Heart of the Matter Read online

Her eyes narrowed, as if she suspected sarcasm. “I explained to him that this was business, not social. If you’d rather meet at his office, I can tell him that.”

  The idea of taking him to a family gathering clearly made her uncomfortable, but it appealed to him. Get people in a casual setting where they felt safe, and they’d often let slip more than they would in a formal interview.

  “No, this sounds good,” he said briskly. “Give me directions, and I’ll be there.”

  “It’s at my grandmother’s beach house over on Sullivan’s Island.” She kept dismay out of her voice, but her mouth had tensed and her hands tightened on the edge of her desk.

  “Directions,” he said again.

  Soft lips pressed together for an instant. “I’ll be coming back into the city afterward anyway, if you want to ride over with me instead of trying to find it on your own.”

  Her brand of Southern courtesy compelled the offer, he supposed, but he was quick to take advantage. A few moments alone in the car with her would give him a chance to get background on the people he’d be meeting.

  “Fine,” he said promptly. “Are you ready?”

  Again the tension showed in her face, but she managed to smile. “Just let me close a few files.” She flicked a glance at his shirt and tie. “But you’ll want to wear something more casual at the beach.”

  “I keep a change of clothes in my office.” He turned, eager to get on with it. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot in fifteen minutes.”

  He strode toward his office, nodding at the few staffers who ventured to say good-night to him. Most just hurried past, heads down, as if eager to escape his notice. It didn’t work. He noticed, just as he’d noticed Amanda’s reluctance.

  She was both too polite and too worried about her job to argue with him. Even if she had, he’d have been perfectly capable of overrunning her objections.

  Amanda didn’t want him on her home ground, but that was too bad. Because the Bodines were going to help him get back to his native turf, and no other considerations would stand in his way.

  Amanda had been treated to a sample of Ross’s interview style on the trip over to the island, and she didn’t much care for being on the receiving end. She pulled on shorts and T-shirt in the small room under the eaves that the girl cousins always shared at the beach house.

  She glanced in the mirror, frowning at the transformation from city professional to island girl. Somehow she felt safer clad in her professional armor.

  She pressed her fingertips against the dressing table that still wore the pink-and-white-checked skirt her grandmother had put on it years ago. Not that Miz Callie was a pink and frilly kind of person, but she’d wanted the girl cousins to feel that this room was theirs.

  Dealing with Ross in the office was hard enough. Amanda still rankled over his quick dismissal of her ability to write the articles on the Coast Guard. Who was better equipped to write it—someone who’d lived with it her whole life or an outsider who didn’t have a clue?

  She wrinkled her nose at the image in the mirror. Ross had the answer to that, and he was the boss. He’d decided that her family was his way into the story, and if his aggressive, almost abrasive questioning in the car had been a sample of his style, they were in for some rough waters.

  She headed for the stairs, the comparison lightening her mood. Daddy was used to rough waters. He could handle the likes of Ross with one hand tied behind his back.

  And speaking of handling him, she’d left her boss alone with her grandmother. Goodness only knows what they were making of each other.

  She usually skipped down the stairs at the beach house because of the sheer joy of being there. Now she hurried for fear of what Miz Callie might be saying. Catching Ross’s gaze on her, she slowed to a more sedate pace as she reached the living room.

  He was sitting in the shabby, over-stuffed chair near the wall of windows that faced the beach and the ocean. Her heart clutched. That had been Granddad’s special seat after his first stroke had stolen away most of his mobility. He’d never tired of looking out at the sea.

  “Is my grandmother takin’ good care of you?” The tall glass of sweet tea at his elbow looked untouched.

  “She is. She had to run back to the kitchen to deal with something.” As if becoming aware of the glass, he lifted it and touched it to his lips.

  She couldn’t help but grin. “Obviously you aren’t used to iced tea that’s sweet enough to make your back teeth ache. Come on. We’ll find the others. Someone will have brought a cooler of soda.”

