It's just an average day. Everyone is around doing his or her regular activities during the long day. It's been about a year since the Volturi came. Today Emmett challenged Bella to another arm wrestling match.
I can't believe that he wants to go against me again. Wow, I might end up being still stronger than him for a good while.
Here comes Alice walking over toward us.Oh great! What could she possibly want now? I tried to keep my concentration, not to loose focus. Emmett's eyes move to the side and I see my chance. His arm goes down in a flash. The rock receives a deep hole and quite a few cracks in the middle of it where Emmett's fist went down.
"Hey! That wasn't fair!" he protests.
"I won! Again!"
"You didn't win! There was a distraction in the mist!" he exclaimed pointing is finger behind him.
"Whatever! You know I would have beaten you anyway, right Alice?" I ask her.
Emmett glares back at Alice.
"She does have a point." She shrugs.
Emmett growls, as he looks the other direction.
Everyone is silent for a second before I eventually speak up. "Was there something that you wanted to tell us Alice?"
"Oh, yeah, everyone needs to get ready for another one of Charlie's 'surprise visits'." She quotes 'surprise visit' before continuing on, "I see he has some news that he wants to share with Bella." She smiles as she finishes.
"You just love torturing me like this, don't you" I find myself saying under my breath. Of course I was annoyed that she always did this to me. Her smile becomes even wider at my comment.
"Of course!" she angelically answers. "It just brightens up my day." She says almost joyfully.
It's probably a few minutes later that everyone was in the house when Charlie's cruiser pulled into the driveway. We all positioned ourselves as Renesmee got up and practically skipped over to the door. She opened it when Charlie was barely able to knock on the door. We need to get her to practice on waiting to open the door when a human comes over.
The door opens and Nessie squeals out in a little voice, "Grandpa!"
"Hey, kiddo," He answers back as he bends down to give her a hug.
I draw a quick glance over at Edward who gives me a quick smile. Of course he knew what Charlie was thinking. That was one of the many talents that my husband possessed. Charlie turns to us and asks, "How old is she again?"
Edward is quick to answer, "A couple years old." His voice sounded a little flat.
"She grows so fast! Every time I see her, she seems to have grown a couple inches." It felt like everyone in the room was holding their breath except for the two who needed to breathe of course. I even found myself holding my own breath. I knew that everyone was waiting for him to continue, but to everyone's relief, he didn't.
Instead Carlisle, trying to break the silence, asks him, "So what brings you here today?"
"Oh, I came to see Nessie and to share some news with Bella." He answers while looking around at everyone in the room. It must have felt awkward to have the room filled with a bunch of people and to be completely silent.
After a quarter of a second, Esme speaks up, "Rosalie, Alice, would you mind helping me upstairs for a little bit?" Rose and Alice get up quickly, but ever so gracefully and walk upstairs with Esme.
After another half a second, Jasper's head pops up as he asks Emmett, "Didn't you tell me that you wanted to go somewhere today?"
Emmett instantly gets the hint. "Oh, yeah, let's go!" he exclaims as he gets up and walks out the door with Jasper following close behind him. Carlisle sits down at his desk and pulls out a bunch of papers. They hear the jeep pull out the driveway before Charlie decides to continue.
"Guess who's going to be in town?" he asks acting all excited.
"I don't know…" I start to say, but he cuts me off.
"Lizzy!" he exclaims. The name sounded so familiar, but I couldn't remember who it was. Most of the memories of my human life were foggy and faint.
Charlie's expression changes into a frown. "Don't you remember your cousin, Elizabeth? Well, I guess it must have been years. You were probably about 6…" he continues, but I blocked out the rest that he said. I try to push away the faintness of all of my distant human memories. I finally get to the image of a blonde, short curly haired little girl with bright eyes like emeralds and a smile full of pearly white teeth.
I feel myself exclaim, "Oh, Lizzy!" once I get that image in my head. I can't believe I was able to remember something that far back in my human memory.
"Lizzy's going to be coming in this weekend and she'll be staying with me for a while before heading out to California. You know, Uncle Ben still lives out in Minnesota. I had to convince him that she would probably be happy to see you, Bella, before she heads out to California since she'll be heading this way anyway. Of course, I wanted to see my youngest niece all grown up. Did you know, she just finished high school recently and wants to become an actress?"
