A/N: I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed, everyone who has put this story on alert or favorited the story. I truly appreciate it more than I can express. To everyone on twitter and the thread on Twilighted all of whom I talk to daily, thank you so much for your support. To my amazing beta, Stavanger 1, thank you so much for just being there and being the best beta ever! For anyone who doesn't know this and you really should but still, Stavanger1 and Kinolaughs has a blog on which they recommend fics that for whatever reason may not have gotten as much exposure as they should. These stories are amazing and these girls work hard to put out recommendations of great stories worth the time to read so check out their blog at .com/?zx=174f39d5f72e66d1

For reasons that overwhelm me more than I can express in words, Stavanger1 has graced me by recommending Make Me Believe on her blog this week. For that I cannot express my gratitude enough! A simple thank you does not suffice, but it's the only words I have so again Thank You.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Twilight, SM owns it all. Dammit, sad but it's true. I do however own the names of the horses in this fic, and the situations depicted, they are all mine.

More A/N notes at the bottom.

Enjoy!

Chapter 4

BPOV

I let the uneasiness I felt over Rose's behavior go for the moment. I know there's something she's not telling me but I also knew there was no getting it out of her until she was ready to tell me.

We walked up the steps to the little house that had been renovated into the dress shop. There were mannequins draped in the most amazing dresses I had ever laid eyes on. This was just some little hick dressmaker that Alice had commissioned to construct her wedding gown, as well as our bridesmaid dresses. No. Alice always put one hundred and ten percent into everything she did and her wedding was certainly not an exception. Madame Rochelle was a designer who had grown tired of the cat-fighting in the designing world and decided she would settle in a place where she could create yet be as far away from the madness as possible. Somehow she made her way to our little town and continued having, a booming business designing cotillion dresses, and of course ,the wedding attire for the country club set.

Funny ,we never considered ourselves the country club set, but I guess on some levels we were, at least our parents were members even if they rarely ever attended anything there.

"AYYYYY!" I heard the voice of the little pixie before I saw her bounding toward Rose and me.

"Bella, Rose you guys finally made it! I was starting to think you were going to be late again. Bella, you need to get your skinny ass into the first dressing room and get that dress on, I need to see how the cut is going to lay and-" I cut her off before she could go any further.

"Alice, take a breath for Pete's sake. We were not "almost late", we are exactly," I looked at my watch, "five minutes early. Calm down. Madame Rochelle will make sure the dress is perfection; you already know this. Just take a breath." I placed my hands on both of her upper arms, rubbing up and down soothingly.

"Damn Alice, you need to take a pill or something. You're going to have a coronary if you seriously don't calm down," Rose quipped as she made her way to the back of the shop and to the dressing rooms.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just so nervous. I want everything to be just perfect and I got a call first thing this morning that the birch bark we ordered for the centerpieces for the tables has been backordered and I don't know what I'm going to do now. I mean I had this whole picture in my head of how I wanted the center pieces to look and now?" She was gearing up for another melt down session and I placed both my hands on either side of her face.

"Alice, take a breath."She inhaled deeply, "Good. Now listen to me. Are you having a wedding for the perfect flower arrangements and the perfect food and the perfect table centerpieces? Or are you having this wedding to have the perfect husband? Because if you're doing it so that everything looks perfect or tastes perfect and not because Jasper is the perfect man for you then you need to call this whole thing off right now." I could see her visibly begin to relax as what I was asking her began to sink through the frenzy she had worked herself up to today.

"No, Bella you know all I want is Jasper. You're right; I just need to calm down because everything will be fine. It doesn't matter about all the other stuff so long as that man is standing at the end of that aisle; nothing else really matters does it? Thank you." She wiped the tears that had leaked out from her eyes and smiled at me as only Alice could.

"No Alice, it really doesn't." I wrapped my arms around her tiny body, embracing the best friend I have ever had.

"Okay, so you've succeeded in bringing me out of my freak-out but you seriously need to get your ass in that dressing room and put that hot dress on your sexy self." I laughed at her as I kissed her forehead and headed to the room in which she directed.

I have to admit, as little as I like wearing anything even remotely similar to couture, as uncomfortable as I was out of my jeans and boots the dress that Madame Rochelle and Alice had designed was beautiful. After everything that had happened over the last year I just didn't feel comfortable with my body and I didn't feel like a whole woman so it was hard to look at myself as sexy or desirable any longer, but the dress they had created made me feel somewhat pretty.

