I was able to put together the thread of the conversation then. I tried to understand from Charlie’s emotions how perturbed he was by her revelation, but he seemed extra stoic tonight.
“When is he coming over?”
“He’ll be here in a few minutes.” Bella sounded more agitated about this than her father.
“Where is he taking you?”
Bella groaned theatrically. “I hope you’re getting the Spanish Inquisition out of your system now. We’re going to play baseball with his family.”
There was a second of silence, and then Charlie started laughing. “You’re playing baseball?”
From Charlie’s tone, it was evident that—despite her stepfather’s occupation—Bella wasn’t a huge fan of the sport.
“Well, I’ll probably watch most of the time.”
“You must really like this guy.” He sounded more suspicious now. From the flashbacks running through his head, I thought he must be trying to piece together how long this relationship had been going on. He felt newly justified in his suspicions of the night before.
I revved the engine and made a quick U-turn. She’d finished her prep work, and I was anxious to be with her again.
I parked behind her truck and darted up to the doorway. Charlie was saying, “You baby me too much.”
I pressed the doorbell, and then flipped my hood up. I was good at passing for human, but it felt a lot more important right now than it usually did.
I heard Charlie’s footsteps coming toward the door, closely followed by Bella’s. Charlie’s mind seemed to be vacillating between anxiety and humor. I thought he was still enjoying the idea of Bella willingly being involved in a baseball game; I was almost positive I had it right.
Charlie opened the door, his eyes focused at about my shoulder height; he’d been expecting someone shorter. He readjusted, and then staggered half a step back.
I’d experienced the reaction often enough in the past that I didn’t need clearer thoughts to understand. Like any normal human, suddenly standing just a foot away from a vampire would send adrenaline racing through his veins. Fear would twist in his stomach for just a fraction of a second, and then his rational mind would take over. His brain would force him to ignore all the little discrepancies that marked me as other. His eyes would refocus and he would see nothing more than a teenage boy.
I watched him come to that conclusion, that I was just a normal boy. I knew he would be wondering what his body’s strange reaction had been about.
Abruptly an image of Carlisle flitted through his head, and I thought he must be comparing our faces. We really didn’t look much alike, but the similarities in our coloring were enough for most people. Maybe it wasn’t enough for Charlie. He was definitely dissatisfied about something.
Bella was watching nervously over Charlie’s shoulder.
“Come on in, Edward.” He stepped back and gestured for me to follow. Bella had to dance out of his way.
“Thanks, Chief Swan.”
He sort of smiled, almost unwillingly. “Go ahead and call me Charlie. Here, I’ll take your jacket.”
I shrugged it off quickly. “Thanks, sir.”
Charlie gestured to the small living room alcove. “Have a seat there, Edward.”
Bella made a face, clearly wanting to be on our way.
I chose the armchair. It seemed a little forward to take the sofa, where Bella would have to sit next to me—or Charlie would. Probably better to keep the family together for an official first date.
Bella didn’t like my choice. I winked at her while Charlie was settling himself.
“So I hear you’re getting my girl to watch baseball,” Charlie said. Amusement was winning in his expression.
“Yes, sir, that’s the plan.”
He chuckled aloud now. “Well, more power to you, I guess.”
I politely laughed along.
Bella jumped to her feet. “Okay, enough humor at my expense. Let’s go.” Hurrying back to the hall, she shoved her arms into her own jacket. Charlie and I followed. I grabbed my jacket on the way and slipped it on.
“Not too late, Bell,” Charlie cautioned.
“Don’t worry, Charlie, I’ll have her home early,” I said.
He eyed me keenly for a second. “You take care of my girl, all right?”
Bella performed another dramatic groan.
It felt more satisfying than I would have thought to say the words “She’ll be safe with me, I promise, sir” and be confident that they were true.
Bella walked out.
Charlie and I laughed together again, though this time it was more genuine on my part. I smiled at Charlie and waved as I followed Bella outside.
I didn’t get very far. Bella had frozen on the small porch, staring at Emmett’s Jeep. Charlie crowded behind me, looking to see what had slowed Bella’s determination to escape.
He whistled in surprise. “Wear your seat belts,” he said gruffly.
Her father’s voice galvanized her. She dashed out into the pouring rain. I kept my speed human but used my considerably longer legs to get to the passenger side first and open the door for her. She hesitated for a moment, eyeing the seat, then the ground, then the seat again. She took a deep breath and bent her legs as though about to jump. Charlie couldn’t see much of us through the Jeep’s windows, so I lifted her into the seat. She gasped in surprise.
