DISCLAIMER: Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight saga and all the characters. I own nothing except my measly little plot. A shout out also to Margaret Mitchell for the Gone With the Wind references.
A/N: Thanks to everyone for the hits, reviews and favorites! I'm glad you are enjoying this story as much as I am.
Chapter 3: As God is my witness…
Edward POV
"Leave it to Alice to find a new way to torture me with shopping!" I laughed as Bella dramatically threw herself on the bed, covering her eyes with her forearm.
"Yes, my dear Scarlett, Alice's main mission in life is devising new and bizarre methods for torturing you. Between that and planning new techniques for jumping Jasper's bones, she barely has time to think about anything else…" Bella's melodious laugh started as soon as I called her Scarlett.
"Oh Rhett darling, thank the Lord Almighty you have your amazing mind reading abilities to protect me."
"Bella dear, you know I adore you, but your southern accent is atrocious!"
"Yet another thing you are perfect at of course, but give me another 80 years to try and catch up."
I walked over and leaned down over her on the bed. "Why don't you show me some of the things you already excel at, my love?" Her eyes burned a deep golden ochre as she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me to her.
Almost as quickly as we started, I pulled away from Bella and growled as I heard what was going on in the living room.
"… You better make it up to me." Jacob started thinking about just how my little girl could do that. That's right honey; I'm talking about the red lace teddy and LOTS of chocolate flavored whipped cream…
Luckily, my brilliant wife realized what was going on and she managed to restrain me from ripping off the head of my son-in-law. Even after her newborn power waned, she could still give me a run for my money in the strength department. She pulled me back down onto the bed and sat on my lap, trying to distract me. "She's a grown woman Edward. They've been married for over 10 years; give the poor boy a break."
"Fine, but that's enough of that! Please do me the courtesy of leaving first the next time you want to think about things like that Jacob!" Bella shook her head at my tone, but I was doing this for their own good. The next time Jacob's mind got fresh, Bella might not be there to save him.
"Thanks Dad! See you tomorrow after the game. On that note, let's get out of here Jake." To his credit, the dog kept his mind clean from then on. My darling daughter, on the other hand, picked right back up where Jake had left off in her own mind!
"Who does she learn this stuff from? Do you know what our 'little girl' was just thinking about doing to Jacob? No, you definitely don't want to know!" I was pacing the room, trying to calm down. They hadn't even made it out the back door yet, so I had a long wait for a respite from Nessie's increasingly disturbing thoughts.
Bella wrapped her arms around me from behind, laughing at my reaction. "Who does she learn from? Well, Rose and Emmett are definitely at the top of my hit list. And what exactly do you think was going to happen right here about 2 minutes ago? I know 20 years isn't that long to you, but it is to a human, well a half-human! And she's been emotionally and physically mature for much longer than most 20 year olds. Seriously Edward, eternity is going to be pretty long if you are going to continue to behave this way every time Nessie and Jacob think about sex! You've managed for over 100 years living with Rose and Emmett, although I don't know how, so you are just going to have to try and think about her as one of your siblings when it comes to stuff like that."
"Well, when you put it that way, I guess nothing is worse than the sex fiends we have for a brother and sister! I'll try to work on my reactions, but I'm not promising anything." I allowed Bella to pull me back over to the bed, but this time she turned her attention to the mountain of sales flyers piled up in the center.
"So, Mr. Butler, what do you suggest we do with these?" My ridiculous wife was really pulling out all the stops to try and get me in a better mood. I was going to have to take her on vacation to Mississippi or something so she could work on that accent of hers.
I picked up the stack of flyers and threw them on the ground. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" And we picked up where we left off…that is, until I was distracted YET AGAIN!
"You cheaters! You are probably going to get everything for free!" Alice and Jasper were crossing the line! Intimidating innocent shopkeepers into giving them unheard of discounts? Hell, they could do that without Jasper's gift, but with it those clerks were going to be putty in their hands.
"Who's the cheater now Edward? Stop eavesdropping and work on your own plan!" Well, now I was finally motivated to do just that. They weren't going to get away with their plan, I had to find a way to outsmart them.
"Fine. But you guys are GOING DOWN!" Bella just giggled as she looked at me, trying to figure out what was going on. I quietly explained what Alice and Jasper were planning, trying to keep my attention on their thoughts so I could catch their next tactic.
Bella POV
I swear, Emmett is rubbing off on him. Edward never used to be this competitive! I couldn't care less about winning this game, but I guess we had to make an effort now. Great, you know if I 'do well' at this shopping exercise, Alice is going to think I have been converted into a shopaholic and force me to go with her even more! I glanced at my adoring husband, making sure he got the drift of that thought; it was possible he was paying too much attention to our competitors to hear me.
To my surprise, he shot me a guilty look, followed by his patented crooked smile with the question of forgiveness in his eyes. I hated that I could never stay mad at him long enough to punish him anymore. You'd think the longer we were together, the more I'd get used to him; but no, he continued to "dazzle" me more and more every day.
