*CPOV*
"You're going fishing with broken ribs? Are you crazy or just stupid?" Sue sighed over the phone, clearly irritated.
"Not broken, just cracked. Tiny hairline fracture. A bad bruise, really," I shrugged off my injuries as if she could see me and instantly regretted it. I was glad she couldn't see me wince.
"Besides, honey, we're deep-sea fishing," I qualified as if that made all the difference. "Probably on the Cullens' yacht or something. It's all the fun and none of the work. You don't even hold your own pole! It's mounted on the side of the boat and you sit around drinking beer until you get a bite."
"You shouldn't be drinking alcohol when you're taking pain killers, Charlie," Sue cautioned.
"Coke, then," I smiled into the phone. It felt nice to have someone care after all these years. Even if her caring sometimes sounded a little like nagging. In any case, beer wasn't alcohol. Beer was beer. But I wasn't dumb enough to say that to my wife.
"How was the council meeting?" I asked in an effort to change the subject. "Did Abigail give you any grief?"
"Abigail was pretty damn smug, actually," Sue sighed again, sounding uncharacteristically defeated.
"Sarah told Seth she wanted to go with someone else to the upcoming dance. Seth got in a fight with the other boy, and now he's suspended and can't take her to the dance even if she changed her mind."
I groaned at the new development. "What? What happened? Sarah seemed like she was totally smitten with Seth last time I saw them together."
"What happened is that she's sixteen. How many sixteen-year-old girls do you know that want to be tied down to the same boy forever? Don't answer that," she laughed once, a hard sound, empty of humor.
"I used to feel bad for Quil being imprinted on a preschooler. But at least Claire isn't going to dump him right before prom," she moaned.
"How's Seth taking it?" I asked sympathetically. First loves and first heartbreak were hard enough without the added complication of the bizarre imprinting phenomenon.
"How do you think he's taking it? He's crashing in Billy's shed until he can keep himself under control. He phased in the house after Principal Whitten called and knocked out part of the kitchen wall," she sighed
That was one thing that definitely wasn't in any of the parenting books: how to handle a hormonal teenager's emotional outbursts when those outbursts led to my gangly 140-pound stepson morphing into a wolf the size of a horse with little to no warning.
Emily's scarred face flashed behind my eyelids.
"I hope you're being careful, sweetheart. I know you're his mom and you want to be there for him, but…maybe it's best that Jake and Seth are spending some time together. Misery loves company and all that. "
"I sure hope you're right, because I'm out of ideas," Sue said in an exhausted-sounding voice.
That was the thing about raising teenagers. It left you bone-tired, but there was little chance to recuperate when you lay in bed worrying at night instead of sleeping.
"Do I dare ask about Leah?" I asked in a cautious tone. Leah barely acknowledged me on a good day, but I figured that was to be expected given her age and how quickly her mother and I got together after Harry's death.
I figured if I just kept at it she'd come around eventually. I wasn't going anywhere. And while I didn't need Leah's approval, it would sure make things less awkward around the holidays.
"I was going to wait until you got home to tell you about Leah's news…"
"News? What news?" I asked hoarsely, reaching for the battery-sized roll of antacids in my shirt pocket that I'd purchased at the hotel gift shop before I even checked into my room.
I popped two in my mouth and quickly chewed and swallowed the chalky, tropical fruit-flavored tablets and braced myself for whatever news Sue thought was too important (or too terrible) to tell me over the phone.
"She met someone," Sue answered slowly.
"Oh, yeah? That's great! You told me how hard of a time she's had getting over Sam." It was hard for me to think poorly of Sam when he'd been the one to find Bella and bring her home after that horrible ordeal two years ago when Edward had despicably dumped my girl in the woods, leaving her alone to fend for herself and nearly die of exposure. "Who's the lucky fella?" I asked, trying to put the unpleasant memory out of my mind.
When Sue didn't immediately answer, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. "Please don't tell me she imprinted on a baby," I pleaded, only half-joking. There was a slightly hysterical edge to my voice. I said a short, silent prayer that it wasn't anything weird or wolfy.
Sue laughed. That was a good sign, wasn't it?
"No, no. Nothing like that. It's a girl she met at her dorm. I couldn't believe it when she told me her name. Sam. Short for Samantha. Can you believe that?"
I coughed and sputtered as a gulp of scalding hot coffee went down the wrong pipe. "The name was what you found most surprising?" I asked incredulously when I finally regained the ability to speak.
