A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage (7 page)

S
am pushed the restaurant door shut behind him, closing out the cool, damp air. Winter, or what passed for it in Southern California, had arrived abruptly the night before, blowing in with the first storm of the season and drenching the southern half of the state. The rain had tapered off to a miserable drizzle, just enough to make visibility poor and keep the roads slick. Sam spared a moment of gratitude that he wasn't with the highway patrol. Or driving a tow truck.

Brushing the rain from the shoulders of his denim jacket, he looked around. He'd never been in the Wagon Wheel Caf6 but he'd been in places like it. The decor, if you could call it that, was strictly functional. A black-and-white-tile floor that showed signs of age, faded red vinyl booths and a few dusty plastic plants in pots scattered at random throughout the single room. He didn't have to look at a menu to know that the food would be plainly cooked, plentiful and reasonably priced.

"Find yourself a place and light, sugar. We don't stand on formality here." The woman who spoke was in her fifties. Her hair was a shade of red that owed nothing to nature, but her smile was genuine.

"I'm looking for someone."

"He's in the comer booth," she said immediately. "Said he was meeting his brother." She looked Sam up and down. "There any more like you at home? Maybe a few years older?"

"There's four of us, but I'm the oldest."

She sighed. "Ain't that always the way of it? Either too young or married or both."

Sam's smile lingered as he made his way between the rows of booths to the corner one. Keefe looked up as he stopped beside the table. He smiled, but Sam was shocked by the lines of exhaustion etched around his brother's eyes. Keefe was the younger, though by less than two years. At the moment, he looked ten years older.

"Sam." The single word served as a greeting.

"Keefe." Sam had barely slid into the booth when the red-haired waitress arrived. She set a thick white china mug in front of him and filled it with steaming coffee without asking.

"You two want to look at a menu, or should I tell you what's good?" She topped off Keefe's mug as she spoke.

Sam glanced at Keefe who shrugged indifferently. "What's good?" Sam asked.

"The steak and eggs is about the best thing on the menu, but don't ask for the eggs scrambled. Clive, he thinks a scrambled egg ain't done unless it crunches when you bite down."

"We'll take the steak and eggs," Sam told her after another glance at Keefe, who shrugged again. "Eggs over easy. Steaks rare."

"Comin' right up, sugar."

After she'd left, Sam looked at his brother. "You look like hell."

"Good to see you again, too." Keefe lifted his coffee cup and took a deep swallow. "I've been putting in a lot of hours."

"Including working all night? You look like you haven't slept in a week. I thought ranchers went to bed at sundown. Are you out branding cattle at midnight?"

"Don't pull the big-brother act on me." Keefe's smile was tight around the edges. "The only ranchers who go to bed with the sun are the ones who ranch for a hobby. I'm trying to make a living from the Flying Ace, remember?"

"I remember. How's it going?"

"I'm breaking even this year, which is about as much as I'd hoped. I wouldn't be doing that much if Jace Reno hadn't busted his butt for me this past year."

"He's a good friend."

"And a hell of a rancher. He should have a place of his own." Keefe swallowed the last of his coffee and set the cup on the edge of the table for the waitress to refill. "If I want a lecture on my life-style, I'll go see Mom.''

"Sorry." Sam forced back the questions he wanted to ask. "Old habits are hard to break."

"Even bad ones." Keefe grinned and some of the tension seemed to leave his eyes. "You always did act like the nineteen months between us were nineteen years, especially after Dad died."

"I was the oldest. Someone had to keep the rest of you in line."

"You're lucky Gage and Cole and I didn't get together and beat some sense into you."

"I wasn't that bad," Sam protested.

"Worse." Keefe pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket and tapped it until the end of one came loose. As he lit it, he caught Sam's frown and grinned tiredly. "like I said, even bad habits are hard to break."

"I thought you quit when you and Dana got married."

