A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage (22 page)

But this morning he watched her tug on a soft cotton robe and tiptoe from the room without even letting her know he was awake. The soft snick of the door closing behind her sounded almost painfully loud. Sam opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling

Something had changed. He didn't know what it was, but he could almost see the walls she was building between them. Whatever it was seemed to have begun at Christmas, but, no matter how he racked his brain, he couldn't come up with a reason for it. Nikki had appeared to be enjoying herself. His family liked her. She liked them. As far as he could tell, it had been a terrific holiday.

But something had obviously happened, because in the week since then, he'd felt Nikki starting to slip away from him. It was a subtle change. She was still sharing his bed, still responsive to his touch, but there was a new element in their lovemaking. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what was different, but he knew it was there. She was holding herself back from him, keeping a little distance.

Sam swung his legs off the bed and stood. He'd spent too many hours lying awake the night before, trying to figure out what was wrong, and his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. Naked, he crossed the bedroom and pushed open the bathroom door. He braced his hands on the counter and stared at his reflection, grimly satisfied to see that he looked just like he felt—tired and rumpled.

He suddenly thought of a conversation he'd had with Keefe late Christmas day.

"Looks like your marriage of convenience has turned out to be a lot more convenient than you'd expected," Keefe had said, nodding to where Nikki sat cross-legged on the floor, intent on the Lego tower she and Mary were building.

Gage was offering suggestions on the tower's construction. Normally he charged for this kind of consultation, he'd pointed out. Cole was sprawled in an easy chair, unabashedly asleep. Rachel and Jason were playing a game of gin rummy, and, from the barely audible complaint, she seemed to be beating him quite soundly.

Sam had directed his look to where Nikki and Mary sat, and his face creased in a smile that said more than words possibly could have. "She likes kids. Did I tell you she runs a day-care center?"

"Twice." Keefe's tone had been dry, but there was a smile in his eyes.

"It's worth repeating," Sam had said unrepentantly. He returned his attention to the bottle of wine he was opening, twisting the corkscrew into place.

"You're in love with her." The words were more comment than question, but Sam answered him, anyway.

"Very much." Applying steady pressure, he eased the cork from the bottle with a muffled pop. He set the bottle aside to allow the wine to breathe before looking at Keefe. "I wish I could say I was clever as hell and planned it this way."

"I haven't noticed that planning does much good when it comes to love," Keefe said. From the shadows in his eyes, Sam knew he was thinking of his own marriage and subsequent divorce.

"I thought you and Dana were going to make it," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah. So did I." Keefe's smile held a bitter edge. He reached for his cigarettes, remembered where he was and let the pack drop back into his pocket. "Lousy habit," he muttered. "One of these days I'm going to have to quit again. Tell her you love her," he said abruptly. He gave Sam an intense look. "Don't wait."

Sam had muttered something about it being too soon, but Keefe had simply repeated his advice. Maybe Keefe had been right, Sam thought now. Maybe he should tell Nikki how he felt. He'd planned to wait. Married or not, they hadn't known each other very long. It wasn't that he doubted his own feelings, but he didn't want to rush Nikki.

"Face it, Walker," he said to his reflection. "You're scared to death she doesn't love you. That's the real reason you don't want to tell her how you feel."

The man in the mirror offered scant reassurance. After a moment, Sam turned away, no closer to an answer than he had been. He pushed open the shower door and turned the water on full blast. His jaw was set as he stepped under the hot spray.

The only thing he was sure of was that he wasn't going to let Nikki slip away. He didn't know what had caused the change in her. Hell, maybe there was no change. Maybe it was all in his head. But he wasn't going to lose her, not without a fight. He hadn't been able to fight Sara's illness. He'd had to stand by and watch her slip away from him. But that was different. Nikki wasn't dying of cancer. And whatever the problem was, they could solve it.

Unless he was the only one who wanted it solved.

❧

Everything had just happened too quickly, Nikki thought as she dressed. They'd gone from cordial foes to tentative friends to lovers in a few short weeks. It was too much, too soon. She wasn't ready for this.

She tugged a soft gold cashmere sweater over her head, tucking it into the waist of a pair of slim black trousers. This wasn't supposed to have happened. It hadn't been part of the plan.

Nikki stopped, a hairbrush suspended over her head, hearing an echo of Liz's comments about her being too wedded to her plans, about missing out on something wonderful because it wasn't part of her plan. But that wasn't what she was doing.

Was it?

She scowled at her reflection and yanked the brush through her hair in a quick, jerky stroke that pulled at her scalp. There was nothing wrong with having plans, nothing wrong with trying to direct your life. People who didn't have plans generally ended up going in circles.

Look at her mother. Marilee wouldn't know a plan if it slapped her in the face, and she'd spent her entire life drifting from one marriage to another, looking for something she probably wouldn't recognize even if she found it.

