A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage

by Dallas Schulze

  "Is Nikki home tonight?"

  Lena's patrician features tightened with annoyance. "I swear, the two of you are acting like a pair of children. Nikki going out to dinner and you eating sandwiches in the kitchen like a sneak thief just to avoid sitting down to dinner together."

  "I don't think sneak thieves normally take time for a sandwich," Sam pointed out.

  She ignored the facetious interruption and continued her scolding lecture. "The two of you agreed to live together for the next year. Do you plan on spending all that time avoiding each other?"

  "It's worth a try."

  "Well, it won't work. My nerves won't take it, even if yours will. Besides, the holidays are coming up." She waved her pruning shears for emphasis. "Seems to me it's going to look a little odd if you spend them apart."

  "We'll work something out," Sam assured her, without the least idea of what that something might be.

  "Not if you don't talk to each other."

  "We'll talk. And I'll be ready for dinner in an hour. I wouldn't miss your baked chicken for the world." After all, from what she'd said, it sounded like Nikki wasn't home, so there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good chicken dinner.

  Lena watched him disappear up the stairs and considered her conscience. She hadn't actually told him that Nikki was going to be out. She could hardly be blamed if he chose to infer that from what she'd said. Her conscience was in fine shape, she decided as she turned back to her plants.

  Besides, she was tired of watching the pair of them walk around like a couple of unfriendly cats forced to share a barn. It was time and past that they sat down and actually talked to one another.

  Nikki approached Sam's room with all the enthusiasm of a dental patient anticipating a root canal. At least a dentist gave you novocaine, she thought, stopping in front of his closed door. She could have used an anesthetic to still the butterflies in her stomach.

  It was ridiculous to be so nervous at the thought of talking to him. In the two weeks since the wedding, they'd managed several perfectly civil exchanges. Of course, none of those had consisted of much more than hello and goodbye, but they had been civil, which was more than could be said about any of their exchanges prior to their marriage. Or after, for that matter. Her mouth tightened at the memory of Sam threatening to put her out on the freeway on their wedding night.

  But she wasn't going to think about that now, she reminded herself firmly. She had business to discuss with him. It should only take a moment and, once it was done, he could continue avoiding her. For the moment, she chose to ignore the fact that she'd been doing a considerable amount of avoiding herself.

  Nikki smoothed her palms down the sides of her pale grey wool trousers and then adjusted the collar of her jade green silk shirt. Fussing with her clothes was a delaying tactic and she knew it. The truth was, Sam Walker made her just a little nervous. He was large and he was ridiculously male. Worse, she was married to him. It wasn't as easy as she'd hoped to forget that.

  She suddenly became aware of the picture she must make, hovering in the hall like a schoolgirl dreading a meeting with the principal. Her soft mouth tightened with irritation. This was her house and she wasn't going to stand here getting butterflies in her stomach at the thought of talking to the man she'd married.

  Nikki lifted her hand and rapped briskly on the door. The response she received was muffled but she thought she heard the words come in. The sound of that deep voice renewed the tension in her stomach and her hand was not quite steady as she reached for the doorknob. The fact that they were married was irrelevant, she reminded herself. He was practically an employee, if she chose to look at it that way. Not that she could imagine ever hiring Sam Walker for anything. But, husband or employee, he was still just a man, no different from any other man.

  On the other hand, maybe there were a few differences.

  Nikki stood transfixed in the open doorway. Sam was across the room, his back to her, his attention on the open drawer in front of him.

  And he wore not a stitch of clothing.

  She forgot how to breathe as her stunned eyes skimmed the muscled width of his back to the tight globes of his buttocks and down the length of his legs.

  There were, most definitely, differences between Sam Walker and other men. She'd seen a lot of men in bathing suits that covered little more than the bare necessities, but this was the first time she'd found it hard to breathe. As if compelled by some outside force, her eyes moved upward, tracing every corded muscle on the way.