I walked around to my door, waving to Charlie again. He waved back perfunctorily.
Inside the car, Bella was struggling with the seat belt. Holding a buckle in each hand, she looked up at me and said, “What’s all this?”
“It’s an off-roading harness.”
She frowned. “Uh-oh.”
After a second of searching, she found a tongue, but it wouldn’t fit into either of the two buckles she tried it with. I chuckled once at her baffled expression, then snapped all her attachments into place. Her heart drummed louder than the rain when my hands brushed across the skin of her throat. I let my fingers trail across her collarbones once before I settled into my seat and started the engine.
As we pulled away from the house she said, sounding a little alarmed, “This is a… um… big Jeep you have.”
“It’s Emmett’s. I didn’t think you’d want to run the whole way,” I admitted.
“Where do you keep this thing?”
“We remodeled one of the outbuildings into a garage.”
She eyed the empty harness behind my back. “Aren’t you going to put on your seat belt?”
I just looked at her.
She frowned and started to roll her eyes, but the expression got stuck midroll.
“Run the whole way?” Her voice rose to a higher octave than usual. “As in, we’re still going to run part of the way?”
“You’re not going to run,” I reminded her.
She moaned. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Keep your eyes closed, you’ll be fine.”
Her front teeth bit deep into her lower lip.
I wanted to reassure her—she would be safe with me. I leaned over to kiss the top of her head. And then I flinched.
The rain in her hair affected her scent in a way I hadn’t expected. The burn in my throat, which had seemed so stable, seized me in a sudden flare. A groan of pain escaped my lips before I could block it.
I straightened up at once, putting space between us. She was staring at me, confused. I tried to explain.
“You smell so good in the rain.”
Her expression was wary as she asked, “In a good way, or in a bad way?”
I sighed. “Both, always both.”
The rain pelted the windshield like hail, sharp and loud, sounding more solid than a liquid. I turned onto the off-road track that would take us as deep into the forest as the Jeep could go. It would cut a few miles off the run.
Bella stared out the window seemingly lost in thought. I wondered whether my answer had upset her. But then I noticed how tightly she was bracing herself against the window frame, her other hand gripped around the edge of her seat. I slowed down, taking the ruts and the rocks as smoothly as I could.
It seemed as though every method of travel besides her lethargic dinosaur of a truck was unpleasant to her. Maybe this bumpy ride would make her less loath to travel the most convenient way.
The track died in a small open space surrounded by close-packed fir trees—there was just enough room to turn a vehicle around in order to head back down the mountain. I shut off the engine, and suddenly it was nearly silent. We’d run through the storm; it was just misting now.
“Sorry, Bella,” I apologized. “We have to go on foot from here.”
“You know what? I’ll just wait here.”
She sounded breathless again. I tried to read her face to see how serious she was. I couldn’t tell if she was really that frightened, or being stubborn.
“What happened to all your courage?” I demanded. “You were extraordinary this morning.”
The corners of her lips twisted up into a very small smile. “I haven’t forgotten the last time yet.”
I dashed around the car to her side, wondering about that smile. Was she teasing me a little?
I opened the door for her, but she didn’t move. The harness must still be an impediment. I worked quickly to free her.
“I’ll get those,” she protested. But it was already done before she could add, “You go on ahead.”
I considered her expression for a moment. She looked a little nervous, but not terrified. I didn’t want her to give up on traveling with me. For one thing, it was the simplest way of getting around. But more than that… before Bella, running had been my favorite thing. I wanted to share it with her.
But first I had to convince her to give it another try.
Maybe I would attempt a more dynamic form of dazzling.
I thought through all our past interactions. In the early days, I’d often misinterpreted her reactions to me, but now I saw things through a new filter. I knew that if I looked into her eyes with a certain intensity, she would often lose her train of thought. And then when I kissed her, she forgot all kinds of things—common sense, self-preservation, and even life-sustaining activities like breathing.
“Hmmm…” I considered how to proceed. “It seems I’m going to have to tamper with your memory.”
I lifted her out of the Jeep and set her gently on her feet. She stared at me, a little nervous, a little excited.
She raised her eyebrows. “Tamper with my memory?”
“Something like that.”
In the past, I’d had the strongest effect on her when I’d been searching most intensely to hear her secret thoughts. Amused by the futility, I tried again. I stared deeply into her clear, dark eyes. My own narrowed and I struggled fiercely through the silence. Of course there was nothing to hear.
