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

than Nikki had been, and Sam liked her.
    Lena was one of those women who could have been any age from forty to sixty, though Sam thought she was closer to the latter than the former. He guessed that, in her youth, she'd been strikingly beautiful. In late middle age, she was still a handsome woman. She was tall, with a trim figure and a subtle elegance to her carriage that made him think of deposed queens rather than housekeepers.
    "Supper's in an hour," she told him.
    "Thanks, but I'll probably just get a sandwich later."
    They had the same conversation or a variation of it nearly every evening. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of her cooking for him, but, even more than that, he had no desire to share a meal with Nikki. They'd managed to be civil for the past two weeks, a feat that could be attributed, in large part, to the fact that their paths rarely crossed. He didn't see any reason to tempt fate by having a meal with her.
    "I've got my best baked chicken in the oven, fresh wholewheat rolls and an apple pie to die for," Lena coaxed.
    Sam felt his stomach stir with interest. Aside from a couple of stale doughnuts in the early hours of the morning, the only thing he'd eaten all day was half of a steak-and-egg breakfast with Keefe. The meal Lena had just described sounded wonderful. On the other hand, the odds of him and Nikki making it through an entire meal without getting into an argument were slim to none.
    "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