I groaned, and handed him some flyers. "C'mon Edward, let's at least start looking at what is on sale. We have our own gifts to use and abuse the retail world with tomorrow. Think of all you can do simply by reading everyone's mind. You'll know if they really do have any more 'in the back' even if they say no. You'll know when someone else thinks something is an outrageous deal…and then we can just steal it from them. And don't forget your ability to dazzle!"
I could see the wheels turning in his mind, something was definitely up. He obviously hadn't decided yet, since Alice hadn't stormed in here to accuse him of cheating again. I figured he'd find a way to tell me whatever it was, so I just kept flipping through the sales pages, looking for anything I might like.
"Isn't there one of those indie record stores in this mall? Maybe they will have some decent music there…they are bound to have a sale too, right?" At least he was thinking of some helpful things now; but we weren't going to win by saving a dollar on a bunch of CDs.
"Yes they do, but I don't think we'll be getting much of a discount there. What do you think of these pillows? 75% off and they certainly seem like to have a lot of feathers in them…" With that, Edward hit me with his pillow and finally snapped out of his stupor.
"If you want me to concentrate on this shopping madness, you better stop distracting me!"
"If I want you to concentrate? If I'm not mistaken, you're the one who told Alice and Jasper that they were 'GOING DOWN!' You know damn well that I'm only doing this to support your random competitiveness…we are talking about me, Bella, shopping on Black Friday, remember?"
"Hehe! Yeah, you better get your head on straight Alice!" Edward ignored what I said, obviously too busy muttering about something else Alice was thinking under his breath. "Oh, I forgot all about listening for Rose and Emmett's plans, what the hell is Alice talking about, what is Emmett going to do? Ugh! I think it's too late for that now, they're clearly past the planning stages and have moved on to 'other activities' for the remainder of the evening! I'm scarred for life after that image – you're right, I don't know how I've lived this long under the same roof as the two of them!"
"That's what you get for eavesdropping on your family. Even I can tell that Alice and Jasper have also moved on to 'other activities' by now, so don't waste your time there. Let's just try and figure out what we are going to do, and then you can worry about stalking the rest of them tomorrow." Honestly, he was so childish sometimes; I ran my fingers through his hair, chuckling at the state he had worked himself into.
"Now that is a plan Bella! I always told you that you were the smart one in this relationship." For some reason, he was staring at me as if I had just figured out the secret to cold fusion.
"What on earth are you talking about? You want to stalk everyone? What good will that do?" I was totally confused.
"Remember what we've been working on with Nessie and Jacob, with your shield?"
I thought back to the past few months and the work we'd been doing. It started with just trying to figure out if there was any way to keep Nessie out of my head, just for curiosity's sake. I found that if I could "double wrap", for lack of a better term, my shield around me, Nessie's projected images were so faint I wouldn't have known they were there if I hadn't been looking for them. I had tried to "double wrap" Edward and Jacob a couple times, and hadn't been that successful. But the last couple times I tried, I'd managed to keep Edward "wrapped" for a full 5 minutes.
"What is that going to do? So I can stop you from seeing Nessie's images? How will that help tomorrow?"
"Well, Alice had a vision about Nessie using her gift to help her and Jacob tomorrow. I didn't see the whole thing, but it seems as though she will be showing people things they are looking for, just in the opposite direction of where they actually are. And you can't just stop me from seeing her images, you can stop anyone from seeing her images."
"Okay, I can see your point there. But how can we get close enough to stop them without her and Jacob knowing?"
"I'll just keep tabs on where they are and when they plan on using it. We just need to stay far enough away to keep them from getting suspicious, and then zoom in; you wrap the intended victim and I buy whatever it was they were trying to get."
"That's brilliant my love! But do you really want to do that to our daughter? I thought your grudge was against Alice and Jasper?" I didn't mind playing these games, but I hated the thought of being the cause of Nessie's unhappiness, no matter how fleeting.
"You didn't have to endure her thoughts after I yelled at Jacob. She deserves punishment for putting me through that!" Edward looked serious enough that I didn't question his motivation. "But you do have a point about Alice and Jasper. We've never tried your 'double wrap' method on either of their gifts, but maybe we can try it out tomorrow."
With that, I broke into a huge grin. He didn't realize it, but we had actually done quite an experiment tonight. "Technically, that isn't true. Earlier, when you were arguing with Alice, Jasper kept trying to send you waves of hostility and competitiveness, trying to rile you up even further. I threw my double shield around you, trying to keep the worst of it away. Judging from how I felt from his forced emotions, there is no way they reached you. You calmed down much too quickly; I never would have been able to keep you from going downstairs and wrestling with Jasper if you had felt even a tenth of what he was projecting."
Edward dropped the papers he was leafing through, picked me up and threw me down on the bed. Pulling my Scarlett accent out one more time, I whispered to him. "Sir, you are no gentleman."
He stared deep into my eyes, hovering above me, teasing me. Huskily, he breathed his line to me. "And you, Miss, are no lady."
The rest of the plans were going to have to wait for a while…
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did! Keep on guessing about the prize, you haven't gotten it yet. And, I have no idea where the
By the way, don't forget to check out my other (much more serious) story "Destiny of Dreams."
