Northern Lights

that answers that."
    "Lunatics are a fairly social lot—with each other, in any case. Add the holidays, you get full tables. Halibut's good tonight."
    "Yeah?" Nate picked up the menu. "You lived here long?"
    "Sixteen years now. Pittsburgh, originally," he said, anticipating the question. "Taught at Carnegie Mellon."
    "What did you teach?"
    "English literature to ambitious young minds. Many of whom enjoyed the smug position of dissecting and critiquing the long-dead white men they'd come to study."
    "And now?"
    "Now I teach literature and composition to bored teenagers, many of whom would prefer to be groping one another rather than exploring the wonders of the written word."
    "Hey, Professor."
    "Cissy. Chief Burke, meet Cecilia Fisher."
    "Nice to meet you, Cissy." She was skinny as a broomstick with short, spiky hair in several shades of red, and a silver ring pierced into her left eyebrow.
    She offered him a sunny smile. "You, too. What can I get for you?"
    "I'll have the halibut. I hear it's good."
    "Sure is." She started scribbling on her pad. "How do you want it cooked?"
    "Grilled?"
    "Fine. You get a house salad with that, choice of dressing. House dressing's real special. Big Mike makes it himself."
    "That'd be fine."
    "Got your choice of baked potato, mashed potato, fries, wild rice."
    "I'll take the rice."
    "Get you a drink?"
    "Coffee, thanks."
    "I'll be right back with that."
    "Nice girl," John commented, giving his glasses a quick polish with a snowy white handkerchief. "Came into town a couple years ago, hanging out with a bunch here to do some climbing. Boy she was with slapped her around, dumped her out with nothing but her knapsack. She didn't have the money to get home—said she wasn't going back anyhow. Charlene gave her a room and a job."
    He sipped his beer. "Boy came back for her a week later. Charlene ran him off."
    "Charlene?"
    "Keeps an over-and-under back in the kitchen. The boy decided to leave town without Cissy after looking down those barrels for a minute." John turned his head, and the amusement in his eyes turned to longing—just for an instant.
    Nate saw the object of it gliding across the room with a coffeepot.
    "Look at this. The two handsomest men in Lunacy at the same table." Charlene poured Nate's coffee, then slid cozily into the booth beside him. "And what would you two be talking about?"
    "A beautiful woman, naturally." John picked up his beer. "Enjoy your dinner, chief."
    "So . . ." Charlene angled her body so her breast brushed Nate's arm. "What woman would that be?"
    "John was telling me how Cissy came to be working for you."
    "Oh?" She traced her tongue over her freshly slicked bottom lip. "You got your eye on my waitress, Nate?"
    "Only with the hope she brings my dinner out soon." He couldn't scoot away without looking, and feeling, like an idiot. He couldn't move without bumping up against some part of her body. "The Mackie brothers pay you damages yet?"
    "They came in about an hour ago, made it good. I want to thank you for taking care of me, Nate. Makes me feel secure knowing you're just a phone call away."
    "Having an over-and-under in your kitchen ought to make you feel pretty secure."
    "Well." She dipped her head, smiled. "That's really just for show." She angled her body closer, so that the come-get-me perfume seemed to rise out of her cleavage. "It's hard being a woman alone in a place like this. Long winter nights. They get cold. And they get lonely. I like knowing a man like you's sleeping under the same roof. Maybe you and I could keep each other company later."
    "Charlene. That's . . . That's an offer, all right." Her hand slid up his thigh. He grabbed her hand, pressed it on top of the table, even as he went hard and hot. "Let's just take a minute here."
    "I'm hoping it'll take longer than a minute."
    "Ha ha." If she kept rubbing that body against him, reminding him how long he'd been celibate, he might not make the full sixty seconds. "Charlene, I like you, and you're a pleasure to look at, but I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to . . . keep each other company. I'm just feeling my way around here."
    "Me, too." She twined a lock of his hair around her finger. "You get restless tonight, you just give me a call. I'll show you what I mean about this being a full-service establishment."
    She kept her baby blues on him as she wiggled out of the booth— and managed to slide her hand suggestively along his thigh again. Nate waited until she'd crossed the