Demon Night

another. “Now that’s just crazy talk. There ain’t no one that shouldn’t be eating these, even if they don’t need to eat.”
    She grinned, shook her head. “No, that’s just it…I love them. So I don’t let myself eat them, because I’ll overdo it.” The low afternoon sun glittered like gold over the lake; water stretched out on both sides of them, the hills on Eastside rising green in front, the bridge a straight gray ribbon.
    “You worried about your figure?” Ethan sounded so incredulous that a short laugh escaped her.
    “Well, I like thinking that I’m someone who’s strong, who looks as if she’s got it together—but I guess it is crazy talk, because my body is just the result of me knowing how needy I am.” The glare off the water was starting to hurt her eyes, so she blinked down at her cheeseburger instead. “I don’t eat stuff I like—or very much of it—because I’m afraid I’ll eat too much. And I go to the gym every day so that I have somewhere besides knitting to put the energy. They teach you that in Mission Creek, and some of the other rehab places—finding a hobby or outlet. I guess knitting wasn’t enough.”
    She glanced up at his profile; his brow was furrowed, his jaw slowly moving as he ate another ring, his right hand loose on the steering wheel.
    “And I like hitting stuff,” she added.
    “Hell, I enjoy it, too. And being the ‘stuff’ ain’t so bad, neither.” He made a show of rubbing his jaw before he added, “I’ve seen pictures of you singing, Charlie—you were all soft and curvy. In my day, whether you were like that or as you are now, you’d have had men lining up to court you. Women didn’t obsess about this so much then.”
    She almost snorted strawberry milkshake through her nose. “That’s such bullshit,” she said, laughing. “I’ve seen those…those…what do you call them? They’re pictures of women, and they’ve got the foofy hair, and the ladies are wearing dresses and corsets so tight and waists so tiny I could break them in half. But they all went by the same name, because of the guy who started it. You know, the…” Dammit. She couldn’t even get a sound to associate. God, she hated this. “What were they called?”
    “The Gibson Girl?”
    “Yeah. You can’t tell me women didn’t try to look like that, too.” She suddenly didn’t feel like laughing much anymore, and neither was she hungry. The paper crackled around the burger as she wrapped the rest of it up. “You want this?”
    His jaw was clenching, his hands tight on the wheel. “No. Goddammit, Charlie, you knew what it was. Just because you don’t have the name on the tip of your tongue, it doesn’t mean you’re lacking brains.”
    “I never said I did. It just pisses me off, because I start to feel sorry for myself, and I can’t stand that.”
    Tall firs lined the drive down to the house, shadowing the interior of the cab, but she had no trouble making out his surprise.
    “I ought to go back to reading you, Charlie, because I sure as hell can’t figure you out otherwise.”
    “It’s not that hard. You know everything about me, don’t you? Probably even know my shoe size.”
    “No, I can’t say as I do know that.”
    “But you know about my singing, if you’ve seen pictures.”
    The house came into view below them. The drive wound down from high on the hill, and the lake spread out behind it, the city in the distance. She could fall in love with this place, far too easily.
    A careful note entered his voice. “What’s that to do with it?”
    “Well, for example, I can play the piano—but although I’m proficient, I don’t have a real talent. But my singing…it was amazing . And I studied, and practiced, and worked my ass off making it better—but compared to what I saw some of the others at Juilliard go through, it came easy to me.”
    The truck halted in front of the house, but Ethan didn’t make a move to get out. “So it was your one thing.”
    “Yeah.” Charlie propped her elbow up on the armrest, stared blindly out of the window. “Maybe if I’d had to work a little harder at it, I’d have been more careful about keeping it. Because it sure was nice having something that came easily. And not just anything, but the one thing I really, really loved, because having it made up for everything else I couldn’t do. But I did this instead.” She waved her fingers at her throat, then turned to frown at him. “And I’m starting to