I stepped out of the dressing room to find Rose on the little raised platform in front of the wall of mirrors, Alice and Madame Rochelle flittering around her making small readjustments. Rose was arguably the most beautiful woman I had ever met. She was tall, with platinum blonde hair that hung to her waist, and a curvaceous body that drove men insane. In complete contrast was the waif that was Alice. Though she was otherworldly beautiful she was tiny, barely five feet tall and so thin that she looked very much like a child. The fact that she was an endless ball of energy only added to the impression of a childlike quality. Me, I was somewhere on the periphery, I felt I was attractive enough. I was certainly not on the level with Rosalie and where Alice was Twiggy thin I had curves, just nothing to write home to momma about.

"OH MY GOD!" Alice squealed, bringing me back to reality.

"Bella, that is amazing! That fits you like it was made just for your body." Alice clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet.

"That dress will knock Seth's socks off when he see's you in it." Rose stepped off the platform so I could take her place.

"Yes darling, this is a perfect fit. I really think no alterations will be needed. I'm quite surprised actually that it fits so well with only the one fitting we were able to get in," Madame Rochelle inspected the lines of the dress to ensure there was nothing that needed to be altered.

The dresses that Alice had chosen were from Madame Rochelle's Casaluna line. Not that I had any freakin' idea what that meant, but that's what I was told so? The dresses that Rose and I would be wearing had a full floor length A-line skirt, or that's what Alice called the skirt, A-line, gathered in a random pattern in small folds; a pale pistachio green. The top was separate from the skirt and was a soft satin cream halter top with a contrasting ribbon around the waist, tied in a bow, the same color as the skirt. I had to admit it was an amazing dress.

"Yes, darling with your coloring and that mahogany hair this dress is perfect for you." Madame Rochelle complimented. "Okay, off with you, you must take it off now before any harm comes to my creation." And with that she shooed me off toward the dressing room to remove the dress. Madame Rochelle would be storing the dresses here until the day before the wedding; this was Alice's idea to keep Jasper from seeing her wedding gown.

As I stepped back out of the dressing room I was overwhelmed with the images of Alice in her wedding gown, standing on the very platform I had vacated a short time ago.

She was stunning. There were really no words for how beautiful she was in her gown. I noticed that Esme had arrived and she was standing just to the side of Alice with her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. Alice had chosen a stunning straight line dress that accentuated the small curves of her body and actually made her look taller somehow. It had this beautiful straight neck line with scalloped appliqués placed in intricate patterns all over the bodice. I think they described it as a tulip dress; it fit her body like a glove until it reached her knees where it gradually flared. There was a small train flowing behind her on the floor. The tiny straps that crossed her shoulders were bejeweled with Swarovski crystals, which were also sewn into patterns on the entire gown. Breathtaking, that's the only way to describe Alice in that moment. Jasper was going to be a happy, happy man.

"Oh, Alice. My dear child…. my baby….. you are remarkable," Esme whispered. I really don't think she had the strength to speak above that she was so overcome with emotion at that moment. It really was a beautiful sight to behold. I remembered when I was the one standing on a similar platform and my mother was witnessing me in my wedding gown for the first time. She held a similar expression to the one on Esme's face but when I think back on it now there was something more there, in her eyes.

I understood that look more a week later when she came to my room the night before my wedding.

"Bella honey, are you sure that this is what you want? Are you sure, with all your heart that he is your future? Are you positive that you can give him your whole heart Bella?" My mother had entered my room as I was preparing for bed.

I was getting married tomorrow. This time tomorrow I would be a married woman; I felt the butterflies in my stomach and swallowed the wave of nausea that threatened to overtake me. I knew this was just normal nervousness before walking down the aisle, it had to be, right? Everybody got a little bit of cold feet before they got married. That's all it was, just nerves.

I would feel better tomorrow after it was all over and we were married and could go back to just being us, this whole wedding planning thing had gotten totally out of hand. I had let Alice talk me into letting her handle all the arrangements and good lord; I should have known that was a mistake. I mean, I really appreciated all the hard work and time she had put into my wedding but really, I would have been just as happy going to the Bahamas and getting married on the beach. Tyler had wanted a church wedding and said that his mother would kill him if we ran off and got married on the beach somewhere so I had relented and allowed Alice to have free rein.

I didn't know why my mother had chosen tonight of all nights to ask me such an off- the- wall question. Of course I was ready to give my heart away, he already had it, and what was she even talking about?

"Yes, momma. I'm sure that this is what I want. He's a good man, he's where I belong, he wants me." I looked at her like she had lost her mind until she laid a small picture frame in my hands, cupped my cheek with her hand and walked out of the room.

The last words that I had uttered registered with me as she gave me one last sad look.

He wants me.

I looked down at the picture that she had placed in my hands and felt the tears well in my eyes.

