“Puppies all managed?” Henry asked.
Ian could feel his cheeks heat and hoped like Hades that his father wouldn’t notice his reaction.
“Yes,” he answered. “All tucked in, safe and dry.”
“Nice of you to help out your neighbor,” Margaret said, looking up from a heart-shaped stone Thomas had found along the lakeshore.
“More like she’s helping me. Samantha has been very kind to us.”
“She’s letting Dad park his boat at her house,” Amelia informed her grandparents.
“Is that right?” Henry asked.
“When we rented this house, I thought the dock out there belonged to our rental,” he explained. “I must have misunderstood something the estate agent said. It turned out the dock belongs to Samantha’s property. She’s been kind enough to let me moor my research boat there and use it whenever I need it.”
“She’s very pretty,” Margaret observed.
“Isn’t she?” he replied as blandly as he could.
“Gemma says she’s nice, too. I just spoke with your sister to tell her Samantha had agreed to help me find a new dress for the wedding.”
He could only imagine how that conversation had gone. He had a feeling the topic of mother-of-the-bride dresses had only filled a portion of it. The idea of his mother and sister in cahoots, working together to push him and Samantha Fremont together, filled him with apprehension.
It didn’t matter how hard they pushed, Ian thought. Nothing would come of their efforts. How could it? He might be infatuated with her but anything beyond a few kisses was completely impossible.
“I UNDERSTAND YOU went hiking this morning with Ian Summerhill and his children.”
Samantha gaped at Katrina later that evening as they sat together on the terrace of Serenity Harbor, the luxurious house where her friend lived with her family.
“How on earth could you know that?”
“Jennifer Hyer said she saw you going up the trail to Bridal Veil Falls when she was coming down.”
She barely remembered bumping into Jen on the trail among all the other hikers they had passed on their way up, maybe because she’d been so busy trying not to wheeze her way up the trail and to keep her attraction to Ian under wraps.
Now that she thought of it, she remembered seeing Jen running down the trail with another of her fit friends and having a completely petty urge to trip her skinny butt. One she would never act on, of course.
“And she had to phone you the moment she had cell service again so she could gossip about it?”
“Are you kidding? When Samantha Fremont is caught out and about with the most exciting new arrival to hit Haven Point in a long time, tongues are going to wag, my dear.”
Well, she had to agree on one point at least. Ian Summerhill was exciting. She wasn’t sure her heart rate had settled down yet, hours after that seductive kiss. Even now, sitting with Kat after her friend had spontaneously invited her over for dinner, Sam was having a hard time focusing on anything but the memories she couldn’t seem to shake.
Those were her memories, though, and she didn’t want anybody else in town ruining them with prurient gossip.
“The busy tongues in Haven Point can mind their own business. There’s nothing going on between me and Ian Summerhill.”
It wasn’t precisely true but she wasn’t prepared to divulge anything more to Katrina.
Her best friend had enough on her plate right now and far more important things to worry about than Sam’s pathetic love life problems.
“Nothing? Are you sure? Apparently you’re getting along well enough with him that you were even willing to go out into nature to enjoy our gorgeous surroundings,” Katrina teased.
Though they had been BFFs since they were in grade school, she and Katrina had always had different tastes. Katrina was far more outdoorsy than Sam, frequently taking advantage of the lake and the mountains to kayak, ski, hike. Her friend’s latest craze was stand-up paddle boarding, which Sam had tried with minimal success.
“You know I’m happiest with my sketchbook and a good TV show,” Sam said.
She had a sudden mental picture of Ian sitting by the fire somewhere in England, maybe wearing a nubby Irish fisherman’s sweater—jumper, he would call it—his hair a little messy and a distracted look in his eyes. She would be sitting beside him, sketching a new design while she alternated between watching him and watching the children playing a game on the floor at their feet.
Yearning swelled through her at the imaginary scene until she caught herself and pushed the picture away.
She had to cut this out. She was not destined for a future with Ian and his children. There was no possible way anything would work out between them and she had to get that straight in her head now before she started weaving all kinds of dangerous fantasies.
Starry-eyed Samantha. She couldn’t seem to stop spinning impossible dreams.
“I’m glad you tore yourself away from your sewing machine long enough to go with them. Summer feels so fleeting this year, for some reason.”
Their winters could be harsh here on the lake, which was one reason locals tended to cram as much outdoor recreation as possible into every available moment until the snow began to fly again.
By the time frosty mornings returned to the lake, Ian and his children would be gone. She tried to ignore the sharp pang in her heart.
With the uncanny perception that came from years of close friendship, Katrina gave her a careful look. “You like this guy, don’t you?” she asked, her voice soft.
To her horror, Sam’s throat felt tight, achy. She ruthlessly swallowed down the emotion. “I barely know Ian. But yes. He seems very nice and his children are so sweet.” She did her best to sound brisk, businesslike. “Unlike Gemma, however, he won’t be uprooting his life to take a job in a new country. And since
