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 air. “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