Heart of the Matter (Mass Market Paperback)

The hard-nosed newspaperman will only assign reporter Amanda Bodine fluff pieces about dog shows. She longs to prove herself with a serious front-page story. But then her own family becomes newsworthy. Suddenly, Ross Lockhart is sitting beside her at Sunday dinner, interviewing her relatives. And he almost seems…like part of the family. Until she realizes he's after information that will tarnish the Bodine name! Time to teach the boss about the real heart of the matter: love.

She glanced at her watch. Two minutes until the editorial meeting. If she could just get everything out of sight…

"Ms. Bodine." The baritone voice dripped with sarcasm, and she didn't have to turn around to identify the speaker—Ross Lockhart, managing editor of the Charleston Bugle. "It seems your personal life is intruding into the office. Again."

"I'm sorry." It wasn't her fault the her large family seemed to take it for granted that they were welcome in her workplace. One noisy visit from two of her cousins had occurred when Lockhart was addressing the staff. He was not amused.

She forced herself to turn and face the man. Drat it, she never had trouble standing up for herself in any other circumstances. Why did her grit turn to jelly in the presence of Ross Lockhart?

Because if you get in his way, he'll mow you down like a blade of grass, her mind promptly responded.

"Get rid of it. Please." The addition of the word didn't do a thing to mitigate the fact that it was an order. "Editorial meeting, people." He raised his voice. "Conference room, now."

A rustle of something that might have been annoyance swept through the newsroom, but no one actually spoke up. No one would. They were all too aware that hotshot journalist Ross Lockhart had been brought in by the Bugle's irascible owner and publisher, Cyrus Mayhew, to ginger things up, as he put it. Lockhart seemed to consider firing people the best way to accomplish that.

Lockhart stalked away in the direction of the conference room before Amanda needed to say another word to him, thank goodness. She should have made sure she'd regained her professional demeanor before coming back to the office from the birthday lunch with her twin sister. Lockhart already seemed to consider her a lightweight in the news business, despite her seven years' experience, and she didn't want to reinforce that impression.

She moved two baskets of roses and daisies to the floor behind her desk and grabbed a notebook to join the exodus from the newsroom.

"Happy birthday, sugar." Jim Redfern, the grizzled city desk editor, threw an arm around her shoulders in a comradely hug. "Too bad you have to spend it in another meeting." His voice lowered. "Sittin' around a table doesn't get a paper out. You'd think the man would realize that."

"He realizes Cyrus expects him to turn us into number one, that's what."

Jim snorted. "Not going to happen in my lifetime."

Nor in hers, probably. Everyone knew that the venerable Post and Courier, the oldest newspaper in the South, was Charleston's premier paper. The best the Bugle could hope for was to break a surprise story once in a blue moon.

And keep 'em honest, as Cyrus was prone to say. Everyone who worked at the paper had been treated to his lecture on the importance of competition in the news.

He'd probably like to believe his staff shared that passion.

Entering the high-ceilinged, wood-paneled conference room, Amanda glanced around the table, assessing her colleagues. Cyrus's hope seemed unlikely to be fulfilled. His staffers were either just starting out, hoping this experience would lead to a more important job down the road, or they were old-timers like Jim, put out to pasture by other, more prestigious papers.

She was the only reporter who fit somewhere in the middle, with a year's experience at the Columbia paper, where she'd interned during college, and three years at the Tampa Tribune before the lure of the city she loved and the family she loved even more drew her home.

Except for Ross Lockhart, the exception to the rule— smart as a whip, newspaper savvy and ambitious. Above all, ambitious.

Lockhart took his place at the head of the long rectangular table, frowning as usual when he looked at them. He probably found them a pretty unprepossessing bunch compared to the company he'd kept at the Washington, D.C., daily where he'd worked before a public scandal had nearly ruined his career.

She sat up a bit straighter. Maybe they weren't the brightest tools in the tool chest, as her daddy might say, but at least they hadn't fabricated a front-page story, as Lockhart had been accused of doing. And it must have been true, since the paper had made a public apology to the congressman concerned and promptly fired Ross Lockhart.

