(sorry to do this... but...) THREE AND A HALF YEARS LATER
I drove my car into the driveway of a beautiful big house that sat on a huge block of land. Jake had asked me to meet him here after we both finished work.
In the last four years, he had worked his way up the chain of command in the mechanics workshop he started at, and was now partners with the man who initially hired him. It had meant a lot of hard work, but Jake loved what he did and put in the hours he needed to, to gain the trust and respect of, not only his boss, but the clients who took their cars to him.
Jake had a reputation for not messing people around and not over charging. This meant that the business wasn't making as much as the big businesses, but they had a larger clientele.
I had started working at a local paper in Port Angeles while I was studying and got a job writing the headline articles once I graduated. We were both living our dream lives.
I had been renting the apartment across from Mandy since the apartment that Edward and I bought had sold. It only took one showing before it had four offers and I accepted an offer from a business man who bought it to rent it to college students. He initially asked if I wanted to rent it from him, but I couldn't stay there. I had thought about buying an apartment in Port Angeles, but after looking at a few over the years, nothing ever felt right.
Jake had remained living in La Push to care for Billy and spent weekends with me at the apartment until 6 months ago when Billy passed away. It was a really rough time for Jake, and our relationship struggled for a while.
I didn't think for one minute that it would destroy us, but there were times where I felt Jake pull away from me in his grief and it took a lot to get him to open up. Jake struggled, emotionally, to deal with losing his dad. He had been Billy's carer for so long, it was like he had lost his father and a part of who he was, all at the same time.
Billy had begun to experience complications related to his condition and eventually, his body gave up. Billy's mind remained as sharp as ever right up until the end and he went, on his own terms. We had visited him one afternoon in the hospital and sat with him as he slept. The doctors were surprised he had survived the previous night, but we just sat and held his hand as Jake whispered things to him in the Quileute language. It was such a beautiful moment between a son and his dad that I will never forget. It was only an hour after we left that the doctors called to tell Jake that Billy had passed. There was no pain, just peaceful sleep until he went off to the afterlife.
After Billy passed, Jake found it difficult living in the house with all the memories so he packed his stuff and moved to my apartment, leaving the house to his sister.
We had quickly found that our tiny apartment wouldn't hold us both, so we had initially started looking around Port Angeles for somewhere to rent while we thought about where we wanted to buy. We trudged around every open house, every weekend but never found something that felt like us.
I parked the car in the driveway next to Jake's black truck and got out. The air was beautiful and warm and smelt of nature and pine. I was wondering what I was doing here when I noticed Jake walking over, a huge grin on his face.
"So, babe, what do you think?" he asked, excitedly.
"About what?" I said as I kissed him in our usual greeting.
"This" he gestured to our surroundings.
"I don't understand" I said as Jake took my hand. My mind was running at 100 miles per hour as I tried to make sense of why he would bring me here.
"One of my customers mentioned to me yesterday that he was selling his house and it sparked my curiosity" he began. "We've been looking for so long, I thought we might as well take a look" he said with a slightly excited tone in his voice.
I looked around at the beautiful house. It was on a huge block of land in a small town, right in between Forks and Port Angeles. It seemed perfect.
"Can we take a look inside?" I asked. Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out a key as he looked at me with a smile on his face. I hadn't seen him like this in so long. He was so incredibly happy, it was infectious. We walked up the stairs that led to a veranda which surrounded the entire house.
"We only have a couple of days to decide before he puts it on the market, but if we want it, he said he would do us a great deal" Jake said as he turned the key and opened the door.
I stepped into the beautiful house and it took my breath away. It had open plan living and seemed full of life. The kitchen was enormous and had huge doors that opened to an entertaining deck that looked out to the forest.
We looked thorough the rest of the house but I had already made up my mind. This house was perfect. We had to have it. We stood on the deck looking out to the surrounding land. I turned to Jake and he seemed as happy as I was.
"It's beautiful" I said as Jake put his arm around me and kissed my temple.
"So, what do you think?" he asked.
"I love it Jake. I can see us growing old here" I said.
"Me too" he said as he wrapped both of his arms around me.
This was home.
…..
As the moving truck arrived at the house a couple of weeks later and the removalists began unloading our brand new furniture, I smiled, knowing how perfect everything would be. We would fill this house with life and love, get married and grow old here.
The house took up only a portion of what I had in the bank account from the sale of the apartment, so after the contract was signed and the money was exchanged, I sat down with an accountant to set up a trust fund. Since the battle with the newborns, I had felt that I had to do something to show my gratitude to the pack for all it had done for us. Knowing that many people who lived in La Push struggled financially, I decided to set up a fund for kids of La Push to be able to go to college.
The apartment had sold for a huge amount and Edward had left a lot in our joint account, which I had barely touched. It had accumulated a lot of interest over the years and had grown to an amount that I couldn't have dreamt of spending in one lifetime. I felt that it was only right that I give something back to the pack, plus it helped to stifle the guilt I felt over allowing Edward to leave me with the apartment and an insane amount of money.
We settled in to our new home in no time and before long, life was a new kind of normal. I was happier than I had ever been, living in our home with my Jacob. I had an office which I could work out of and Jake had a huge garage where he spent weekends tinkering with cars and various things that had engines.
Usually on weekends, I would put on a big dinner and invite Charlie over, or Sam and Emily, or members of the pack, or just everyone. We loved having people over and always felt comfortable surrounded by loved ones.
Over the years, the guys had settled down and most of them had girlfriends. None of the other members of the pack had imprinted which was a relief to me. In the beginning of our relationship, Jake and I had had one of our first fights after a disagreement about imprinting.
We had had an amazing dinner at Sam and Emily's place when the topic of imprinting had come up. I had thought about it a little, but we had never actually talked about what would happen if Jake ever imprinted on someone. I began to worry about our future together and on the way home in the car we had a massive fight.
I wanted to have a plan, some kind of action orientated strategy in place to minimise the pain if Jake were to imprint on someone and break up with me. Jake, of course, didn't want to hear of it. He was adamant that it wouldn't happen and swore to me that if he imprinted on someone, it would remain purely platonic between them. I still feared that we had made a huge mistake and at one point offered to walk away. But Jake, with tears in his eyes, bore deep into my soul and promised me that I was his true soul mate.
That was a significant moment for us. We knew we were head over heels in love with each other, but knowing it and having someone declare their undying love, promising to remain yours forever were two completely different things.
I had hoped that Jake was right and imprinting was rare and not something we would have to deal with, but deep down, buried somewhere in the back of my subconscious, I was terrified that someday someone would come between us.
After that day, imprinting was something that I tried not to think about. If it ever plagued my mind, I'd push it to the far regions of my subconscious where I didn't have to think about it. As time went on and no other members of the pack imprinted, I felt less uneasy about it and gradually, the thought of it didn't worry me as much.
Soon after Jake and I made our relationship public knowledge, Sam and Emily got married in a beautiful ceremony on the beach. It was the most romantic day and you could feel the love in the air. Even Leah was able to put her feelings aside for the day to be present at the wedding. It was great to have everyone together again without the threat of death looming over our heads.
Overall, the years flew by so quickly and we found ourselves more in love than ever before. We hadn't talked about marriage and Jake knew it was a touchy subject for me. The idea had crossed my mind on several occasions and I often found myself scribbling 'Bella Black' on a scrap piece of paper, but all in all, I was completely happy with how things were. Everything was perfect.
