Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(46)

But at the moment, she needed to get online. She had three projects on deck, one of which was a very big deal, and she wanted to see if Rick had anything new on her target.

No, he didn’t. They were both puzzled—no gas receipts, no hotel, no airfare, no credit card purchases of any kind, and no withdrawals from his bank accounts in eleven days—and that last was only $100. It was like the man had been sucked up into the sky—or, more likely, down into hell. It was like he knew someone was after him. If you want to disappear in the 21st century, you go off the grid. That’s what her target had done.

Reading over Rick’s coded message, Lilli realized she was feeling something like relief. If the target couldn’t be found, she wouldn’t have to go. That was bad. People had put their necks on the line to get her into a position to deal with this. She couldn’t lose sight of the objective because she’d found Isaac. She needed to keep her priorities straight.

She hadn’t told him yet that she might be leaving. She wasn’t sure she was. Until she had more information, she couldn’t plan one way or the other. And things with him were good. She didn’t want that to change, not yet, not unless it had to. It felt wrong to let what was happening between them deepen, but she couldn’t let it not. She was letting herself get caught up, too, even knowing what she did. She knew that every day they spent together would make a separation all the harder, and she didn’t care. She’d never had this before, and she wanted it.

She finished the two smaller projects that afternoon, encrypted them, and sent them back. She had a new message regarding the larger, more important project, shortening the deadline. Great. This one was so sensitive they’d broken it into decontextualized segments and passed them out among a few contractors like her, because they didn’t want the whole content known to any of them. That was great, very secure, but what she did was translation and decryption, which made context highly important. Doing what she did out of context was like solving a random section of a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle without edge pieces or the picture on the box for reference. And now they wanted her segment in three days. Lovely.

She worked on it for the rest of the afternoon. Around dusk, she shut everything down and locked up.

She was experiencing a jolly case of “tech neck.” She had excellent posture naturally, but tended to shrug when she worked on a computer. Rolling her neck, she went out to the living room, grabbed her mat, and headed outside.

The evening was muggy and still, but much cooler than it had been earlier, and she did love the sounds of night animals beginning to stir. Her favorites, when they came out after dark, were the whippoorwills.

Even on a warm, thick night, she’d leave a window open so that birdsong could lull her to sleep. She went down to a nice, level grassy spot in her yard and rolled out her mat.

Well into the asanas, she heard a bike coming up the road. She wasn’t expecting to see Isaac today; he’d had some kind of club business in Joplin and expected to be back late. She didn’t pry into any of that. She had her secrets, so she left him to his. He knew she was interested in whatever he wanted to tell her.

The landline hadn’t rung, so she assumed she’d find a missed call on her cell. Since she’d asked, he’d made a habit of calling first, but he had not bothered with the detail of getting her okay to come over. He called. As far as he was concerned, if she didn’t pick up, that was her problem, not his. Since things had changed between them, she didn’t actually mind as much his coming by unexpectedly, so she’d let him slide. Now, she unwound herself from Ashtavakrasana and rolled up her mat as he parked the bike and swung off. She slid her little flip flops on and walked toward him.

Even through his sunglasses, Lilli could see his eyes sparkle with the intent to say something smartass.

She stopped at her deck and waited for him to reach her. She knew she was a sweaty mess; she also knew that’s how he liked her.

“Hey, Sport. What the hell were you over there doin?” He hooked his sunglasses into his kutte pocket and pulled her close.

“Yoga. Gotta do something to stay strong. Not exactly a Gold’s Gym on every corner around here.”

“Well, that thing you were doing just now, that was f*ckin’ sexy. No wonder we can do what we do. But we have a weight room and some other shit at the clubhouse. Might be time to bring you into the inner sanctum.” With a wink, he leaned down and kissed her.

That was Lilli’s one reserve. She didn’t want to go to the clubhouse, because she wasn’t sure she was staying, and she thought Isaac would feel even more betrayed if he let her all the way in and then she left. If he knew she might be leaving soon, she didn’t think he’d want her at the clubhouse.

A voice in her head told her that he had to know she hadn’t been planning to be here permanently. They hadn’t talked about it at all, but he knew she came with almost nothing. He knew she’d rented a furnished house. He knew why she was here. He had to know she might not stay. She wasn’t being dishonest by not talking about it now. Was she?

“Lilli? You just went far away. What’s up?” He put his fist under her chin and raised her head a little.

She refocused and smiled. “Sorry. Just thinking about getting naked with you. How was Joplin?”

He chuckled. “Those two sentences right next to each other just had a wreck in my head. Joplin was complicated. Let’s get naked. You’re all sweaty and hot, and I want to peel those tiny little clothes off you.”