Alright, my apologies for my tardiness again, but as I mentioned to my Beta, I've been watching True Blood. I had to rent them, so I had to watch them before the due date...

Is that a good enough excuse for you?

Chapter 28

BPOV

I froze, not knowing what to do. Did I have time to run back the bedroom and call the police? But, then again, he didn't break in because he'd just placed a set of keys on the table beside his cowboy hat. What would I tell them? Who was this man? What was he doing here?

I stayed still, making sure not to make a sound as I examined him up and down. That way if I'd survive through this, I could describe him to the police. His hair, which was a dirty blond color, fell just below his ears with a slight curl. I couldn't tell the color of his eyes, so I looked at his other features.

He had sideburns that went down to his jaw line and he was chewing on what looked like a toothpick. He had a dimple in the center of his chin and his skin was sort of tanned. His shirt was a plain white and he was wearing light blue jeans with a huge belt buckle that was visible for anyone to see. My eyes fell on a pair of cowboy boots, which he was taking off at the moment.

Why? Was he planning on making himself comfortable while he vandalized the place? What if he was waiting for Alice to get home? I had to do something, but before I could think of anything I heard Angela sneeze in the bedroom. Crap!

"Darlin'? Is that you? I thought you had an exam at this time?" he said in a southern accent while he started walking toward me. I decided my best bet at the moment was to dart for the bedroom. I closed the door behind me and tried to hold the doorknob so he couldn't twist it.

Angela came by my side to help and mouthed the word, 'sorry.'

"Oh, you wanna play hard to get? Well, alright then." He started to turn the doorknob and Angela and I had tried to keep him from turning it, but his strength overpowered ours, big time. Both of us looked at Alice's huge closet and ran to hide inside it. I was sure he'd see us before we got in, but I had weapons I could use in there. Alice had a ton of high heels, which would be extremely useful, of course.

"Ready or not, here I come," he said as he opened the door. For some reason he'd waited a little bit before deciding to come in, which I found odd since he'd forcefully tried to turn the knob earlier.

"Why are ya hidin' darlin'?" he asked with a confused look on his face. "Alice, what's goin' on?" His face changed to what looked like anguish.

So, one thing's for sure, he knew Alice.

He was getting closer and closer to us and once he reached the closet he slid the door open, revealing Angela and I in a defensive position, each of us holding a shoe with the heel in his direction.

He backed up with his hands up in the air as if he was surrendering. "Whoa now. I ain't gonna hurt ya. What are ya ladies doin' in my girl's place anyway? I should call the police for breakin' in."

My mind remembered Alice mentioning something about a guy she met. Was he the guy? I didn't remember his name though. Would I if he said it? Right now, it was my only choice. "What's your name?" I asked quickly, trying to keep a fierce tone in my voice.

"I should be the one askin' that question, but my name's Jasper." Jasper? Is that what Alice said his name was? "Now explain to me what y'all are doin' here and I might be nice enough to let ya go without callin' the cops."

My brain had finally come to the understanding that it was in fact the name she'd said. I exhaled. "Jasper? Architect Jasper?"

"Yeah, how d'ya know who I am? I don't know ya." The confused look came back.

"This isn't exactly the way I pictured meeting you, but my name's Bella and this is Angela. I'm Alice's cousin." I got out of the closet to properly introduce myself. "Sorry we had to meet like this. I wasn't expecting anyone to come in for awhile since Alice had an exam to go to. She has talked about you, obviously, which is how I remembered your name. I thought you were the one breaking in here."

Well, Alice was right, he was mighty fine. Not as much as Edward, but good for Alice. I'd have to find out if he was good on the inside too. Like they always say, 'You can't judge a book by its cover.'

"I was actually goin' to surprise ma darlin' with a good lunch. She's been really busy lately with her studies and all." It was pretty early for cooking lunch, so hopefully he was actually here for that. "Might I ask what the two a ya're doin' here?" he said as he eyed the two fanned out dresses on the bed and the other one on the floor. Angela must have been looking at that one.

He walked over to the dress on the floor and picked it up as I spoke. "Alice said we could come over and pick one for Angela's date tonight." I looked over at Angela after I saw him put the dress on the bed with the others.

"Alright then, keep doin' what ya were. I'll be in the kitchen if either a ya need anythin'. Alright?" We both nodded our heads at him in response and he walked out the door.

"Phew, that sure was one hell of an adrenaline rush," Angela said after he was completely out of sight.

