A Family Circle 1 - A Very Convenient Marriage

by Dallas Schulze

  "How are you feeling?" Nikki asked as she approached the bed.

  "Like a rat in a trap." He caught her hand in his and tugged her down for a kiss. "If they don't let me out of here this afternoon, I'm going to make a break for it."

  "If the doctor thinks you should stay another day..."

  "I'm still coming home," Sam interrupted. "I can't take another day in this place. Every time I turn around, someone's coming at me with a needle or a thermometer. It's a wonder I have any blood left, considering the amount they've drawn off."

  "Poor baby." Nikki gave into the urge to brush his hair back from his face, loving the feel of it beneath her fingers. She'd come too close to losing him to take even the simplest of contacts for granted. "I'm sure they're taking good care of you."

  "And I'm sure the nurses are some kind of coven of vampires," Sam muttered.

  "I don't think vampires come in covens."

  "They do at this hospital. They've obviously got some kind of competition going to see who can draw the most blood out of me—the night shift or the day shift.

  When Nikki laughed, he gave her an indignant look. "Go ahead and laugh but, I tell you, one more night in this place and I'm not going to have enough blood left to shake a stick at."

  "What are you complaining about how?" Rachel Walker asked as she entered the room.

  Nikki turned to smile at her mother-in-law. "He thinks the nurses are bloodsucking vampires."

  "They probably are," Jason Drummond said as he followed Rachel into the room. "The one time I was in the hospital, they seemed to have a sadistic fascination with my veins. I was lucky to escape with my life."

  "And you thought I was imagining it," Sam said. The triumph in his voice was at odds with the laughter in his eyes.

  "Don't encourage him, Jason," Rachel said as she bent to kiss her son's forehead. "I suspect he's making the nurses' lives hell. He always was a terrible patient."

  "Thanks for the sympathy, Mom," Sam said with heavy sarcasm.

  "You're welcome, dear," she said serenely. She moved to the foot of the bed to stand next to Jason. "Nikki, you have my sympathy when it comes to seeing that he obeys doctor's orders when he gets home. I suggest you buy a whip and a chair if you expect to keep him in bed for more than a few minutes."

  "I bought some good strong rope," Nikki said. "If he gets out of hand, I'll just tie him to the bed."

  "Now that's the first interesting suggestion I've heard in days," Sam said, giving her an exaggerated leer.

  "Behave yourself," Nikki told him, flushing a little. "If I tie you to the bed, it will be for strictly medicinal purposes."

  "That's what they all say." Sam's grin was wicked.

  "I still think the whip and the chair are your best bet," Rachel commented, watching the byplay between her son and daughter-in-law. "You're going to have your hands full with him."

  "I don't mind." Nikki brushed her fingers against Sam's cheek and he caught her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth and pressing a soft kiss into the palm. The look they exchanged was so full of love that it seemed almost an intrusion for anyone else to witness it.

  There was a moment's silence and then Jason cleared his throat. "Seems like the two of you made a better bargain than you expected."

  "Bargain?" Nikki looked at him curiously.

  "When you decided to get married. Your marriage of convenience," he clarified when they continued to look at him blankly.

  "You know?" Nikki asked incredulously.

  "I know. We both do," Jason added, glancing at Rachel.

  "When did you figure it out?" Sam asked.

  "I suspected before I met you," Jason told him. "When Nicole called to tell me she was getting married, I did some checking and couldn't find any connection between the two of you. It was pretty well confirmed for me when I saw the two of you together. Next time you're pretending to be madly in love with someone, Nicole, you'd do well to avoid grinding your heel into his foot," he suggested kindly.

  She was too shocked to appreciate the humor. "But.. .if you knew... You gave us your blessing."

  "You mean I knew you weren't fulfilling the terms of your grandfather's will? I suppose that's true, in the strictest of legal terms. When Lyman told me he wanted that provision in the will, I told him I'd have nothing to do with it. I told him he was going to force you to make a marriage of convenience, that you were too stubborn to let him beat you out of your inheritance. He said it was strictly up to me to decide whether or not you were making a mistake."

  "And after I stepped on Sam's foot, you thought I wasn't making a mistake?" she questioned, bewildered.

  "That wasn't exactly the moment when I made my decision," he admitted. "But there was something between the two of you that made me think you might have a chance. I'd never seen you so interested in a man, Nicole."

  "Interested? I detested Sam then!"

  "It was more reaction than you'd ever shown before. I'd learned enough about Sam to know you'd be safe with him, even if the two of you continued to detest each other. I decided to take a chance. And I was right," he added, nodding to their linked hands.

  There was a silence while Sam and Nikki adjusted to the idea that their secret hadn't been a secret at all.

  "Mom?" Sam didn't have to complete the question.

  "Oh, I figured it out pretty early on. The way you got married without so much as introducing Nikki to the family. And the fact that you hadn't told her anything about the family, not even that you'd been married before. And of course, when Cole told me you'd given him the money for Mary's surgery, that cinched it. You've always had such a strong sense of responsibility toward the family, Sam. I guess I wasn't really surprised that you'd take such a drastic step."

  "Why didn't you say anything?"

  "Well, it was really none of my business. Besides, I liked Nikki and I hadn't seen you look so alive since before Sara died. I thought there was a pretty good chance that you'd find out that you'd made a better deal than you knew."

  Sam looked up at Nikki, seeing his own shock reflected in her eyes. "So much for our acting abilities," he muttered.

  "I guess we aren't going to have to prepare that Oscar speech after all. We thought we were fooling everyone." She giggled. "And they knew all along."

  Sam grinned, looking from his wife to the older couple at the foot of the bed. "I suppose the two of you feel very smug, figuring out that we were meant for each other before we knew it ourselves."

  "Actually, I did comment to your mother that you seemed a bit slow-witted," Jason admitted with a smile.

  "I told him you'd come to your senses eventually," Rachel assured them.

  "Gee, thanks." Sam's hand tightened over Nikki's.

  He thought of his mother's comment that he'd made a better bargain than he knew. Looking up at his wife, he knew that he'd never heard truer words. He'd made the best bargain of his life.