Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series) (24 page)

“Hey, come over here and sit behind the wheel for a sec—I need to check the trailer lights.” They were pulling a trailer behind the camper that held his show gear and inventory as well as his bike. She climbed over the center console and sat behind the wheel.

The lights checked out, and Lilli climbed back so Isaac could take the wheel. As they pulled away from his house, Lilli realized that she was in a fantastic mood. Despite the lack of sleep, despite the darkness in her past, despite what loomed in the near future, she felt light. She felt happy.

She didn’
t want to lose it. She didn’t want to lose him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Isaac liked to arrive when setup opened; it got crowded once all the vendors were all trying to get their tents and booths together at once. But after their athletics of the previous night, he and Lilli had gotten a later start than he wanted. Not too bad, though, and the setup was going fine.

Isaac loved these shows overall, some more than others.
Some, the juried art shows held in the middle of a bigger city, like St. Louis, were a nightmare to get to, expensive, and generally not worth the fuckery. This one in Tulsa, though, an arts and crafts show staged at a big state park on the far edges of the suburbs, was his favorite. It was big, so there was some earning potential. There was a good campground in the park, so most vendors set up camp there, and they’d do a big bonfire each night and party hard deep into the night. It was a good group of folks—mellow, good-natured, a little on the rougher side. Isaac’s kind of folks.

They’d dropped the trailer first thing, then parked the camper at their site and walked ba
ck to set up his tent. The booth rental fee included the actual booth, a white 10’X10’ tent with removable sides. It took awhile to get started, because everybody was glad to see everybody else—a lot of these men and women Isaac called friends, but they only saw each other a few times a year, at these shows. So there was hugging, fist-bumping, and arm-clasping to do with the vendors who were there when Isaac and Lilli got there, and the ones who continued to file in.

Isaac took especial pleasure in introducing Lilli around. Many were surprised; Isaac wasn’t known as a tied-down kind of guy. But the
y recovered their wits quickly upon talking to Lilli for half a minute. She was light and easy, knowing as if by instinct that she could unleash her sense of humor around this crowd, and she had just about everybody she met charmed. She seemed charmed herself. Isaac felt good. He could almost—almost—set aside his cares.

While Lilli went to the
campsite to rig up the electric and pay for some bundles of firewood, Isaac was setting up his tent, hammering in the guy wires on the last pole, when he felt feminine hands on his back. Not Lilli—the scent of gardenias was strong behind him. Lucinda.
Fuck
. He hadn’t thought about Lucinda.

“Hey, lover.” It was her best, silkiest sex voice, whispered in his ear. Her hands crept down his spine and into the back of his jeans. He stood up, removing her fingers, and turned around.

“Hey, Cin.”

Lucinda made very pretty sterling silver and gemst
one jewelry. Her work more craft than art, she didn’t do the juried shows, but she’d been Isaac’s fairly regular art show fuck for five or six years. She was a good-looking woman. Mid-forties, about five-six, long hair streaked just about every shade of blonde, but done artfully and attractively. Light brown, almost tawny eyes. Narrow hips, and not much ass, but tits for miles. She dressed in very snug jeans—Isaac knew exactly how snug, since he’d peeled them off scores of times—and flowing, filmy tops that showed lots of shoulder and cleavage. She knew her assets. She also modeled her own jewelry, so she wore rings on every finger, lots of earrings, a prominent pendant, and several inches of bracelets on each wrist. She could be heard coming a half-mile away. And yet, he hadn’t heard her. He’d been too preoccupied. Just as he’d been too preoccupied to remember her at all and give Lilli a heads-up about her.

Now, she stepped up against him and
hooked her be-ringed hands around his neck, raising up on her tiptoes for a kiss. Luckily, she still couldn’t reach unless he bent down, because just then he saw Lilli returning, walking down the lane that was emerging between the tents going up. He put his hands around Lucinda’s waist and set her back.

“Sorry, Cin. I’m with somebody.”

She snorted. “Right. Like that’ll ever happen.” She stepped toward him again, and he held her off, giving her a warning look. She drew her brows together. “What—you’re serious? You brought a fuck with you?”

The surprising urge to give her a slap for that
remark came over him, but he mastered it. Lilli drawing ever nearer, and very obviously paying attention, Isaac leaned down close to growl, “No. I brought my old lady with me. We’re done, Cin.”

Wait—
old lady
? The words surprised Isaac almost as much as they clearly surprised Lucinda, who drew back, gave him a killing glare, muttered, “Asshole,” and stalked off—in Lilli’s direction.

Isaac watched as Lilli gave her an absolutely brilliant
smile and continued on. Lucinda stopped, turned and watched Lilli approach him. He was suddenly living his own special soap opera, set in hell.

Lilli walked straight up to him, muttered, “Make it good, pal,” and
yanked his head down to kiss him hard. Feeling a little sorry for Cin, he obliged and wrapped his arms around Lilli, bending her backwards a little and kissing her until she was breathless. He raised his eyes mid-kiss to see Cin spin away and storm to her own booth.

Well, he now knew that his woman was the jealous type.
Hopefully, Cin would behave, and the weekend wouldn’t become unnecessarily interesting.

He pulled up and set her back. “Feel better?”

Lilli put her hands on her hips. “And she is?”

“Lucinda. Old news.”

“Well, next chance you get, you might want to let Lucinda Old News know that I can break her neck with the heel of one hand.” She walked into his booth and opened a box of carved flowers. “Will there be more like her?”