"You can say that again." Now I knew for sure, Alice was dating someone. She must really like him if she'd already given him a set of keys. That was really quick, which I found kind of odd for Alice because she was usually the opposite type in these situations. That was another question I'd be asking her, mentally putting it on the 'questions for Alice' sheet in my head. Even though I would possibly forget by the time I'd see her again.

Angela picked the dress up off the floor and sighed. "Are you sure she doesn't mind? These are really beautiful and I don't know if I could afford to pay for one of them. I'm sure they're worth a lot of money." She slid her hand up and down the dress, getting a feel of the material.

"Don't worry about the price. This is a gift to you from the both of us," I said to her.

"What? Why?" Her eyes had opened up wide in surprise.

"Because we want to thank you for taking such good care of my mother," I answered her questions.

"But I'm just doing my job Bella. I don't understand."

"You've been doing more than your job Angela. I've notice how others are around my mother and I find you've been the best. You've been listening to her, unlike some of the others and also talking with her. You've broken the rules for me a few times also, which could have gotten you fired. This is just our way of thanking you for everything."

Angela came straight for me and wrapped her arms gently around me. "Oh, Bella. You don't know how much this means to me." She let go of me to look at me. "Plus, your mom is easy to take care of since she doesn't complain and has a good sense of humor. She's my favorite patient and no I'm not just saying that because of this," she said as she brushed her hand through the air over the dresses.

"She is great isn't she? I'm going to miss her so much." There were the tears again. Angela hugged me again as I cried.

"Let's get you back to her so you can make the most of what's left." She pulled away from me and I noticed there were wet streaks on her cheeks too.

"You need to pick a dress first. You'll have to try it on too to make sure it fits properly."

"I feel so bad keeping you away from your mother like this," she said as she looked over the dresses again.

"Don't be. I'll be there in no time," I replied before she could feel worse.

She picked up the lavender colored one and looked at it with admiration in her eyes. She went into the washroom and tried it on. "Let me see once you have it on Angela."

She walked back out a few minutes later and Jasper must have seen her as I heard him whistle. Angela stood in front of me, blushing like crazy.

The dress fit her perfectly. It was a one-shouldered dress which had flat creases in it diagonally from the shoulder to the waist. From there, the creases went in the opposite direction to the bottom of the dress. Almost like a sideways V shape.

Angela was very slim, but this dress was perfect for her. It was snug in the areas it needed to be, but not enough for it to stick to her body. You know, kind of like what spandex does? Most of her back was bare from the designing of the dress, but she had great skin, so no need to worry about that.

"Wow. You look great in that dress Angela. Personally, I think you should take that one. The color goes great with your skin tone and your hair and the design is just perfect for your body. Alice is usually the one that's good with these things, but I know what I'm saying is right. If I heard correctly, Jasper was whistling at you earlier, so I think he agrees too," I told her.

"Really? You think this one's it. Shouldn't I try on the other ones too?"

I could tell she liked that one though. "It's up to you, but in my opinion, I think that one's the best. Just by looking at the color." I decided to take another of the dresses and place it in front of her to check what the color was like against her skin. "No," I said and grabbed the other one. "Well, maybe this one. But it's up to you Angela as you'll be the one wearing it, not me, and like I said, I like that one on you."

"Okay, I'll take this one then. I'll have to thank Alice for this dress, it's amazing. I will have to get some shoes to go with it though."

"I'd say to look in Alice's closet as she's got a ton of them, but I doubt you wear the same shoe size as her. She's got really small feet." I grinned at her and headed for the closet to get one of those bags to protect the dress.

"Oh, Bella. You can't understand how much this means to me. I'm so grateful and I feel so lucky. Especially to be wearing one of Alice's designs. She's going to be famous one day, I know that for a fact," she pointed out.

I hung up the other dresses and placed the shoes Angela and I had used as weapons earlier, back where they belonged. I heard her laughing in the background, which made me laugh too. Next thing you know, we were laughing like crazy, tears flowing down our cheeks. I couldn't stop even with all the pain that surged through me from my injuries.

I saw Jasper pop his head in the room. "Am I missin' out on somethin' here ladies?"

"We...um...were just looking at...our weapons," I gasped, trying to get a hold of myself. "You can tell...Alice that her...shoes would have...come in handy." I exhaled the last breath I had and inhaled deeply after that.

