Chapter 1

The clicking of the camera brought a smile to my face like it always had but today was a very special day for me. "Great job, guys! Hands up in the air. High as you can go!" I called out to the Hickons twins as I snapped some more pictures of them reaching up with giant smiles on their faces. While I had went to college to become the English teacher that I am I had indulged in my private passion also, photography.

"Sorry about that, Bella." Martia, the girls' mom, said as she walked back into the studio that I had had for almost six years now.

The girls immediately stood up heading for her when they heard her voice. "It's alright. We're done anyways." I told her as I pulled the SD card out of my camera popping it into my computer so that I could go burn them onto a disk while Martia dressed to leave. "It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to burn all these onto the disk." I called to her in the small room attached to the studio.

"Okay, Bella, I really appreciate you doing this so last minute and with everything happening today!" She called out.

"It's no big deal. I'm sure Vanessa will be in labor for hours yet. She is pregnant with Jake's children after all." I called back to her as I quickly tugged my phone out of my back pocket to check the progress of my brother and sister-in-law's delivery of my niece and nephew.

13 missed called from Jake, my brother; 5 missed calls from Vanessa, his wife; 18 missed calls from Alice, a best friend of mine and Vanessa's; 16 missed calls from Ang, another best friend of ours; and finally 107 messages combined between the four.

BELLA!? SOMETHING'S WRONG! YOU NEED TO GET HERE ASAP!

That was the most recent message and I immediately knew something was severely wrong and everything had not went as we had all planned for the last eight months. "Martia! I have to get to the hospital, somethings wrong!" I called out to my client as I hastily grabbed my keys off the hook by the front door.

"Bella, what's wrong?" She asked nervously as she poked her head around the door frame.

Shaking my head I snatched open the door. "I'm not sure but I have to go. The disc is almost done burning so once it's finished you can grab it but I have to leave now." I told her as I stepped out the open doorway when I had a quick thought. "Will you lock the door when you leave?"

She quickly nodded. "Yeah, go!"

It took me less than 10 minutes to get to the hospital where everybody I cared about stood with tears streaming down their faces and blood shot eyes. "What happened?" I asked stepping into the waiting room.

"She's gone, Bella. She's gone." Alice sobbed as she wrapped her arms around my suddenly stiff body. Once my body began to process the words she had uttered I felt my knees give out taking us both to the floor. Angela joined us in our sobbing embrace on the floor where the three of us mourned the sudden and unexpected death of our childhood friend. The three of us had become friends in the first few weeks of kindergarten.

I'm not sure how long the three of us sat huddled on the floor sobbing before I asked about Jake and the babies. "The babies? Jake?" I choked out as I pulled back from their tight embraces.

"Jake is just…" Alice said with a shake of her head before fresh tears spilled out of her red rimmed eyes.

I looked to Ang who just shrugged in response to my look. "He's the picture of a broken man, Bella. He won't even go see the babies who are doing fine by the way."

Sighing I gathered what courage I could and stood up, intending to go find my brother and knock some sense into him. Those babies were all he had left of Vanessa and she would absolutely be ashamed at him for not being with them right now. "Where did he go?" I asked them as I helped them from the floor.

"He said something about going to their secret spot. You know where that's at?" Ang asked with a shake of her head and raised eyebrow.

Nodding I headed for the exit of the small waiting room before stopping and turning back to the two women that were more like sisters to me than friends. "Are you guys going to go be with the babies? Vanessa wouldn't want them to be alone right after entering this big bad world."

They both gave me small smiles. "We know, Bells, we are just waiting on the doctor to give us the go ahead."

"Good. I'll be back after I knock some sense into that idiot of a brother of mine." I told them as I raced back out of the hospital, this time with an even heavier heart than before, heading for Jake and Vanessa's secret hide out.

Heading for our home away from home I quickly parked in the overgrown driveway behind Jake's truck as I took a deep breath at the sight of the old fishing cabin that had sat vacant for the past few years since our father's stroke. Once out of the car I cut a quick path through the field of wildflowers that I had spent many summer days lounging in while I lost myself in the pages of a book heading for the huge rock that marked the way to Jake and Vanessa's spot. It was the spot where they had shared their first kiss, their first date, their proposal, and their birth announcement. Once I hopped across the stones that made a natural path across the small creek it was just another few feet before I spotted my brother leaning against the large tree where his and Vanessa's initials were forever carved into the wood. "Jacob William Black, what the hell do you think you are doing out here?" I asked as I came to a stop right in front of his feet.

