Challenge Number/Title: #1 – Rocky horizons

Date Posted: 02/05/2013

Fandom: Twilight

Rating: NC17

Genre: AH

Content Descriptors: Angst, Romance, Mystery

Character Pairing: Bella / Edward

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Hello, everybody! This is my contribution to PTB's Writing Challenge 2013. There will be one story line, under the unofficial title 'Secret Hearts', concluded in 52 chapters. I will try to be on time, but the last few days have been difficult with my home internet connection being shot. It's back now and will hopefully stay compliant. I already have all 5 challenges written by now, but they need to go through PTB for beta'ing.

My greatest thanks to BelleDuJour and Nlr287bells from PTB, for beta'ing this chapter for me. Their words of encouragement were essential in getting me to write the next challenges so fast. I guess positive feedback is a great motivation. If you know what I mean. *hint* Okay, on with the show…

Secret Hearts

Chapter 1

The heat of the sweltering sun reflected off the rocky surface of the cliff Bella was crouched upon and made her breathing difficult. She squinted her eyes, trying to avoid the glare of the sun, but it was impossible. Looking around, she saw bare rocks everywhere. There was not a tree in sight. Or any vegetation, for that matter. Just some dried weeds that had long ago succumbed to the hostile sun and never-ending heat. The only living things there were bugs and snakes. She shuddered at the thought of the slithering, crawling creatures being anywhere near her and pushed the imagery away. Even after having spent months in the desert, she still couldn't come to terms with them.

"Of course, he would go somewhere he thought I would find hard to follow," she mumbled, exasperated by a pestering bug circling her. "He didn't know me very well."

It had taken her the better part of a year to locate him; she wouldn't back down now. She couldn't. Even if she silently cursed him to the fiery pits of hell for doing this to her, she had to be with him.

Well, he didn't actually do this to you, her inner voice argued. You did it to yourself. He doesn't even know you're here.

"Just...shut up, you...you ungrateful bitch!" Bella huffed and tried to find a more comfortable position. The hard, rocky surface underneath her did not a convenient resting place make. Especially as she had been lying on it for so many hours. Her body was sorely missing the softness—and coolness—of the hotel sheets she left miles and miles away, before dawn, so she could find him. "And now m talking to myself. I must have a loose screw up there!"

If anyone who knew her saw her now, they would have a hard time recognizing the timid, uncoordinated girl she had been until a year ago. She had never been the outdoorsy type. The only sport she had ever been remotely successful at was book-lifting and page-turning. And even then, she had still managed to get quite a few paper cuts. So, to go from being that girl, to running around the globe looking for him—the boy who broke her heart when he left her—would qualify as a major change.

For about a month after he left, she had wallowed. She didn't sleep; she didn't eat. She had, quite literally, become a shadow of herself. Neither her father's worried looks nor her friends' coaxing would do anything to elevate her broken spirit.

Miserable and alone, she had drowned in the memories of him. His beautiful smile, his warm hands caressing her, his sweet lips molding with hers and creating sensations unlike any before, were the images she had kept dearest in her bruised heart. But that was during the daytime. She had stubbornly clung to those images while awake, desperate to remember the good times. She hadn't allowed herself to even think about the last time she had seen him.

Until exhaustion would win out and sleep would overtake her. Then, her mind would give up the struggle and recount, with excruciating detail, his parting words to her. Thankfully, she wouldn't stay asleep for long. Her screams would wake her—and everyone else in the vicinity—up. Of course, as was expected, the sleepless nights and overall neglect of herself had led her to an almost catatonic state.

After that, her panicked father had pulled out the big guns and had called Renee. For anyone who knew him, it was obvious that he had reached the end of his rope. That phone call had perhaps been the hardest one he'd ever had to make in his life, but he couldn't let his daughter keep suffering the way she had been.

That was how Bella had found herself uprooted from Forks, the place she had called home all her life, and on the way to her mother's current abode in Arizona. To say the change had been a shock would have been the understatement of the century.