All I felt now was pain. "Alright ladies, I'll let her know," he said as he chuckled and then turned back around.

I leaned onto the wall and closed my eyes. My mind fluttered back to this morning when Edward and I were locked in each others arms. My painkiller. "Bella? Are you alright?"

I held my hand up, closed it and then put my index up to let her know I needed a minute. The thoughts made my body tingle and it was like magic; the pain was gone. Well, the biggest of it anyway.

"I'm okay. I just needed a minute to collect myself. We can go now if you want. I'm sure you want to sleep before your date tonight." I wiggled my eyebrows at her, making her smile.

We headed out toward the door and saw Jasper cutting up some vegetables, waking up my sense of smell. It smelled like eggs and bacon. Mmm.

He was sure quiet. I had almost forgotten he was there. If he wouldn't have popped his head in the bedroom earlier, I'm sure I would have. I had a really bad memory lately also, which didn't help, at all.

"Ladies headin' out?" he asked with his southern accent again. Maybe that's what got Alice hooked. Other than how handsome he was anyway.

"Yes. Sorry again for earlier. Hope to meet you again in the near future, but in a better way," I pointed out.

He grinned at me and then handed me a paper bag. "Just thought ya'd like somethin' for lunch. Alice told me you're always at the hospital, so I made you somethin' better to eat. She also told me ya don't eat pork, so don't worry, it's actually chicken bacon. Alice prefers that one anyway. There's enough for the both of you in there."

"Um, thank you, very much," I said, followed by a, "Thank you," from Angela.

He did a gesture as if he was lifting a hat off his head and slightly bowed down. "You're welcome ladies. It's been a pleasure meetin' ya," he said and let us out the door.

"Wow, he's quite the man, isn't he," Angela said to me once he'd closed the door and we'd taken a few steps down the hall.

"Uh, yeah. No wonder Alice has already given him the keys to her place. I found it odd, but now I think I know why." She had it bad.

"Why's that?" she asked as we reached the car.

"I think Alice really likes this guy. I mean, like, really likes him." We were now on our way back to the hospital and we kept talking about Alice and Jasper. He seemed like a really good guy too. I did only meet him for a short amount of time, but he was extremely nice and he was a gentleman. He kind of reminded me of Edward in a way. That didn't include his style of clothing and accent though.

Well, now that she met him, hopefully she'd calm down on ripping Edward's hair off of his head. Sure don't want her doing that. I knew I'd still have to talk to Alice about that eventually and tell her about his side of the story. I'd tie her to a chair or something while I'd tell her to make sure she understood properly.

Hopefully, someday, we could all get along. One thing's for sure, I was going to keep in contact with Angela, if she wanted to anyway. Within the short amount of time we'd been together, it felt like we were best friends. I'd never felt so close to someone other than Alice. Not that I've had many friends growing up since I was always the quiet type. Going popular was definitely not me, at all.

Angela pulled up to the hospital doors to let me out. "Thanks for the ride. Hope you have fun tonight," I said.

"No, thank you, Bella. The dress is so beautiful. It means so much that you'd go out of your way like this for me."

"It goes both ways." I wasn't sure if she understood what I meant when I said that, but she looked like she did. "I'll see you later Angela." She said goodbye too and I closed the door behind me and walked through the front doors. Luckily, I didn't run into anyone in particular on my way up to my mother's room.

Phil was talking to my mother as I walked into the room. "Am I interrupting something? Should I come back later?" My mom looked at me with her smile, which made me smile in return.

"No, we were just talking about Phil's baseball games. So, how did it go with Angela?" she asked curiously.

I was glad she changed the subject because I didn't really like sports to tell you the truth. "She loved the dress and wanted me to thank Alice." My face started to flush and my heart was beating faster as I replayed the exhilarating moment with Jasper.

My mom looked at me curiously. "Bella? What are you not telling me?" It was unbelievable how much she could read my face.

"Oh, we...um...thought someone was breaking in at Alice's place while we were there. It was so scary, but man what a rush." I almost felt like fanning myself.

My mother and Phil both laughed. I told them about him and how he was even nice enough to have made Angela and me a sandwich, which I held up the bag I had in my hands to prove it. Of course my mother wanted to know everything about him. To the point of how he looked to what he was wearing and so on. I'm surprised Phil didn't say anything, although he had decided to go to the washroom while I was describing Jasper to her.

