A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage (11 page)

T
hanksgiving dawned gray and cloudy, a perfect reflection of Nikki's expectations for the day. She'd had a full week to anticipate meeting Sam's family, a full week in which to consider all the things that could go wrong. The possibilities were awful enough to make her pray the clouds would open up and rain so hard that they'd have to give up the idea of driving north. Unfortunately, by midmorning, the sun was starting to nudge its way through and the radio was announcing that it was going to be a beautiful holiday.

Sam drove to Los Olivos. With a vague idea of having a quick getaway available, Nikki had suggested they take her car. But neither Sam nor Jason made any secret of their doubts about it being able to make the three-hour trip. Nikki's protests that Barney was a great deal more reliable than he looked were ignored. And since Barney's heating and air-conditioning system consisted of opening or closing windows, she didn't pursue the argument.

Besides, she didn't really want to drive. She was better off climbing into the back seat of the Bronco and leaving Sam to carry on the bulk of the conversation with Jason, giving her yet more time to brood about meeting his family.

It would have been difficult enough to meet them if she'd really been his wife, a genuine addition to the family. But the fact that the marriage was simply a business transaction made it even more nerve-racking.

If there was a good time to be introduced to Sam's family, it surely wasn't in the midst of a major holiday. Nikki stared out the window at the passing scenery and wished she'd insisted on meeting the rest of the Walker clan sooner. Never mind the fact that, until two weeks ago, she'd barely been able to exchange a civil word with Sam and that she'd probably rather have had her nose pierced than spend any time with him, let alone meet his family.

The fact was, if they were going to pull off this charade for the next year, she really should have met his family before this. What kind of a daughter-in-law didn't want to meet her in-laws? They'd probably already figured out that it was a sham. And if they hadn't, they undoubtedly soon would. It would have been nice to believe Sam's assurance that they wouldn't be looking for evidence that his marriage was anything less than what it seemed and would, therefore, take it at face value and accept her as his wife. But she couldn't shake the feeling of impending disaster.

They'd take one look at her and know she was a fake. Then they'd tell Jason, and she'd not only lose her inheritance, she'd probably go to jail for fraud of some kind. She'd lose her friends, her money, have to wear ugly clothes and probably spend the rest of her life as the girlfriend of some woman named Bubba.

It was, perhaps, fortunate that lack of sleep caught up with her before Nikki's imagination could paint even more lurid pictures of the disasters that lay ahead. She dozed off shortly after they left the outskirts of Los Angeles behind them, sleeping until Jason reached back to shake her awake minutes before they arrived at the Walker home.

"You should have had Jason wake me sooner," she said, keeping her voice low as Sam opened the back door. She was rummaging through her purse for her brush. "I look like a disaster survivor."

"You look fine."

"If you like the hair-on-end, ruined-makeup look," she snapped in a whisper. She was vividly aware of Jason standing on the other side of the car and of the need to present a happy-couple image to him.

Sam's smile tightened. "You're meeting my family, not filming a shampoo commercial."

"I wouldn't want to meet a dog collector looking like this." She jerked the brush through her hair, smoothing it into a thick gold fall around her shoulders.

"It's a good thing none of my family work for Animal Control, then, isn't it?"

"Problem?" Jason walked around the car, curious about the delay.

"Nikki's worried about how she looks," Sam said, sounding so like an indulgent husband that Nikki almost believed it herself. "I was just telling her she doesn't need to primp. She always looks beautiful."

"That's true," Jason agreed, and Nikki could only hope that the sun in his eyes prevented him from seeing the hostile look she shot her loving husband.

She slammed the brush back in her purse and jerked the zipper closed. The Walkers would just have to take her as she was, because she wasn't going to sit here, and put on lipstick after she'd just been accused of primping. She would have liked to ignore the hand Sam offered to help her out of the car, but Jason would surely notice. Besides, her left leg was asleep and she didn't want to risk falling face first onto the sidewalk.

"Don't look so nervous," Sam chided, taking her hand to steady her as she got out of the truck. "They're going to love you."

