Muse is still being difficult, but at least I'm writing. I'd said last chapter that this would have Jasper/Bella interaction. I lied. Bella needed to share where her head is right now. Promise they'll talk next time around.

I'm also working on the next chapter for CAM so hopefully I'll have that update ready soon as well.

As always, thanks to MarchHare5 for sticking with me and sharing her beta skills with me. You're the best!

Thank you to all my fans who've stuck with me for so long. I appreciate each and every one of you!

Song inspiration: "I'm Moving On" by Rascal Flatts

Disclaimer: SM owns all Twilight characters. I just own what I do to them.

Bella

Ch 13

"Wow! It smells amazing in here."

I turned from pulling loaves of bread I'd made out of the oven to see Peter standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry, did I wake you? I tried to be quiet."

He shook his head, yawning, and entered the kitchen, going straight to the coffeemaker and pulling a mug from the cabinet above it.

"Our little princess woke me up with a wet diaper. I changed her and put her back down so Charlotte could sleep a little longer before they're all up and demanding breakfast. The smell of coffee and bread brought me downstairs, but don't apologize." He held the coffee pot up to me. "Do you need a refill?"

Nodding, I picked up my empty mug and brought it to him, thanking him when it was full again. We each added half-and-half to our mugs, and Peter leaned back against the counter sipping on his while I went back to tending my bread. Grabbing the hot pads again, I turned out the loaves of bread from their pans and put them beside the other loaves that were already cooling on the counter.

I opened the oven again, adjusting the placement of the banana bread still baking and reset the timer for another twenty minutes.

Peter pointed to the bread and pouted. "So is all that just to torture me, or will you take pity on my poor soul?"

I pulled a knife out of the nearby drawer, pointing it at the loaves on the counter. "What would you care for? I have zucchini-apple, pumpkin, and strawberry—although I haven't mixed the cream cheese spread for it yet—and the banana-nut should be done in a few more minutes."

He turned to pull a plate out of the cabinet and grinned. "Yes, please."

I laughed, taking the plate from him, and proceeded to cut a slice from each of the varieties on the counter, handing it back to him. He got butter from the refrigerator and also cut a small wedge of the plain cream cheese softening on the counter and sat at the table with his bounty. I cut a small slice of the zucchini-apple for myself and joined him, slathering it with butter before taking a bite.

He groaned, chewing on his own slice, closing his eyes in enjoyment. It made me smile, watching his unabashed expression of pure joy. He opened his eyes, narrowing them at me. "Don't laugh. Even my expensive chef in Chicago can't make bread like this. Please tell me there's enough for me to take a few home when we leave."

The smile on my face died at his mention of Chicago, but I nodded anyway. "I'll be sure to wrap up some of each for you and Charlotte to take back."

He sighed, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin before speaking again. "Want to share what has you up at this ungodly hour?"

Shrugging, I took a sip of my coffee. "Couldn't sleep."

I avoided looking him in the eyes directly. I didn't want to admit that I still didn't sleep very well at night. I often lay awake until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and finally slept from sheer exhaustion, only to startle awake a short time later due to nightmares.

At night, I relived Edward's death, only now I stood on that mountain watching him die. His family was there, screaming at me to do something while Edward cried out for me to save him. The way he died changed from time to time, but one thing remained constant. I did nothing but stand idly by and watch as Emmett killed Edward in front of me.

The guilt was tearing me apart.

Silence stretched while he finished off the slices of strawberry and zucchini bread. I finished my slice of bread and coffee. He stood, bringing the coffeepot and cream to the table, refilling both mugs again before sitting down.

"Bella, I can't begin to know the sorrow losing a child must be like, especially the way you have. Please know I'm going to do everything in my power to see that justice is served."

I acknowledged his words with a small nod. "Thank—"

"Don't thank me just yet," he interrupted. "It's not going to be easy. The McCartys have been in Chicago for more years than I can count. They're rich and have the ear of some very influential people. There have always been rumors and innuendo over the years, but since I decided to go into politics… Well, let's just say the rumors aren't exactly unjustified."

"What kind of rumors?"

Instead of answering, he asked, "How much do you know about the family business?"

"Emmett's father owns a security firm, and Emmett is supposed to inherit the business when his father retires," I answered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He took another drink of his coffee and carefully set his mug on the table. "The rumor is the McCartys are part of the Chicago mob. Nothing has ever been proven, but you should know there's a file on your husband and his father along with other members of their family and a large number of their employees in the DA's office. Most of them have rap sheets, including your husband, though not for anything substantial."

My jaw dropped and I stared at him, wide-eyed with shock. "Are you saying Emmett is part of the Mafia? What, like in the movies or something?"

I shook my head in disbelief, leaning back against my chair. "Trust me, I know I married a monster, but are you seriously telling me I married into the mob? That can't be right. My dad was the Chief of Police in Forks. I would never knowingly marry a criminal!"

