Free A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage by Dallas Schulze

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?
    ❧
    Sam was no surer of the answer to that question a few hours later, when he turned onto the narrow street that led to Nikki's home—his home for the past two weeks. In those two weeks, he and Nikki had done a fine job of avoiding each other, which wasn't difficult in the large house. But he didn't doubt that they could have managed to keep a certain distance, even if they'd been sharing a one-room studio apartment.
    Luckily, his new residence was far from a studio apartment. The house was nestled in the hills that surrounded the Rose Bowl. Even after having lived there for two weeks, Sam still found himself surprised by it. He'd had a certain image of the place before he married Nikki. He'd been picturing pillars and a veranda, a sort of latter-day Tara. He should have known better. Everything about Nikki Beauvisage—now Walker—spoke of money, but it wasn't flashy money. It was quiet money, the kind that had been around so long that it didn't need to be flashy.
    And the house in front of him could be called many things, but flashy wasn't among them. A sprawling, two-story, Spanish style home with off-white stucco walls and clay tile roof, it nestled gracefully into, its setting. Three ancient pepper trees, their delicate branches shifting in the slightest breeze, stood near the house, contrasting with the darker green of the oaks that created a ragged line along the edges of the property. The landscaping was beautiful but modest, giving the impression of nature gently curbed.
    Sam parked in front of the house, at the end of the long driveway. As soon as he cut off the engine, he was struck by the quiet. Like a lot of other things about his new living arrangements, he still wasn't used to the silence.
    He'd grown up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Glendale, a place with lots of families, lots of kids and dogs, and not much silence. His own apartment was situated not far from Hollywood and Vine, a fabled corner that had little to recommend it these days, unless one liked taking a chance on getting mugged. The street