Nikki knew his assurance was given, at least in part, for Jason's benefit, in keeping with Sam's role of loving husband. But she wanted desperately to believe it. Not necessarily that they'd love her, but that they wouldn't take one look at her and know her for the phony she was.

She didn't think she could have been any more nervous if she really had been a new bride. Though she knew it was strictly for show and she was still annoyed with him, she found herself grateful for the strength of Sam's fingers around hers as they walked up the slightly erratic brick path.

The house was a simple, one-story stucco, painted white with deep blue trim. The yard was small and beautifully kept. There was a split-rail fence made of cedar that had weathered to a soft gray. Along the street, and set just inside the fence, were rose beds. Roses in every possible color dipped and swayed in the cool breeze. Pansies lined the walkway, their cheerful faces nodding a welcome.

It was a friendly picture, and Nikki found herself insensibly soothed by it. It didn't seem possible that anything bad could happen in a house with such a cheerful yard.

They'd just reached the foot of the steps when the door burst open and a tall, dark-haired man stepped out.

"I'm probably going to have to raid a turkey farm," he was saying over his shoulder. "Wouldn't it be easier just to roast the damned dog?"

It was apparently a rhetorical question, because he pulled the door closed, cutting off any possible reply. He turned, saw Sam, and a smile banished the somewhat intimidating frown on his face. "Sam!"

"Gage! I thought you were in the wilds of Borneo or Brazil." Sam released Nikki's hand and took a quick stride forward, meeting his brother as he stepped off the porch.

"It was Africa. And I was able to wangle six weeks' leave."

Nikki hung back, watching as they hugged, a little surprised by their obvious pleasure at seeing each other. She couldn't remember anyone in her family ever being quite so enthused about getting together. An air kiss next to her cheek was about the most she'd ever gotten from her mother, and her brother had never expressed anything stronger than indifference to her presence.

The family resemblance between the brothers was slight. Both men were tall and broad shouldered, but Gage Walker's hair was a brown so dark it hovered on the edge of black, his features more even than Sam's. But the clear blue of his eyes was familiar, as was the humor in them.

"I understand you've got big news," Gage said, looking past Sam with unconcealed interest. "I hope this isn't your wife. She's too pretty to waste herself on someone like you."

Nikki flushed at the compliment, but the butterflies in her stomach subsided a bit. At least one member of Sam's family seemed friendly.

"Nikki, this is my brother Gage." Sam turned and caught her hand, drawing her forward. "He spends most of his time in uncivilized parts of the world building bridges and dams and other things for which the natives have no use."

"He's just jealous because he spends all his time writing parking tickets." Gage's hand swallowed hers, and his smile held nothing but welcome.

Nikki dared to draw a shallow breath, listening with half an ear as Sam introduced Jason. One down and heaven knew how many to go.

"What were you saying about robbing a turkey farm?" Sam asked when the introductions were complete.

Gage's dark brows hooked together in a frown, though Nikki thought she saw laughter in his eyes. "You just missed all the uproar. Mom got the turkey out and set it on the counter to baste it. The phone rang, and while she was answering the phone, Hippo stole the turkey off the counter. Mom screamed bloody murder, which scared Hippo, and he took off through the living room, still carrying the turkey, Cole and Keefe and I in hot pursuit. We got the turkey back, but the uproar upset Mouse, and now there are feathers and half-cooked turkey all over the living room."

"You can grin if you want," he told Sam with mock indignation. "But you aren't the one being sent out to find another turkey, with instructions to find one even if I have to drive to L. A."

"Hippo?" Nikki questioned faintly. He didn't mean a real hippo. Did he?

"One of the mutts Mom collects," Gage explained. "She usually finds homes for them, but no one was willing to take on an animal the size of a small truck, so Hippo has become a fixture. Cole's little girl named him after she saw him yawn."

"And Mouse isn't a mouse?"
And why didn't Sam tell me he had a niece?

"A cat," Gage explained, grinning. "She's timid. She was sleeping on an old pillow when Hippo and the turkey made their entrance into the living room. I think she tried to dig her way into the pillow to hide."