  He put the sweet tea down quickly and stood, his gaze sweeping over her. She usually felt he didn’t see her at all. This gaze was far more personal. Too much so.

  Her chin lifted. “Something wrong?” She edged the words with ice.

  “No.” He made an instinctive move back. “You just look different. From the office, that is.”

  “We’re not in the office,” she pointed out. If she could make him feel a tad uncomfortable, so much the better. She needed to keep a professional distance between them, no matter where they were.

  “We’re not,” he agreed. His fingers brushed her bare arm, and the unexpected familiarity of the gesture set her nerve endings tingling.

  He nodded toward the kitchen. “We were going in search of a soda,” he reminded her.

  “Right, yes.” She took a breath. She would not let the man dismantle her confidence in herself. “This way.”

  But as she started for the kitchen, he stopped her with another touch. This time his hand lingered on her wrist, warming the skin. “In this setting, it’s going to sound odd if you call me Mr. Lockhart. Let’s switch to first names. Amanda,” he added, smiling.

  She nodded. What could she do but agree? But she’d been right. His smile really did make him look like the Big Bad Wolf.

  She led the way into the kitchen, aware of him hard on her heels.

  The kitchen was a scene of contained chaos, as it always was when the whole family gathered at the beach house. Her mamma and one of her aunts talked a mile a minute while they chopped veggies for a salad, her sister Annabel and cousin Georgia arranged nibbles on a huge tray, and Miz Callie, swathed in an apron that nearly swallowed her five-foot-nothing figure, peered anxiously at the contents of a huge kettle—pulled pork barbecue, judging by the aroma.

  “Did y’all meet my boss, Ross Lockhart?”

  “We introduced ourselves, sugar.” Mamma stopped chopping long enough to plant a kiss on her cheek. “You comin’ to help us?”

  Miz Callie clattered the lid back onto the pot. “She’d best introduce her friend to the men first. I don’t suppose he wants to be stuck in the kitchen.”

  “I’m afraid my cooking skills wouldn’t be up to your standards, Mrs. Bodine,” Ross said quickly. “It smells way too good in here.”

  Miz Callie dimpled up at him, always charmed by a compliment to her cooking. “The proof is in the eating, you know. You let Amanda get you settled with someone to talk to, and later on we’ll get better acquainted.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Amanda gave him a sharp glance, ready to do battle if he was being condescending to her grandmother. But his expression had actually softened, and his head was tilted deferentially toward Miz Callie.

  Well. So something could pierce that abrasive shield he wore. That was a surprise.

  Still, it would be just as well to keep him from any lengthy tête-à-têtes with her grandmother. Miz Callie was still obsessed with that old scandal about her husband’s brother and they surely didn’t need to let Ross Lockhart in on the skeleton in the Bodine family closet.

  “This way.” She put a hand on the glass door and slid it back. “Anybody who’s not in the kitchen is probably down on the beach.”

  Ross followed her onto the deck that ran the length of the house and paused, one hand on the railing. “Beautiful view.”

  “It is that.” She lifted her face to the breeze that freshened the hot summer ai
r. “On a clear day you feel as if you can see all the way across the Atlantic.”

  He turned his back on the ocean to have a look at the beach house sprawled comfortably on the dunes, its tan shingles blending into sand and sea oats. “Has your family had the place long?” The speculative note in his voice suggested he was estimating the cost.

  “For generations.” She clipped off the words. They couldn’t afford to build a house on the beach at today’s prices, but that was none of Ross Lockhart’s business. “My great-grandfather bought this piece of property back when there was no bridge to the mainland and nothing much on the island but Fort Moultrie and a few fishing shacks.”

  “Very nice.” He glanced toward the kitchen, and she realized he was looking at Miz Callie with that softened glance. “Did I understand your grandmother lives here year-round?”

  “That’s her plan. The family’s been trying to talk her out of it, but once Miz Callie makes up her mind, you may as well save your breath to cool your porridge, as she’d say.”