Sue made a strange noise that was halfway between a snort and a grunt. "Yes, well, that was certainly a surprise. Leah says she doesn't like labels. That 'the only thing she knows is that she loves Sam, and Sam happens to be a girl,'' Sue quoted in a perfect imitation of her headstrong daughter.
"And then I said, "When do I get to meet her?"... And that was that," Sue finished nonchalantly. "Do you mind skipping your poker game on Friday night? I'd like it if we were both there to show our support."
"Oh, I don't know, hon," I teased. "If I don't play cards on Friday, who's going to pay for Donnie's daily visits to the bikini barista coffee stand?" I snorted and rolled my eyes as I mentioned my deputy's risque off-duty activities.
"So you'll be there, then?" she asked hopefully.
"Meeting Leah's mysterious new girlfriend? Wouldn't miss it for the world. I'll be sure to clean my shotgun that day," I grinned into the receiver of the hotel phone.
"Charlie…" Sue said in a warning tone.
"Guy, girl. Makes no difference to me. Anybody who dates one of our kids gets the Chief Swan act," I said matter-of-factly.
"I wish I could kiss you right now," Sue sighed wistfully.
"I accept IOUs," I told her as I finished the last swig of my coffee and set the white ceramic mug down with the other dirty dishes on my room service platter. I looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Bella would be picking me up any minute, so I began to wrap up the call.
"I better let you go. I've got a yacht to catch," I joked. "I'll call you when I get back to the hotel room tonight, ok? Thanks for getting up early so I could hear your voice. Love you, Susie Q. "
I'd been calling her the nickname since we were kids. It was the name of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song my parents used to listen to and seemed to fit since her name was Sue and she was a daughter of the Quileute tribe. Hey, I never said I was original.
I stopped calling her that when she married Harry, out of respect for my friend. But it slipped out when I awkwardly asked her out that first time, months after we buried Harry.
We'd gotten close again, in the aftermath of his death. I was already going through a lot with Bella when Harry had his heart attack. And Sue could relate with difficult teenagers of her own.
And to be honest, I'd always had a thing for her, but so did half of the guys on the Rez. Harry had just been the boldest one among us and had gotten the girl. After he died, she and I leaned on each other as we grieved the loss of her husband and a friend who was more like a brother to me.
We'd sit on her porch swing, drinking too many beers to count, laughing and crying as we remembered the good ole days, simpler times before we all got old and tired and everything just got so damn complicated. It was during those long, tearful conversations that the sparks started to fly.
It was all too easy to feel the chemistry that had always been there between us. It might've been a little soon for the sake of propriety, but I noticed some of the guys at La Push starting to sniff around, offering their tanned broad shoulders for her to cry on.
What could I say? I wasn't about to get beaten to the punch again because I was too much of a coward to ask her out. So I invited her over one night, promising to wow her with my culinary abilities.
It was a disaster, of course. The chicken parmigiana I'd attempted to make following along with some pony-tailed Italian character on the Food Network had turned out burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.
She was kind enough not to laugh (much) at my humiliating defeat. Instead, she threw open the fridge and started pulling out various ingredients. Bella had just recently done the shopping so luckily I wasn't embarrassed any further. Had it been left up to me, we would've been having beer and pretzels for dinner.
Sue put me to work chopping vegetables as she tossed together a quick salad while she waited for a pot of water to boil. As the kitchen began to heat up, so did we, laughing and finding little excuses to touch each other in the tight confines of my kitchen. When it was ready, she fed me some of the pasta sauce off of the wooden spoon she'd been using to stir.
As I carefully slurped the steaming hot sauce off the end of her spoon, I could feel some of it get caught in the short, neat bristles of my mustache. I reached for a kitchen towel to clean myself up, but before I could, Sue said, "Let me." Surprising the hell out of both of us, she stood up on her toes and planted one on me.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Checking my cell phone again, I read a text from Bella informing me that they were waiting for me in the parking lot and to look for them in a "big ass white Jeep."
I felt a small pang of disappointment that we wouldn't be riding around again in the Ferrari or one of their other cars that looked to belong in a Vin Diesel movie. But I pragmatically thought to myself that I wouldn't want to leave a Ferrari parked down by the docks either.
"Top o' the mornin' to ya, Chief!" The big one, Emmett, jovially called out the open passenger window from behind the wheel as he pulled up to the loading zone in front of the ritzy oceanfront hotel.
