Hey everyone.

This is the first time I'm writing a story in english. So please be indulgent.

I wrote this originally in german and this now is rather a training for me. I'm actually in search for a beta who'll correct the chapters for me before upload. That would be really great.

The plot however isn't really mine. I got this idea because of a lovely book I read multiple times in my teen years. I lost it when I moved out from my parental home. I missed it for years but didn't know who had written it and what its name was. So I wrote this on the german ff-site so someone maybe could recognize it. And someone did, after just the first chapter. Nonetheless I went on with it till the end. And now I'm beginning with the translation. Hope you like it!

And how I said; English is not my first language, so please, when you find grammatical mistakes (even if the comma is wrong), tell my, so I can correct them. Thank you!

Disclaimer for the story: The characters belongs to Stephanie Meyer. The plot/idea is from Iris Johansen for a Loveswept story 'Return to Santa Flores'. The words and all the rest are mine.

For those who know this story from Iris Johansen: It's not exactly the same, I mostly extended it from the basic. So just give it a try. ;)

Yeah, now have fun!

Kim Richey - A Place Called Home

Well, it's not hard to see
Anyone who looks at me
Knows I am just a rolling stone
Never landing anyplace to call my own
To call my own

Well, it seems like so long ago
But it really ain't you know
I started out a crazy kid
Miracle I made it through the things I did
The things I did

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
Till then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

I had a chance to settle down
Get a job and live in town
Work in some old factory
I never liked the foreman standing over me
Over me

Oh I'd rather walk a winding road
Rather know the things I know
See the world with my own eyes
No regrets, no looking back, no goodbyes
No goodbyes

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
Till then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And I dream of a place called home

Prologue

Santa Barbara

I was sitting on the beach and watched how he made his way to the shore. I did this every day now in those two weeks since I got here in Santa Barbara. Watching him. See how he sprinted to the sea and dove into the waves with his extraordinarily wonderful body. He looked like a young god. Then again I didn't know any comparable to this. For me, he was the most beautiful creature I've ever seen in this early youth of mine.

"You better not go in there today."

With a rush he spun round and searched the area to make out the voice and where it came from. His eyes found me quickly. "What?"

"They caught a sight of blue-bottles yesterday. That is way too dangerous!"

"You don't say." His tone was mocking.

"Yes, you could get hurt. I heard they aren't necessarily lethal but you don't have to tempt fate and put your life at risk by all means."

"Why, thank you for the warning then. And what're you doing here at this time of day all by yourself? It's not even seven. Where are your parents? Shouldn't someone keep an eye on you?"

I didn't answer right away. "I am old enough. And more responsible than others at my age. My hotel is within eyeshot." Vaguely I threw a finger in said direction before I used it to scrape out another window of my sandcastle. On that I worked a while now. But I didn't have to spill that I'm already sitting here for a whole hour. Some voice in me said he wouldn't went very well with this information.

"I wouldn't consider nine as old enough. You can't be that much older. And if you're responsible or not let be my responsibility," he said arrogantly. "Anyway! What's your name? And who are your parents? I have to tell them that you're down here so they don't have to worry."

"I'm Isabella. But you can call me Bella if you want. I'm twelve and a half years. I look younger 'cause I'm small and fine-boned built. But that's how it's been all along. And you are?"

"Well, Bella, do not think I don't get that you're evading me. I'm Edward Cullen! Say me…"

"Do you work here?"

"Something like that. Tell me the names, Bella! I have to know. It's somewhat in my area of competence."

"I only have a father."

He seemed to wait for further details while I kept me busy with my sandcastle.

And as nothing more came from me, he asked impatiently, "Does he work for the casino?"

"What gives you that idea?"

"Well, it can hardly be the case that you're one of the guest's daughters. I really doubt that with these rags you're wearing. It's 'Santa Barbara', after all!"

"I wear the clothes because they can get dirty."

"Isabella!" I wince at the hard tone he's using. Probably he was not the patient type. I sighed.