Her eyes lit up as I talked about him and that I was happy for Alice. "Oh, Bella, I'm so glad she's finally found someone. She's been alone for too long now, poor thing. I knew there was something up with her, but I just couldn't put my finger on it." Phil walked back into the room and my mother smiled even more than she already was. It felt good to see her smile.

As I was turning my head back toward my mother after having looked at Phil, my eyes fell upon the most gorgeous man. He saw me looking at him and he winked at me, making me all giddy while I blushed. Was that even normal for a person my age?

He started heading toward our room with a file in hand, as usual. I took in his body and pictured him against me like he was this morning. I bit my lip so hard I thought I could taste a bit of blood. Ugh, the things he did to me were indescribable. I was falling so hard, so fast for this man that I had trouble believing it myself.

EPOV

I looked into Bella's eyes as I walked toward her mother's room. She was so beautiful I had trouble keeping my eyes off of her. Just thinking back to our activities this morning made my blood start to flow exactly where it shouldn't be going at the moment. The heat that came off of her had been intoxicating.

I tried not to think too much about it since my clothes were so thin, which was extremely hard, I'll tell you that much. Those luscious lips just looked like they were waiting to meet mine again. Ugh, I needed to change my thoughts because buddy below would be hard by the time I walked into that room. That would definitely raise a few flags.

I opened up Renee's file and started to read through the previous notes to change my train of thought, which made me notice something I had missed for some reason; the results to her other tests.

My body stopped midway, preventing me from going any further as my mind took in the information. It didn't look good that was for sure. I scratched my head and headed back toward the counter. The file was now splayed over the counter, which I had placed my elbows against for support. I shuffled through the pages to make sure they were still in order, just in case they had been moved.

No, everything looked like it was in order. Could it have possibly been put in the wrong file? I looked at the top of the page that gave the patient's number. I exhaled with relief. It was in the wrong file after all. The last number was misguided. I looked throughout my other files to put it in the correct one. It ended up being Harry Clearwater's file.

My mind wandered to Bella again. It was unfortunate that Harry's results weren't good, but simply the fact of not having to tell Bella more bad news about her mother, was quite a relief. Was I being selfish by thinking this way?

I pictured her beautiful face full of sorrow as it had been this morning when she'd asked me not to leave her. It hurt me to see her that way. I didn't know how or if I could tell her any more awful news. She had suffered more than enough by now.

My head turned itself around to look at her from where I was standing. I had to move since I could not see her from here. I needed to see her face. Needed to see that she was alright. I took the few steps required to take her in and her face came into view. She was smiling, happily.

That was all I had to see. She was so beautiful, it was hard to believe I had her in my arms a few hours ago. Sparks were flying everywhere as we kissed passionately. The heat waves that were created between the two of us would have heated up a room by itself. My body started to feel tingly as I replayed our moment of time before the fucking alarm clock went off.

What she did to me was exhilarating.

"Edward? Are you alright?" My train of thought changed course as my father grabbed my arm.

"Hey, Dad. Yeah, I'm fine. Did you see Harry Clearwater's papers? They had been put in Renee's file by error," I cleared my throat as I mentioned it to him.

"No, show me, would you? I'd like to know what the results were." He followed me back to the front desk and I reached over to grab his file again. I opened it up and showed him the papers. "Oh, this is not good," he said as he shook his head. "This is the part I despise about my job Edward. I hate telling these people that they are getting worse and not better."

"Does he really have to know? He is dying isn't he? Why make it worse for him?" I asked.

"I don't have a choice Edward. You know that if I don't say anything, I could lose my license. There's always something a person despises of their work, right?" I nodded in reply. From what I've heard it was true anyway. Nothing was perfect.

"It's just too bad we have to give them more grief. Especially when they are already dying," I stated for the second time.

"I know, but as I said, that's the way it goes." I was starting to think twice about becoming an actual doctor. I'd be the one having to tell my patient's the fucked up news. Could I really handle that?

My father must have seen my thoughts in my face. "Edward, it gets easier, sort of, anyway. It's always hard to have to give people their results, but in the long run, you find a way to say it. It's not always bad either. In this area it mostly is, but there are other areas to work in too, Son. Don't forget that." He placed his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. "I have to go see Harry now, so I'll see you later, but think about what I said to you."

With that he walked off toward Harry's room as I stayed standing there like an idiot, staring at his back.

Was I really cut out for this?

Please leave me some of your thoughts!