A/N: Hey! I'm updating this story way more often that I thought I would and I'm totally neglecting my other two. Shame on me. Oh well.
Thanks HammondGirl at twiligted for beta'ing. Thanks all you people for the reviews and alerts. I heart them all! I like making new friends :)
Palette Knife
~B~
"Dad!" Charlie had promised he would stop by at lunch time to see how her first day of business was going. Bella, forgetting she had an audience of customers, ran across the store as soon as he walked inside and threw her arms around him. "It's amazing! Everything is going so well!"
Charlie felt a fist clench around his heart as he hugged her back and pressed his face into her hair. "That's great Bells."
She heard something a little off in his voice and took a step back to read his face. "What's wrong?"
"The tool shed caught on fire while I was at work this morning." He didn't see any sense in beating around the bush. He watched the color drain from her face and said, "I'm sorry honey."
"How?" she managed to whisper.
"Probably somebody driving by flicked a cigarette butt or something. It wouldn't take much. That place was… well, pretty flammable."
Bella was looking away as she fought with her tears. It was silly. It had always been silly to treat that stupid shed the way she had; like it was the last link to Jacob. He wasn't in there. Even if as long as she kept the door locked she could pretend he was.
His smell, his smile, and his laugh weren't hidden in the walls of the room where they'd spent so much time together. Leaving everything just the way it had been that last day wasn't going to bring him back.
"Are you alright?" Charlie asked as he brought Bella's chin up to see her face. Her eyes were swimming with tears, but also with determination. There was that look he was so proud of - the look of quiet strength.
"Yeah," she said, forcing a smile. "I mean, I'm sorry your shed is gone, but… it's just stuff Dad. It doesn't mean anything."
"That's my girl." He pulled her toward him and kissed her on the forehead. "George and his crew are there now, putting the fire out and cleaning up. I have to head back out there. I came here to see if you, you know, want to see what happened?"
"No thanks." She blinked the tears away before they could run down her face and smiled. "I should stay here. We've been busy!"
"So I see." Charlie looked around to find that there were half a dozen familiar faces browsing Bella's shelves. "I'm really proud of you," he said, and they both knew he wasn't just talking about how she was handling her new business.
Bella leaned in for a last hug. "Thanks. I'll call you after I close up, okay? Maybe we can have dinner?"
"I'd like that." Charlie turned around and took a step toward the door so that Bella wouldn't see the tears in his own eyes from her simple strength. He knew what it must be costing her to keep it together, and he knew she was only doing it for him.
She didn't want to hurt him by making him think of that awful day and the ones that had followed. Bella knew how much he hated to think about it now that things were finally better.
What she couldn't know was that it hurt him even more that she never let him see how much she was hurting. He pushed open the door and headed back to his car.
She watched her dad walk back to the cruiser and drive away. Then she told Angela she was going to the back to take her lunch break. She waited until she was alone in her office, with the door safely shut behind her, before she fell apart.
~E~
"I can see where Charlie's coming from though," Steve, the fire-fighter Edward hadn't met yet, said. He was a tall skinny man with white-blonde hair, around forty. "I would be over-protective too."
They were sifting through the charcoal and ashes of what was left of the shed. Edward had decided to begin his shift early. There was no point in going home for three hours, only to be back at the station at four.
The fire had burned fast and hot, but some of the cans of turpentine still had part of their labels.
"Wow, what did he store out here?" Edward asked, interrupting the conversation that he didn't quite understand. He didn't have any of his gear, so he was forced to stay out of the ruble and watch from the grass. He circled the wreckage, looking for smoke patterns. Everywhere he looked, he could find evidence of small oil fires. The ashes were littered with bits of what looked like foil packaging.
"Charlie didn't really use this shed once Bella hit - what do you think Tyler - sixth grade?" George said with half a laugh. "This is all her stuff."
Tyler grinned and nodded. "That was about the time she started showing up for school with paint… everywhere."
"Oh, so this is her studio then. That sucks." Edward now recognized the foil packages as what had once been tubes of oil paint. It was no wonder the place had burnt so quickly and thoroughly.
"Was," Tyler corrected, grimacing.
"Excuse me?"
"It was her studio. She hasn't used it for a while now."
The three of them exchanged meaningful looks. Edward realized what it was he'd been seeing in people's eyes whenever they spoke of her - it was pity.
"Why not?" Edward finally asked.
George eyed him for a long moment, and then shrugged. "It's a hard story to hear, son. Charlie doesn't like to talk about it, or hear it being talked about, but I guess you'll be sticking around and you'll probably hear it sooner or later. You might as well have the facts straight."
Edward met his gaze straight on, but felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. He realized he was a little afraid of what he was about to hear. What could have happened to one girl that could have scarred an entire town?
"It was about three years ago," George began, but was interrupted by Tyler, who took his hat off long enough to wipe his forehead as he paused to lean on his shovel.
"It was four years ago last April," Tyler said.
"Do you want to tell it?" George asked, turning to him.
"No. Sorry. Geez, Dad." Tyler put his hat back on and returned to shifting through ashes.
"Anyway, Bella had a best friend growing up named Jacob Black. Billy Black, Jake's dad, and Charlie are best friends. That's part of what makes it so hard on all of them.
