Chapter 12

When Edward very suddenly and unexpectedly found his arms full of a warm, soft, trembling Bella, clinging to him as tightly as she could after she slammed directly into his chest, it was all he could do not to crush her.

The relief was almost more than he could bear.

His arms instantly closed around her, as tightly as he dared.

His breathing came hard, in short bursts, his eyes squeezing shut. He buried his nose in her hair and held on as hard as he deemed safe.

The purring hum in his chest — not exactly a growl — was constant, loud enough it had to be audible even to human ears. And he couldn't have stopped it any more than he could have forced himself to pry his arms loose from around her.

The feeling of her there, close against him, was everything and still not enough. His entire world narrowed down to the feel of having his mate right there with him, his arms locked around her, shielding her. It was the first moment he'd felt truly secure that she was still his — that she wasn't going to suddenly disappear, run from him, turn him away...or find her comfort in the arms of another, namely an arrogant wolf.

He'd needed this. He'd desperately needed her in his embrace since the moment his plane touched down, needed to feel her there in his arms and know she was safe. It was downright primal how desperately he needed it.

There had been times he thought it would never happen. And those times had been some of the low points of his existence.

For it to finally come when he was least expecting it, in the dark stillness of night, after devastatingly listening to her beg him to stop in her dreams... it was almost too much. His senses were overwhelmed.

Bella's face was buried between his neck and shoulder, and he intimately felt every breath she took, every sob, inhaled and exhaled against his flesh. He was hyperaware of each one of her fingernails, trying to burrow into his stone-like shoulders, gripping him as tightly as she could without hurting herself. She could never grip him tightly enough to satisfy him.

He had her clutched against him, chest to chest. After far too many days of only being able to listen from a distance, he could now finally feel every heartbeat, the way her chest expanded and retracted with each breath. Those particular sensations held a meaning of vital importance: she was alive. She was alive and he had her.

He distinctly felt each of her individual tears as they dampened his throat, dripping down onto his shirt. He felt the way her body trembled against him, overwhelming him with the urge to tighten his hold until it stopped. Only sheer force of will kept him aware enough to keep from trying. He wanted to lose himself in her, give himself over to his senses, but he had to keep it in check. She was still human — his mate, but not his physical equal. His comfort had to be tender, not fierce, as his instincts screamed.

Equally vivid to his heightened senses was the smell of a wave of residual fear that wracked her from the nightmare, mingled with both her own pleasant freesia scent and the mouthwatering smell of her blood.

The fear was the scent that held his attention, at the moment.

The smell of his mate's fear affected him viscerally, instinctively — his hold tightened infinitesimally more, a low growl mingling with the purr in his chest. Feral. A warning to anything close enough to hear it. His strength he could control, but some drives could not be put in check — they were too ingrained.

It had to mean something about their bond, something profound and primal, that that sound seemed to comfort his mate, rather than frighten her. She burrowed closer, her trembling ebbing slightly, so he did it again. Louder. Intentionally.

"Edward..." she sobbed his name into his neck, her fingers clawing at him as she tried to get closer. Just that one word sent shivers through him. After everything she had told him about what Albert had done to her, the way he'd tortured her mind as well as body, to hear Bella say his name this way was a gift he did not take for granted.

"I've got you," he rasped, and barely recognized the sound of his own voice. It was deep, rough, ravaged with emotion. One hand went to the back of her head, cupping it securely as he held her against him. "I've got you, and I'm never letting you go again. Not ever."

She nodded into his shoulder, as close as she could possibly get. He wanted her even closer. There was simply no way to get her close enough to satisfy the ache in him, the desperate need for his mate — for her warmth, her smell, her softness, her presence. A need that had gone unfulfilled for far too long.

And yet there was nothing sexual about it, at least not for the moment, not even from the monster in him — the side of his nature that unendingly growled for her flesh as much as her blood. She was mate to them both: the man and the vampire. Her needs were of top priority to them both, and right now, they both understood this was all she needed.

It may have been the man that held her; but it was the monster that both growled in her defense and purred in contentment at having her close. She was the one who drove it to a frenzy; she was also the only one who could tame it.

He hadn't pondered that before — that his monster could love unselfishly; that it was that side of him he so wished to deny that actually allowed him to love her so fiercely.