Isaac found Lilli’s jealousy highly erotic.
He’d hated possessive women. He’d learned that early on, and he’d kept to fuck buddies for years, dropping any of them the second he scented possessiveness. But Lilli’s possession he found entirely wonderful. It opened up something in his chest to feel
claimed
by her—and that’s what that kiss had been. A claiming. He shifted his very erect cock in his jeans, trying to find a more comfortable and more subtle position. “Unlikely. I’m sorry, Sport. I honestly didn’t even think about her.” As sexy as it was, he didn’t want it to turn into a problem. Wanting to pull their boat into safer waters, he stepped behind her and pulled her close. His mouth on her ear, taking in the smell of her, so different, so much more natural, so much better than Cin’s cloying gardenias, he murmured, “My head’s so full of you, there’s no room for anybody else.”

She laughed, and turned toward his mouth. “Smooth.” He captured her lips in his, and knew in the way she yielded that their weird little moment was over. Her breath tickling his lips, she whispered, “You should know that I always got bad marks in sharing.”

He turned her in his arms and clutched her chest to him. “So did I, baby.”

~oOo~

The first night bonfire, when everyone was feeling energized for the coming show, and happy to be reunited with old friends, was a riotous affair. Isaac had found himself . . . distracted as Lilli stood in the camper and changed from shorts to jeans, so by the time they got to the fire, Isaac carrying a cooler full of beer, the fire was in full, glorious burn, and people were deep into their cups. This park had a lake and swimming beach, and the bonfire was set up not too far away, so there were some swimmers, clad and not, in the water as well.

There were always musicians in the mix, usually of the folk variety; this night
, three people had guitars, someone had a fiddle, and someone else had a set of hand drums. Joints and bags of mushrooms were passed freely, as was beer and booze. Bonfire. Folk music. Artsy types. Booze and drugs. Isaac would never hear the end of it from his brothers if they saw how much he loved this hippy shit.

They said their hellos
, and Lilli laid out a blanket. Isaac sat against a log near the fire and pulled her down to sit between his legs. He handed her a beer and opened one for himself, then leaned back against the log and pulled Lilli back with him. He felt calm. He almost wished this could just be his life, riding around in that shitty old camper, selling his work, hanging out with the show bums, riding curvy country roads with his woman behind him, in the deep night. He could be a vagabond. Wouldn’t even take much of a push. The road was where he felt right.

Duncan,
a leatherworker and good friend, and his wife Mindy, who made beautiful papers, shared the long log with them. They also shared their weed, and Isaac and Lilli shared their beer. Lilli lay quietly on his chest, listening while Isaac talked shop with Duncan and Mindy. When Stan came over, though, and then Tonya, and the conversation became a dishfest, Isaac could feel Lilli getting restless. But he was in the thick of the conversation and didn’t really want to get out of it. He hadn’t seen these friends in a while.

Eventually,
Lilli scooted from between his legs and out of the growing cluster of people gossiping about stuff she knew nothing about. Isaac saw her go and watched her wander toward the bathrooms, listing to starboard a bit. Knowing where she was off to, he returned his attention to the increasingly lively conversation.

But she was gone a long time. Isaac looked around at the empties on the blanket, where she’d been putting hers, and did some math. She’d downed a six pack. And had her share of hits off two good-size doobs being share among four people.

Lilli was very likely wasted off her ass.

When she was around him, he knew what that meant—completely uninhibited and a little bit freaky. Horny as fuckall. When he was with her, it was spectacular. He didn’t know what to expect when she was wandering around on her own.

“’Scuse me folks, I seem to have misplaced my lady.” Nobody really noticed, and he got up and went Lilli hunting.

She wasn’t at the bathroom; he
’d grabbed Julie, a weaver, and asked her to check. He looked everywhere, finally just yelling her name as he walked. He was starting to get really worried, bordering on frantic, wondering if the club’s problems could have chased him to Tulsa and caught up Lilli, when he got to the lake. There were more swimmers, more of them naked, now.

And she was one of them.

He’d scanned the water only because it was the last place to look, sure she wouldn’t be there. But there she was, standing in waist-high water, her breasts bare and shimmering in the moonlight and the faint light cast from the bonfire. She was beautiful. And completely exposed.

“LILLI!” he roared. She saw him, laughed, and dived under. Her bottom half was bare, too.

Holy fucking Christ. She was wasted and swimming. She was naked, in front of all these people. His woman. On display. He didn’t know whether to be worried for her safety because she could drown or because he was going to throttle her.

When she came up again, he roared again, “LILLI! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE
NOW
!”

She laughed, flipped him off, and went under again. This time she stayed under for a distressingly long time and was farther away when she final
ly broke the surface again. Then she dived again. When she came up, she was far out and treading water.

Now they were into drowning territory, if she was as wasted as he feared.

He was going to have to go out and get her. Fuck.

Isaac swam, but he did not leave hims
elf vulnerable. Stripping to his underwear in a crowd, even this crowd, leaving himself unarmed and barely dressed? He did
not
do that.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

During the few seconds Isaac grappled with his quandary, Duncan walked up and stood at his side. “I’ll go get her, man.”

No. Another man was not bringing his naked woman back to the beach. He toed off his boots. “I got her. Just—grab
our blanket for me.” Duncan nodded and headed back to their log by the fire.

Now that he’d committed to this folly, Isaac stripped quickly and efficiently, down to his boxer briefs, then strode into the—
fucking cold
—water and dove in. He swam long, strong strokes. Lilli hadn’t moved much, just bobbed in place; Isaac took that as a bad sign and put a little more power into his stroke.

She’d gotten even farther out than he’d realized. When he got to her, she was breathing too hard and looked distressed, but she was still above water. As he got his arms around her, Isaac felt a strange brew of emotions: rage, terror, love, relief. He let love and relief have sway. “Hey, Sport. Whatcha doin’ out here?”