She drew in a deep breath of mountain air, while he only wanted to breathe in the essence of Samantha.
He was being utterly ridiculous.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t bring your dog along. The children would have enjoyed having her here.”
“I know, but for now she still needs to stick close to the puppies. They’ll be gone before we know it, then she and I can start walking together. She can be my hiking buddy after you leave.”
She gave a smile that looked slightly forced and he had the oddest feeling she wasn’t looking forward to their departure any more than Ian was.
“Do you have new homes picked out for all three of them, then?”
“They’re going to friends of mine, which makes me happy. I have this idealized image—probably silly—but I imagine them having regular playdates with each other. It’s hard to think of giving them away to new homes, though it’s inevitable. I can’t keep them all. That would be completely impractical. Still, I can’t help thinking about how sad Betsey will be once they’re gone.”
“I have great sympathy for her. I can’t imagine being particularly thrilled when the children are old enough to go off to university.”
“Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll stick around and go to Oxford, then you won’t have to let them go.”
Except he would no longer be there after the end of the summer and certainly not by the time Amelia and Thomas left for university. He would be at Summerhill House, wrapped up in the mundane business of the estate.
He didn’t want to think about that. He was still on vacation and didn’t have to immerse himself yet in his responsibilities. Ian quickly changed the topic. “Did you go away to university?”
She shook her head. “I went to college in Boise and commuted to class or did online coursework. I lived on campus for one semester but my mother needed help at the store so I moved back home and did the long-distance thing.”
He frowned, wondering about the sort of mother who would deprive her daughter of the necessary experience she would gain living away from home.
“What did you study? Fashion design?”
She looked down at the trail in front of them with a distant sort of look. “I wanted to major in fashion but it didn’t make a great deal of sense, considering I knew I would be coming home to run the boutique. Fashion design would have been fun and exciting but a degree in business administration made much more sense.”
Something told him her mother, the one she had previously told him had been difficult, may also have had a strong influence in that decision.
“Do you enjoy what you do?” he asked after they walked a few hundred more feet beside a softly singing creek, the children just ahead of them now.
She looked startled at the question. “Of course. Would I keep doing something I didn’t enjoy?”
He thought of the years stretching out ahead of him, taking over the family concerns from his father. “People stick with all manner of jobs they don’t enjoy, for a whole host of reasons.”
“I guess that’s true.” She gazed out at the landscape in front of them. His children were having a wonderful time, he could see. They had picked up walking sticks somewhere along the trail and were comparing them to see whose was tallest.
“I have always thought I would run the boutique forever,” Samantha said after a moment. “Lately, though, I’ve started to wonder if that’s really what I’m meant to do, you know?”
He understood completely. “A few years ago, I switched from full-time research to teaching a few upper level classes. I discovered that while I love the research, I have something to give to students, as well.”
Or at least he did, Ian thought with a familiar pang.
“Yes. That’s it exactly. I love elements of running the boutique. Ordering in precisely the items I think my clients will like, helping to find the perfect outfit for someone who considers herself hopelessly unfashionable, seeing a client leave the store feeling better about herself than she did when she walked in.”
“That does sound rewarding.”
“It can be. But other parts make me cringe. I hate dealing with personnel issues. I had to fire someone a few months ago and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.”
“What happened?”
“She was someone my mother hired without talking to me first and Gwen’s personality was difficult. No one else seemed to get along with her. Not the customers, not the other employees. If that had been the only issue, I would have tried to work with her about her people skills. But when inventory started disappearing, always coinciding with her shifts, I studied our security cameras and found proof she was slipping items into her bag and carrying them out. Only one or two a shift, but that could add up. I know of other small boutiques that have gone completely under because of one employee’s dishonesty.”
“I’m shocked that someone would do that so blatantly here in Haven Point, where everyone seems to know everyone. Didn’t she know you had CCTV?”
“I think she didn’t think I would ever catch her. She wasn’t a local,” Samantha said. “Her husband transferred from out of state to Caine Tech and she applied after they moved to Shelter Springs.”
“Well, that explains everything, then.”
She made a face at his dry tone. “I don’t mean to imply that every local is necessarily perfect. We have our problems, too. I only meant that I didn’t know her from a mannequin when my mother hired her. She didn’t really have references, either. At least none that I ever saw. My mother was impressed because she drove a nice car and had trendy clothes.”
That only reinforced his negative impression of her mother, which he knew was probably not fair. Still, he had the distinct impression from a few things Samantha had said that her mother had spent a lifetime undermining her confidence
