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 that come from?
She swallowed, reminding herself she still wasn’t sure if she liked the man.
Her little dog tugged on her leash, yanking her back to her senses. She might be physically attracted to him but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the market for a fling with her sexy neighbor.
She chose to focus instead on her dog. “Betsey’s passion is her puppies right now, as much as she likes the odd break from them, so I had better take her back to them. I’ll be in touch in the morning with a key for the children.”
“If you’d like, I could send Thomas and Amelia over first thing before you leave for your boutique.”
His thoughtfulness startled her. “I thought you wanted to make an early start tomorrow.”
“That should be a short trip. With the boat close by, I can leave before sunrise and will plan to be back so that I can have breakfast with the children.”
Maybe she had judged him too hastily. She knew plenty of fathers who wouldn’t put a priority on spending mealtime with their children, especially when it conflicted with work.
“Are you sure it’s no trouble?”
“None at all. Would eight be early enough?”
“Yes. That’s perfect. Thank you, Mr. Summerhill.”
In the moonlight,