And it was his monster's capacity for violence that would stop at nothing — including coldblooded, murderous vengeance — to keep her safe.

Safe. The word sent pleasant tingles through both parts of his nature. Bella was finally safe. He had her. Nothing could touch her. It would have to get through him first, and that wasn't happening.

That tight ball of tension he'd carried in his chest since the beginning of the entire ordeal wasn't something he'd even been aware of, until it released instantly with that awareness that his mate was safe. Muscles he hadn't been aware had been tightly coiled for months relaxed, though his arms still held her tightly.

Still she cried. She cried like she wasn't ever going to stop.

He made his way up onto the futon from where he knelt on the floor, and he quickly sat to pull her into his lap, never fully letting go of her for a millisecond. He rocked her, and he whispered how much he loved her and that she was safe — that he was never going to let anything happen to her again — that he would never leave her again, no matter what.

All the things he'd so needed to say since he came home.

And she must have needed to hear them. Because Bella only pressed closer and clung to him more tightly, crying so hard her whole body shook as she finally let it all out in his arms.

As she slowly began to calm, he cupped her face in his hands and brought it to his, kissing the top of her head, her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. He whispered "I love you" with his forehead pressed to hers, their breath mingling, both of their eyes closed as she held onto him and whispered it right back.

He didn't kiss her trembling lips. He wanted to, desperately. But he didn't. Not that night. He just had the feeling it might not be a good idea to try — not there, in her bed, after that kind of nightmare.

And eventually, she dipped her head back down to rest her cheek on his shoulder.

"Edward?"

The sound of her voice surprised him. She'd been sitting in his lap on the futon for quite some time, just resting peacefully in his arms once she had quieted, her head on his shoulder. Her fingers were curled into his t-shirt, right over his still heart. She'd made no move to leave him, and he certainly wasn't planning to suggest it. He'd have been content for her to stay there forever, letting him rub her back softly, despite the fact that he knew she needed to get some sleep.

He dreaded the moment she would pull away. He wasn't entirely convinced he would be able to let her go.

"Hm?" he half hummed, half purred, nuzzling his nose into her hair and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Would you do something for me?" she asked, so tentatively that it was like a vise around his heart.

Was she serious? There was quite literally nothing he wouldn't do for her, at that point. Not one condition on that.

"Anything," he murmured into her hair. "Name it, love."

The endearment slipped out before he thought better of it, and he felt the way she briefly stiffened in his arms. He nearly cursed. She had told him Albert called her that too, and he hadn't said it since. How could he have forgotten at the worst possible moment?

She shifted in his lap but didn't lift her head from his shoulder. "I need your help with something. It's...it's actually what I came to talk to you about, that first night at your cottage, before I got...sidetracked."

His hold tightened slightly. That was the first time either of them had acknowledged their emotional discussion since the night it had happened, and he wasn't sure he was ready to go there again yet.

So he focused on the semantics of her statement, instead. Still your cottage, not ours. He hated that more every time she said it.

And she still sounded nervous about asking him for something — too unsure of him.

"Anything you want," he assured her again, meaning every word. "Tell me and it's done."

She exhaled a shaky breath. "Lacey Matthews. I keep thinking about her. I saw her pictures there in the woods, and I...I see her face sometimes, when I close my eyes."

Better her face than Albert's, Edward felt. Or his own, in the role of attacker. But he didn't voice that opinion. Nor did he ask what she meant about pictures in the woods. That was part of Bella's story he hadn't heard yet.

"How can I help?" he asked carefully, pressing yet another kiss to the top of her head. He didn't seem able to stop.

A residual shudder wracked her frame. "It's just...she's out there, somewhere. Her body, I mean. She must have family or friends looking for her, at least somebody. Do you think...do you think you could...you know...find her? So her family can bury her?"

He hadn't expected that, but he should have. Bella's warm, caring heart was a large part of the reason he loved her, and it wasn't so hard to believe that she would have identified with the woman in whose cabin she was held.

Logistically, however, there were problems with that, not the least of which was leaving Bella without his protection while he looked for a corpse — a corpse he would also have difficulty not identifying with Bella.

It could so very easily have been her. It could have been her body he had to look for, her life that had been brutally cut short. And that wasn't something he could dwell on, not without coming dangerously close to losing his tenuous grasp on his rage at Albert, Victoria, and the whole situation.