„I'm Isabella Marie Swan and my father is Charles… He plays in the casino."

"He gambles? That's a bad joke."

I didn't reply to that and he sighed after awhile.

"Yeh, listen. I'll talk to your dad. It can't be that you're here on your own. Especially not on times where the beaches are deserted."

That shook me out of my lethargy. Pleadingly I looked up to him. "Please don't do this. Don't talk to him. I promise I'll never come here again this early. Besides, you're here then anyway, right?"

He frowned and I feared that he'll ignore me but then he just sighed. "All right. I leave it for now. How long have you been here?"

"Since two weeks ago. We're just coming from Europe. I'm half Italian, you know."

"Did you live there?" He sat down beside me and I registered for the first time how delicious he smelled. There was a trifle aftershave but that was fleeting. It was more the inherent scent that got my attention. A little like warm sun rays that meets skin and something else I couldn't describe. Does musk smell like this?

Although he went for a swim the last weeks, and I inferred that he did it regular on the mornings, he wasn't that tanned. But it suits him extraordinarily well.

"No. Though I was also in Italy, it only was for a short time and I can't speak the language. I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, but as my mom died in childbirth I had to live with my father in Forks, WA. Really small town, you probably don't even know it. But I can hardly remember it myself. My father was tired to live there, and as soon as his dad died he took the heritage and me and traveled around. You can say I'm a gipsy." I smirked mischievously at him.

He grinned back and my breath got caught as in the process his eyes began to glow. It was a wonderful green. An intensive and bright olive-green.

I tried to compose myself. "Sooo, what exactly are you doing here? For a living, I mean."

"Let's just say that I know the hotel owner!"

"Oh."

"Look, I have to go now but, please, take care of you, 'kay?" He already got up and brushed the sand off his bathing trunks.

"Okay. Are you coming back tomorrow?" That was a rhetorical question. Of course he would be back. Why should he make an exception for this day?

„You are apparently well aware of that, aren't you?" He looked amused but stern then he turned around and jogged up the beach. I looked after him until he disappeared.

~#~#~#~

The following week Edward always came first talking to me before he went and jumped into the sea. That was astonishing whereas, despite everything, I still was only a child, and men his age –I assumed he was twentyish- normally couldn't be delighted just by listening to a small girl.

"Why aren't you ever coming and take a swim with me?" he asked me one day after he came dripping wet from the water. He planted himself right beside me so some drops eventually hit their target, me!

I felt the blush heating my cheeks. This subject was very uncomfortable for me. But that didn't mean anything. Embarrassing or not, I reddened at any given opportunity. Charles, repulsed by it, let me know this each time. He hated it when people are easy to look through. And I seemed to be an open book. At least as for my emotions.

Awkwardly I answered, "I can't swim."

Edward cursed audibly and my blush intensified a few nuances. I already noticed that he had a quite filthy mouth.

"How is that fucking possible?! A father who takes his kid to the most exotic places on earth but doesn't teach him how to swim so he can at least entertain himself while the fuckhead's occupied with throwing the damn money out of the window," he growled angrily under his breath.

I'd told him about my guidebook collection. A passion of mine. Therefore he was well aware about my amount of cities I visited by now.

"My father doesn't like me," I said with long acquired indifference. "He said if he or my mother had had other relatives when I was born then he would have given away the burden I was and I wouldn't be with him by now." I repeated dad's long gone harangue with insensibility. To acknowledge the fact of an unloving father no longer hurt.

Edward grind his teeth and as I looked up from my hand that played with the sand I saw how his were clenched to fists.

"Get your bathing suit on, tomorrow. I'll teach you!"

Again my cheecks flushed. And I looked sheepishly down to my hand. "I don't have one," I whispered scarcely hearable.

"Whatever fucking next!" I became frightened when I heard him snarl and he abruptly leaped to his feet. "Tomorrow you'll learn how to swim! I bring you one along," he spoke, then stormed away. I swallowed.

