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 looked 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,