But that didn't matter. This was the first thing Bella had really asked of him since he returned — the first tangible thing he could actually do for her.

And he'd be damned if he'd let her down.

"I'll be glad to, sweetheart." He'd barely remembered not to call her love, yet again, and it pissed him off that Albert had taken that from him. "The new flooring is being delivered tomorrow morning, but I'll leave right afterward, if you'll agree to come back here and stay in the house with my family. I don't want you down at the cottage without me. That's my only condition: I won't leave you unless I know you're protected."

"I promise," she agreed quickly. "But Edward, when you find her..."

He rubbed her back, already dreading the moment he discovered the girl who'd died in Bella's place. At the same time, he was touched that Bella had such confidence in him.

"Yes?"

"If there's a funeral, I — I want to go. I know I can't go alone right now, but...will you take me?"

Jesus. No. He felt sick just thinking about it.

Bella, at a funeral that, again, could so easily have been her own, both of them trying not to draw correlations between her and the woman in the casket.

Bella, out of the controlled environment of the Cullen home, when Albert could so easily appear as anyone. With Albert's ability to mask his scent, even Edward's family could be fooled. Only he, with his mind-reading capabilities, could know the difference with certainty.

Making him Bella's only real protection.

A chilling thought occurred to him. All his enemies would have to do is take him out, incapacitate him in some way, and their path to Bella would be an easy one. And here he was considering going out into the woods alone.

But she asked him for this. She had come to him to ask for help, a visible show of trust. So there was less than zero probability he would actually tell her no. And he'd be going alone. Pulling any of his family away from protecting her to protect him was out of the question too.

"If that's what you need, then yes. I'll find her. I'll make sure her family gets her back, and I'll take you to the funeral, if there is one."

"Thank you," she whispered, and he drew a deep breath of contentment when her fingers released the front of his t-shirt and her arms wrapped fully around his waist in gratitude.

He'd scare her with his intensity if he started trying to explain just how willing he was to do absolutely anything she asked, so he just pressed his lips against her head again, breathing her in deep.

But her heartrate picked up nervously and she fidgeted in his lap anyway, and he sighed. He'd known it was too good to last. He braced himself for her extricating herself from his embrace, willing his arms to agree to relinquish their long-awaited hold on her.

"Will you do something else for me?" she asked instead, surprising him both that she stayed put and how unsure her tone was. If anything, she sounded even more timid this time. Maybe he should have gone into detail about just exactly how far he would go to make her happy.

"Do you honestly think there's the slightest chance I might tell you no?" he teased gently, his tone intentionally light, but with the intent of getting his point across. He squeezed her a little closer. "You never have to ask, Bella. Just tell me what you need, and I'll do everything in my power to make it happen."

Her nervousness was starting to make him nervous. Her heart was fluttering like hummingbird wings.

"Will you stay here with me tonight?" she asked, so quietly that if he was human, he might not have even heard it.

He'd already been staying in the room with her anyway, since the night Jacob left, watching over her from the sofa while she slept on the futon. So she could only mean...

"Of course," he answered quickly, overwhelmed by the emotion that shot through him. She wanted him to hold her. She felt safe enough with him to allow him back into her bed, to trustingly go to sleep in his arms.

Maybe she even felt safer with him there.

And that was how it came to be that for the first time in more than seven months, he had the privilege of holding his mate in his arms when she next went back to sleep, her head tucked safely into his chest beneath his chin, his arms as tight around her as he could safely manage. He tangled their legs together, wanting her as close as he could get her.

He felt like he could breathe easily, having her there, where anything that wanted her would have to go through him first — securely wrapped in his arms where he knew he could protect her.

He would never, ever take that simple pleasure for granted again — no matter what the next day brought, which he wasn't so naive as to believe couldn't be disastrous again in its own right, dropping him right back to square one.

Eager to get back down to their cottage and spend the morning alone together before he had to leave her that afternoon, Edward gently eased himself out from beneath Bella's still-sleeping form the next morning. He made his way to the kitchen to start her breakfast himself, with a spring in his step, actually whistling a tune as he did so, much to Esme's and Alice's delight.

Everyone in the house had some idea what had happened, of course. It wasn't as though their ears were deaf to Bella's nighttime screams or the things they had said to each other afterward — including her asking him to stay in the bed with her.