He reached over the center console with one long, muscular arm and flung open the door in front of me. "Hop in!" he boomed and slapped the empty seat next to him.
"Hi, Dad!" Bella cheerfully greeted from where she sat next to Edward in the backseat.
The massive tires and lift kit on the jeep meant I had to make a three-foot climb to get in, which was awkward, to say the least, with my arm in a sling. But I wasn't about to ask for a boost like some kind of invalid.
I hiked up my wranglers at the thigh and using my good arm on the door handle, wrenched myself up into the seat, ignoring the pain in my ribs as I twisted to face forward.
"Good morning!" I said distractedly as I fumbled with the buckles of the harness-style seatbelt. Once I finally was buckled in, the jeep lurched out onto the road.
"Emmett," I cordially greeted the huge sports-loving older brother who didn't creep me out as much as the other one. "I didn't realize you were an angler."
"I mostly fish on the Playstation, it's true," he chuckled affably. "But it sounded like more fun than the whole nothing I had going on today, so I thought 'why not?'" he shrugged and smiled, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Sleep okay, Dad?" Bella asked pleasantly.
It hurt too much to twist my torso to look at her, so I just turned my head to the side and answered back, "Like the dead. So what are we fishing for today?" I asked eagerly as we pulled into the nearby marina.
"Salmon, tuna, and rock cod," Edward chimed in from behind me.
I whistled enthusiastically. "I've always wanted to catch a bluefin. Billy never shuts up about the 150-pounder he caught when he went to Hawaii for Rachel's wedding."
"That must be the framed photo I've seen hanging on the wall at Jake's place," Bella replied.
"The photo that's bigger than any of the ones of his kids? That's the one!" I chortled.
*EPOV*
"Well, let's see what we can do about beating Billy's record," I grinned.
Bella turned to look at me, cocking an eyebrow in suspicion. What do you know that I don't? she thought.
I just smiled crookedly at her and winked, unwilling to reveal all my tricks. One of the many perks of having an omniscient sister was vacation planning.
Alice had looked ahead to see when (and on which boat) we'd have the best luck fishing. I made sure that Charlie was going to go home with bragging rights. Hopefully, that would take some of the sting off of his aching ribs.
"Here we are! Slip 17," Emmett announced as he pulled into a numbered parking spot near our rented Bayline.
"I don't think the captain is here, yet," Charlie observed as he surveyed the sleek, unmanned, 24-foot vessel, rocking gently in the tide.
"That's where you're wrong, Chief!" Emmett announced as he leaned across the center console to open the glove box. He pulled out a white captain's hat with a short black brim and an anchor embroidered on the front in golden yellow thread.
Pinching the brim between two thick fingers, he placed the slightly too-small hat on top of his dark curls and smiled devilishly, dimples on full display.
"Why doesn't that make me feel any better?" Charlie muttered as he let himself out of the Jeep and headed for the gangplank.
"Sorry, Charlie. The fog is going to burn off while we're out on the water. We couldn't take any chances with a human captain. However, Emmett is an exceptional seaman," I explained, clapping him on the shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture.
Charlie squinted, his mustache curving in a deep frown. "Am I supposed to know what that means, Ed?"
"Regular people can't be allowed to see us in the sun, remember, Dad?" Bella gently reminded her father, looping an arm around his uninjured one and gently tugging him toward the boat.
As a look of comprehension flashed across his achingly familiar chocolate brown eyes, the deep creases on his forehead smoothed over leaving behind worry lines etched permanently into his sun-bronzed skin.
"Don't worry, Dad. It's really cool. But I'm glad you brought your sunglasses," she chuckled, eyeing Charlie's favorite pair of mirrored aviators tucked away in his shirt pocket.
I didn't usually hear Charlie's thoughts with a lot of clarity, but what he thought next came through clear as a bell.
Christ, now even Bella is talking in riddles. Must be a vampire thing.
"Must be," I laughed, walking up the gangplank a few paces behind them.
Charlie visibly shuddered and then craned his neck to glare at me over his shoulder with one eye.
"Don't do that," he growled, the little v between his thick brows identical to the one that appeared on Bella's face when she was agitated.
Trailing a few paces behind me, Emmett barked out a laugh, thoroughly amused by watching me walk on eggshells around my surly father-in-law (a man who just happened to be 63 years my junior.)
"Good luck with that, Chief," Emmett guffawed. A remark that was paid back with an elbow to his ribs.