  There was a towel bunched casually in his left hand, held against his hip. From that and the dampness of his hair, she assumed he must have just taken a shower, which explained the fact that he was naked. But it didn't explain him telling her to come in.

  She was angry, of course. Or she would be as soon as she caught her breath. How dare he expose himself to her like this, as if... as if they were really married!

  There was a jagged white scar across one shoulder and she wondered how he'd gotten it. Would it feel rough in contrast to the smoothness of his skin? What would it feel like to put her hands against the hard muscles of his arms?

  Not that she'd want to do that, of course. But the mental denial sounded a Utile weak. And there was a faint tingling feeling in her fingertips that hinted at a curiosity she had no business feeling.

  It seemed as if she stood there forever, but in reality, it was probably less than a minute. Sam reached for something in the open drawer. The simple movement made the muscles ripple across his back and shoulders.

  Nikki swallowed hard.

  She didn't make a sound, but something must have alerted Sam to the fact that he was no longer alone. He turned suddenly, spinning around in a half crouch, his right hand going across his chest—reaching for a shoulder holster, she realized. Of course it wasn't there.

  No shoulder holster. Nothing at all to cover the solid wall of muscle that was his chest. Nikki stared wide-eyed at the mat of dark gold hair that covered his chest, tapering downward across a tautly muscled stomach to—

  "What the hell are you doing in here?" Sam's irate demand jerked her eyes upward, but not before she'd seen enough to make her mouth go dry.

  "You said to come in," she stammered, thrown momentarily off balance by her own reaction to the generous display of male pulchritude before her.

  "I said 'just a minute,' " he snapped. He jerked open the crumpled towel and wrapped it around his hips.

  Nikki was surprised and dismayed by the twinge of regret she felt. What on earth was wrong with her? It wasn't as if she found the man attractive.

  The thought was enough to stiffen her spine.

  "I distinctly heard you say 'come in.'" She hadn't distinctly heard anything, but she certainly couldn't admit that now.

  "Then you need your ears cleaned." Sam finished knotting the towel, his jerky movement revealing his irritation. "Why the hell would I say 'come in' when I'm standing here bare beam and buck naked?''

  "I have no idea." Nikki had regained her poise, or at least a portion of it. "I thought perhaps you had exhibitionist leanings."

  "And maybe the heart of a voyeur beats beneath that prim exterior. Maybe you're sorry I covered up?"

  The fact that she had felt a twinge of regret added to the color in Nikki's cheeks. "Don't be ridiculous," she snapped.

  "Shall I drop the towel?" he asked in a tone that made her want to smack him. "I certainly wouldn't want to spoil your fun."

  Though her face felt as if it were on fire, Nikki managed to give him a look of cool indifference. "You don't have anything I haven't seen before." She paused, letting her eyes flick downward. "And in somewhat greater quantity."

  Color tinted Sam's cheekbones, but the look in his eyes suggested it was caused more by anger than by any blow she might have dealt his male ego.

  "Was there something you wanted? Or did you just barge in here to leer at me?"

  "I was invited in," she said through clenched teeth.

  "You s
tick to that story, if you like." He nodded agreeably, and Nikki's hands clenched against the urge to wipe the bland expression from his face.

  "Max called. There are papers you need to sign. That's what I came to tell you."

  "Thanks. I'll call him."

  He didn't look in the least apologetic, damn him. "Next time, I'll slip a note under the door."

  "You do that. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get dressed."

  Nikki stood there for a moment, wishing desperately for a clever response, something that would make it clear just how much she disliked Mm, how little desire she had to ever speak to him again. And most of all, how little attraction he held for her. But she couldn't come up with the words to convey all those things. Worse, from the gleam in Sam's eyes, she suspected that he knew exactly what was going through her mind and was amused by her frustration.

  The only option was to withdraw with as much dignity as possible. Which was what she did. She stepped back into the hall, pulling the door closed with a gentle click, not allowing him the satisfaction of seeing her slam it!

