Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(30)
He grabbed her hand before she could pick up his plate. “From Texas my ass. Have you ever even been to Texas?” She didn’t answer; there wasn’t any point. He pulled her onto his lap, and she raised her eyebrows at the macho gesture. He only smiled back. “If you can move, baby, I can teach you the steps.”
oOo
Isaac got a call about half an hour later, after helping her clean up the breakfast dishes. Saying he’d be back for her at eight o’clock, he’d kissed her and headed out. Lilli was glad. She had things to do, and she needed some distance from him to do some thinking, too. She took a quick shower, then got on her laptop and logged on.
She didn’t have a new assignment, but she did have notification of deposits made to her accounts to compensate her for those she’d just completed. One thing about working this kind of contract work, with so much security, nothing got bogged down in “channels.” Deadlines were short, but payments came quickly.
She also had two messages from her side contact. One of them was simply coordinates. It was the update she’d been waiting for, so the rest of her day was now planned. Looked like she was going to get a workout after all. She memorized the numbers and moved to the other message: Intel on the Night Horde MC and on Isaac, whose last name was Lunden—probably good to know that if they were a “couple”
somehow, so she should make a point to ask him. She scanned the attachments, printed them off, and made a file. Interesting. Definitely material that could give her some extra security with him, if she needed it.
She wasn’t surprised that the town was kept going by the meth trade—that was the sad state of rural towns across the Midwest. She was impressed, though, to see how Isaac and his biker brothers had managed to keep the town above it even as they were in the thick of it. He moved it straight through town without stopping.
Also interesting to see that there seemed to be virtually no crime in or around Signal Bend. Nothing— not even DUIs, another thing that tended to trouble towns like this. First hand, in the few days she’d been here, Lilli had seen vandalism, assault and battery, public drunkenness, among other things—hell, even attempted murder. But none of that had been reported or investigated. Looked like the MC was the only law that mattered. Lilli admired his commitment to keeping his town alive and safe.
Isaac was careful, but Rick, Lilli’s hacker contact and, well, accomplice on her little side project, was extremely good—among the best in the world. In one day, he’d connected some dots and found some trails.
There was stuff here that could hurt the Horde badly—or at least look like it could. None of it would stand up, unless she got something first-hand, but it would give her leverage, if she needed it. She wasn’t interested in hurting them—him—at all, except in self-defense.
Her own feelings about things like laws were ambivalent. She saw law and morality as nothing more than human beings’ silly attempts to order a world made of chaos. In her experience, outlaws were no better or worse than any other person. Often, in fact, they were braver, more honorable.
Once she was done with her messages and had sent back the appropriate replies, she changed into hiking gear, filled a backpack with a packed lunch, water, a camera with a long-range telephoto lens, her sat phone, the GPS, and her Sig with a couple of extra clips. Just to be sure. If the day went well, she shouldn’t need the firepower. But she always went prepared.
oOo
The day went as planned. When she got back to her little rented house around six o’clock, she downloaded the photos to her hard drive, then uploaded key images into a message to Rick. Hopefully, he’d be able to get confirmation to her soon. Her eyes told her that the confirmation was a formality. She had her guy.
She took another shower and got ready for her “date” with Isaac. She rarely wore makeup, but tonight she did—just a little; she didn’t have much. She didn’t have sexy clothes per se, that wasn’t really her thing, but she chose a pair of slim, low-waisted, straight-leg jeans and wore her tall Docs with the buckles up the side. She wore a fitted white button-up shirt and left a couple of buttons undone at the top and bottom. She was far too used to her hair being pulled back to be able to tolerate it loose and in her face for long, but she compromised and pulled a bit back from her face, braiding that part down the back of her head and leaving the rest loose on her back. Her silver hoops and rings—the only jewelry she had with her. She didn’t really know why she was making an effort to dress for a date, but it entertained her to do so.
When she heard his bike roaring up the road, she grabbed her leather jacket and locked up the house, going round the front to meet him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lilli was walking across the yard toward him as Isaac pulled up. Damn, she looked good. The sun hadn’t yet set, and as she walked, he could see flashes of belly where her shirt was open. Her hair was pulled off her face but still long and loose, and she looked f*cking perfect. Pair of badass biker chick boots around her calves, too. She was going to look amazing riding bitch with him tonight. The thought made his balls twitch.
They had some shit to talk about, but it could wait. For now, he just wanted to take this woman out and let the town do with that what it would.
“Hey, Sport. You look damn good.”
She smiled and walked up to his bike. “Thanks. You look exactly the same.”