This is going to be a quick update. I'm trying to decide between quick short chapters, that way I'm posting everyday or longer chapters were I still to get writers block.


I wake up to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of my grandmother's rocking chair softy rocking in the corner of my room. Even after my eyes come into focus, the room is still dark, and it's hard to make anything out. There's diffidently a strong coffee aroma filling the room and a cool breeze coming from my open bedroom window.

It dawns on me that I never opened my bedroom window and I never brought myself up to bed. I reach for the bedside light, knocking into a hot cup of what I assume is coffee, and I quickly turn on the lamp. My heart is pounding, but the room is empty.

The rocking chair still as night, but there is indeed a hot cup of coffee sitting on my bedroom nightstand. Perhaps a peace offering from Jacob after last night's fiasco. He probably came back to check on me and found me curled up by the door where I had cried myself to sleep.

If you ever wanted to kidnap me or adult-nap me. You could simple write "FREE COFFEE" on the side of a big white van with no windows, and I'd jump in. I do just that today. I pick up the coffee cup without thinking twice about it. I take a sip, and it's perfect. Just the way I like it, two sweet n lows and the perfect amount of almond milk, Diffidently Jacob. No one else knows my coffee like he does or that's what I thought until I look down and see that a small handwritten note has fallen off the bottom of the cup.

"You're going to be late for work, Bell." I'd know the writing anywhere, I've studied it for almost 4 years. It's the Bell that's throwing me off. Only my dad called me Bell.

I quickly throw the blankets off and fly to get my gun, hanging from my gun belt on the bed post. I check to make sure it's loaded, and run to the open window. Poking my head out. It's a long way down, and no one's climbed in it since I was 10 and my dad cut down the tree that stood in front of it, after finding Jacob sleeping on my bedroom floor because his mom had left them.

I dart to the closet and then stick my head out my bedroom door. I know I should head down and check the first floor, but I don't. I head back to my bed instead and pull up the loose floorboard at the end of my bed. I don't really need to check. I'd know his elegant handwriting anywhere, but I grab the shoebox full of letters anyways. Pulling out the first one. I yanked it from the neatly kept envelope and dive across my bed trying to find the note that I held minutes ago.

I can't find it, I'm yanking all the blankets off the bed because I know it's there. I'm starting to think it was my imagination when it slowly floats to the ground, as do I. I crumple both letters in my hand, the writing is an exact match. What does this mean? Why Bell? How is he here? Why is he here?

From the corner of my eye, I see yesterdays uniform in a pile on the floor, and I'm up and yanking it on. I shove the letters in my front pocket. Toss my hair in a ponytail and grab my gun belt and gun. I give the coffee on the nightstand a quick glance and say what the hell. If he wanted me dead, he could have killed me in my sleep last night, instead of making me coffee, and I can think of worse ways to died then coffee.

I grab the coffee, chugging it as I run down the stairs. I give the house a once-over, everything seems to be in order and locked. I scrabble around the house looking for my cruiser keys, chugging down as much coffee as I can. I find the keys, drop the coffee mug on the table and I'm out the door. Let just hope I don't have to do any real police work today because I reek like old whiskey and I didn't even brush my teeth.

I spend as much of my shift as I can out in the cruiser. I tell the Chief that I'm handling some complaints about yesterday's party on the reservation. It's a good lie because we always get a tone of complaints when the outer city pack members roll into town. Usually noise complaints because off all the bikes, and most of the time there's nothing we can do about it because it happened on tribal land.

My mind is on anything but work. So, I park my cruiser just outside the reservation and try to figure something out, anything.

How is he out? Did he escape? I go over my calls to the prison in my head over, and over. They just said they could only give out information to his family or persons on his emergency card. When I told them I was a police officer, they said they needed all my force information. Along with a report as to why I needed to know the inmate's whereabouts.

Two life sentences, plus 15 years. With time served for the 3 years, that he was fighting the charges. He's only been incarcerated for 14 years. I know that's a long time, but it's nothing close to the 65-year sentence. Even if he was a model prisoner, with good behavior that's still not even close to enough time served.

"Bell…" why Bell and if he's here for Bell why didn't he just kill me last night? Why wake me up and make sure I'm not late for work?

My head is pounding, and I can't think anymore. I close my eyes and jump when there's a light tapping on my driver window. "Jeez Jacob," I yelp. "What the hell? You scared the crap out of me."

I roll down the window, and Jacob sticks his head inside. "Wow Bella, ever heard of a shower? You stink like the bottom of a whiskey barrel."

"Yeah well, I didn't sleep much and rolled out of bed late." Which wasn't all true. I slept great, apparently so well. I didn't want to get up this morning. It still didn't help my hangover though.

He reaches in and puts his hand over mine. "I'm sorry about that, about last night, and about what's happened in all the time between now and then."

I don't know what to say. It would have been nice to hear months ago. It's hard hearing it now, and I feel like he's only doing it because I'm no longer corresponding with the enemy. In the 4 years that I was writing him, I never let it affect how I felt about Jacob, and I never crossed the line when Jacob and I were involved. Jacob was the one who continuously had me like a yo-yo.

"You know Jake," It feels like forever since I've called him that. "That would have been nice to hear months ago, weeks ago, maybe even days ago, but for some reason today it just means nothing." I pull my hand away from his.

I can remember a time when we were best friends when I could tell him anything. He would have been the one person I would have told this secret too. The only person I would have trusted. He would have been the one person who would have understood it because he got me. It's funny how sex and power change things. Now, in his world, everything is about power, and this took away a piece of his power.

I don't wait for Jacob to pull his arms out of the cruiser, I pop the car into drive and step on it. Hoping to take off a foot or a hand, I look in the rear view only to see he escaped unharmed. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I slam my palm against the steering wheel, as I drive away. "Why didn't you just fucking kill me too?" My head drops against the steering wheel as I come to a stop a stop sign, and I ball my eyes out, screaming, and yelling at him, at Jacob, at my parents, at all of them.

I determine that I'm done for the day, I call into the station, and the chief has already left to have dinner with his family. I drive to the station and double check that the deputies on duty will be okay with me cutting out a little early. They're young kids. Quil knows all about the party at the reservation last night, he was there. Before his dad passed away he was part of the pack. I let him know if they need anything to call me, and he assures me that he's cool with it.

I hit the file room for the hundredth time in the last 6 years and grab all the usual files. Only this time I snatch Victoria's file as well. It's the one file I've never brought myself to look at. Victoria was Emmett's wife and my father gunned her down in the line of duty. Almost 15 years ago.