A/N Hi guys! Happy Easter! I'm back. Obviously trying to make up for my absence, LOL.

I'll remind you again that The Hunters Heart is available on Amazon (ignore the cover) also to check me out on Facebook (Kayleigh A Rogers Romance Author) I love hearing from you.

Also, I found a really nice review of The Hunter's Heart on Goodreads last night (so crazy) by someone named Brandy. She knew that The Hunter's Heart was previously a FF, so if by any chance your reading this, Thank you!

Please enjoy and review!

BPOV

Sunday came and went with no drama, and I was grateful for it. Jack stopped byt the next morning with my dad's clothes, washed and ironed, and sporting a shiner from hell. He had laughed, and told me that his mother had to be held back, so she wouldn't deck Mike.

"No one hurts her baby," he had grinned from the kitchen table.

I had spent the rest of the day watching season two of Ghost Whisperer, and ordering the third season on Amazon.

Jessica and Angela had dropped by on Sunday night to fill me in on the rest of their trip, and hang out a little, since we were cheated out of our weekend together.

"I can't believe he actually drove to Seattle and took you home," Angela muttered as she nibbled on a chocolate covered grape.

I shrugged my shoulders as I dipped a gummie bear into a bowl of melted chocolate. "Edward was always intense, and when he found out, he went a little ballistic."

Jessica scoffed. "Well, that's an understatement. How did he even find out?"

Hating the lie, I quickly came up with a story they would believe, other than his sister has a psychic vision. "We all put it on Facebook that we were going, and she told Edward," I shrugged.

Angela scowled. "Why would she do that? She's his sister. She must have known how he would react."

I smiled. "I saw her in the supermarket yesterday. She said it was because she knew we were going to get back together eventually, and by not facing that, I was hurting the both of us. I guess she just thought if Edward and I were put together, we'd have to talk it out."

Jessica grunted. "Oh yeah, like you were going to have deep and heartfelt conversation when you were hammered. She needs to keep out of it."

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head. "You're awesome," I laughed before settling back. "That's what I told her. I don't know how much attention she paid to me, but there go."

Angela was quiet for a moment. "I don't know if this is allowed to be asked, but is there a chance you might get back together?" she asked quietly.

I looked between them, at their soft, compassionate gazes and I knew, in this, I couldn't lie. "I don't know," I shrugged. "I always feel so angry when I'm around him, and I don't know if I can get over that."

"Do you still love him?" Jessica asked.

"I never stopped."

Jumping out of the truck I smiled, when I saw Jessica, Angela, Ben and Jack all standing together by Jessica's car. Jack had both of his arms wrapped around Jessica and though I should have felt like a fifth wheel when I walked over to them, I was just filled with happiness for my friends.

My only hope for them was that, while I couldn't have the love story with the man I wanted, that they got to have theirs with the men they wanted.

"Hi, my sexy man," I batted my eye lashes at Jack as I stopped in front of them.

Jack grinned at me. "Hey, don't go flirting with me and getting me in trouble with my girl. I'm in enough as it is."

Jessica scowled up at him. "You wouldn't be if you hadn't gotten into a stupid fight with Mike."

I bit my lip. "Have you seen him today?"

Ben chuckled. "You mean when he shoved past us on his way to Tyler and Lauren? Yeah, we got the sense he saw us alright. I don't know why he's mad at me, though. It's not like I broke the code."

"I thought you were fishing with my dad?" I demanded.

Ben shrugged. "I thought it would be fun but some of the guys who were meant to be coming along bailed, so it was just me and a group of forty year old men. Not my thing."

I laughed at him as Angela demanded. "What is it with guys and their codes?"

Jessica glared at Ben. "That code is stupid and void. Mike dumped me, said he didn't want me, and just generally made me feel like shit and now someone loves me and he gets all high and mighty. How about when he took a shot at Bella? Isn't that breaking girl code?"

Jacks eyes widened. "He took a shot at you? When? How do I not know this?"

I laughed at his demands. "It happened before you came. I used to have a part time job in the Newton's store, and one day, after Edward and I broke up, and so had he and Jess, we were closing up, and he tried to kiss me."

Angela laughed. "It was more than that, Bella," she said as she snuggled into Ben's arms. "They'd just closed up, and as they were clearing up, he cornered her up against a shelf and started talking about the chemistry they had, and how Jess and Edward were out of the picture. That's when he kissed her."

"Ew," Ben shuddered.

"Shut up," I laughed.

"So what happened?" Jack asked eagerly.

I blushed. "Well..."

"She punched him in the face, and nearly broke her hand," Jessica laughed.