Green, rainy Forks was nothing like the desert she had suddenly found surrounding her. The heat, the sun, the lack of green—she had hated it all with a fiery passion. Her ghostly white complexion hadn't fit in with the tan people around her. Her quiet, somber mood had been an eyesore to the jolly people of Arizona.

But most of all, she had hated the lack of reminders. There was nothing there to bind her to him. Nothing to remind her of the time he had taken her out for a coffee at the town's only coffee shop, or when he had kissed her under the lush green cover of the centuries-old trees found at the back of her house.

At first, she hadn't talked to anyone. Her mother, Renee, had desperately tried to get her to go out and make friends, but it had been futile. Other than going to school, she had no interaction with human beings. Even that had been because she had had no other choice. She had kept to herself and never tried to connect to any of her fellow students. She didn't see the point to it, anyway. What would be the purpose to put herself out there and let someone past her defenses when it was certain that at some point they would walk out on her?

After a few attempts from a couple of girls in her classes to befriend her, which she stubbornly thwarted, everybody just let her be. Bella had been pleased. She had kept her head down, went to her classes, went home. She ate—though unwillingly—she slept, and she woke up screaming every night. She got up in the morning and repeated the same process. Life went on, without her actively participating, for another three months. She was…content. No, not content, but at least she kept going, as she had promised him that day. It probably hadn't been the way he had meant for her to go on, but that was the best she could do, under the circumstances.

Then, in a final desperate move from her mother to get through to her, Bella had been picked up once more and relocated to a remote place an old friend of Renee's owned. It had definitely been a shock. First the place, which was a run-down farm in the middle of the desert, miles away from any sign of civilization, and then the man who had received her there. A man as rough as the elements surrounding the house she was supposed to live in for an undetermined period of time. Or at least until she came to her senses, as her mother had declared before leaving her there.

Bella had grown to love that place, almost as much as she had grown to love and respect the man. His hard face, carved deeply by the unrelenting sun and the harsh winds that usually racked the desert he lived in, had eventually become a welcome sight to her. His quiet strength, his undeterred fortitude, his no-nonsense attitude had come to mean comfort and security to her. He never gave up when he put his mind to something. Ever. He had made it his goal to bring her back to life. And he had accomplished it. She had learned so much; she owed him even more.

Smiling at the memory, she let her eyes soar through the rugged landscape that so reminded her of him. The hard pink rocks that surrounded her. The brilliant glare of the sea in the distant horizon, almost a mirage. The quietness that signified the deep solitude of the place. Africa. A world away from home. The steep valley that housed the person who meant more to her than her own life, who was her home. After all, they say that home is where the heart is. And her heart certainly believed that its home was in the bottom of this canyon. "Edward," she whispered.

"Bella?" a voice asked her, and she jumped. Her heart leapt inside her chest as she tried to gather the courage to turn and face the owner of the familiar voice. Her breaths came in quick pants, and she could hear the rush of her blood pounding inside her veins. She slowly turned around, keeping her eyes on the ground. She couldn't face him yet. Not yet. She took in the dusty combat boots, the khaki cargo pants that covered his long, lean legs. Her gaze moved further up, cataloguing his muscled torso which was covered by a green wife-beater, the strong hands carrying…

A knot formed in her throat as she observed the weapon in his hands. Was she perceived as a threat by them? By him? She gulped loudly and finally found the strength to look at his face. As soon as she did, tears sprung from her eyes. She saw the disbelief written clearly in his brilliant blue orbs. He hadn't forgotten her. It had been her greatest fear all this time. That he—they—would move on and forget her. That it would be as if she had never existed. Unable to restrain herself, she ran the short distance separating them and jumped in his arms.

"Jasper!" she sobbed.

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A/N: That was chapter one. I would love to hear what you thought of it. Back to you soon, hopefully.

Love,

Kallie xoxo