Rating: M

Disclaimer: The original characters and plot are the property of Stephenie Meyer.

Thanks to her for bringing them to us.

No copyright infringement is intended

Big thanks to the endlessly patient and helpful Snuggler for being my beta.

CHAPTER 9

Bella had almost forgotten how much she enjoyed Angela's company. It had been good to be reminded and disappointing to have to say goodbye. She had half-hoped they might be able to spend the afternoon together, but Angela had to go at 2:00pm. Bella hugged her and promised not to leave it so long before seeing her again. As she walked to the bus stop, Bella realised how much of the summer had gone. In just over two weeks, she'd be back at school. Hell, it didn't seem possible. She'd been so wrapped up in a little Edward-obsessed bubble; the outside world had passed her by. It was scary how quickly she'd become completely addicted to him. When she wasn't with him, she was thinking about him, like a junkie looking for the next fix. The earliest "next fix" today would be 6:00pm, if he came at all, but she would be counting the minutes until then. She was in for a long wait. It would take her a while to get home but, even if she had to hang around for a bus, there would be, at least, a couple of hours to kill. As always, at moments like these, her thoughts turned to Jake. Poor Jake, how often had she gone to him when needing something to pass the time while she waited for Edward? Jake was like a readily available warm-up act for the main attraction.

She sent him a text to ask if he'd be free in an hour and, to her relief, he was. Sitting on the bus, it didn't take long for her thoughts to return to the possibility of never seeing Edward again. By the time she got off, a heavy feeling of anxiety was weighing her down, so she went straight to Jake's. He made them both coffee while she stood in his kitchen, leaning her back against his worktop, with her hands behind her, pressing into them.

"You're lucky to catch me," he told her, "I'm going away this weekend. How are you anyway?"

"Having an off-day, actually. I could do with being cheered up."

She couldn't tell him the reason why. In fact, it was probably for the best if she didn't mention Edward at all, in case she got carried away and told him everything.

He gave her one of his cheeky grins. "Bet I can make you laugh," he said, with his usual boyish enthusiasm, and he was right.

Carrying two mugs, he nodded toward the sitting room and they went in. He had been exploring a new DVD for his Wii Fit and had found a ridiculous game on it. You had to stand on a balance board and flap your arms as if you were pretending to be a seagull. By shifting your weight to and fro and left and right, you got your screen seagull to land onto different targets. Jake went first. Seeing someone as tall and muscular as Jake flapping their arms like a little kid, sticking their bottom out and bobbing in all directions was hilarious. Bella watched him from the settee and rocked with laughter. Jake teetered forward and lunged over to the side.

"Bugger," he said, "missed."

He pointed at her in mocked annoyance, "Look, stoppit you. You're not helping my concentration," which just made her laugh all the more.

When it was Bella's turn, they swapped positions. Jake spread-eagled himself on the settee, and Bella stood on the board. She discovered that the game was harder than it looked. She tilted and flapped just as he had done with plenty of "oops," and, "damn," thrown in for good measure. Jacob made the most of the chance to get his revenge and hooted with laughter at her. Bella didn't mind how stupid she looked, and she didn't mind him cracking up; she found it just as funny. Once her seagull had fallen into the sea for the last time, she flopped onto the settee with him and they giggled until they sighed. She was relaxed and happy. It had been good to spend time not stressing about Edward, but, of course, the moment she thought that, it all came flooding back. She glanced at Jake. Why couldn't she have fallen for someone like him? It would have been so much simpler. Instinctively, she knew he would be proud to call her his girlfriend. Jake, meanwhile, seemed to have gone very quiet. He looked at her, suddenly very serious, leaned over and, before she knew what was happening, grabbed her face with both hands and forced his lips onto hers. Bella felt as if she couldn't breathe. She couldn't move her head, so she used her hands to push him away. It seemed to take Jake a while to realise that she wasn't being passionate, she was trying to fight him off. Eventually, she prized her lips off his with a gasp.

"Jake, what the hell!" she accused.

He looked at her with his eyes wide. "I'm sorry. I…"

"Yes," she said.

It was a loaded "yes", the sort of "yes" that went with toe tapping and folded arms. She waited while Jake squirmed.

"I…" he tried again and then sat with his mouth open as if the words had got stuck in his throat. Then they poured out, "You said you needed cheering up…and you usually go on about Edward…and you hadn't mentioned him once …and I thought…"

He'd run out of steam and trailed off, staring at the floor, seeming small and vulnerable.

It took all the wind out of Bella's sails.

"I usually go on about Edward?"

"Yes, you talk about him quite a bit."

Did she? She honestly didn't think she did. This was a bit of a revelation. She thought she'd only mentioned him once or twice, and she'd certainly never said anything about the kissing thing, but it dawned on her that she might not have to; she might have already given the game away.

"Do I really?" She needed to be sure.

