’t contain it all inside.
“Oh, I’m so glad. I can’t tell you what a big help this will be to me. Come in. You’re just in time. I was about to prepare breakfast for the puppies. I’ll do this before I leave every day so you won’t have to worry about it, but it’s fun to watch them eat.”
She scooped food from a large storage container into a rectangular bowl, filled another one with water and then carried them into a small room where the puppies were contained by a gate.
The three little puppies, no more than a few pounds each, attacked the food like they were wild coyotes on a fresh carcass.
“They’re so cute,” Thomas said, enthralled.
Samantha stood next to Ian, the children in front of them, and he found himself painfully aware of her. She smelled delicious. He couldn’t place the scent exactly. Berries and lemons with a sweeter note he couldn’t quite identify. Whatever it was, he wanted to bury his face in her hair and simply inhale.
He held himself stiffly, doing his best to ignore the urge as they watched the puppies for a few moments. He was relieved when she finally headed toward her kitchen.
“Here’s a key to my house.” She held out a key on a sparkly pink lanyard. Amelia reached for it, but before her hand could connect, Samantha held it out of her reach.
“Wait a minute. Before I give you my house key, I forgot to ask. Are you secretly a mysterious band of traveling house burglars who want to steal all my tiaras?”
Thomas and Amelia giggled.
“No, silly,” Thomas said. “We’re just two children.”
“Your father’s not a child.”
She sent him a look under her lashes and Ian could feel his face heat. Hunger flared again and he wanted to wrap his arms around her and press her against the kitchen cabinets, kissing her until neither of them could think straight.
Where in the hell was this coming from? This wasn’t him at all.
“He’s not a burglar, either,” Amelia assured her. “He’s our dad and he’s usually very nice.”
“Unless you leave your toys on the floor for him to trip over,” Thomas said thoughtfully.
“Or stay up late reading when you’ve promised to turn off the light,” Amelia added.
“Good to know,” Samantha said with a slanted smile in his direction that left him slightly dizzy.
“You can trust Amelia and Thomas,” he said gruffly. “You won’t find two nicer, kinder, more responsible children anywhere.”
His words must have been the right ones. She gave him a startled look first, as if he had said something completely unexpected, which quickly turned into a blinding smile that made him feel as if his head was spinning.
“That’s good enough for me, then.” She handed over an index card covered in a neat, flowing script. “Here is everything I need you to do. As I said, I will