"Which explains the feathers," she said, relieved to have a reasonable explanation.

"Which explains the feathers," Gage agreed. "I've got to go see if I can find a turkey, or Mom will wring my neck. Good to meet you, Jason. Welcome to the family, Nikki."

"Thank you." Nikki turned to watch him stride down the walk and slide into the sleek black Corvette parked at the curb. She looked at Sam.

"Maybe we should give your mother time to get things straightened out. We could come back later."

"Don't be ridiculous. Mom won't mind."

Without giving her a chance to argue, he walked up the porch steps, pulling her with him. If Jason hadn't been with them, Nikki might have argued more vehemently. If she and Sam had really been married, she might have insisted that her first introduction to his mother not come in the midst of a domestic crisis. Caught between reality and facade, she said nothing.

The door opened into a small entryway, which opened directly into the living room. The room seemed full of people, but after a moment Nikki was able to sort it out into two men, a woman and a little girl. The woman was kneeling in the middle of the floor, rubbing a damp rag over a spot on the carpet. One of the men was standing in front of a window, trying to pry a large tiger-striped cat loose from the top of the curtain. The other man was scooping feathers off the sofa and dropping them in a brown paper grocery sack. The little girl was picking up an occasional feather, but the bulk of her attention was on the operation at the window.

"Be careful, Uncle Keefe," she instructed now. "Mouse had a bad scare."

"Mouse had a bad scare," Keefe muttered under his breath. "Don't forget she went over me to get to the top of the drapes. The damn thing has claws eight inches long."

"Don't curse in front of Mary," Rachel Walker ordered without glancing up from the spot she was scrubbing. "If the cat drew blood, I'll put some iodine on the scratches later. Right now, I want this place in some, kind of order before Sam and his new wife get here."

"Trying to fool your new daughter-in-law,into thinking the place isn't a loony bin, Mom?" Cole asked, dropping another feather in the sack. "It might be better if she knew the truth right off."

"Just pick up those feathers, Cole," Rachel ordered, shifting her attention to another spot.

"Wouldn't it be easier to vacuum them up?"

"Not until your brother gets Mouse off the curtains. She's afraid of the vacuum."

"She's afraid of her own shadow," Keefe muttered in disgust. "I've met rocks with more brains." But Nikki noticed that he was very gentle in prying the frightened animal loose from the curtain.

Sam opened his mouth to announce their arrival, but his niece had seen them and beat him to it. She darted toward them. "Uncle Sam!"

As she jumped to her feet, her arm hit the sack of feathers, which her father had set on the back of the sofa. Cole made a quick grab for it, but succeeded only in bumping it again. The sack tumbled off its perch, trailing feathers in its wake like big, fluffy snowflakes.

Startled by the little girl's shriek, Keefe tightened his hold on the cat he'd just succeeded in prying loose from the curtain. It was too much for Mouse's already traumatired nerves. With a yowl loud enough to wake the dead, she sank four sets of claws into her rescuer's arm. Keefe yelped and dropped her to the floor. She streaked across the carpet like a furry orange missile and disappeared toward the back of the house.

Rachel Walker's head jerked up. Still on her hands and knees, she stared at the new arrivals. Her horrified expression made Nikki's heart sink.

Sam caught his niece up in his arms, balancing her easily on his hip. His greeting broke the momentary stunned silence. "Hi, urchin."

"Oh, no." As first greetings from a new mother-in-law went, it could have been worse, Nikki decided. It could have been "Get out."

"Hi, Mom."

"Oh, Sam. How could you do this to me?" Rachel groaned as she stood up. . '7 didn't steal the turkey," Sam protested with a grin.

"You were a wretched boy, and you've grown into a wretched man." She glanced down at the rag in her hand and then, with a sigh, let it drop. "Everything was going so well," she muttered, to no one in particular.

"Hippo staled the turkey," his niece informed him. She leaned forward in his arms and fixed Nikki with big brown eyes. "I'm Mary. Are you my new aunt?"