And Alan. Another perfect example of someone who just let life happen to him. He certainly hadn't planned to run through his inheritance the way he had. But because he hadn't planned on doing anything else, that's what had happened. Now he was reduced to trying to steal vases from his own sister. And if he'd done a little planning before attempting to rob her, he might have gotten away with it. But he'd just stumbled into burglary the way he stumbled into everything else in his life, and the result was he'd ended up with nothing. Even committing a decent crime required a plan.

Nikki brushed her hair back from her face and secured it at the base of her neck with a soft black ribbon. There was nothing wrong with having a plan and nothing wrong with trying to stick to that plan. It wasn't that she was going to walk away entirely from whatever it was she and Sam had together—she just wanted to step back a little. She didn't want to rush into anything.

She'd planned to get married, not to fall in love. Contrary to what Liz thought, it wasn't that she was so focused on her goal that she couldn't let anything intrude on her plans.

"I just want to be sure that what I think is happening is really happening and not just some flash-in-the-pan attraction," Nikki told her reflection. "After all, how do I know I'm really in love with Sam? It could be propinquity or animal magnetism or... or practically anything."

The woman in the mirror looked doubtful. Something in her eyes suggested that she thought Nikki was hiding her head like a scared rabbit, making excuses for her own cowardice.

"What do you know?" Nikki snapped. "It's my life and I know exactly what I'm doing." She turned away from the mirror, not wanting to see the doubts in her reflection's eyes.

She picked up her watch and slipped it on. She needed to talk to Sam, needed to try and explain how she felt, how she wanted just a little distance. Though how they were going to manage that when the terms of the will said they had to live in the same house, she didn't know.

Pushing her feet into a pair of black loafers, she remembered that it was New Year's Eve and Sam had to work. Which meant she could put off talking to him for a little while longer. He'd understand. She knew he would. If he loved her—which he hadn't said he did—he'd understand.

Nikki left her room and went downstairs. She'd planned to spend the day at the day-care center. If she was lucky, maybe she could grab a quick breakfast and be out of the house before Sam came down.

The phone rang just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she detoured into the living room to answer it.

"Nikki? It's Alan."

Nikki's brows rose. After the way Sam had nearly thrown him bodily out of the house, she hadn't expected to hear from her brother this soon, if ever.

"This is a surprise."

"I know. I... ah... wanted to see how you were."

Nikki's brows rose. "You called to ask how I am?"

"Don't sound so surprised. I am your brother."

"I am surprised, Alan. After grandfather's funeral, it was a couple of years before I heard from you, and then it was only because Sam caught you stealing from me. This sudden concern for me is a bit unexpected."

"I wasn't stealing it," he snapped. "And that gorilla you married had no business treating me the way he did. He's lucky I didn't press charges."

"Seems to me your case would have been a little thin." Nikki didn't trouble to bide the amusement in her voice. "He did catch you breaking into the house. What would you have charged him with?"

"I don't know. Police brutality, maybe." Alan's tone was sullen, and Nikki could envision the pouty, dissatisfied expression on his face. "I'm sure a good lawyer could have come up with something, but I didn't want to cause any trouble for you."

"Gee, thanks," she said dryly. "I appreciate the brotherly concern."

"Well, I am your brother." Her sarcasm seemed to have gone right over his head. "I know we haven't always been close—"

"Try never."

"—but that doesn't mean I don't care about you," he persevered, ignoring her interruption. "With Grandfather gone, I am the man of the family—"

"God help us."

"—and it's my duty to look after—"

"Cut to the chase, Alan," Nikki interrupted ruthlessly. "What do you want?"

There was a short silence on the other end of the line, and she knew that Alan was running through his options, debating whether to stick with the concerned-brother act or to try a new tack.

"I need money," he muttered sullenly, apparently deciding that honesty was the best policy.

"You expect me to give you money?" Even knowing him as well as she did, Nikki found it hard to believe his gall.

"After you tried to steal from me, you turn around and hit me up for a loan?"

"The money would have been mine if you hadn't gotten married." He made it sound as if she'd committed a crime.

"But I did get married, and that makes it my money."

"I was counting on that money."

"Didn't you ever hear the phrase 'don't count your chickens before they're hatched'? What did you do? Spend money you didn't have?''

If he thought she was stupid enough to give him money, he had another think coming. Undoubtedly, he was going to try and bully her into giving him what he wanted, the way he'd bullied her when they were children, the way he'd bullied his way through life. But she wasn't a child and she wasn't afraid of him anymore. She waited, her jaw tight and angry.

"I'm in trouble, Nikki." There was no bravado in Alan's voice, no bluster. Just fear, real and startling.

"What kind of trouble?" Nikki felt her stomach clench.

"I owe money to some people. I told them I was going to inherit a bunch of money next year, and they were willing to wait. But now that you're married, they know that's not going to happen and they don't want to wait anymore."

"Gambling?" she asked, her voice softening despite herself.