Esme had poked her head in to check on Bella during her nightmare, as she faithfully did each time Bella awoke screaming, in case Edward needed help. Seeing Bella finally pouring out her tears in Edward's arms had been a most welcome sight to the mother who was so worried about them both. Esme couldn't keep the smile off her face watching him make Bella breakfast.

So Edward chalked up Bella's obvious shyness, when she appeared in the kitchen looking for him, to her being well aware of their beaming audience watching him watch her eat with a big goofy smile on his face, as well as an after-effect of their first real physical contact in seven months.

But when that shyness continued when they reached their little cottage, a very nervous Bella sneaking near-constant glances in his direction, biting her lip and being even more of a clumsy menace than was typical, he couldn't blame it on a houseful of nosy vampires anymore.

Familiar as an old friend, that edge of worry was back in his gut.

She had started wondering what it would be like, somewhere in the middle of working in that cottage with Edward from sunup to sundown every day.

Wondering what it would be like to kiss him again, that is. Wondering if she could do it without panicking, without getting lost in her memories, without seeing Albert coming at her instead of Edward.

Albert's kisses as Edward had been aggressive, demanding, frightening. She could barely remember what the real Edward's felt like.

But after five days spent in his constant, steady presence, she wanted to.

Five days of watching his strong, competent hands gently make repair after repair to the little home that had somehow started out in worse shape than her, but was making faster progress than she was.

Five days of Edward's gentle smiles in her direction and his sweet willingness to give her space when she needed it. Five days of seeing him go completely out of his way to do absolutely anything that would make her feel more comfortable in his presence.

He was so sweetly attentive, both to the run-down little house and to her. Especially her. She could feel his eyes on her every movement, even when he wasn't looking directly at her. She knew he was always aware of her exact location in the house, her mood, even her heartbeat. She knew this because she watched him too, sneaking glances constantly.

She saw the worried look on his face, sometimes, before he could cover it.

She saw the longing looks too.

He was so careful not to startle her or even get too close without plenty of warning. Trying to hide a racing heartbeat from him was next to impossible. He would tense up every time and give her some space, always assuming the worst.

But it wasn't always the worst. Sometimes, especially the last couple days, her heart raced because of his nearness in a good way.

He treated her like she was made of glass, like she was going to shatter if he reached out to touch her. Sometimes, the racing heart was because she wished he would.

Like when he wore that damn baseball cap Alice had left with the supplies. She had a love-hate relationship with that thing — the one that he wore backward when he painted, the one that drove her utterly to distraction because he just looked so rumpled and casual and hot in it, sneaking glances her way from under it and grinning unabashedly when he caught her sneaking a glance right back.

Those times, she couldn't imagine what she was waiting for to try kissing him again. The man clearly adored her and wouldn't hurt her. If she didn't get her hands on him soon, she was going to actually physically combust.

Seriously, was the stupid hat part of some kind of plan of Alice's? The result of some vision? She wouldn't be surprised. It was just so ridiculously effective.

Or maybe it was that Albert hadn't worn a hat when he imitated Edward with her, and it made just enough difference that even her deeply confused and traumatized subconscious couldn't play tricks on her when he wore it. She supposed that was a possibility.

But there were other times, especially when it started getting dark outside and she started dwelling on just how completely alone they were and how strong Edward was, that the memories would start coming back, despite her best effort to hold them off — memories of being held against her will in another little cabin with another vampire who looked just like the man she was currently alone with.

And then, backward baseball cap or no, she would get antsy and nervous, unable to imagine ever wanting him or anybody else to touch her ever again. Not after what Albert did, and how much it all had hurt. How much it had hurt for days, and especially when the gynecologist had examined her.

Those times, she was perfectly happy to work in a different room than Edward. And without fail, he let her. But the sadness and hurt in his eyes when she would start fidgeting and then abruptly leave the room haunted her. And it couldn't possibly be coincidence that either Esme or Alice would generally show up very soon after, wanting a tour of the new progress. She'd never caught him, but he had to be responsible for making that happen.

It couldn't be any easier for him than it was for her, and she knew that. She swung back and forth between extremes like the pendulum on a clock. The whole thing was...confusing.

But she knew one thing.