The thoughts of that picture, my mother's questions, and knowing what I knew now had me feeling shaken. That picture, it was so obvious when my mother laid it in my hands she knew more than she was revealing but she knew that I had to figure it all out on my own. That it wouldn't matter how much she tried to talk to me about how wrong my marriage to Tyler was, when I was in love with another man, I wouldn't have listened. I truly thought at that time that I had gotten over Edward Cullen. I pushed those thoughts away because I just didn't want to think about that now; today was about Alice not about the mess that my life had become. And now that Edward had come back into it there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell it was going to be improving any time in the near future.

~*~

Rose and I were just climbing in her car when my cell phone rang. I hit the little green button to answer the call in a flourish when I notice the id flashed on the screen; it was the veterinarian.

"Hello," I answered almost breathlessly. I was suddenly frightened that something had happened to the foal, that maybe he had taken a turn for the worse, although I had just spoke with James late last night and everything had been fine. It was irrational but I was so connected to this orphaned foal, I couldn't breathe for just a second as the fear gripped me so completely.

"Hey Bella, don't freak out the foal's fine. So you can breathe alright," James laughed into the phone.

I blew out the breath I had been holding and asked, "So what's up then?"

"I just wanted to see if you were ready for your little guy to come home?"

I was speechless. I looked over at Rose with tears in my eyes; she gave me a reassuring smile and reached for my hand. I mouthed to her 'it's James' and she nodded her understanding.

Dr. James Anderson, the veterinarian on staff with the ranch called with an update and to make arrangements for Lacy's foal to finally come home. It seems he was improved to the point where James felt it would be safe for us to trailer him home and with the care he would receive between Laurent and I he thought it would be good to get him home. I know I probably should call him Dr. Anderson, but he was only a couple years older than me and well we had just known each other so long it was hard to think of him as 'Dr. Anderson', he was just James. He was a good guy and a good veterinarian but I still had my suspicions that he had missed something really big in Lacy; we had lost her and almost lost the foal as well.

I listened to all that James needed to tell me in regards to the special feeding schedule and vitamin supplements that he felt would be a good idea to start as well.

"Well…..no, that sounds good. Um, just let me check with Laurent to make sure everything is ready at the barn. What about any other special instructions? "

I completed getting the instructions for what type of care we would need to be providing when we had the foal all to ourselves, making notes in my day planner. Looks like I'd be living in the barn literally for the next several weeks. I would have to make arrangements to have another one of the ranch hands fill in for me when I was gone on our camping trip, and then the Las Vegas auction was only a few weeks away as well.

Alice and Jasper had decided that they did not want to do the traditional bachelor/bachelorette party. They had, instead, decided they wanted just the six of us to take a camping trip. We were riding out to an old haunt of ours from when we were teenagers, it was just a large clearing near the river but it made a great spot for camping and we had packed into it several times over the years. We had spent so many weekends there as teenagers, I couldn't even count how many hours we spent swimming in the river and the guys trying to see who could make the biggest splash in the river from the rope swing that hung from a tree on the river bank. Of course, it was usually Emmett who won that contest. I mean it always seemed pretty obvious to me that he would make a bigger splash in the water than Edward or Jasper's skinny asses, but they still wagered a bet every single time. Boys, really?

I realized after I ended the call with James that my dad would be here, he would be staying at the big house, and this was…. perfect. I always felt better when Charlie was around, especially when there were delicate situations like caring for this foal was going to be, and my dad had lived on our ranch all his life. He knew the ins and outs of everything from caring for an orphaned foal to repairing the hay-baler when it broke down. Nothing ever really got him ruffled and it always helped me stay calm because he took the things that had to be done in stride. I really needed to keep it together for this situation, this foal was going to require a lot of care but I was so ready to have him home.

~*~

EPOV

I slammed the door on my father's car, growling in frustration at the fucktastic display of stupidity that I had succeeded in exhibiting yet again in Bella's presence.

Damn that woman! How can one tiny little female be so enticing and completely infuriating at the same time?

I released a frustrated breath as I ran my hands through my hair pulling it at the ends and hoping to clear my head. I started the car and pushed its limits as I headed off the Swan ranch; away from that little furious tiger kitten. I knew Bella had a temper as well, and I had pushed her to her breaking point.

What the hell, Cullen? What in fuck's sake were you thinking? You were supposed to be apologizing, remember? You were supposed to be trying to mend that fence? Of all the…

I growled in frustration at my inability to control my temper, my jealousy, in her presence.

By the time I made it back to my family's ranch I had at least gotten my temper under control and upon entering the kitchen I found my pixie sister perched on a bar stool, absently flipping through some hellaciously large book.

I stopped dead because I had no fucking idea how to even begin to mend the bridges with my sister. She still had me on a need to know basis, and obviously there was very, very little that I needed to know, she had barely spoke to me since the spectacle I had created with Bella and dinner.

"Hey elf," I called from the doorway of the kitchen as I crossed to the refrigerator to retrieve a beer. I know it's barely noon but dammit I was pissed and it was hot as hell already outside so I needed it, sue me.

