The Waiting Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

them.
    She had the impression that when they did appear they surprised him as much as her. Saville was a controlled, quiet man who not only seemed quite different from her uncle but who was also a perfect opposite to the kind of men who circulated in her world.
    Her ex-world, Sara reminded herself. Yuppiedom was another ex-world to add to the pile of such interesting experiments. It had been fun, but she had known when she’d gone into it that it wouldn’t be permanent. Sara knew she would recognize the life she wanted to live on a permanent basis when she found it. Until then she played games with the world. She wondered if she was getting a little too old for games.
    Restlessly she switched to her other side and plumped the pillow again. Still, she had learned some useful skills during the past few years. For example, she knew how to slide out of a socially awkward situation such as the one that had occurred tonight. A light laugh, a wry expression and an easy comment.
    Adrian had accepted her withdrawal from the topic, although he had insisted on accompanying her to the inn in her car. He’d offered her a bed at his house but had not seemed surprised when she politely declined. There was no sense complicating an already complex situation, Sara had told herself. As much as she had been intrigued by Adrian, she had been a little wary of him toward the end of the evening.
    She was accustomed to men who didn’t take anything except their careers, their running and their new Porsches seriously, men who knew the socially acceptable vocabulary of the new male sensitivity by heart but who didn’t really know how to make commitments. Sara knew how to handle men such as
    that. She wasn’t so sure about Adrian Saville. She sensed he took a great deal in life very seriously.
    There was more age in his eyes than on his face, she thought. And there was quiet, implacable strength in that pale gray gaze. She thought she understood why her uncle liked him. But she could also picture her unpredictable uncle trying to lighten the somberness that surrounded the younger man like an aura.
    She could just see Lowell Kincaid laughing and telling Adrian that his niece would be good for him and that he could have her when he’d finished his novel.
    Sara made a rueful face. Perhaps her easygoing uncle hadn’t realized just how seriously a man like Adrian Saville would take such an outrageous comment. Ah, well. She would do her best to keep things light and easy between herself and the budding author on the drive back into the mountains tomorrow.
    And when this was all over she would give Lowell a lecture on interfering in the private lives and fantasies of his friends. Assuring herself of that, Sara finally drifted off to sleep.

    It was sunny and warm the next morning as Sara showered and dressed for breakfast. Accustomed to that kind of weather in San Diego, she didn’t think much about it. She buttoned the wide cuffs of the oversized men’s-style shirt she had chosen to wear and fastened the yellow belt that clasped the tapered olive-green trousers. Hastily she clipped her bluntly cut hair with two clips and wondered if Adrian Saville would be on time for breakfast as he’d promised. She decided he would be. Authors were entitled to be erratic in their habits, Sara felt, but Adrian was the kind of man who would be exactly where he said he would be at the specified time. Dependable.
    She hurried downstairs and across the street. The coffee shop Adrian had pointed out last night when he’d escorted her back to the inn was full of people who weren’t nearly so inclined as she was to take the local weather for granted. There seemed to be a kind of desperation in the air, as if everyone was determined to grab the last of summer before the Northwest winter took hold. Everyone from the hostess to the busboy commented in a dazed fashion on the fact that the Seattle area was getting another day of sunshine.
    "Yes, it certainly is marvelous