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 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.