"Yes, do you want me to make a recording?" he snapped sarcastically.

"No, I believe you," she answered.

She hadn't intended to rub Jake's nose in it.

"It's just that…I thought…if you weren't seeing him any more…"

Bella was looking at the floor, too, now and reddening.

"Forget it," he added.

"I'm sorry, Jake," she said. "I love you as a friend, you know that, right?" and she tried hugging him but he was as stiff as a board and didn't hug her back.

She left his place feeling guilty. It was too easy to forget that keeping to being friends wasn't easy for him. Bella wished she could back off, but she was all at sea with Edward at the moment and Jake seemed to be the only life-belt around - she had no option but to cling to him.

At 6:00pm she sat in the cottage waiting, for the second time that day. She could have sworn she heard Edward outside at about 7:00pm but there was no knock and when she looked, there was no-one there. By 9:00pm she was convinced she was never going to see him again.

EDWARD

It was 9:00pm. Edward placed his hands on his lower back and stretched his elbows behind him. He felt stiff; he had been on a stake-out duty outside Bella's cottage for much of the day. Part of him felt vaguely ridiculous but part felt it was necessary. It had all started two days earlier when he and Bella had found a dead rat on her doorstep. A find like that was unpleasant, but not entirely implausible. Things killed rats in the countryside all the time; it was part of the cycle of nature, but when Bella had told him about the other horrible things she'd found at her door, it did seem suspicious. There was a sense that someone was trying to mess with her, a "someone" who was definitely unhinged. It made him uneasy about leaving her alone. After finding the rat, he'd gone home, knowing that her mum would be back at any moment and that he'd return that evening to take Bella to the cinema. The problem was that while he'd been at home, he'd had a phone call from Emmett.

"What are you up to this weekend?" asked Emmett.

Seeing Bella thought Edward - but was he ready to admit to his father that he was in a relationship with a member of staff?

"Nothing much," he replied - apparently he wasn't.

He planned to tell Father eventually, when it was the right time. He just wasn't entirely sure when the right time would be; he was working on it. It would have been so much easier if he could have gone to his parents and said, "Mother, Father, this is Bella, the girl I'm seeing," without all the sneaking around, but his father's attitude towards fraternising with the staff made that impossible. Bumping into Billy had been a close call; if he'd seen Edward kissing Bella and reported it back, it would have been a disaster. So, until Edward could "face the music", he would have to keep slipping out to Bella's cottage like some creature of the night. This wasn't ideal and made him feel like a creep, but at least it was private; perhaps a bit too private. It was tempting to take advantage of all that freedom. Bella had to keep stopping him from going too far. He knew he shouldn't push her, she wasn't the kind of girl who "put out" but, in the heat of the moment, he tended to forget. It didn't help that no-one before her had ever said "no". Maybe that was part of Bella's appeal.

Edward was so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that Emmett was still talking to him and that he'd missed most of it.

"Sorry, what was that?" he said.

"I said," Emmett's voice sounded exasperated, "I'm coming over this weekend and wondered if you fancied going shooting on Saturday."

Edward was silent. Renee worked on Saturdays. If Edward went, it might mean Bella being alone for hours.

"Well?" said Emmett.

"Can I let you know?"

"I thought you might enjoy a bit of brotherly bonding and we could go out for a few beers afterwards. But if you're busy doing "nothing much", don't let me keep you."

"I'll get back to you," said Edward and that was how they'd left things.

While he'd waited for the appointed time to fetch Bella for the cinema trip, he'd considered his options. He could tell Emmett he didn't want to go; but he rarely got the chance to spend time with his brother and would enjoy a bit of "brotherly bonding". He could ask if Bella could come with them; but he wasn't ready to tell Emmett the truth about her, either. He could reveal his fears to Bella and try to persuade her to find somewhere safe to go; but he didn't want to freak her out. Frustratingly, it was possible that the "rat-leaving" offender was just a kid playing pranks and that Edward was worrying about nothing.

The trip to the cinema, itself, had been a disaster. The entire time he'd been plagued by a sense of foreboding. If there was a demented stalker out there, Bella wasn't safe, and he shouldn't leave her.

What didn't help was that here he was, tying himself up in knots about how to protect her without making their relationship public knowledge, and there was Bella insisting on going out in public with him anyway. Her annoying friends made matters even worse. He didn't know what she saw in them. Irritation and worry had not been a good combination and he'd come home in a foul mood.