After we all boarded the boat, Emmett and I took a quick tour around the vessel, making sure everything was in good working order and that the life vests were where they were supposed to be. When the Swans were involved, you could never be too careful or too prepared.
"Pick your poison, Charlie," I beamed as I swung open the top of a cooler that had been pre-stocked with a selection of bottled water, soda pop, and his preferred Rainier beer.
"It's a little early," Charlie said, noting the position of the sun that had only just begun to rise over the horizon. Then relented, "Ah, what the hell! I'm on vacation!" he grinned as he plucked a frosty can of beer from the ice.
"That's the spirit!" I encouraged. Charlie cracked open the can and took a long swing and then paused with the can still pressed to his lips.
I didn't need to read his mind to realize he felt awkward being the only one aboard drinking alcohol (or anything at all).
"I wish Billy was here," he muttered. "Feels a little weird drinking alone." He looked down at his beverage as if it didn't taste quite as good as it had a moment ago.
"I'll have one with you, Charlie," I offered without a moment's hesitation, grabbing a second can for myself from the cooler
Emmett laughed with unbridled anticipation as he vividly remembered how vile the beer had tasted when he'd lost a bet at that bar in Montreal for Bella's birthday last year.
"Bottoms up, brother," he snickered as he took his place behind the steering wheel. A moment later, the boat rumbled to life and we slowly started to pull away from the dock.
I shut the cooler and sat down on top of it since the seating was limited with Charlie and Bella already occupying the bench seat facing the rear of the boat. Charlie watched me curiously as I raised the can to my lips. Bella's eyes were wide with disbelief.
I winked at her and then took a generous gulp of the bitter frothy liquid. The taste was stomach-turning. Like sour, bitter bile. I expected that. What I didn't expect was the effect of the carbonation.
Thousands of tiny gas-filled bile bubbles coated the inside of my esophagus, refusing to stay down. However, I swallowed hard, equally as unwilling to let them come back up.
Charlie examined my expression, and I worked hard to twist my features into something that didn't resemble a revolted grimace.
"Not bad," I managed, pressing my fist to my lips as a bubble of the ingested gas burst in my throat, filling my mouth with a fresh blast of sour bile.
"Did you just burp?" Bella asked incredulously, dissolving into a fit of giggles.
"Was that what that was?" I asked, horrified and disgusted.
Charlie looked begrudgingly impressed. "Well, alright then," he smiled a little and raised his beer to clank it against my own. "Cheers!" he toasted brightly as he pressed his mustache against the top of his can and took another loud slurp.
"Cheers," I choked out, pressing the flimsy, metallic-tasting aluminum to my lips, this time looking at Bella. The things we did for love, I thought, this time trying to hold my breath in a vain hope that I wouldn't taste it as much the second time.
*BPOV*
"Did you see the look on Charlie's face when he and Emmett wrestled that huge bluefin into the boat?!" I exclaimed, a deeply satisfied grin lighting up my face as I crawled into bed with Edward at the end of the day.
Chuckling and shaking my head in amusement, I added, "I've seen the photos from the day I was born. He looked happier about catching that fish today."
Edward had to have seen the photos I was referring to; they were in a framed collage hung above Charlie's fireplace. Edward threw his head back and laughed at the comparison in a way that made me think he agreed with me but was too polite to do so out loud.
Poor Edward had spent the latter half of the fishing trip retching up several cans of beer off the back of the boat.
I'll never forget the look on his face when Charlie had pulled up his sleeve to reveal the seasickness band he wore on his wrist. "Never leave home without it," Charlie smugly told Edward in between heaves, clapping him on the shoulder in an oddly paternal gesture.
"Let it out, son. Better out than in," he had consoled in a superior voice.
"I did see the look on his face. It was nearly as jubilant as yours was watching your dad enjoy himself. It was that smile that got me through the third beer," Edward admitted as he rolled onto his side and drew me in for a kiss.
He tasted like the deer he hunted on the way home as a palate cleanser after vomiting up all that beer. And like peppermint toothpaste which he'd tried out of desperation when draining a herd of deer hadn't worked to get the taste out of his mouth.
"That's awful stuff," he had complained of the aqua-striped toothpaste, making a hilariously disgusted face in the bathroom mirror.
"You're not supposed to swallow it," I said, covering my mouth with my hand in a vain attempt to hide my laughter.