I remembered the day when I had turned up at school with my hand bandaged and a scowl on my face. When I had told her what happened, at first she'd been angry, and even a little hurt, but then she'd just found it down right funny.

"His mom fired me," I grumbled.

"So, why were you even friends with him after that?" Jack demanded through his laughter.

I shrugged. "He came up to me and apologized, said he'd read all the signals wrong and could we start over. His mom wouldn't give me my job back, but when I threatened to tell my dad what had happened, and file sexual harassment charges, she gave me a good reference," I laughed.

Jack shook his head. "I love this place."

Seconds after the words were out of his mouth, Lauren, Tyler, Mike and a few others strolled past. Mike glared at the sight of Jessica in Jacks arms, but Jack just held his gaze, and my respect for him doubled. He wasn't about to hide and cower.

"Mike, come on man, we're friends," he tried to make amends.

"No," Mike interrupted. "We were friends, until you got it on with her behind my back. You lied to me."

Jessica spoke up from Jack's embrace. "We didn't want to cause any drama for no reason. I get that you're angry, Mike, but you have no right to be. Jack and I are in love, and I won't apologize for that."

Jack looked into Mike's cold eyes. "Come on, dude, we're best friends."

His eyes turned calculating, something I never expected from him. "And if I said, as your best friend, that I wasn't okay with this?"

Jack's eyes were filled with regret. "Then I'd have to say that's your call. I won't give her up, Mike. Not even for you."

He turned his eyes to Jessica. "And what would you do, Jess, if you found out he was at Bella's for most of Saturday night, while you were out of town?"

Jessica gave me a bland look. "I'd say that I already knew, and it's pathetic of you to have tried to use that to break us up. You hurt me, Mike, the least you could do is be happy for us."

Mike gave us a look that told us that wouldn't be happening, before he stormed away.

Lauren stopped to smile at us. "Imagine that; Bella spending the night with another girl's boyfriend. Some things just don't change."

I rolled my eyes before I offered her a sarcastic smirk. "Why do you hate me, Lauren? Is it because your boyfriend tried to get to first base with me? If so, you should hate half the girl in the school cause we all know Tyler is a little man whore. And you're just the regular kind," I added.

Lauren started to take a threatening step towards me, but Tyler held her back.

"Oh no, please let her go. Maybe if she got it out of her system, she'd back off. I don't know why you think we're mortal enemies, Lauren, 'cause you're not even on my radar."

"Come on, Lauren," Tyler growled as he pulled her way, giving me a 'Why do you have to start her up?' look.

I shrugged my shoulders. She started it.

"Bitch," she snarled as she stormed away.

Jessica and Angela laughed. "Did you have to bring up Tyler? You know it infuriates her," Angela pointed out.

"And we all know what happened at the end of the night," Jessica added.

"What happened?" Ben and Jack demanded in unison.

I laughed at them. "Something that you will never find out. We pinkied, we swore on clothes, and all but made a blood oath. It goes with us to the grave."

"Damn," they grumbled as we made our way into school.

We shared a smile. A while back, when I was trying to move on, I had gone on a couple of first dates, and no second ones. One of the guys I had gone out with was Tyler. Yes, it was kind of a middle finger to the absent Edward, who had hated Tyler.

We'd had an okay evening. Tyler had never stopped talking about himself, and his likes and dislikes, and I wondered if I could pull a Boycotts and Barflies, and get Jessica or Angela to call me with an 'emergency'.

At the end of the night, as Tyler and I had left the restaurant, he had turned to me and pressed a kiss to my lips. I had tried to ignore the part of me that felt like I was being unfaithful to Edward and go with it, but it felt weird.

Edward had been my first and only kiss up until that point, and I wasn't used to the warmth, the taste of garlic on his breath, or the way our lips moulded together.

Instead of enjoying it, I had thought about the kisses Edward and I shared, the kisses I had loved and often replayed in my mind, and I had burst into hysterical tears while he was still kissing me.

Tyler had driven me home, all the while I had sobbed into my jacket, and then left without even a word to him. To this day he hadn't told anyone, including Lauren, about what had really happened that night. I think it was mainly due to embarrassment on his own part. No guy wanted to say his kiss made a girl weep uncontrollably.

As I walked with my friends toward the school, I saw Edward leaning against his car, with an unreadable expression.

I knew he knew about the date, the kiss, and the tears, and I knew that he wasn't pleased. I wanted to explain, but then I reminded myself that I was a free agent. I didn't need to explain anything to him. He could have been off doing God knows what with God knows who.

The thought brought a stab of pain to my chest, when I was sure I had shielded myself against that possibility.

Without glancing in his direction again, I walked into school, and tried not to pay attention to the pair of eyes that I could feel on me as I went.