He'd wandered past the cottage the day after the "rat", hoping to find some further evidence. Then he'd remembered Bella telling him that she hadn't found anything on Mum's day off. The only solution seemed to be to keep watch on a day that her mum was at work, a stake-out. If he could catch someone in the act of planting this stuff, at least he'd know what they were up against. Unfortunately, whoever was doing it had stayed away. Edward had denied himself Bella for a whole day for a big, fat zero and the next day would be Saturday, the day of the shoot. Unsurprisingly, Emmett was pressing him for an answer and, at that moment, Edward still didn't know what to say. One thing was sure, if he did decide to go shooting he wouldn't see her tomorrow either. He couldn't go that long without at least a kiss to keep him going. He looked at his phone; there was still time before Renee got back. He stepped out of his hiding place, strode over to the cottage and knocked on her door. Bella silently gestured him inside.

BELLA

Bella waited for Edward to say something but he didn't. Hoping to clear the air between them, she blurted out an apology about Jess and Mike, but Edward didn't seem to be looking for one. He simply pulled her to him. She nestled her head on his chest and hugged him. When he did speak, he asked what she'd been doing with the day as if nothing about it had been unusual. Bella told him about seeing Angela but didn't ask what he'd been up to. Having spent the day fearing that she'd lost him, she wasn't going to "rock the boat". He asked how Angela was and Bella realised they'd never actually met.

"She's good," she said.

There was a brief silence as if Edward expected her to say more so she did.

"Great to see her. I haven't seen her in so long. She's only really free in the evenings."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Bella regretted them. It looked as though she'd accused him of stopping her from seeing her friends.

"You don't have to be on Edward duty every evening, you know," he said.

"No, I didn't mean…" she added hastily, and looked up at him to gauge his reaction.

His words were slightly mocking but his eyes were kind. He stroked her under her chin and smiled gently. His green eyes twinkled and, for a moment, she was spellbound. She was in awe of his beauty sometimes. He broke the spell by looking up.

"There was something I was going to mention actually."

This didn't sound good. Bella's stomach tensed.

"Emmett's down this weekend sans the Ice Queen for a change," he went on, as if this was leading to something.

"Uh huh," prompted Bella

"He wants to take me shooting and then out for a few beers…Tomorrow."

"That'd be nice. Tea?" said Bella.

She wandered into the kitchen, feeling the need to do something practical. As she filled the kettle, he watched her, tugging at his hair distractedly. He was obviously bothered by something. She couldn't see what so she waited for him to come out with it.

"I'd be out all day."

The thought did put Bella on a bit of a downer but at least he was giving her notice this time. She had two options. She could sulk about missing him or she could happily give him the space he needed, so he didn't feel trapped.

"No problem," she said with surety.

He smiled and wrapped her in a warm embrace and placed his soft lips on hers. She kissed him back with more urgency, unable to disguise her need for him. Suddenly the cottage was their little love nest again. Right now she didn't care what it was or wasn't that she had with him, she was just relieved to still have it. He didn't try anything more; there wasn't really the time; Mum would be home before too long. It was probably a good thing. Bella would have found it hard to deny him anything tonight. He pulled away from the kiss but still kept her in his embrace.

"It gives you a whole day to see whoever," he argued, reasonably.

"No-one's free," she answered. Seriously, she needed to engage brain first.

"Isn't your friend Jake free?"

"No, he's away this weekend."

"What about Angela?

"She said something about go-karting with Eric."

"Or there's those two from the cinema. Aren't they your friends?"

"No, thanks," said Bella.

Edward looked puzzled.

Bella explained, "Jess is harmless, mostly. She's just one of the first people I made friends with when I joined the school and it's sort of stayed that way. To be honest, I can't stand Mike. It's Jess who wants to be with him."

Edward definitely seemed to be trying to find someone to keep her company while he went shooting and yet he'd just left her for a whole day without even telling her he'd be gone. Perhaps he was feeling guilty about it now. He was funny sometimes. He frowned, rubbing his bottom lip.

"It's a pity your Mum will be at work," he said. "Do you think you might go and lend her a hand?"

"OK, Edward. What's the big idea? I don't need a babysitter," Bella chided gently, with the hint of a chuckle.

He was still frowning. "No, no, of course not," he said.

"Besides, it'll be good to have a whole day to myself. I've still got a ton of reading for school. I'll be able to get it knocked on the head."

As they said goodbye on her doorstep, he still seemed to be having trouble smiling, and she felt a sudden urge to show him what a reasonable and undemanding girlfriend she could be given the chance.

"Yunno, it's absolutely fine about tomorrow. I reckon I can manage one day on my own. Go, have fun," she said with confidence and a smile.

He caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers, turned and walked away. Things seemed, reassuringly, almost back to normal. As he disappeared down the drive, the wind rustled the trees and she shivered. Was something moving out there? Part of Bella wanted to call Edward back and ask him to investigate, but she didn't want to come off as clingy and pathetic so she told herself she was being paranoid and shouldn't pester him unnecessarily. Maybe she still hadn't got used to the idea that she lived in the countryside. There probably was something lurking out there and it could be anything, a fox or a badger, but nothing worth worrying about. Was it? She shrugged and went indoors.