She blinked four times fast, her nervous expression shifting to one that was more… stunned.
I felt I was on the right path.
Leaning closer, I placed my hands against the hardtop, one on either side of her head. She took a half step back, pressing herself against the door. Did she need more space? Her chin angled up, her face set at the perfect incline for me to kiss her. Probably not, then. I moved a few inches closer. Her eyes closed halfway, her lips parted.
“Now, what exactly are you worrying about?” I murmured.
She blinked fast again, and took a gasping breath—I wasn’t at all sure what I was supposed to be doing about her frequent breathing lapses. Did I need to remind her at intervals?
“Well…” She swallowed, then sucked in another ragged breath. “Um, hitting a tree. And dying. And then getting sick.”
I grinned at her order of events, then forced my face back into its former expression of intensity. Slowly I leaned down and pressed my lips into the small indentation between her collarbones. Her breath caught and her heart fluttered.
My lips moved against the skin of her throat. “Are you still worried now?”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Yes?” She whispered the word, unsure. “About hitting trees… and getting sick?”
Slowly I tilted my face up, tracing the length of her throat with my nose and lips. I breathed my next question into the hollow just under the edge of her jaw. Her eyes slid all the way closed.
“And now?”
She was breathing in quick pants. “Trees?” she gasped. “Motion sickness?”
I brushed my lips up the side of her face, then softly kissed first one eyelid, then the next.
“Bella, you don’t really think I would hit a tree, do you?” My tone was gently chiding. After all, she was the one who thought I was good at everything. Perhaps if I made the question about her faith in me.
“No,” she breathed. “But I might.”
Slow and deliberate, I kissed my way across her cheek, pausing right at the edge of her mouth. “Would I let a tree hurt you?”
My upper lip touched her lower lip with the slightest pressure imaginable.
“No,” she sighed. It was a soft sound, almost a coo.
Now my lips moved lightly against hers as I whispered, “You see, there’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”
“No,” she agreed with a shuddering sigh.
And then, though I’d only been intending to overwhelm her, I found myself wholly overcome.
It didn’t feel like my mind was in control. My body was as much in command as it was when I hunted—impulse and appetite overthrowing reason. Only now my desire was not for the old needs I’d had time to master. These were new passions, and I hadn’t yet learned how to govern them.
My mouth crushed too roughly against hers, my hands strained her face closer to my own. I wanted to feel her skin against every part of me. I wanted to hold her so close that we could never be separated.
This new fire—a fire without pain, that ravaged only my ability to think—raged even hotter when her arms wrapped tightly around my neck and her body bowed into mine. Her heat and her pulse were fused against my own form from chest to thigh. I was drowning in sensation.
Her lips opened against mine, with mine, and it seemed every part of me could think of nothing but deepening that kiss.
Ironically, it was my basest instinct that saved her.
Her warm breath surged into my mouth, and my involuntary reflexes reacted—venom flowed, muscles clenched. It was enough of a shock to bring me back to myself.
I reeled away from her, feeling her hands slide down my neck and chest.
Horror flooded my mind.
How close had I just come to harming her? To killing her?
I could see it as clearly as I could see her startled face in front of me now—a world without her. I’d considered this fate so many times that I didn’t have to imagine now the vastness of that empty world, the agony of it. I knew it wasn’t a world I could endure.
Or… a world in which she was miserable. If she, in total innocence, had touched her tongue to one of the razor-sharp edges of my teeth…
“Damn it, Bella!” I gasped, barely hearing the words that twisted out of me. “You’ll be the death of me, I swear you will.” I shuddered, sickened by myself.
Killing her would surely kill me, too. Her life was my only life—my fragile, finite life.
She braced her hands against her knees, trying to catch her breath.
“You’re indestructible,” she mumbled.
She was close to right about my physical durability, so different from her own; she didn’t know how soundly my existence was knotted to hers. And she didn’t know how close she’d just been to vanishing.
“I might have believed that before I met you,” I groaned and took a deep breath. It didn’t feel safe to be alone with her. “Now let’s get out of here before I do something really stupid.”
I reached for her and she seemed to understand the need to hurry. She didn’t object as I lifted her onto my back. She wrapped her arms and legs fast around me, and I had to struggle for a second again to keep my mind in control of my body.
“Don’t forget to close your eyes,” I warned her.
Her face pressed tight against my shoulder.