"Did you know that I found a new artist I like?" I said as we walked.

"Yeah? Who this time?" Angela teased.

"Lee Brice. He is one sexy man."

After our run in with Lauren, the rest of the morning went quite smoothly. At lunch Edward was missing from his table.

I was surprised to see him in his usual seat in Biology, and I had to bite my tongue at the need to ask him where he had been. It wasn't my place to ask those questions anymore.

Instead I hopped into my seat and went about turning off my IPod. I truly was obsessed with Woman Like You, and I knew that, until I had listened to it constantly, it would stick in my head.

As I shoved my IPod in my bag, Edward spoke for the first time in school for over a month.

"So, you dated a lot when I was out of town?" he spoke casually, but I could hear the bite in his voice. The jealousy that I refused to feel pleased about, because that meant I wanted him to care.

Instead I focused on the irritation I felt at him. How dare he judge me for going on a date when he broke up with me! He left, not me. It was his plan to have me move on. How dare he say anything because I did just that.

"Bite me, Edward" I drawled, before turning back to the front of class and ignoring him.

EPOV

I couldn't believe her.

I knew it was my plan to have her move on, and I knew that it wasn't only a possibility, but a certainty. Bella was a beautiful woman, inside and out, and any man would be lucky to have her.

That didn't mean I wanted them to have her.

I had stood there this morning, listening as she told the story about Newton, and then to find out that she'd voluntarily dated Tyler had all but driven me insane with jealousy.

I had wanted to storm over and declare that she was mine, but that would have angered and embarrassed her. Instead I had left; I had gone into the forest and vented my anger there.

The only reason I had returned to school was because I hadn't seen Bella in days and I was starting to have withdrawals.

I was trying to keep to her rules, to give her the space and time she needed, but it was hard. Harder then she would ever know, to stay away when I caught the image of Jack half naked and bloody in her house. The blood had seemed like an invitation.

Alice had tried to stop me from seeing, something that I knew Bella had demanded her to do, but it was one of those visions that had come to her. She had tried her best to keep me from seeing, but it was too late. It had taken both Jasper and Carlisle to hold me back.

Esme and Carlisle had arrived Saturday, earlier than expected, but they had wanted to be with us. They wanted to be back in Forks, and even see Bella.

Esme had been saddened to know how bad things were between us, and was unsure whether Bella would welcome her back into her life. It seemed it was only Esme who knew instantly that Bella might not want her there after everything, and accept it fully.

She had sat up with me in the night, encouraged me to hold on, and that Bella loved me still. It was hard to keep that in mind when I had to stand there and listen to her admit she had been with other boys. To be able to pick the list out of both Jessica and Angela's mind, and not go kill each of them.

Don't ruin your progress Edward, Carlisle and Jasper had hissed at me as they'd held me down Saturday evening.

How could I ruin something that wasn't there? I had wanted to demand. Bella hated me, and in the depths of my despair, I doubted whether she would ever forgive me.

I had stayed, taking my anger out on everyone around me, eager for Monday when I would be able to see her, and get the full story from the minds of those around her. I could finally breathe when I found out the reasons behind it, but that didn't make me feel any better.

The only thing that had was the sincere love that Jack felt for Jessica, and vice versa. The pair was truly in love, and it had calmed me like nothing else could.

I had told myself to stay calm, to remain silent, and give her what she wanted. That hadn't worked out. As soon as she had tucked her beloved IPod away I had tried to be as casual as possible when asking her about her dating, but she had heard the anger that boiled beneath.

"Bite me, Edward," she had drawled before turning away. I couldn't help the smile that came to my lips.

At one time that would have sent me on edge, now I thought of it as being adorable.

Bella was a lot feistier than she had once been, and I would be lying if I said it didn't do things to me that I never thought it would have.

I sat there, discreetly watching her as she wrote notes on whatever the teacher was prattling on about today.

She was beautiful, I thought.

Her eyes, so big and dark and warm, even when she tried to hide it. Her hair was long and glossy, and I actually ached to press my face into the soft tresses, like I had once been able to, without hesitation.

Her lips, full and red, and all but begging to be kissed. I had once been able to kiss those lips whenever I had wanted, which had been more times that she could ever conceive of. I had spent hours wanting to devour those lips, devour her, but I had worried about my control.

Restraint, control, keeping the demon inside of me leashed, it had always been there. What I wouldn't have given to be able to kiss her like I wanted, like she deserved to be kissed.

I had only let my control slip twice, once when I had left her to track James, and another when I had known it would be the last time I would kiss her.

I vowed right then and there that the desperate kiss that we had shared on her birthday wouldn't be our last kiss.