The humor instantly disappeared from Keefe's eyes and the lines around his mouth deepened, making Sam regret mentioning Keefe's ex-wife. "Yeah. Well, you may recall that we haven't been married for a while now so if I want to rot my lungs, there's no one around to nag me. Unless I have breakfast with my big brother, of course."

"Sorry." Sam shook his head. "I didn't drive all the way up here to harass you."

"Could have fooled me." But there was no anger in Keefe's response. "Why did you ask me to meet you? Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. I'd be seeing youthen."

Sam shifted uncomfortably in the vinyl booth. He'd driven three hours from L.A., leaving before dawn. And Keefe had driven down from his ranch in the Sierra Nevadas. There was so much to say, but now that he was here, he didn't know where to start.

The waitress's arrival with their food gave Sam a moment more to think. When she was gone, he watched Keefe stub out his half-smoked cigarette.

"Have you talked to Mom?" Sam asked finally.

Keefe picked up his knife and fork before glancing across the table at his older brother, his dark eyes shrewd.

"I know you're married, if that's what you're pussyfooting around mentioning."

"A couple of weeks ago." Sam cut a piece off his steak and stared at it.

"Mom says nobody's met her." Keefe chewed and swallowed. "I don't think she was real thrilled about the way you did things—not having any of the family at the wedding and all."

"We were in a hurry," Sam muttered as he reached for his coffee cup.

"She pregnant?"

Sam choked on the coffee.

Keefe waited calmly until he'd stopped coughing. "Is that a yes or a no?"

"No!" Sam gasped the word out, reaching for a glass of water. "God, no."

Keefe's brows rose at Sam's adamant response. "That's the usual reason people get married in a hurry."

"Well, it wasn't our reason," Sam said shortly. He sliced another piece off his steak and chewed it without tasting.

"Okay." Keefe reached for his coffee. "You plan on telling me what the reason was?"

"How's Mary?"

Keefe looked surprised by the abrupt change of topic, but he went along with it.

"About the same, as far as I know. I haven't talked to Cole in a while, but I asked Mom and she said there was no change. She still needs surgery and Cole still doesn't have the money for it. I've got my place listed, but there aren't many people buying ranches these days." His expression was grim. "I guess it's a good thing they're not going to be doing the surgery right away. Gives us a Utile time to come up with the money."

"Take it off the market."

"I might as well, for all the good it's doing to have it listed."

"You don't need to sell it."

Sam gave up the pretense of eating and looked across the table at his brother. He'd made the long drive to see Keefe because he wanted to tell him the truth. He might be able to convince everyone else that his marriage to Nikki was a real one, but he knew Keefe would never believe it. Of his three brothers, he was closest to Keefe. They'd fought the most when they were young, but they'd still ended up friends.

"I don't have to sell the ranch?" Keefe said slowly. "If you're saying that, then it must mean you've found a way to come up with the money Cole needs." Sam could see the wheels turning in Keefe's head, adding things up and coming to the obvious conclusion. "Does this have something to do with you getting married in such a hurry?"

"It has everything to do with it." Sam's grin was crooked. "I have just made what is called a marriage of convenience, Keefe. And considering the circumstances, it's a very convenient marriage. I'll have the money for Mary's surgery by Thanksgiving."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Keefe pushed aside his half-eaten meal and gave all his attention to his brother. "You want to rim that by me again?"

"You heard me the first time."

"I heard you, but I don't believe what I heard. You married some woman to get the money for the surgery?"

"That's right."

There was another long silence and then: "Are you nuts?"

"Just desperate. It was Max's idea."

"Max knows about this?" Keefe asked, surprised.

"He set it up. Nikki is a friend of his."

"Nikki? Is that your wife?"

"Yeah." Sam frowned over the description. The word wife didn't sound right. Sara was his wife, the only wife he'd had, the only one he'd wanted.

"Maybe you'd better explain this whole thing to me from the beginning," Keefe said. He reached for his cigarettes as if they were a lifeline.