"Yeah. I know it was stupid, but I can't go back and change anything now. I know we haven't been close—"

Nikki's snort of laughter cut him off. Close? They'd barely been civil.

"How much?"

He named a figure and she winced.

"Must have been a hell of a poker game."

"Roulette," he muttered. "I lost most of it playing roulette."

"Oh, well, that's different, then. Roulette is much more respectable than poker."

Alan didn't respond, and she stared blindly out the window, her fingers knotted around the receiver. She couldn't shake the suspicion that he was suckering her, that this sincere act was just that—an act he could put on or take off at will. Maybe he didn't owe any money; maybe he just wanted more money to gamble with.

But what if he was telling the truth? What if he really did owe a lot of money to people who didn't like to wait. She didn't like him, but she didn't want him to end up at the bottom of a river wearing cement shoes, either.

"Give me one good reason why I should give you that kind of money."

"I'm your brother. We're family."

Nikki closed her eyes. She heard an echo of Sam saying much the same thing about his willingness to do whatever it took to get the money for his niece's surgery. We're family, he'd said, as if that answered all questions. And maybe it did.

"Okay," she said wearily. "I'll give you the money, Alan. Give me an address and I'll see that you get it in the next few days. But this is the only time," she added, ignoring his whoop of pleasure. "Don't come to me again. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life financing your gambling habit."

He ignored that comment and gave her the address. "I need it right away," he said, and she was almost amused to hear the old arrogance back in his voice. He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

Nikki set the receiver slowly back in place, wondering if she'd just saved her brother's life or been played for a fool. It was something of a moot point, since she'd agreed to give him the money, but it would be nice to know, one way or another.

She turned away from the phone and found herself looking straight into Sam's eyes.

"Did I just hear what I think I heard? Was that your brother? And you just agreed to give him money?" He sounded both disbeheving and angry.

Nikki immediately felt like a child caught with her hand in a cookie jar and was just as immediately furious with herself for feeling that way. She didn't have to ask Sam's permission to give Alan money. She didn't have to ask anyone's permission to do anything. "That's exactly what you heard."

At another time, Sam might have heard the cool tone of her voice and taken heed, recognizing that this was not the time to pursue the subject. But he'd spent the past week feeling as if she were slipping away from him, and his sense of judgment was not what it might have been. "I can't believe you're actually going to give money to that jerk." Sam paced away from Nikki and then spun on his heel to look at her as if not sure who he was talking to.

"He's in trouble." It sounded weak. Worse, it sounded as if she were making an excuse. Nikki felt a quick flare of anger. It was her money and she could do anything she wanted with it.

"Guys like him are always in trouble," Sam snapped impatiently. "It's like pouring water into a bottomless pit. You give him money now and he'll just come back for more. If not next week, then next month or three months from now or six months from now. Are you going to give him more money every time?"

"Maybe." It wasn't the strong, mature response she would have liked. It was more the response of a sullen three-year-old.

He was right, of course. Alan wasn't going to suddenly become a model of fiscal responsibility. He was, always had been and always would be the kind of person who avoided responsibility of any kind as if it might be injurious to his health.

"Maybe?" Sam repeated. "So you're thinking of supporting him for the rest of his life?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead."

"Well, you should. Because after setting a precedent like this, you're going to have him banging on your door every time he runs out of pocket change."

"I'll deal with that when the time comes."

"Why deal with it at all? Why not just nip it in the bud now?"

"I've already told him I'd give him the money." And even if she regretted it—and she certainly wasn't saying she did—she wasn't going to go back on her word, especially not with Sam insisting that she do just that.

"Call him back and tell him you've changed your mind." He knew immediately that he'd made a mistake. The words had come out like an order, and he saw Nikki's spine stiffen in response.

"I'm not doing anything that you wouldn't do," she said in a painfully controlled tone. "You'd do the same for any one of your brothers."

"None of my brothers would break into my house and try to steal from me," Sam snapped. "He's using you, Nikki. He doesn't give a damn that you're related—all he cares about is that you're loaded."

Though it was nothing that she hadn't thought herself, hearing Sam sum up her relationship with Alan so bluntly stung. She struck back. "I seem to bring out that tendency in people," she said softly. "You can't exactly throw stones at my brother. At least Alan doesn't have to marry me to get money from me. And at least he's not pretending to feel something he doesn't, just to stay close to my checking account."

The minute the words were out, she'd, have given anything to call them back. Sam's face whitened, his eyes a stark blue against the sudden pallor. His jaw tightened until it looked as if it had been carved from solid granite.

"I apologize," he said levelly. "It's none of my business whether or not you give your brother money,"

Nikki stared at him, trying desperately to come up with the words to say she was sorry, that she hadn't meant anything she'd said.

Sam glanced at his watch. "I've got to get going."

"Sam,I-"

He looked at her, looked through her, and Nikki found the words drying up in her throat. He nodded as if she were a casual acquaintance. A moment later, she heard the door close quietly behind him.