I wondered why he was so annoyed with me and why it makes him so upset that I couldn't swim. After all I was practically a stranger to him and once Charles moved on he'd never see me again. My eyes burned at this thought and I gulped down my tears. Astonished I realized how close I already felt to him. It was frightening since I'm not used to sensations like that.

I pushed aside this unpleasing thought as in soon saying forever goodbye to him and got up to run along the beach to my hotel.

~#~#~#~

I probably sunk for the ninety-seventh time. At least it felt like it. I believe it never existed a person that had such a difficulty at swimming and I was getting afraid that Edward gradually was going to lost patience in me. Fingers clasped my upper arm and pulled me up. Again! I swallowed a bunch of water and as soon as I hit the surface I coughed and spit it out once more.

"Damnit, Bella! Pay attention! Don't paddle with your arms the moment you're moving your legs properly. That way you're tilting forwards."

How humiliating. I hate my stupid body. At least when it comes to sports. As if he goes on strike every time I try it.

"I really am sorry. Next time I'll do it better. I promise!," I said distraught, afraid, he would simply break it off.

He vented a deep sigh. "No, I'm sorry, Bella! You cannot really call me the most patient man and I'm truly not qualified to be a tutor. Maybe we should call it a day. Besides your lips are blue… for whatever reason at this mild temperatures." He muttered the last part of his sentence into his beard but I heard it nonetheless and blushed.

We went back to the shore out of the wet and made up a time for the next day.

Again I watched as he stomped away, then sighed and made my way back to the suite I momentarily lived in.

When I entered I shut the door as noiselessly as possible and wanted to scurry over to the bathroom as I heard a noise. I closed my eyes. Shoot!

Normally he's still sleeping at this time of day, since he only left the casino when it's closing. Turning around I saw my father peeking from his bedroom.

"What's that?" His gaze followed the trail of wet spots that I left behind and finally rested on me. "From where did you get the swimsuit?" Uh oh

"Uhm… Edward gave it to me… so I can learn how to swim."

"You didn't beg for it, did you?" Hurtfully he gripped both of my upper arms and squeezed them. "I don't put up with sponging. Even less when it comes to my children!" It's probably better to not make a remark over the fact that I'm his only child…

"No, I don't. Really. I've…"

He shook me hard. "Don't lie to me! You're going as red as a beet. What did you do? Went to a tourist pleading for money? Or did he immediately accompanying you to buying you whatever you demand?" He was getting all worked up about it. He's great in that. Especially when he was tired out, or went through a really bad patch, or simply if it comes to me. The worst were a combination of the three.

He snorted, hit me with the back of his hand in the face and thrust me away. I fell over and bumped my head on a commode. I sat up and rubbed it while I fearfully looked up at him.

Charles huffed one more time and ordered, "You will bring back this suit right tomorrow, got it? I really don't wanna imagine what the people'll say when they hear about my daughter's panhandling."

"You'll buying me one, then?," I asked brazen and just a little hopefully.

He turned and made his way back to his room. „Wherefore, for Chrissake?," he said with cutting irony. "You already know how to swim, right?"

He scornfully slammed his bedroom door shut.

I ran my hand over the ever-growing bump and stood up. Then, I suppose, it must have to be, I thought sadly. But tomorrow I would one last time go swimming with Edward. He could not take that from me! And what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over…

~#~#~#~

The next morning I ran down the beach and hid behind a rock until I saw Edward came along the promenade. And just when he attained the water I dared to emerge from my hideout and acted as if I only just arrived myself. I was much too early again because I didn't want Charles to catch me how I wear that bathing suit despite of what he instructed me to do. And the last thing I wanted was to risk a clash between an angry Edward and an I-vent-my-spleen-on-my-daughter-later father. Thanks but no thanks!

"Hi." I paused ten steps before him and smiled shyly. He looked tired out as if he didn't slept well… or at all. Worried I asked about it and he confirmed.

"No, I indeed didn't get much sleep. You know, at the moment I work quite hard to get where I want to be sometime."