BPOV

George Strait is awesome, I thought as I sang along to Run. His voice was so sexy... even though the guy was so much older than me.

When has that ever stopped you, I thought with a laugh.

"Come on, admit it," I ordered Angela.

Jessica had the night off, so Angela was on car pool duty. She was off an hour later than me, so I was going to hang out in the diner and grab some food, before heading over to the store. I couldn't spend any more money in that store.

"Fine, it's a good song. You have a sickness, Bella," she laughed.

"If I have a sickness for sexy men with sexy voices, then I don't care. And if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right," I told her dramatically.

"So have your parents seen your tattoo yet?" I asked her.

"No," she groaned. "I keep thinking they're going to find out, and then everything will come out, and then they will burn me alive."

"Gross," I replied in disgust. "I didn't need that mental picture, thank you. Besides, they won't burn you alive. You need to pull it together. I'm not going crazy and my dad's a cop."

She rolled her eyes. "My dad's a preacher. He had an 'in' with God. If he finds out about this, I'll need to ask your dad for police protection."

I laughed at her. "Not long now, we'll be heading off to college, and you won't have to worry about it."

She turned to me with bright eyes. "Have you gotten a reply yet? Neither Jess nor I have, and most send them out in March. Is that bad?" she fretted.

I shook my head. "I emailed them a week back, and they said they hadn't sent out any letters yet. So, fingers crossed."

In November Jessica, Angela and I had spent every day after school sending out college applications. We were hoping to get into Seattle University. That way, it wasn't too far away from home, but just far enough that we had more independence.

I had never considered Edward coming back, so I had thrown myself into my future. I didn't want to think about how his return affected that. Did he think it did? Did it? I didn't know, so I pushed it to the back of mind, like I had with most things.

It had been two days since I had told Edward to bite me in Biology, and there had been silence between us ever since. I think he was still a little angry, and I had to wonder who was ignoring who for the last two days.

My dad would be home in a couple of days, and I was enjoying my time at home alone, it was like having my own place. I had to clean, keep it stocked and do laundry. Of course the girls helped, since it was rare that they didn't head over for a couple of hours each night. Sometimes the guys would come with them, and watch my dad's action films or the game, and we'd order pizza.

The one time they had suggested we cook, we had threatened to throw them out the house.

"Okay, here we are. You sure you don't want to meet me?" she teased.

I shook my head firmly. "My bank account can't take it," I laughed. "Meet me later and I'll give you a freebie," I promised as I jumped out and headed into the diner.

Once inside I checked the schedule, to find that I was working the cash register tonight, which always sucked, in my opinion. If you were on the register, you had to stay in one place, and Max wouldn't let me read my book, so this was about to be the most boring four hour shift in my life.

As the first hour passed, Jay came out to tell me about how he had laid into Max earlier, because of the training he had received lately that was meant to be about better customer service, and Jay had compared it to sucking away your soul and individuality.

I had high fived Jay, and swore to one day marry him and have his children.

It was around an hour before my shift finished that Max had come out and said that Hayley, a new girl who needed extra till training, would be taking me off while I watched her tables.

Awesome.

Standing here was driving me insane, and I needed to move. Over the past three hours I had gotten better than ever at twirling my pen between my fingers, and I wasn't ashamed to admit I was proud of it.

Hayley, with her salt and pepper hair and pretty blue eyes, came running over to me as soon as she walked in.

"Hey, Jay wants to talk to me about something, so would you be able to wait five minutes?"

I glared at her. "I hate you, right now," I scowled.

She laughed as she rushed over to Jay before Max caught her. She was sweet and funny, and just enough of a rebel that you liked her for it.

As I stood there, a woman came over and asked to pay by card for something that cost barely over a dollar.

It irritated me more than words could say when people did this. If you didn't have a dollar in change with you, then why did you come into the diner? Why not order something more? Why annoy me?

The reason it also irritated me was because card transactions took so freaking long to go through. Max was cheap, and didn't want to spend money on upgrading. Now a five second transaction was going to take five minutes, because the two chicks in front of me didn't have change on them.

It was after I had punched in the reference number that I started to feel a little woozy. My palms began to sweat, my body trembled, and I knew I needed to get off the till and run to the bathroom before it was too late.

"Hayley?" I called out.

I glanced around to find her talking to Jay, she smiled at me and held up her hand to signal she'd be over now, and I nodded in relief. I just wanted to get out of here.

Uncaring of the fact that I had two customers in front of me, I leaned heavily on the counter and heard the strangest sound in my ears, like paper being crackled.

That was the last thing I heard before everything went dark.

A/NCliff hanger! I know I'm a bitch, please review!