Kissin' Cousins

Bella Swan is the newest member to the Denali clan. When the Cullen family pays a visit, Edward falls hard – but can he tame Bella's succubus ways? Canon pairings.

PART 1

Becoming Vampire

Chapter 1

Seventeen year-old Bella Swan just wanted to stay home with her mother during her first few weeks of summer vacation. Mid-May is one of the best times (weather-wise) to live in Phoenix. The days aren't nearly as warm as June, July or August. And the nights are usually cool enough to sleep with the windows open. May usually holds the last days before the hot, hot months to come. It is usually the time when the 'snowbirds' fly back to their homes in the Midwest or Northeast to beat the heat of a full-blown Phoenix summer.

But Bella's mother had other ideas. "You need time to bond with your father," was Renee's constant mantra. Bella couldn't dispute this. Since she was a baby, she'd only seen her father two weeks each year. And, those two weeks were always filled with fishing. Bella had tried to win her father's love and acceptance by telling him she actually liked to fish. Since that admission when she was a little girl, fishing was all her father had ever planned for her visits.

Bella enjoyed visiting Charlie in his hometown of Forks, Washington. Everything was so green and different from the desert steppe that was Phoenix. She even enjoyed the rain (except while she was out fishing.) The fresh smell, the patter on the roof and the overcast sky created a romantic mood in her mind. These were the days to stay in bed with a good book and a roaring fire. All that was missing was someone to snuggle up to...

Once Bella became a teenager, Charlie decided she needed better fishing venues than Forks. One year they went to Colorado to fly fish. When she visited in winter, they went to Minnesota and ice fished in rickety little (and very cold) shacks. This coming trip, however, made Charlie giddy. He was going to take Bella to Alaska to fish spawning salmon. This was something that he had wanted to do ever since fishing became his most serious hobby. Bella didn't know any of Charlie's life ambitions, but for as long as she could remember she knew that he dreamed of fishing salmon in Alaska. So, she wasn't surprised when Charlie planned this trip, it was just that she had hoped that she wouldn't be involved. No such luck…

Charlie sent his only child all the literature the tour company had given him. They would take a float plane from to a remote Alaskan wilderness. The plane would land on a lake. From there, Charlie and Bella would take a small boat to their log cabin - home for ten glorious days of 'fish-filled excitement." She scoffed at that description in the pamphlet. The cabin held a stock of food, a GPS navigating system, and a short-wave radio - no electricity, no running water, not even an indoor bathroom! "Oh," Bella thought, "this is the worst yet…"

While she was busy pondering a last-ditch effort to extricate herself from the situation, Charlie called. "So, tomorrow you'll be up here and then we'll be on our way to a fishing paradise!" Bella noticed the excitement in his voice – something she rarely heard. Right then, she gave in. She would make Charlie happy one more year – what was two weeks, anyways? She could do just about anything for two weeks.

Bella had packed a suitcase, and then nestled it inside of another, bigger suitcase. Because she lived in the "Valley of the Sun', she didn't own too many articles of the heavy-weight clothing that she would need in Alaska. She would spend a day in Forks, Washington, at her father's house before their trek to the 49th state. She should be able to find the wintry clothing that she needed in Port Angeles, a city near Forks. She could probably even find her wardrobe at a second hand store where it would be cheaper. After all, why spend a small fortune on clothing she wouldn't be able to use in her normal desert habitat.

What Bella did pack in her two nested suitcases were the few sweaters that she owned, a coat and all her other necessities that weren't weather-dependent. Those few things left tons of room for books: Austen; Bronte; Shakespeare - all the classics she could fit. Though her bag was heavy when she hefted it into her mother's car, she felt relief in the weight. All of her best friends for as long as she could remember were tucked away safely in that luggage.

The flight from Phoenix to Seattle was uneventful, and she was glad to be able to stretch her legs when her trip was complete. As she came out of the secure area of the airport, she could see Charlie's smiling face. She walked up to him and they shared a quick, awkward hug and peck on the cheek. They waited for her suitcases at the baggage carousel. "There it is, Dad! The one with the blue strap around it." Charlie hoisted it off the meandering metal river. Bella almost laughed out loud when Charlie's face turned beet red and the veins in his forehead and neck popped out, straining at his skin. She forgot to let him know how heavy it was. "Geez, Bells, what's in here, bodies?"

