Books Can Be Deceiving Read Online Free PDF

are better than that. It’s just . . .”
    “What?” Lindsey prompted her. She took a long sip of the dry white wine and felt it warm her insides.
    “I just can’t help feeling a little jealous,” she said. “Eva is ten years younger than me, and she’s getting married. And Rick, well, when I mention marriage . . . no, I’m just being silly.”
    Lindsey studied her friend. This was one of those moments when she felt it was her duty as a longtime friend to be completely honest. Too bad she was too much of a spineless blob to do it.
    After all, it was one thing to trash someone’s boyfriend after they broke up; it was quite another to trash the person she was currently dating. The risk of alienating Beth and destroying the friendship was too great.
    “Tell me again; how long have you been dating?” she asked. Maybe she could give Beth a nudge in the right direction without actually dissing Rick.
    “Almost five years.”
    “And you really want to marry him?”
    “Yes . . . I think so . . . No, I mean yes.”
    Lindsey reached across the table and put her hand on Beth’s arm. “Stop. You’re giving yourself whiplash.”
    “I do,” Beth said with a laugh. “I do want to marry him. I’m pretty sure.”
    “Then tell him,” Lindsey said. “Give him the old ‘it’s now or never’ speech.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. He doesn’t like pushy women.”
    “Asking where your relationship is going after almost five years is not being pushy,” Lindsey said. “It’s making an overdue inquiry.”
    Just then Eva arrived with their lobster rolls, and all thought of relationships dissipated under the delightful deluge to the senses of melted butter and juicy lobster meat in a toasted bun.
    They left the subject of their love lives behind and instead talked about things more conducive to good digestion, like what Beth’s programming plans were for the children’s area during the holidays and whether they could get the town’s computer support staff to let them maintain their own website instead of having to submit everything for approval and wait an eternity for the changes to be made.
    They were just finishing a decadent dessert of crème brûlée, when the door to the café was blown open and in came Beth’s boyfriend, Rick Eckman. His lime-green rain gear was soaked, and he stood dripping a puddle in the entranceway as he scanned the small restaurant.
    When he saw Beth, he stomped across the café to their table. Without so much as a hello, he turned to her and snapped, “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been calling and calling.”
    “Oh, sorry,” Beth said. She glanced down at her purse with a frown. “I never heard it.”
    Rick glared at Lindsey as if this was her fault and then turned back to Beth. “I thought we could have dinner together.”
    “Oh, when we talked earlier, you said you were going to be working all night,” she said.
    “Well, if you’d bothered to answer your phone, you would know I finished early and wanted to join you for dinner.”
    “I’m sorry,” Beth said. She gave him an apologetic look. “Why don’t you sit and join us? We’ll chat while you eat.”
    “I wouldn’t want to interrupt any girl talk,” he said. He looked like a petulant child, and it was all Lindsey could do not to excuse herself and leave.
    “There’s nothing to interrupt,” Lindsey assured him. “We’re done.”
    He grudgingly took a seat. Shrugging out of his raincoat, he draped it on the back of his chair. His dark hair was in need of a trim, and his glasses had rain splatters on them. He wore beat-up sneakers, grubby jeans and a ratty gray sweatshirt. Living alone on one of the Thumb Islands in the bay, he obviously did not feel the need to maintain his appearance or basic personal hygiene.
    He took off his glasses and dried them on the edge of his sweatshirt. Lindsey noticed that his fingers were long and thin, almost too feminine for a man living on an island by himself. She