"Really?" I answer back.
"Yeah, she's scheduled to meet someone in the beginning of next month and so she was going to come here a while before…" Charlie was interrupted by a knock on the door. I was surprised that I was so into the conversation that I didn't hear anyone coming. I knew who it was going to be anyway, but the strong stench confirmed it.
Carlisle gets up and answers the door. "Hello, Jacob." He says in the calm voice of his. Charlie looks over towards the door looking a little confused. Edward tries to fix that.
"Jacob offered to watch Nessie today so Bella and I can go out to do something." Edward turns at me, then starts rubbing under his eye. I instantly get the hint and realize that I was getting a little thirsty.
"Well Dad, we should be leaving soon. We'll see you later." I gently gesture him out the door.
As soon as Charlie is halfway out the door, he turns back around to me. "I'll be sure to have Lizzy visit you or you could always come over to see her."
"Thanks, I'll remember that dad." I call out as he continues out the door. The door finally closes behind him. We finally hear the car pull out onto the highway.
We stand in silence. Edward eventually whispers in my ear, "Are you ready to go? It looks like you could really get away."
Without hesitating I reached for the doorknob just as Alice calls out from upstairs, "We'll see you later!" I let out a big sigh and look at Edward. He smiles his smile that I love.
"Well are you coming?" I playfully ask him as I open the door. I feel myself swept off my feet and heading out the door.
Later, while we are out hunting mountain lions, Edward stands on a hill a ways off watching me as I take the lion down. When I finish, he is still watching me and so I just stare at him back. He eventually says something, "I can't believe that I am still amazed with you."
I playfully add, "Well, I guess I must be amazing."
Before anyone could even blink, he is at my side with his arm around my waist. He bends down and whispers in my ear with a voice that is ever so sweet, "Of course you are." He kisses my cheek ever so swiftly. His soft hands caress my face as he looks into my eyes.
"Will you tell me what's on your mind?" he asks me almost pleading.
I turn toward the sunset. It only takes me a second to answer.
"I keep thinking about Lizzy. It's been years since I've seen her. We used to play together when we were really little. I kind of want to see her, but at the same time, I don't. I might end up seeing her at least once while she's here, for Charlie's sake."
"You will have to be careful if you do." He answers in a soft voice.
"I know we wouldn't want her to get suspicious." We both face the sunset with his arm around my waist. I gently lay my head on his shoulder. A word isn't passed between us for a couple of seconds. "Now you need to tell me what's on your mind." I say to him peering up into his face. He looks down at me and smiles the smile that I adore.
"Alright," He eventually sighs and loses his smile. He takes what would seem like a moment to continue. "Charlie is starting to figure out the whole wolf thing. It eventually gets around when he spends a lot of time with the mother of two werewolves."
I instantly knew that he was talking about Sue Clearwater. Her son, Seth, and her daughter, Leah, can both phase into werewolves. It skipped the generation of her husband because during that time, there were no vampires around. Now there are eight living in the area, including the half human, half vampire daughter of ours.
"Does he know about us?" I asked referring to my vampire family.
"He's starting to piece everything together." He flatly states in the same tone, not taking his eyes off the sunset.
How much does he know? He can't know about vampires. If the Volturi would find out when he did, his life would have to end. When they found out that I knew about the Cullen's world when I was still human, they threatened my vampire family. Even recently, they were horrified and somewhat thrilled that a vampire child was born. Who knows how long they'll wait before they come back to visit. We are not in good terms with them right now. We don't need another human knowing that we exist.
We are both silent for a good while as the sun slowly sets. Edward is silent as he stares out toward the sun. He most likely has the same thoughts running through his mind.
"Are you ready to start back yet?" he eventually asks.
I answer back, "Maybe in a minute." I didn't want to spoil the mood with these thoughts. I try to put them aside for later when we might need them. It was only seconds later when I got an idea. I removed his arm from my waist and take off as I call back to him, "Race you home!" I hear him chuckle a little and he is soon close behind me as we head home together.