He just hung his head in a way I hadn't seen him do since the news had come in that his parents, my father's best friends, had been killed suddenly in a boating accident. My father had, without a second thought, taken Jake into our family fold and raised him like the son he considered him to be. I was seven years old when nine year old Jake had come to live with us and we had gotten even closer than we had been. He teased me, Nessa, Ali, and Ang endlessly like a brother did. That was until he realized that Nessa had developed right before his very eyes into a beautiful young lady. Jake and Nessa had started dating when she was 13 and he was 15. "She's gone, Bella. She's just gone." He muttered softly. They had suffered through basic training and then more training and moving from base to base and then deployment after deployment but somehow their love and faith had never wavered from one another. Until now. His faith and love was shattered.

"I know she's gone, Jake, but your babies are here. They need their daddy now that there momma can't be here for them." I told him as I folded myself onto the ground beside him.

He shook his head at me. "Those things took my Angel away from me. How can I love them, Bella? Vanessa is the one that wanted those babies, not me. I was happy and content with our lives just the way they were but no she had to want more. I had wanted to wait until I was out of the service but she just couldn't wait a few more years." He bit out with a shake of his head.

Gasping I leaned back from him in shock. This man wasn't my brother. He couldn't be. My brother wouldn't blame two innocent little babies just hours old for the death of their mother and his wife. This man before me wasn't broken. No, he was bitter. "How can you say that Jake? You were so happy for their arrival, remember? You begged and pleaded for leave so that you could be here on this day, remember? You were so excited this morning when her water broke, remember?" I asked him as I reached a tentative hand out to him. Jake had been a member of the military since he had turned 18 but had put in for paternity leave as soon as Vanessa had found out her due date.

He looked at me with angry eyes. "That was before they took my reason for living away from me, Bella. She's not coming back to me." He said suddenly standing up placing his hands on the tree on either side of their carved names. "They took her from me." He said shaking his head. "I don't want them anywhere around me. I'm going back to base." He ground out before storming away from me leaving me sitting there in the cool spring grass in absolute shock.

I had no idea what was going to happen to Vanessa's body or to her babies but I knew one thing for certain. Jake was in no sort of shape to deal with either issue so taking a deep breath I stood from my spot in the grass to go sort out my brother's family. Rubbing my fingers over Vanessa's name in the tree I took a shuddering breath as I raised my eyes to the sky. "I will see that they are loved, Nessa. I promise that they will know of the love you and Jake both had for them while we all awaited their arrival. I love you, sister of my heart."

With tears streaming down my face I made my way back to my car but wasn't surprised to find Jake's truck gone.

On my way back to the hospital I called Vanessa's parents, who lived several hours away and were unable to travel but still needed to know the events of the day. That was almost as tough of a conversation as the one with Jake but not as shocking. Vanessa had been a surprise baby for her parents in their late 40's so now they were in their 70's which limited their ability to travel quickly. I told them that I would take care of all the funeral arrangements according to Vanessa's will she had filled out when she had first found out she was pregnant and let them know all the details as they were decided. When they asked about Jake and why he wasn't the one doing the calling I simply told them that he was devastated and too emotionally broken to deal with everything right now so that I was taking care of it for him. They had understood and said they would make the calls to the rest of Vanessa's siblings that were scattered around the world.

Once I finally got the location of the Black babies I made my way to the private room that Alice and Ang had finagled for the duration of the babies stay. Walking into the room my breath was snatched from my chest at the sight of two of my best friends each holding a bundled baby to their chests as they sat in identical rockers. "Where is he?" Angela asked bluntly as she patted her blue bundle gently on the back. Trystan Jacob Black.

I just shook my head as I sat on the side of the bed defeated from the whole day.

"He blames them." Alice said knowingly as she ran a gentle hand down her pink wrapped bundle as a few tears leaked from her eyes. Her pink bundle squirmed before settling back down with a small adorable grunt. Rylan Isabella Black.

I just nodded in defeat. "Yep. What now?"