I frowned. "Would you prefer if we don't go swim? I'd understand it. When you have to work till late night, you shouldn't get up just to teach me. By the way it actually is no fun for me at all, you know this." With a wave I pointed to the sea. I tried to show my disappointment not too openly and spoke extra cheerfully.

Disgruntled he narrowed his eyes to slits. "Stop talking such nonsense. When I make a promise I keep it. I'll teach you how to swim! And now come!" Ohhh, he always was so bossy, but I assumed he had to be as a… I frowned. What actually did he do?

"What do you do for a living anyway?"

"I work with immovables. Come on!" And he was very terse…

~#~#~#~

Today it went better and I drowned only half the amount than yesterday.

"You see? You just got to have patience and keep going then things will work out just fine. And it's getting better every time, you'll see," he said after he looked into my eager face. "But we shouldn't exaggerate it though. Enough water to fill a fish basin you swelled nonetheless."

I felt the heat rose to my cheeks again. "Yes, maybe you're right."

At the beach he handed me a towel and I dried my hair with it. I was proud of my hair. It did not have that of a special color –brown, do I have to say more- but beside that they were thick, long and shiny. And at the end they curled and turned into locks.

I just wanted to hand the towel back to him when he pointed, "Wait, you still have dirt there." As soon as I was getting aware where he wanted to touch me I jerked back and draped my hair forward across my shoulders. "I remove it myself, soon. I wanna take a shower anyway."

"Isabella, show me your arm!" Before I even could reply something he already grabbed it and brushed away my hair.

"Who the fuck was this?"

"I…"

"Duh… You don't have to speak further! I already can think of someone… Come on!"

I tried to loosen his grip on me while he pulled me along the beach. "No, please. Just let it be, okay? He didn't mean it that way. He was just…"

He stopped short of his steps and turned to me. "You can't be serious, can you? This poor example of a father abuse you and yet you're standing here and defend his weak ass? What did you do to deserve this?" To prove a point he shook my arm that was covered in bruises and had the shape of fingers.

"He just assumed I begged for the bathing suit. That's really a no-go to him, therefore he got a little rough. Usually he's just ignoring me." I shrugged.

"Does this crap supposed to make me feel better?," he screamed. "Because it's not working!" I felt tears working their way up to my eyes and then my bottom lip began to shiver. That did that stupid thing every time I cried. I bit on it to cover it.

"Ugh, shit…!" Edward pulled me to his chest and nearly squashed me in the process, but I was immensely delighted. "I'm so sorry, sweety. I often can have too much of a temper."

„I did notice that," I snuffled in about the height of his stomach.

He took a knee, so now he had to look up to me.

"Listen, Isabella. I cannot allow that you stay with him any longer. We'll have to find a solution, but that won't do!"

"But I don't want to go into foster care." I shuddered even at the imagination.

"You don't have to. Now, come with me. To begin with, I have to have a little discussion with your father."

Oh no! That's exactly what I wanted to avoid.

He took my hand and together we're heading back to the hotel. As we reached the lobby, Edward dragged me to the reception. But his tone changed as soon as he spoke to the receptionist.

"Call room 20B. Charles Swan. He shall come to the lobby right now." From where did he know in which room Charles and me were lodging? Questioningly I looked up to him but he only tapped with his thumb on the counter. The woman behind it raised her eyes, glimpsed down at me, and laid then her anxious stare back on Edward, carefully saying, "But he's a guest and it's not even ten o'clock."

"Just do as I order, Mrs. Setoz!"

"Of course, Mr. Cullen." She looked for a moment at the monitor, then dialed the correct call-through, after she found it.

It took a while but then Mrs. Setoz spoke.

"Mr. Swan? Please excuse for the early call but Edward Cullen, owner of the 'Four Seasons', asked you for coming immediately to the lobby."

Owner? What? But he said…

I heard a loud voice from the receiver and made a grimace.

"No… I completely understand… but…"

Edward impatiently whipped the phone out of her hand. "Charles Swan? Cullen here. It's about your daughter. I'm waiting here for you. And hurry up!" And just like this he hung up. Oh dear! Charles would go wild.