Baggage in tow, they were off to Forks and Charlie's small house. Bella told him of her need to shop for clothing that afternoon. Charlie nodded, "O.K., just wait 'til I hear the score of the Mariner's game… We'll have to drive over to Port Angeles, too." Bella was not looking forward to either riding around in the police cruiser all afternoon or her shopping excursion, and was desperately hoping that the whole thing would be over quickly.

To her amazement, Bella found the shopping was easy. There was plenty of inexpensive winter clothing available. She was able to get everything she needed at just the first three stores she entered. Although none of the clothing was much to look at, she didn't care. She was going to be alone in the woods with her father – it didn't matter if her sweater was striped the most hideous combination of colors ever put together, her pants had to be belted to stay up and her jacket had a stain on it. She was going to toss the clothes into the donation bin in front of the neighborhood church when they returned to Forks, anyways. Bella chuckled to herself when she came to the conclusion that the clothes might make their ways back to the stores where she purchased them.

When they returned to the house at dusk, Charlie began loading his car with all the fishing gear he owned. Bella asked, "Dad, do you need any help?" He replied with, "No thanks, Bella, I've almost got it finished here." While walking to the front door, Bella pointed at the bags in her hand and said, "In that case, I am going to wash these and pack." Charlie suddenly felt like he had to use some of his parenting skills and blurted out, "I'll be inside in just a few minutes and we can order some pizza for dinner, O.K.?"

Bella headed into the laundry room and began washing her 'new' clothing. By the end of the evening, both of her suitcases were hauled downstairs and into Charlie's cruiser. Both Charlie and Bella turned-in early since they needed to wake up well before dawn to catch their flight.

Bella didn't sleep very soundly that night. She was not looking forward to this trip. Ever since she had become a 'woman', staying in Charlie's one-bathroom house had become uncomfortable. Now, Bella was off to stay at a place that only had an outhouse… This certainly was going to test her patience with Charlie.

3:00 A.M. came suddenly. Bella rolled herself out of bed and threw on the clothes she had laid out the previous evening. She was still thinking there might be a way that she could get out of doing this. But when she finally entered the kitchen, Charlie stood smiling the biggest, crinkliest smile she had seen in years. He held up a new fishing pole with a giant bow on it. Behind Bella's strained smile, all her fabricated reasons for not going on this trip melted into a big glob of guilt on the linoleum floor.

Bella barely remembered the taxi ride to the airport, the flight to a lake near Kenai, Alaska, or the dinghy ride to the dock in front of their rented cabin. She wasn't sure if she had fallen asleep, or if the psychological ramifications of this torture had shut down her mind. Whichever way, there she was, standing in front of the tiny cabin she and her father would call home for the next 10 days. She silently wished her mental shutdown would return.

For the next few hours, she and Charlie familiarized themselves with the inside and outside of the cabin. They were given instructions on safety from the pilot of the float plane. They looked through maps and listened to the weather report as was advised. When they were done with the planning for the following day, Charlie looked at Bella and noticed that she seemed to be more content than she'd been since she de-boarded the plane in Seattle. He commented on it by saying, "This seems to be something that you enjoy, Bells… Have any of your school counselors or teachers suggested a career in logistics?"

They then spent the next hour talking about possible future plans for Bella. It made her a little uncomfortable. She never thought much about her future. She didn't buy into all the wonderful, classic stories she always read where just the right someone happened to stroll into the heroine's life at just the right time. Even so, she somehow thought (or maybe wished) that the perfect thing for her – whatever that was- would just appear some day out of nowhere just like it had in all those stories. Thinking about it was giving her a headache.

She began to yawn. It was almost 6:00 P.M. Since they had been up since 3:00 in the morning, and the cabin had no electricity, Bella decided to call it a day. "Dad," she said, "I'll keep the logistics thing in mind and talk to my counselor when school starts back up in the fall. Right now, though, I am more tired than I think I have ever been in my entire life! I am going to bed. See you in the morning." Charlie insisted that Bella stay in the one bedroom in the cabin while he would sleep on the pull-out couch. "Goodnight, Bella, and I'm setting the alarm for 4:00 A.M., so we'll be able to get out there and fish!" Bella mumbled quiet enough that Charlie couldn't hear. "Oh, joy of joys… It makes him happy. It makes him happy. It makes him happy."

Bella continued that chant while she changed into her sweats and hopped into bed. She used her book light to read a bit of Bronte before drifting off into an uncomfortable sleep. She woke somewhere in the middle of the night freezing cold. She added some more wood to the pot-bellied stove in the corner of her room and rifled through her suitcase for another pair of sweats, her wooly socks and her knit hat. She finally fell back to sleep after about a half-hour of violent shivering.