I stood quickly, pacing the floor, my life with Emmett coming at me in flashes, like a train wreck I had no control over. Cryptic phone conversations. The demeanor of men he spent time with or called friends. Talk about business over the dinner table with his father. Even our honeymoon—the man he'd had take me around Italy. No wonder he'd been a lousy tour guide. The complete lack of concern that the police would suspect abuse when he put me in the hospital and killed my baby.

I stopped and turned back to Peter, who was still sitting watching me.

"I—" I slowly shook my head, unable to deny the truth any longer.

"Bella, it's actually worse than that, if what the DA is trying to prove is true."

A sharp bark of hysterical laughter filled the room, throwing my hands up in the air in defeat.

"Worse? What could possibly be worse than what you're telling me right now? All this time my biggest regret has been I had an abusive husband who beat me and killed our daughter. Now I find out he's also a real criminal in every sense of the word. Then if that isn't enough, you tell me it's worse than that! How could anything be worse?"

Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision. I hated seeing the sympathy on Peter's face. My whole life was falling apart around me—had been for over a year, more if I went back to Edward's death. When would it be enough?

As far as I was concerned, I'd hit rock bottom.

There wasn't anywhere lower I could fall.

I was wrong.

He sighed and gestured to my chair. "Perhaps you should sit down for this."

He waited until I was seated again. "I shared what you told me about Edward Cullen and what you suspect along with the evidence you found in Emmett's safe with the DA. Ben Cheney is the DA and also a friend of mine from college, so I trust him. Under the circumstances he was willing to share. The McCarty family is the muscle for the Chicago mob. They have their own piece of the pie, but they're also who anyone in the mob turns to when pressure is needed or someone just needs to disappear. Again, though, nothing has ever been proven."

"So what you're saying is I not only married an abuser, but that my husband and his whole family are a bunch of murderers, too."

He grimaced. "It looks that way. Ben said they got a tip a couple of years ago that your husband put out a hit on a cop in another state."

He watched me carefully as he continued. "The hit didn't make sense with what the DA's office knew. The cop the hit was on had no ties to anything related to their business, legitimate or not. In fact, the only remote tie he had was personal. The DA's office couldn't figure out the angle or why the McCartys would feel threatened enough to contract the hit, but they put out the call to warn the department just the same."

He paused, watching me. "Bella, that call was to warn your father that McCarty put out a contract on him, but it came too late. I'm sorry."

I stared at him in horror as his words slammed into me, shaking my head in denial.

"No," I whispered, anguish dragging the word out of me.

"I'm sorry, but it's true. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough evidence to implicate Emmett."

"What about the tip they got? What happened to the person who warned them?"

He looked uncomfortable and toyed with his coffee mug before answering. "They lost their informant. He disappeared before the ink even dried on the warrant for Emmett's arrest."

He waited while I processed what he said. I didn't think my pain could get any worse with everything that had happened to me because of Emmett, but I was wrong. Ripping my flesh from my bones couldn't hurt more than I did at that moment as I put the pieces together.

"Emmett had my dad killed because of me, didn't he?" I whispered, afraid to say those words too loudly in the quiet room.

"I'm sorry, Bella, but it looks that way."

"Why?" I sobbed. "He never did anything to Emmett or his family. Dad only met Emmett the one time I took him home with me."

My hands covered my mouth as I thought about the last time I'd seen my father alive. How much he'd disliked Emmett from the start. I dropped my hands to the table, fisting them so tightly my nails bit into my palms.

"Dad was smart. That's why he was chief. He always said he could smell 'bad' a mile away. He didn't trust Emmett. He knew he was bad news, but I didn't see it. Emmett killed my father to keep him from warning me."

"That's the only explanation that anyone can come up with. Emmett has pretty much eliminated anyone who possibly stood in the way of his goal of making you his wife. Your boyfriend Edward, who you said thought of Emmett as a friend, and your father. From what you've told me, he also threatened harm to the rest of the Cullens if you had any contact with them."

"It's going to take more than a simple divorce to get Emmett out of my life, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry."

I nodded and stood when the timer went off on the stove. We heard the impatient cries of their babies coming from upstairs. Peter stood, offering me an awkward hug, and then left me alone in the kitchen with another apology and a reassurance that the DA would do everything in his power to bring Emmett to justice. I had no response and didn't feel as secure in that promise.

I took care of the banana bread, refilled my mug and wandered out to the front porch swing to grieve all over again for the loss of everyone I'd loved. The air was crisp, and the chill bit at my skin. Wrapping the overlarge flannel shirt I'd found in the back of the closet in the bedroom I was using around me like a blanket and hugging my mug for its warmth helped only a little, but then it could have been a hundred degrees and I'd still feel chilled with everything Peter had told me.

I'd lived with Emmett, been married to him and still didn't know he was anything other than the worst form of abuser. He killed our baby and beat and raped me repeatedly, yet I never imagined he was other than what I saw firsthand until I'd found Edward's grandmother's ring in the safe in his office. I would have never suspected he was responsible for my father's death either if Peter hadn't told me.