I swallowed hard and rapidly washed away any remaining tears. If nothing else, at least I didn't want to whine miserable when I have to confront him. The appearance of strength was something that Charles let calm down if only a little bit.

Five minutes later he came storming down the stairs. Crimson-faced! Without ostentation I stepped closer to Edward.

"What have you been up to now? Can't I just for one damn… You're still wearing that bathing suit? Didn't I say…"

Edward shoved himself in front of me and hissed, "It was a gift from me." Then continued with a calmer voice, "That soon is nothing of your concern though, as you're not responsible for her anymore. That I'll make sure of!"

"Huh, and how exactly will you manage to achieve this?" Offending ironical my father crossed his arms. Apparently he didn't expect an answer as he continued outright, "Please tell me, so I can help you to realize this dream. I already tried to give her in a foster care but they don't take her as long as at least one relative exists."

"This mistake could easily be corrected," Edward mumbled but then he clearly said something that knocked my socks off, "I'm going to take her under guardianship."

My head whipped up. Charles, as well, peered disbelievingly. "That is a joke. What do you want with a little brat? You're pretty young yourself. Do you really want to waste your best years to raise a foreign child?"

"It's none of your fucking business with what I squander my years! Right this very day she'll move out from your room and getting one herself. A maid will keep an eye on her so long until I worked something better out. But that isn't really intriguing for you, am I right?" With ice-cold eyes he looked down at my father.

Charles sniffed indignantly.

"Martha," Edward called. A young woman in uniform looked back to him from the other side of the hall. "Could you please escort Isabella to an empty room and watch her for a while until I take over?"

I crossed my arms. Why did he always act as if I were four instead of twelve?

"I'm awfully well capable of looking out for myself. I'm no invalid," I said looking daggers at Edward.

Frowning he looked down to me as if he considered if I really can handle something like this. I tried to look angry but somehow I couldn't. For that my innermost cheered too loudly. Me! With Edward! Staying! Guardian! I still couldn't get my head around it.

I didn't want to celebrate too soon though. In the end I only would be disappointed. There is still the possibility that it couldn't work at all.

The maid came to me. "Yes, Mr. Cullen. Of course. Follow me, luv!"

I followed Martha in one of the hotel rooms. She looked really nice. And really beautiful. Edward addressed her in confidence. She had to be a friend of his, therefore I could probably trust her.

It took some time to convince her that I'd be getting along fine by myself, and went to get me some food before focusing on her work again.

Out of boredom I eventually turned the TV on. But I couldn't concentrate on it. I wondered what Edward was discussing with Charles. Did they even discuss something? Did he took action? If so, then what?

Why is it taking so long?

Finally it knocked and after I called them in, Edward appeared on the threshold.

"You should ask before you let someone in! And under no condition let the door unclosed!"

I overlooked his rebuke. "What's the matter? How are things?"

Edward sighed. "It'll be hard but everything'll go off all right. We have to go through a few trials, Bella, but I've got some authority. Besides, your father is more than willing to get rid of you." When he said that his jaw tensed and he clenched his fists.

All this was getting too much for me. I didn't understand.

I ran my hand over my forehead then looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Why are you willingly doing this for me? I… don't get it."

Edward waved my issues nonchalantly aside. "Everybody needs a decent environment to grow up. Furthermore you should go to school. You need an education…"

"I've been to school…," I murmured, abashed, in between.

"I mean not just occasionally! I have the money and the ability to ensure you those safeties." He shrugged.

"But there are countless children who are in need of this." Did he want to save the whole world?

"Then you should be grateful that you fell right into my hands. Enough now, Isabella! We still have a long way to go. There's no need to deal with the 'why'."

"I am."

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me puzzled. "What?"

"Grateful that I fell into your hands. And happy!"

That made him smile what I tenderly returned.

Oh yeah. Today was a good day!

I thank you so, Amber Cheney. I made the corrections! :)