  She stood in the hallway, feeling as if steam must be coming out her ears. She'd never in her life met anyone who made her want to commit violent acts. Never—until she'd met Sam Walker.

  And she'd had to go and marry him.

  She cast a last frustrated glance over her shoulder at the blank door, wishing desperately that she hadn't let Max convince her that this marriage was a good idea, that she'd married someone else, anyone else.

  But she was stuck with Sam Walker, at least for the next eleven and a half months.

  Nikki forced herself away from the door. He was an obnoxious jerk, but she probably wouldn't have to deal with him again for days. With luck, maybe she could stretch it to a week.

  Chapter 6

  Luck was not smiling in Nikki's direction.

  Half an hour after her encounter with Sam, she left her room to go down for dinner. She'd been avoiding eating in the dining room for the last couple of weeks, not wanting to share a meal with Sam. But Lena had expressed considerable annoyance over Nikki's new habit of taking a tray up to her room, asking if she planned to eat her meals in her room for the next year. The idea didn't sound bad to Nikki, not if it meant less time spent in Sam Walker's company.

  Lena must have read the answer in Nikki's eyes, because she'd clicked her tongue in exasperation and pointed out that Sam hadn't eaten a single meal in the dining room since he'd moved in. The two of them were acting like a pair of children. She would have continued, but Nikki lifted a hand in surrender and promised to come down to dinner. After all, what were the odds that Sam would choose tonight to eat in the dining room?

  Apparently, they were much better than she'd hoped.

  She saw him as soon as she entered the room. He was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out into the courtyard that was tucked into the corner of the L-shaped house. The rain was a glistening curtain sliding through the lights that illuminated the naturalistic waterfall and small pool that dominated the center of the courtyard.

  It was a beautiful view, and one she'd often admired herself, but Nikki wasn't in the mood to appreciate it. Obviously, Sam had decided to come down to dinner tonight. Equally obvious was the need for an immediate change of plans on her part. The last thing she wanted to do was sit across a dinner table from Sam Walker. Talk about a prescription for indigestion.

  She took a step backward, intending to slip out of the room before he saw her. Better to face Lena's wrath than to spend time with her reluctant husband.

  But before Nikki could make her escape, Lena came through the door across the room. She was carrying two bowls from which steam was rising. Her dark eyes immediately spotted Nikki, who was poised for departure in the doorway.

  "There you are, Nikki. Just in time."

  At the sound of Lena's voice, Sam turned and saw Nikki. He was wearing a pair of softly faded jeans and a chambray shirt that echoed the blue of his eyes, but a sudden image of how he'd looked wearing only a towel—and not even that—flashed through Nikki's mind. She could only hope that the light was dim enough to conceal the color that came up in her cheeks.

  From Sam's expression, it was clear that he was no more enthused about the idea of sharing a meal than she was. The knowledge carried a perverse sort of pleasure. At least she wasn't the only one who'd be miserable.

  "The soup smells wonderful, Lena," she said as she strolled into the room, giving no hint that she'd rather have been walking into a lion's den.

  "There's nothing like a good bowl of soup on a chilly night like this," Lena said as she set the bowls down.

  Nikki was dismayed to see that she'd arranged the place settings together at one end of the long table, one on either side, so that she and Sam would be staring at each other across the width of polished mahogany.

  "Lena said you were eating out tonight," Sam said, making little effort to conceal his displeasure at finding out otherwise.

  "Actually, I just said she'd been eating out lately," Lena said serenely. She reached out to straighten a spoon, bringing it into perfect alignment with the fork beside it. "Why don't the two of you start on the soup. I'll bring in the rest of the meal."

  There was a moment's silence after her departure. The hiss of the rain outside suddenly seemed very loud. Nikki stared at Sam's hand where it rested on the back of one of the chairs. His hands were large, long fingered and strong. She thought of the corded muscles in his thighs, of the way the muscles in his shoulders rippled beneath his skin.