Sam was surprised at how little time it took to tell the whole story. Keefe's cigarette was burned only halfway down when he finished talking. It seemed as if something that had such a cataclysmic effect on two lives should take more than a couple of minutes to describe.

"So she gets her inheritance and you get the money for Mary's surgery," Keefe summed up when Sam was done. "And all you've got to do is stay married for the next year."

"There's only eleven and a half months left now," Sam corrected him.

Keefe's brows rose and one corner of his mouth twisted in humor. "You sound like a prisoner marking off the days to parole on the cell wall."

"That's about how I feel."

"Is she that bad?"

Sam started to say yes but caught himself and shook his head instead. "It's not Nikki. We barely see each other. Which is just as well, because we get along about as well as oil and water."

"She hard to get along with?"

"Yes." Sam's mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile and he shrugged. "But I probably haven't been much better. On the way home from the wedding, I threatened to dump her out on the freeway and make her walk the rest of the way. She damn near did it, too."

Keefe's eyes narrowed speculatively at the reluctant admiration in his brother's tone. He wondered if Sam was even aware of it.

"She's stubborn as hell," Sam was saying.

"And you're a picture of sweet reason." Keefe's tone was dry as dust.

"That's me." Sam grinned. "Not a stubborn bone in my body."

"Tell that to someone who didn't grow up with you." Keefe shook his head as he stubbed out his cigarette. "I can't believe you actually did this—got married like this, I mean."

"You'd have done the same thing."

"Probably." Keefe reached for his cigarettes, caught Sam's eye and dropped them back in his pocket without taking one. "You're as bad as Mom," he complained without heat. "What does this new wife of yours look like?"

There was that word again.
Wife.
It was technically correct but it made him uneasy to hear it said out loud. He shook off his uneasiness and considered the best way to answer Keefe's question. What did Nikki look like?

An image of her, more vivid than he would have liked, sprang to mind. She was exquisite, like a fine china figurine or a painting by one of the masters. She was golden hair and porcelain pale skin and eyes the color of jade. She made him think of cold winter nights and soft rugs in front of a fireplace. Or hot summer days and cool green grass and the feel of her skin beneath his hands.'

"You do know what she looks like, don't you?" Keefe's quizzical question made Sam realize that he'd been staring into space as if struck dumb by the question about Nikki's looks.

"Of course I do." He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug and reached for his coffee. "She's about five feet four inches, weight maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. Blond hair, green eyes."

"You sound like you're giving a police report," Keefe said, disgusted by the lack of information. "That description fits just about anyone from Michelle Pfeiffer to Attila the Hun. Details, bro. Details."

"I think Michelle Pfeiffer is taller," Sam muttered.

"So are half the women in the country. What does Mickie look like?"

"Nikki. Her name is Nikki. And she's.. .attractive." The word hardly did her justice, but if he tried to describe her to Keefe, Keefe was going to end up with the idea that he was attracted to her, and he wasn't. At least, no more than any living, breathing male would be. It was impossible not to find her attractive.

"Attractive. That tells me a lot. It's a good thing you're a cop and not a writer. I can see your description of the characters now—the woman pointing the gun at Fosdick was...attractive."

"I never claimed to be Hemingway," Sam pointed out sourly.

"Good thing, too." Keefe lit another cigarette, ignoring Sam's pointed frown this time. "You going to tell the family the truth about this marriage?"

"No." Sam shook his head. "You're the only one I'm telling. It's going to be hard enough to get Cole to take the money without him knowing how I got hold of it. Gage spends most of his time out of the country. As long as he knows Mary's okay, he won't question the whys and wherefores. And I don't see any point in worrying Mom."

"You think you and this Nikki can pull off the happy couple act well enough to fool the family?"

"I hope so." Sam didn't need his brother's raised eyebrow to tell him that he didn't sound as positive as he might have liked. That was still a big question. Could he and Nikki maintain the facade of loving newlyweds when they could barely be in the same room without going for each other's throats?