The run wasn’t long, but it was long enough for me to get myself in order. It seemed I couldn’t trust anything when it came to my instincts; just because I was confident about my self-control in one way didn’t mean I could take any other control for granted. I would have to take a step back and draw a careful line to protect her. I would have to limit physical contact to some form that didn’t affect her ability to breathe or mine to think. It was pathetic that the second concern should be more important than the first.
She never moved during the short journey. I heard her breath coming evenly, and her heartbeat seemed stable, if slightly elevated. She held still even when I came to a stop.
I reached behind me to stroke her hair. “It’s over, Bella.”
She loosened her arms first, taking a deep breath, and then relaxed her taut legs. Suddenly, the warmth of her body vanished.
“Oh!” she huffed.
I spun around to find her splayed awkwardly on the ground like a child’s doll tossed to the floor. The shock in her eyes was rapidly turning to indignation, as if she had no idea how she’d gotten there, but knew someone was surely to blame.
I’m not sure why it was so funny. Perhaps I was just overwrought. Maybe it was the powerful relief I was beginning to feel now that the close call was once again behind me. Or I just needed the release.
For whatever reason, I started laughing and couldn’t immediately stop.
Bella rolled her eyes at my reaction, sighed, and stood up. She tried to wipe the mud off her jacket with such a long-suffering expression that I could only laugh harder.
She glared at me once, then marched forward.
I choked back my humor and darted after to catch her lightly by the waist, trying to force my voice to sound composed as I asked, “Where are you going, Bella?”
She wouldn’t look at me. “To watch a baseball game,” she answered. “You don’t seem to be interested in playing anymore, but I’m sure the others will have fun without you.”
“You’re going the wrong way,” I informed her.
She inhaled once through her nose, tilted her chin to an even more stubborn angle, then spun 180 degrees and stomped off in the opposite direction. I caught her again. This was not the correct way, either.
“Don’t be mad,” I pleaded. “I couldn’t help myself. You should have seen your face.” Another laugh escaped; I tried to swallow the one that followed.
She finally looked up, meeting my gaze with anger sparking in her eyes. “Oh, you’re the only one who’s allowed to get mad?”
I remembered how little she liked double standards.
“I wasn’t mad at you,” I assured her.
Her voice nearly dripped acid as she quoted me. “‘Bella, you’ll be the death of me.’”
My humor turned black but didn’t totally disappear. I’d spoken more truth in that moment of wild emotion than I’d meant to. “That was simply a statement of fact.”
She twisted in my hold, trying to pull away. I put one hand against her cheek so she couldn’t hide her face from me.
Before I could say more, she insisted, “You were mad!”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“But you just said—”
“That I wasn’t mad at you.” Nothing seemed funny now. She’d taken the blame on herself. “Can’t you see that, Bella? Don’t you understand?”
She frowned, confused and frustrated. “See what?”
“I’m never angry with you,” I explained. “How could I be? Brave, trusting… warm as you are.” Forgiving, kind, sympathetic, sincere, good… essential, crucial, life-giving… I could have gone on for a while, but she interrupted.
“Then why…?” she whispered.
I assumed her unfinished thought was something along the lines of Why did you snap at me so cruelly?
I took her face between both my hands, trying to communicate with my eyes as much as with my words, trying to put more force into each one.
“I infuriate myself,” I told her. “The way I can’t seem to keep from putting you in danger. My very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes… I truly hate myself. I should be stronger, I should be able to—”
I was surprised when her fingers touched my lips, blocking the rest of what I wanted to say.
“Don’t,” she murmured.
The confusion had disappeared from her face, leaving only kindness behind.
I lifted her hand from my mouth and pressed it to my cheek.
“I love you,” I told her. “It’s a poor excuse for what I’m doing, but it’s still true.”
She stared at me with such warmth, such… adoration. There seemed to be only one answer to such a look.
It would have to be a restrained answer. There could be no more impulsiveness.
“Now, please try to behave yourself,” I murmured, speaking more to myself than to her.
Gently, I pressed my lips against hers for one brief second.
She was very still, holding even her breath. I straightened up quickly, waiting for her to breathe again.
She sighed.
“You promised Chief Swan that you would have me home early, remember? We’d better get going.”
Helping me again. I wished my weakness didn’t force her to have to be so strong.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I freed her, taking one of her hands to lead her forward on the correct course. We only had ten yards to go before we passed the edge of the wood and entered the huge, open field my family simply called the clearing. The trees had been scraped away by a glacier long ago, and now just a thin layer of soil covered the bedrock beneath. Wild grass and bracken were the only things that flourished here now. It was a convenient play place for us.