  His lips curved. “I had a grandmother like that, too. A force to be reckoned with.”

  “Had?” She reacted automatically to the past tense.

  “She died when I was a teenager.” He turned to her, closer than she’d realized. Her breath hitched in her throat. “You’re lucky to have your grandmother still. Very lucky.”

  The intensity in his low voice set up an answering vibration in her. For a moment they seemed linked by that shared emotion.

  Then she caught herself and took a careful step back. This is your boss, remember? You don’t even like him.

  But she couldn’t deny that, just for a moment, he’d shown her a side of himself that she’d liked very much.

  Chapter Two

  The long living room of the beach house overflowed with Bodines. Ross balanced a plate of chocolate caramel cake on his lap, surveying them from a seat in the corner.

  Clearly they were a prolific bunch. He’d finally straightened it out that the grandmother, Miz Callie, as they called her, had three sons. Each of them had produced several children to swell the brood.

  Judging by all the laughter and hugging they were a close family, almost claustrophobically so. Who could imagine having a party with this many people—all of them related?

  He certainly couldn’t. His family had consisted of his parents, Gran and himself. That was it. His father had said more than once that having no siblings was a distinct advantage for a politician—they couldn’t embarrass you.

  That had been the creed by which he’d been raised. Don’t do anything to embarrass your father.

  And he hadn’t, not even slightly, for all those years, until that final, spectacular event. His fingers tightened on the dessert plate, and he forced them to relax.

  Forget his family. Forget his past mistakes. The thing to do now was to concentrate on the job at hand. If he could isolate Amanda’s father for a quiet chat…

  Miz Callie, a cup of coffee in her hand, headed in his direction. Tiny, probably not much over five feet, she was trim and lively, with a halo of white hair and blue eyes that hadn’t faded with age. She sat down next to him.

  “How’s the cake? Can I get you anything else?”

  “The cake is wonderful.” He took a bite, realizing that the compliment was true. He’d been so busy thinking about the job that he hadn’t even tasted it. “Thank you, Mrs. Bodine.”

  “Call me Miz Callie.” She patted his arm. “Everyone does. We’re just so glad to meet you at last. Amanda talks about you often.”

  He noticed she didn’t specify what Amanda said. That wouldn’t be polite. He could imagine that Amanda had broadcast her opinion of him to her clan.

  “You have quite a family. I’m not sure I have them all straight yet. Several in the Coast Guard, I understand.” Mrs. Bodine—Miz Callie, rather—might have some insights he could tap.

  “That’s a family tradition,” she said absently. Her attention was on Amanda and her sister as they cut slices of cake. “Devil’s food cake with caramel icing is Amanda and Annabel’s favorite, so we always have it for their birthday. Funny that they like the same thing, because they’re different as can be in other ways.”

  If this were an interview, he could get her back onto the subject of the Coast Guard with a direct question. In polite conversation, it wasn’t so easy.

  “They look nearly identical.” Same honey-brown hair, same deep green eyes, same slim, lithe figures. They were striking, seen together.

  “Identical in looks, but not in temperament.” Miz Callie’s blue eyes crinkled. “Amanda is fifteen minutes older, and she’s always been the big sister, the high achiever. And always trying to best her two older brothers, too.”

  He could tell the twins apart not by appearance so much as by body language and expression. Amanda was livelier, teasing and being teased, laughing easily.

  “Annabel seems a little quieter.”

  “She goes her own way,” Miz Callie said. “She always has. Never especially bothered by what everyone else is doing.”

  “Everyone else in this case being family?”

  “I s’pose so.” She twinkled at him. “There’s quite a tribe of us, as you can see. And all the cousins are so close in age, too. Still, I guess family gatherings are all pretty much alike everywhere.”

  He nodded in agreement, although nothing could be further from the truth when it came to comparing this noisy crowd to his family. “They all seem very close.”

  That was not entirely a compliment, at least not in his mind. He wouldn’t care to have this many people feeling they had a right to tell him what to do.