Where did that leave me now?

Would I get to start my life over one day?

Movement near the barn halted my self-flagellating thoughts, and I turned to see Jasper standing near the wide open doorway to the barn. He stood silently and seemed to be watching me in return. He didn't turn away, so maybe he wasn't really looking at me. Though in a small, dark corner of my mind—a place I didn't deserve to harbor wants or wishes—I wished he would look at me.

See me.

See something other than the charity case his family took in, because despite everything going on in my life I still saw him.

Tall, broad shoulders and strong arms from years of hard work. Faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots. T-shirts, work shirts…no shirts. I caught a glimpse of the muscles hidden under those shirts in my first week here when he came out of the bathroom downstairs. It was late, and I was coming down the stairs to get something to drink. I hid on the stairs, not wanting him to think I was spying on him, though standing hidden in the shadows, that's exactly what I did.

His hair had still been damp and tousled from his shower. He was dressed in only a clean pair of jeans he hadn't bothered to button. He puttered around the kitchen getting a drink and warming a plate of food in the microwave. I was surprised to see he sported a couple of tattoos. A military insignia was on his chest and a barbed wire band, broken by an insignia of some sort, wrapped around his right bicep.

Only when he sat at the table to eat his meal did I quietly sneak back up the stairs. I wished I'd had the nerve to talk to him that night. Perhaps things wouldn't still be so awkward between us now.

He didn't have that look of pity in his eyes like everyone else did, but I still wanted him to see me as someone more than the woman he hated. Our initial meeting was so bad as to leave a lasting bad taste in his mouth where I was concerned, and I had no clue how to overcome it or make up for it.

It didn't help that I'd taken over his bedroom, either—a fact I learned when I opened the closet to put away the extra clothes his mother had given me to wear and encountered men's shirts, jeans and several pairs of boots inside. I'd tried to move out of his room, only to have Maria inform me there wasn't another room available right then because of painting going on in Charlotte's old room and the guest room in preparation for their visit. She's assured me Jasper was the one who insisted that I stay where I was, though knowing his feelings for me, I thought she was just trying to make me feel like less of an intrusion into their lives than that those were Jasper's true feelings on the matter.

Lord knows I've tried to apologize, to show him I'm not the bitch he thinks I am, but how did I prove it if he wouldn't give me the chance? At first, I never saw him. Then if I entered a room, he would leave. Guilt that I was keeping him from his family prompted me in a race to leave the room first so he could spend his evenings with his family. I finally decided actions would have to speak for me since he wasn't going to give me the opportunity to speak to him.

I threw myself into helping Maria around the house and in her garden. I offered to help with meals and had taken over breakfast and lunch to give her a break. It didn't do any good, though, because Jasper never came to the house other than an occasional dinner, which his mom handled. The last couple of weeks he stayed after dinner to play dominoes with Maria and his grandmother. They'd been teaching me to play a game called Forty-two, but I wasn't very good and still couldn't figure out how to bet. I couldn't very well talk to him with his mother and grandmother listening, but at least for those few hours we were in the same room together.

There was something about Jasper Whitlock, something in his expression when I looked across the table of dominoes and caught his eye. My skin tingled like static electricity any time he was close or brushed by me. I could barely admit it to myself, but he reminded me of my father and of Edward.

That tingling feeling made me want to know him.

To know if he was everything I saw.

Because I saw a lot.

I saw his gentle indulgence in his interactions with his grandmother. I saw the love and respect he gave his mother. I saw the affectionate teasing he bestowed on Charlotte and the delight he took in his niece and nephews.

I saw the man who cared for his home with fierce pride and determination. He worked harder than anyone around, and it showed in the beauty around me. He was always up and working when I came out onto the porch in the early morning hours.

I'd found solace in the stillness of the countryside that helped me face the hard truths about my life and marriage. In the quiet, where my conscience was my only judge, I could face my shortcomings. I knew logically I wasn't to blame for the abuse I'd suffered at my husband's hand. I did nothing to cause my baby's death.

That was all on Emmett.

However, I was culpable in the path my life took that put me in that place. I'd let my grief over losing Edward cloud my judgment and accepted the easy way out. It was easier to let Emmett steamroll over me and lead me where he wanted than to face a future without Edward.

Edward and I had our future planned even down to our children's names whether we had boys or girls and the design of the home we'd build to raise our children in. I hadn't known how to have a future that Edward wasn't in, so I let Emmett push me into a future that seemed the same on the surface but was anything but.

I could see now the person I became in Chicago wasn't really me at all. I was to blame for letting my fear of the unknown put me there instead of standing up for myself long before I became Isabella McCarty.

Here in the quiet serenity of the Whitlock's home I was finding myself again. I had no way of knowing how I was supposed to go forward, or what it would take to even get Emmett to agree to a divorce, but I wanted the opportunity for a "do over."

I wanted to be the person my dad had raised me to be, the person Edward fell in love with.

I wanted to be Isabella Swan again and whatever that entailed.