Alice looked up at me from her bridal planner or datebook or whatever the hell that monstrosity was, it had more stickers and random loose pieces of paper sticking out of it than anything I had ever seen. She did not respond to my pitiful attempt at goading her into a conversation.

"So, whatcha lookin'at?" I leaned a hip into the counter just out of reach of her evil little fingers. Alice was notorious for pinching in that extremely sensitive skin just on the underside of the bicep, and I'm not a wus but that shit hurts like a son of a bitch.

Again, nothing. Well hells bells, the evil little sprite was really pissed at me. So I tried another approach. I knew I would probably regret it but it was worth a try. I hadn't seen my sister for any length of time in years and I really didn't want her to be on hiatus from speaking to me the whole time I was in town.

"Alice look, I'm sorry if I offended you and hurt you by my asswipe performance at dinner the other night." I figured the worst that could happen is she would launch her tiny body off that stool and scratch my eyes out. Don't laugh, that was totally possible, Alice may be little but she's vicious.

She glared at me for what seemed like for-fucking-ever before she finally smiled an evil grin and I felt my stomach flip, I might have even thrown up a little in my mouth. Seriously, Alice scared the shit out of me, even more so than Rose. Rose was all full out no holds barred kick ass and take names, you kind of always knew where you stood with Rosalie. Fact is right now I knew I was not in good standing with much of anybody. At least Em and Jasper were still talking to me. Emmett and I had a conversation and he'd warned me again, and I quote "don't ever fucking talk to my sister like that again unless you want those raisins you call balls to be detached from your body, do I make myself clear?'

So we were good because I knew he was completely serious and I definitely needed very much to keep my body as is. I unconsciously cupped my balls as the memory of Emmet's threat came back to me.

"Brother dear," oh shit, "I know you are very sorry for treating my best friend like trash. I also know that there is more to your little outburst the other night than you are letting on, so I'm going to let it slide because…. well , honestly I don't have time to torture you as I would so enjoy doing right now. I'm too busy trying to pull off this wedding, so for once you're receiving a reprieve, consider yourself very fucking lucky." With that she hopped down from her perch, but as she passed the evil sprite pinched the underside of my bicep so hard I knew she had to have broken the skin.

"OW! Damn woman! I thought you said you were letting me off the hook?" I questioned as I rubbed the area where her tiny nails had left indentions in my skin. She released the most evil laugh I believe I have ever heard and a chill ran down my back.

"Oh you did get off easy Edward." She was still laughing as she skipped out of the room and down the hallway. God only knows where the evil wench was off to, I just knew that I would still need to be on guard because I was getting the feeling that her idea of letting me off the hook and my idea of said situation were not on the same plane of reality.

~*~

I made my way up the stairs of my parent's home, to my childhood bedroom, with the autopsy reports I had been given by Bella earlier today in hand. I had only briefly scanned them while in the office with Bella but in such close proximity to her it was hard to concentrate on anything, especially something as complex as what I seemed to be seeing on this report as I took time to truly dissect every revelation.

I read and re-read the reports more than once. I scrubbed my hands over my face, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands. I needed more information on this mare to help make sense of what I was seeing. I needed to make a phone call.

"Hello?" I heard his voice and took a deep breath as I prepared to ask the questions I needed answers to and I didn't think that the answers I gave would be received very well.

"Em, I need some answers. I'm looking at these autopsy reports and I need you to tell me more about this mare," I said quickly, preparing myself to tell him the answers I had for him at this point. I knew Emmett was not going to be happy about what I had to tell him. Honestly, I was pretty pissed myself. To know that a colleague could be negligent in such epic proportions, I shook my head at the realization of how this would affect Bella. If my suspicions were right their vet had missed a major health issue with this mare.

I spoke with Emmett giving him a brief rundown of my preliminary thoughts and requested that he get any lab reports that he could provide me with so I could make a more definitive diagnosis. If I was going to make the claim that a colleague had screwed up and missed something like this I wanted to be sure I was right.

A/N:

There are links on my profile for Bella/Rose bridesmaid dresses and Alice's wedding dress if anyone wants to actually see the dresses.

Now please review. I'm really a junkie for the reviews, I love 'em. Never thought I would be the one asking for reviews, cause I really never expected to be writing a fic but here I am doing both. Show me some love and let me know what you think?

I know some of you are jonesing for Edward to apologize for being such a dick and I promise it's coming, the boy has issues and it's coming, he just has to work through things.

Okay I want to rec a story that really deserves your attention.

Cullen312 has a story Embodiment and it truly is great so go read it now! Really it deserves your attention, you will not be sorry! The link is in my favorites, check it out, you won't regret it!

So now hit that little green button and let me know what you think so far? MWAH!!!