  “Close.” She repeated the word, but her tone gave it a different meaning. “I wish…”

  Alerted, he studied her face. There was something there—some worry or concern evident in the clouding of those clear eyes, the tension in the fine lines around her lips.

  “You wish…” he prompted.

  She seemed to come back from a distance, or maybe from thoughts she didn’t welcome. She shook her head. “Goodness, I’m forgetting why you’re here. You want to talk to the boys about the Coast Guard, and here I’m yammering on about everything else.”

  She was out of her chair before he could move. “Adam, come on over here and talk to Ross. He’s wantin’ to write something about the service.”

  Adam…Bodine, he supposed, they were all Bodines, came in obedience to his grandmother’s hail.

  “Sure thing, Miz Callie.” He bent to plant a kiss on her cheek. “But I’ll just bet he’d rather talk to you.”

  She gave him a playful swat and scurried off before Ross could do anything more than rise from his chair. Since Adam didn’t take the empty seat, he remained standing, putting them eye to eye.

  Tall, muscular, with an open, friendly smile—the man had been introduced to him, probably, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember if this was Amanda’s brother or cousin.

  Adam grinned, almost as if he interpreted the thought. “Adam Bodine,” he prompted. “Amanda’s cousin. That’s my sister, Georgia, pouring out the coffee. My daddy’s the one standing next to Amanda’s daddy. It’s tough to sort us all out.”

  “I’m usually pretty good with names, but—”

  “But we’re all Bodines,” Adam said, finishing for him. “Amanda tells us you’re fixing to do some articles for the newspaper about the service.”

  “The Coast Guard seems important to the community, so it’s a good subject for a series of articles.” That bit ran smoothly off his tongue. “What made so many of you decide on that for a career?”

  “Ask each of us, you’d get a different reason.” Adam nodded toward one of the laughing group clustered around the twins. “My cousin Win, now, he’s a rescue swimmer. He always was a daredevil, so jumping out of a chopper feels normal to him. He’d say he’s in it for the excitement. Me, I couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t involve being on the water. My daddy was the same.” He paused, as if he lo
oked deeper at the question. “Bottom line is serving our country, I guess.”

  “Patriotism.” He tried not to let cynicism leak into his voice. Maybe he was jaundiced. He’d seen his father wave the flag too many times out of political expediency.

  Adam’s gaze met his. “That’s somethin’ we take kind of serious around here. Charleston’s been a military town since the Revolution, and we have more military retirees here than most any place in the country our size.”

  “All the more reason to highlight what you do and the effect it has on the community,” he said quickly, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the man. “Financially, for instance. I’m sure many companies in Charleston benefit from having the station here. It has to pump money into the local economy.”

  And into someone’s pocket, if his informant was right.

  “Sure, I guess so. My uncle Brett’s the one you should talk to about that, though.” He beckoned to Amanda’s father, who veered in their direction. “Me, I just know about cutters and patrol boats.”

  Brett Bodine was probably in his early fifties, with a square, bluff face and a firm manner. He nodded, a little stiffly, and Ross wondered again what Amanda had been telling her family about her boss.

  “Ross was just asking me about somethin’ I figured you could answer better, Uncle Brett.”

  “What’s that?” The man was measuring him with his gaze, and it looked as if he wasn’t impressed with what he saw.

  “He’s wanting to know about the base doing business with local merchants, that kind of thing.” Adam took a step back, as if leaving the field to his uncle.

  Ross barely noticed. All his attention was on Brett Bodine. In the instant Adam had said those words, the man had reacted…a sudden tension in the erect figure, a flicker of wariness in the eyes, an involuntary twitch in the jaw.

  Barely perceptible, unless you were looking. Unless your instincts were those of a trained interviewer, alert for the signs that you’d hit pay dirt.

  Brett Bodine recovered quickly, Ross would say that for him. He’d managed a fairly pleasant smile in a matter of seconds.