Waiting for Lila Read Online Free Page B

man found at Little League baseball games and church picnics. The kind of man Delilah had always been curious about but rarely came into contact with socially.
    She glanced up and realized that they had left the row of hotels far behind. Why was she here, she wondered suddenly. She should be using every spare minute to accomplish the goal she had set for herself. She shouldn't be strolling along the beach with a self-admitted second-rate jazz musician.
    It was that damn smile, she told herself. It was like a campfire on a chilly morning—one automatically tried to get closer to the warmth. And maybe part of the blame belonged to his crazy patchwork-quilt eyes. They were the eyes of a child, a little vulnerable, a little wistful, but always prepared for wonder and delight.
    Yes, she thought with a frown, there was definitely more to Bill Shelley than what was on the surface. But why on earth should that disturb her?
    As they walked, Delilah had been unconsciously listening to him whistle under his breath, and now something began to nag at her. "I know you said you weren't very good," she said slowly, "but what kind of musician can't carry a decent tune? That's not even jazz. It's—"
    "Waylon Jennings."
    She stared at his smile. "You're not a musician."
    "Nope."
    "Then you picked a really lousy time to vacation in Acapulco," she said, her tone admonishing. "The hotels are packed with conventioners. Why didn't you check, then put off your vacation until a better time?"
    "Actually, I knew."
    She raised one brow. "You must really like people."
    He laughed softly. "Why do I feel I should apologize for that?"
    "I haven't a clue," she said with a shrug. "It's no skin off my nose if you want to wade through miles of perspiring tourists on your vacation."
    Judging by the quality of his clothes—and Delilah was a very good judge of quality—he could probably afford to come onty at a time when cheap packages were available.
    "So you're not a musician," she said. "What do you do for a living?"
    He was silent for a long moment. "I don't think I want to tell you."
    "Why not? Are you a gangster? A porno star?"
    "Nothing so exciting," he said, laughing. "Haven't you ever noticed how you . . . how we all size people up at the first meeting? First we look at their clothes and check their jewelry, trying to guess how much it cost. We see if their nails are professionally manicured, whether their hair was cut by a barber or an expensive stylist. Then for the clincher we ask what their line of work is. We use all that information to make a judgment of some kind."
    "What's wrong with that?" she asked, trying not to sound defensive. She didn't like knowing her previous thoughts had been so predictable.
    "It gets in the way. Your opinion of a person is, quite naturally, colored by extraneous things."
    She frowned, considering his theory. "I don't think I would call my profession an extraneous thing. It's too much a part of me."
    "A part of you," he agreed. "But it isn't you." He paused. "I know a man, a perfectly obnoxious man, who didn't have a friend in the world until he wrote a screenplay that became a hit movie. Now everyone thinks he's wonderful. They don't seem to notice that he's even more obnoxious than he was before. Even I, knowing how thoroughly unpleasant he is, wonder at times if there's more to him than I think, simply because of what he does for a living."
    She could see his point, but she had never regarded the human trait of sizing people up by their professions as a bad one. She liked- the way people looked at her with respect when they found out she was a doctor. It put her on equal footing with anyone she met, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be without that advantage.
    Don't be silly , she told herself. With or without the letters after her name, she was somebody. Why not play his little game? It might be fun to pretend to be an ordinary woman. A woman with no traumas in her past. A woman with no dark spots in her