"I guess my technique needs work," Edward glared back at me, his eyes tightening defensively in the mirror as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he reminded me that the common toothbrush hadn't even been invented until a dozen years after he was dead.
"They never show people spitting it out in the movies or on TV," he huffed defensively,
"That's what she said!" Emmett's booming voice filtered in through the window from somewhere up in the main house. Edward rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored the interruption.
"That was really very sweet of you to drink all that beer so that my dad could have a drinking buddy," I said, grabbing a fistful of his white cotton undershirt and kissing him again.
Edward's silky lips smiled against my own. "You know what they say, " he murmured, awarding my greedy lips with another searing kiss."Happy wife. Happy life."
I gasped into his mouth when one of his hands reached down to curl around my calf and then suddenly hitched my leg up over his hip. When my crotch was pressed flush against his, Edward bucked his hips just a little to let me feel how willing he already was.
"There are definitely perks to my dad being miles away at a hotel because we definitely wouldn't be doing this if he was staying with us," I giggled a little breathlessly as he pressed a suckling kiss into the hollow behind my ear.
"I guess I never really thought about it," he replied, placing a series of feather-light kisses into the sensitive juncture of my neck and shoulder.
"Liar," I accused as he cupped his hand firmly on my breast and pressed my body more tightly to his with the other.
"Guilty as charged," he breathed, very unrepentantly, pinching my nipple gently between his fingers.
I removed my hands from where they were resting on either side of his face and let them trail over the broad expanse of his shoulders. I luxuriated in the feel of his perfectly sculpted body pressed against mine. Even through the thin cotton of his shirt, I could feel the defined lines of musculature in his back and arms.
He was flawless and he was all mine.
I growled possessively and appreciatively as I peeled the cotton t-shirt over his head, revealing the hard, masculine physique that I wasn't nearly finished pawing at yet.
Edward seemed to like the attention because he thrust his hips against my core with even more zeal.
Soon enough, the tattered remains of my silky black negligee joined his t-shirt and then his boxer briefs on the floor. It was merely a coincidence that an unbidden thought popped into my head at the very moment Edward's impressive erection came into view, making me stifle a giggle.
"Mrs. Cullen, are you laughing at me?" Edward growled and nipped playfully at my throat. His ego remained very much intact as he knew just as well as I did that there was nothing remotely laughable about the huge (and still growing) situation between his legs.
I giggled again. "No, no. It was just that you were taking your clothes off and it made me think of something Charlie said today."
I laughed as a scandalized expression crossed Edward's face and hastened to explain.
I dropped my shield so that I could share the memory of Charlie's horrified expression when the sun started to pierce through the cloud layer and Edward, Emmett, and I began to shed our outer layers to show him what our skin looked like in the sunlight.
"I wish everybody would stop taking their clothes off to show me stuff!" he muttered grumpily before shielding his eyes with his hand at the blinding spectacle of three vampires in direct sunlight.
Followed by a disgruntled, "Alright alright. Put your clothes back on. You're scaring all the fish away."
"Tough as nails, you Swans," Edward chuckled a little incredulously, though his hands were not detracted from their thorough exploration of my naked body.
"And don't you forget it," I teased as I nipped at his earlobe with my teeth. He hissed with pleasurable pain and rolled me over onto my back, his narrow hips settled between my thighs.
Edward's hand came up to cradle the side of my face, his thumb gliding sensuously along my lower lip before pushing it inside my mouth. I sucked on it and swirled my tongue around it suggestively. My wantonness had the desired effect, making Edward groan with unrestrained lust.
He pulled his hand away from my face and a moment later I felt his moistened thumb circling the throbbing bud peeking out from between my folds with the perfect amount of pressure.
He did this for what could have been minutes or hours, until I was writhing beneath him, begging for release.
"Edward, please," I keened and bucked my hips, needing to feel him inside me. "I need you."
Edward chuckled darkly, lining himself up with entrance, never once letting up with his thumb.
"And don't you forget it," he growled as he filled me in one smooth stroke, making stars explode behind my eyelids.
*A/N* I'm baaaack! Sorry for the long delay. I packed up my husband and kids and took them on a longish vacation to California to be with the grands for Christmas.
Like thousands of other holiday travelers, our return flight was canceled and we had to drive home in a rented car, from San Francisco to north of Seattle, through a snowstorm. 😳 Needless to say, not a lot of writing got done, but I'm so happy to be home and getting back into my writing groove.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy New Year! Til next time!