"Well growing up, Jake and Bella were inseparable. They went everywhere together. Made some of the boys in town jealous when Bella got older I think." He gave his son a pointed look and winked.
Tyler just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Edward narrowed his eyes at him, wondering if the interest was still there.
"Well, Jake's sister was getting married and he came over to give Bella a ride to the wedding. Bella was out here painting and lost track of time, so they were in a hurry. This shed was sort of their hang out. You could always find one of them here.
"They were in Jake's little VW Rabbit. I think if they could have been in Bella's Chevy, things might have been different." George's expression was grim. Edward was afraid he already knew where this story was headed.
"They got in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on the 101."
Edward winced, imagining the scraping of metal and the terrifying loss of control he'd experienced with his brother Emmett when he was sixteen. He braced himself for more.
"Jacob was killed immediately; he was already dead when Charlie got there. Charlie, being sheriff, was the first one on the scene. I can't imagine how he must have felt, but he did his job. Bella was in really bad shape; we weren't sure she was going to pull through for a few days. They had to call in Life-Flight to take her from the scene. Charlie was a mess."
George was looking into the distance, clearly re-living that day. He shook his head and continued. "She had some major head injuries, for a while they weren't sure if she'd make a full recovery. She couldn't see or hear for six weeks."
"Excuse me?" Edward felt his heart pounding in his chest; he could picture it all as though it were happening right then. He felt an odd need to protect her. It was the disconcerting notion that she had needed him, and he hadn't been there. It didn't make sense.
"She was deaf for six weeks after the accident, so Charlie couldn't tell her about Jacob. She kept asking for him, asking what had happened, but they didn't know how to communicate with her." Edward watched Tyler shake his head and shudder without realizing it as he worked. "The poor kid was terrified. Charlie resigned his position temporarily, and never left her side. He held on to her hand almost constantly. It was tough to watch.
"She was completely blind for three months, and it took almost a year for her sight to fully recover. Sometimes, if she gets too tired, she get's these awful headaches and can't see very well."
Edward realized he had been staring at George in horror, but couldn't do anything about it. George had been telling the truth when he said Bella's story was hard to hear. What kind of person was able to recover from something like that? What kind of girl could put her life back together enough to do the things that Bella was doing? There was obviously more to her than he realized.
He shook his head remembering her behavior during the power outage the night before. Her reactions made perfect sense now. Of course she was terrified of the dark. Edward found himself wishing he had been more sympathetic, more understanding. The terrified chocolate eyes that had been haunting him over the last twenty-four hours took on new strength and meaning.
Now that he knew more about her, instead of his curiosity being satisfied, he found that he wanted to know more. He needed to talk to her, if only for a few moments, about anything. He needed to get to know her.
Edward saw the Sheriff's car approaching and realized he was about to get his chance.
George opened his mouth again, as if to add more, but then saw Charlie's cruiser pulling up and he shook his head.
He addressed Charlie as he got out of the car by saying, "It's hard to tell if this was arson, but I'm inclined to think it was just a fluke. Probably someone driving by, being careless with their cigarette. That's really all it would take." Then he looked around and noticed Charlie was alone. "She's not with you?"
Charlie shook his head and walked over to them. "No, it's her first day of business; she's busy. But I told her, and she seemed to take it okay."
"Told you she's tough," George said as he offered his old friend half a smile. "There's not really anything here left to save. Have you called your insurance company?"
Charlie nodded and said, "Yes, they'll 'be in touch tomorrow'. It looks like your work here is done buddy."
George nodded. "Well, you know where to find me if you need anything."
"I appreciate it boys." Charlie nodded toward to house and said, "I'm officially off duty for the day, so I'm going to go rustle up a beer and kick back."
"You do that." George was already carrying equipment back to the engine. Edward turned around to follow him, but Charlie stopped him.
"Hey Cullen," he said, and Edward turned back. Charlie was surprised to see the dark expression in his eyes. Momentarily startled, he paused.
"Yeah?" Edward prompted.
"I know you aren't technically on duty yet, so I wanted to say thanks for sticking around."
The young man's smile didn't reach his eyes as he said, "No problem."
Charlie watched them from the porch as they loaded up their gear and drove away. Edward Cullen's dark expression was fixed in his mind. There was something about it that bothered him. Charlie had always prided himself on his instincts about people, but he didn't know what to make of the new guy.
He walked into the house and over to his computer. He didn't see what he was about to do as a violation of privacy. This was his town, and he had a right to know who was in it.
He opened a search engine and typed "Edward Cullen Chicago" into a search engine bar. His eyes widened at the number of results. His beer and plans to relax were forgotten as he leaned forward and began to shift through the headings which included newspaper articles, local news specials, and even a national broadcast. Charlie opened the first link and shook his head in disbelief as he began to read.
"So this is what you're running from," Charlie murmured as he moved on to the next story. "This is where that look comes from."
Three hours later he was still glued to the computer, reading the last of the news reports. He was familiar with Edward's story now, but he found himself with more questions than answers.
"Who are you Edward Cullen?" he asked as he pushed back his chair and wandered over to the window with a view of the charcoaled shed. "And what are you doing in my town?"
I've written part of the next chapter already and I can't wait to show you! Let's just say, it taking an unexpected turn... tee hee hee