She knew the exact moment she decided she was definitely going to try again, the moment she decided that knowing what it felt like to kiss him again — even if she was a little afraid of flashing back to Albert's demanding kisses and what happened afterward, instead of focusing on Edward — was better than torturing herself with the wondering.

She came to that realization on the fifth day in his cottage, when he hopefully and a little proudly pointed out those holes in the wall that he had so clearly put there himself, just because he must have realized how scared she was that their time together would end when she completed that task. Somehow, he must have known.

She'd nearly burst into tears. She was strongly considering throwing herself at him and planting one right on him, because it was just so unbelievably sweet.

And then he'd flicked paint at her until they'd ended up in an all-out paint war.

It hadn't been the way she'd have imagined finding herself in the circle of Edward's arms again, but it worked for her. She had strongly considered turning around in his arms and seeing what would happen if she pulled his head down and kissed him right then and there.

If Esme hadn't showed up with lunch, completely embarrassing her, she might have gone through with it.

She'd thought about it the rest of the day.

She'd thought about it while watching those powerful hands start pulling up floorboards like they were toothpicks that afternoon, because he'd gleefully decided to spend way too much money on a new floor, for reasons only he understood — something about him winning the paint battle, when he obviously hadn't, and she wasn't sure how those two things were related anyway. He hadn't wanted to explain it in detail, but he'd seemed pretty sure about the whole thing.

She'd thought about it even more at dinner, when she was really, really trying to get her mind on her chemistry homework instead of the chemistry at the dinner table, the impending explosion between her and her unbelievably attractive 'chemistry tutor', who had watched her out of the corner of his eye as he kept carefully moving his chair closer to hers, until their knees touched.

She'd definitely thought about it in the shower after that, when she'd worked up her nerve, closed her eyes, and experimentally skimmed her fingers across her nipples and the outside of her recently healed vagina just to see if she could handle it.

She couldn't. She tensed up at even her own light touch in those areas she'd been assaulted and hurt. Trying to pretend it was Edward's fingers instead of her own only made things worse.

That was when she lost her nerve to try kissing him when she got the chance, because what was the fucking point? She was about to vomit and end up a sobbing mess on the shower floor at the touch of her own hands. So why would she start something she'd never be able to finish, not even if he somehow talked her into that crazy marriage thing he'd brought up before? She could never go through with something like that if she wasn't sure she could even let him touch her. How would that be fair to Edward?

It wouldn't, she concluded.

It made her angry, finally. Furious. She wanted to punch something; to yell and scream and curse at the top of her lungs — every curse word she'd ever heard. She wanted to break things.

Of course, she couldn't do that in a house full of vampires. She couldn't so much as whisper a cuss word or emit a quiet sob without them all hearing it and wanting to jump in and help.

She'd gone to bed a completely frustrated, defeated mess after that, although for once, she seemed to have done a decent job hiding that fact from Edward. He'd seemed lost in his own thoughts. And they were happy ones, apparently. He'd had a big, contented smile on his face, sprawled out on his back on the couch with his hands linked behind his head, staring at the ceiling when she came back in the room to go to bed.

He'd turned that happy smile on her, one that would have dazzled her even 20 minutes earlier, but now just made her heart ache. She'd managed to fake a smile back at him, in return.

He'd almost certainly have been willing to talk to her about what was bothering her, had he known anything was, but why should both of them be miserable?

So she'd turned over on her futon to face the wall, her back to him where he lay on the couch across the room, and she'd squeezed her eyes shut against the tears until she finally fell asleep.

But the nightmares had come to claim her, even more brutally than usual. She wasn't blind as to the reason.

She'd fallen asleep wondering what would happen if she kissed him; what would happen if he ever tried to touch her intimately.

Her terrorized subconscious was all too willing to provide her with some horrific thoughts on the topic.

Her nightmares usually shifted back and forth between Edward and Albert anyway, one morphing into the other freely. It was why she'd tried so desperately to hide them from Edward.

This was the first time the awful dreams had been only about Edward not taking no for an answer.

Considering that fact, she should have screamed in terror when she opened her eyes and he was there, right beside her bed, fists clenched with the effort it took not to reach out and take her in his arms.

But she didn't scream, and she didn't run. She looked straight into his eyes, and even in her agitated state, there was no missing the love she saw there. The worry. No, scratch that. The fear.

She had no doubt the things coming out of her mouth during that particular nightmare had gutted him.