Lockhart's piercing gray gaze met hers almost as if he'd heard her thoughts, and her throat went dry. Juliet Morrow, the society editor, romantically claimed he had a lean and hungry look, like some crusader of old. The contrast between the steel-gray of his eyes and the true blue-black of his hair, the angular lines of his face, the slash of a mouth—well, maybe she could see what Juliet meant.

But the look he'd turned on her was more that of the wolf eyeing Little Red Riding Hood. She was already sitting near the end of the table. It was impossible to get any farther away from him. Only the obituary writer was lower on the totem pole than she was. She held her breath until his gaze moved on.

He began assigning the stories for the next news cycle. Knowing perfectly well he wouldn't have anything remotely important for her, she fixed her attention on a framed Bugle front page that announced VE Day and let her thoughts flicker again to that birthday lunch.

She and her twin were thirty today. Annabel was well and truly launched on the work that was her passion. The others at the meal, more or less the same age, were all either soaring ahead in careers or busy with husband and family. Or both. Only she was entering her thirties stuck in a job where her prospects grew dimmer every time her boss looked her way.

Which he did at that moment. She stiffened. Was there another dog show coming to town that needed her writing talents?

"Bodine." His tone had turned musing. "Seems to me I've heard that name lately. Something connected to the military, wasn't it?"

Her breath caught. Was this the way it would come out—the secret the family struggled to keep in order to protect her grandmother? Right here in the newsroom, in front of everyone, blurted out by a man who had no reason to care who it hurt?

The others at the table were looking at her, their quizzical gazes pressing her for a response. Finally Jim cleared his throat.

"Somethin' about the Coast Guard, maybe? Bodines tend to serve there." He said the words with the familiar air of someone who knew everything there was to know about old Charleston families… all the things their boss couldn't possibly know.

Lockhart's gaze slashed toward him with an air of clashing swords. Then he shrugged, glancing down at the clipboard in front of him. "Probably so. All right, people, let's get to work."

With a sense of disaster narrowly averted, Amanda followed the others toward the door. Two steps from freedom, Ross Lockhart put out a hand to stop her. "One moment, Ms. Bodine."

She stiffened, turning to face him. Maybe her relief had come too soon.

He leaned back in the chair, eyeing her. She held her breath. If he asked her outright about Ned Bodine, the great-uncle the community had branded a coward, what could she say? She didn't much care what he thought, but if word got out, her grandmother might be hurt.

Finally his focus shifted to the sheaf of papers in front of him. "Mr. Mayhew wants to run a series of articles on the Coast Guard—the functions of the base, its importance to the local economy, maybe some human interest profiles. It seems your family connections might be a help to us in that."

Excitement rippled through her. A real story, finally. "Yes, of course." She was so excited that she nearly tripped over the words. "My father, my brother and my cousins are still on active duty, several stationed right here in Charleston. I'd love to write about—"

He cut her off her enthusiasm with a single cut of his hand. "These will be in-depth pieces. I wasn't suggesting you write them."

Disappointment had a sharp enough edge to make her speak up. "Why not? I'm the most qualified person in the newsroom on the Coast Guard. I did a series when I was at the Tampa paper—"

"Knowing something about a subject doesn't mean you're the best person to write the articles." His tone suggested she should know that. "In fact, I'm taking these on myself. Your role will be to get me access and set up the interviews."

Something anyone with a phone could do, in other words. Naturally he wouldn't let her actually write anything. In Ross Lockhart's eyes, she was nothing but a sweet Southern belle filling in time until marriage by pretending to be a reporter.

Her jaw tightened until she felt it might crack. She could speak her mind, of course. And then she'd go right out the door onto the street behind the other eight people he'd fired.

Finally she swallowed. "I can take care of that."

"Good." He shuffled through his papers, leaving her to wonder if she should go or stay. Then, rising, he held out a half sheet of paper to her. "Get this in for tomorrow's news cycle."

He strode out the door, on to bigger and better things, no doubt. She glanced down at her latest assignment and sucked in an irritated breath.

At least it was a change from a dog show. This time it was a cat show.

Amanda Bodine wasn't quite the person he'd originally thought her. Ross paused at his office door, scanning the newsroom until his gaze lit on her.

Oh, she looked the part, with her chic, glossy brown hair and her trick of looking up at you with those big green eyes from underneath her thick eyelashes. A stereot...