  "I think I'll see if there's anything I can do to help." She was halfway across the room before the sentence was complete. At the moment, she didn't care if he knew she was running. She just wanted to get out of the room before he noticed that she was blushing like a girl in the throes of her first crush.

  Lena glanced up as she entered the kitchen. Her sharp gaze took in Nikki's flushed face and the panic in her eyes. Her smile was subtly smug as she returned her attention to the steamed vegetables she was transferring from pan to bowl.

  "If you've come to offer help, I don't need any," she said.

  "I've come to ask what you think you're doing." Nikki kept her voice low, not wanting Sam to hear her.

  "I'm finishing up dinner." Lena raised her dark brows in surprise.

  "You know what I mean. You told me he wouldn't be here tonight." Nikki took the pan Lena handed her and set it in the sink.

  "I said he hadn't eaten in the dining room since he'd moved in." Lena shrugged her innocence. "How was I to know he'd choose tonight to do something different?"

  "Because you told him I wouldn't be here."

  "That's not what I said. I just said you hadn't—"

  "I heard what you said. And I know perfectly well you were setting the two of us up. What I don't know is why.''

  Lena finished garnishing the vegetables with parsley sprigs and slivers of red pepper before raising her head to meet Nikki's indignant look.

  "I set you up," she admitted without the smallest show of guilt. "I told your Sam, and I'll tell you—it's more than past time the two of you sat down and talked."

  "I don't want to talk to him. And he's not my Sam. He's not my anything."

  "He's your husband."

  "Only for the next year, and I don't know how I'm going to get through it."

  "Well, you're not going to get through it by acting like a couple of children. Sneaking around the house to avoid each other. If I hadn't come in when I did, you would have gone back up to your room tonight, wouldn't you?'' .

  "I don't want to eat with him." Nikki flushed at the childish sound of her protest, but it was nothing more than the truth.

  "Do you plan on going the whole year without eating a meal together?" Lena demanded.

  "If I can manage it, I'll go the whole year without setting eyes on him."

  "Well, you can't manage it. You know it, I know it and he knows it. If the pair of you weren't too old for it, I'd smack y
our heads together to knock some sense into you."

  Nikki's eyes shifted away from Lena's. She suddenly felt as if she were five years old again and had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. When she was a child, it had always been Lena who'd provided a sense of discipline and stability in her life.

  Her father had been killed in a boating accident when she was a baby, and her grandfather had moved her and her mother and brother into his house, making no secret of the fact that he didn't trust Marilee to take care of his grandchildren. It had proved a wise move since Marilee had embarked on a series of affairs and marriages that had spanned the years since. During the marriages, she'd moved out of the big house, but, at her father-in-law's insistence, her children had stayed.

  Marilee had flitted in and out of her life like a beautiful butterfly, never quite with them even when she was living in the same house. Nikki's brother, Alan, had been old enough to reject any attempt at filling the gap Marilee's periodic disappearances left in his life, but Nikki had desperately needed Lena's stable presence in hers. Lena was much more than a housekeeper to her, and her disapproval stung.

  "I don't like him," Nikki muttered when the silence had gone on longer than was comfortable.

  "You don't know him well enough not to like him. And if you didn't like him, you shouldn't have married him."

  "Max didn't exactly provide me with a lot to choose from," Nikki pointed out.

  "Well, there's not a thing wrong with the choice you made. And you might find that out if you'd take a minute to get to know him. I don't see what you're complaining about. He's well-spoken, a police officer, and he's a good-looking man. Not like some of the namby-pamby types you've dated these last few years."

  Nikki stared at her, horrified. "You're not matchmaking, are you?"

  "You're already married to him. Why would I matchmake?" Lena lifted the foil off the chicken and rice she'd just taken out of the oven and transferred the chicken to a platter.