She didn't want to gut him anymore. She didn't want to ever see that look on his face again, that fear that she was going to run from him.

And so she'd finally given in to an impulse that had tortured her since her first night home, sometimes appealing and sometimes terrifying.

She'd thrown herself into his arms and let him comfort her as she poured out every last ounce of her frustration and anger and fear.

And he'd caught her. He'd caught her in every way there was to catch her, both physically and emotionally. He'd made her feel safe. Safe enough that she'd found her courage and asked for his help to find Lacey Matthews.

He'd caught her again, metaphorically speaking. So she dug even deeper and asked him to stay in her bed.

And after spending the entire night in his arms —feeling safe and comfortable, if not exactly warm in his icy embrace — her thoughts once again took a hopeful turn.

Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could be physical with him.

She was going to try it. When the opportunity next presented itself, possibly in their cottage that morning — his cottage, she reminded herself, before she could get carried away — she was going to stop being a coward and just kiss him.

And that was when the nervousness started.

After the fourth time he watched Bella trip that morning, and the third time the paintbrush dropped out of her hands, splattering everywhere instead of fixing the mess they'd made on the walls with their paint war the day before, Edward just couldn't take her nervous glances his way anymore.

He was sitting sprawled out on the ground, finishing the job of pulling up the old flooring in the living room, but he finally gave up any pretense of being even remotely interested in it.

"Bella?" he asked softly, fixing her with his full attention, his hands stilling as he looked up at her across the room. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

"Not really," he heard her peevishly mutter under her breath. And despite the situation, his lips twitched. Irritable, grumpy Bella he could deal with. He'd been the cause of it often enough in the past. He rather doubted it had anything to do with sexual frustration this time around, though, like it usually had back then. But it definitely had something to do with him.

She followed up a little louder, pointedly not looking in his direction. "It's nothing. I'm fine. I'm great."

The way she was stabbing the paintbrush into the wall wasn't a painting technique with which he was familiar. It wasn't reassuring, either.

"Mmmm," he hummed skeptically. "I can see that. Anything I can help with?"

He hadn't really meant for that question to shove her the rest of the way over whatever edge she was teetering on. She shrugged her shoulders, on a breathless, mirthless laugh.

"Yes. No. Maybe? I don't know," was her confusing reply, definitely covering all the possible answers to his question, while still somehow managing not to give him the first clue what was actually going on.

It shocked the hell out of him when she abruptly threw her paintbrush in the bucket like it had personally offended her, determinedly crossing the room to him in five strides. She dropped to her knees to kneel right between his spread legs, balancing herself with her hands on his knees.

He didn't dare move, staring at her with wide eyes and parted lips. He scarcely dared breathe.

"This is ridiculous," she said, sounding completely put-out and annoyed. "I'm just going to do it, okay?"

Was he supposed to have the first idea what she was talking about? Because he didn't.

And then her eyes dropped to his lips, as her tongue darted out to moisten her own.

Oh.

Oh.

She leaned closer, her breath shaky. He was right there with her.

Not since the first time he'd kissed her had he overthought the matter quite so obsessively. Where should he put his hands? How much pressure should he apply? Should he take the lead? How long should he let the kiss go on?

She still got jumpy around him sometimes, more often than he would like. What if Bella got scared while kissing him? Worse, what if Bella, determined to prove something to either him or herself, tried to take things farther than she was ready for? If he had to be the one to stop it, would she go back to believing he didn't want her and start shutting him out again?

It was hard enough not falling off the tightrope he had walked ever since his return, even without adding the physical back into their relationship. He already straddled that razor-thin line every day — the one between making his desire for her clear enough that she didn't feel rejected in the slightest fashion, especially considering he had left her for seven months, and yet making sure he didn't make his attraction too obvious and trigger some kind of damn memory from her attack.

It was a high wire with no safety net, and he already felt like he was walking it blindfolded and with his hands shackled behind his back.

At the same time, he wanted to kiss her again, more than he'd wanted anything in a very long time. The nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach was as intensely pleasurable as it was scary.

But their lips never made contact, because there was a knock on the front door, startling them both.

Alice, he already knew, ostensibly letting them know the delivery truck was pulling up at that very moment.

He'd have lamented her timing, but with Alice there was no such thing as coincidences. She mentally let him know — and him alone — that her timing was intentional. That kiss wouldn't have ended well, at that exact moment, had there been no interruption. Bella's decision to push herself into something she wasn't ready for — and his own reluctance to participate for fear of overdoing it — would have ended with Bella in frustrated tears, not to mention her erecting a wall between them that it would have taken him weeks to break through.

Bella knew none of that. She didn't know who was at the door, and she didn't really seem interested. She just rocked back to sit all the way down on her knees, her gaze dropping to the floor between them. She sighed heavily and then got to her feet to open the door, never glancing at him again or even asking who was there.

He'd never seen her so completely irritated and frustrated as in that moment.

It didn't take long for the boxes of flooring to be piled up beside the wall in neat stacks, nor for the delivery driver to leave. He seemed very, very eager to do so, in the face of Edward's noticeable agitation. He wasn't doing human well, at the moment, in his impatience to be done with that task and repair whatever had just happened between him and Bella.

But the man was eventually gone, and it was time for Edward to keep his promise and leave to go look for Lacey Matthews — something he was suddenly even more reluctant to do, considering the fact that Bella hadn't willingly made eye contact with him since Alice knocked on the door. And that was despite his very best efforts to draw her gaze.

Alice and Esme were both there, waiting to escort Bella back to the main house for him, but he wasn't letting her go yet. He wasn't leaving things the way they were between them. Not a chance.

He motioned for his family to stay put in the living room before he walked into the guest bedroom, where Bella was hiding under the pretense of organizing the supplies Alice had dropped off. She briefly glanced over her shoulder at him and then went right back to what she was doing, reaching up to angrily swipe away tears from her face with her back turned to him, as though there was any chance he might actually miss the fact that she was crying.

He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. And then he walked straight up to her without stopping and calmly caught her closest hand in his, turning her to face him.

"Hey," he said gently, offering her a soft smile. "Look at me a minute."

She clearly didn't want to, but she did it anyway. Her eyes were puffy, and she was already blushing before she ever made eye contact.

They both knew exactly what she was embarrassed about, so he didn't pretend not to. He gave her hand a light squeeze.

"There's no rush, Bella. I'm not going anywhere. It's okay."

She looked away, turning even brighter red. She pulled her hand back and he reluctantly let go, watching as she tucked both her hands into her back pockets, breaking contact with him.

"What if I'm always like this?" she asked the wall on the other side of the room. "What if this never goes away?"

Undeterred, he briefly brought one gentle finger to her cheek, to turn her face back toward him. Don't close me out, he wanted to beg. Not after last night, not after you finally let me in.

"It will," he said firmly. "It's only been a few days. There's no pressure here, sweetheart. There's no timetable."

That only seemed to irritate her further. She scoffed, losing her aversion to eye contact as she pinned him with a hard gaze.

"Isn't there? You already said you want to get married. That you want this to be our house. You already have the ring in a box with my name on it, for God's sake. How is that supposed to work? I can't even kiss you! I can't even...God, Edward. I can't even touch myself. How am I ever supposed to let you do it?"

His eyebrow went up at the revelation that she'd tried. He thought he'd done a pretty good job keeping a close eye on her every waking moment. But clearly, he'd missed something somewhere. Something of pretty vital importance, actually.

His response was as blunt as her question.

"You're not, if you don't want to. Sex is not what I'm after, Bella. You, of all people, should know that. It's certainly not the reason I want to marry you. And I would never want you pushing yourself into something you're not ready for, for my sake. We have plenty of time."

She softened but didn't completely give in. "But what if this never goes away?" she asked again, eyes pleading.

"What if it doesn't?" he repeated, shrugging without concern. "I thought we had already established there's nothing that could possibly make me love you any less."

She shook her head. "You say that now. But forever's a long time, Edward," she warned, like she thought that would scare him off.

He smiled at that one, reaching up to carefully push her hair behind her ear. "Thank God for that. It still won't be long enough with you, but it's a start. Come here."

He hadn't realized how tense he was until Bella let him very cautiously pull her into his arms, pressing his lips to her forehead. All of the tension in his body melted away when she accepted his embrace and put her own arms around his waist, with a huge sigh into his chest.

But her tension, unlike his, didn't dissipate. He could feel it in her frame, the way she all but vibrated against him with tightly wound energy.

"Why don't I stay here with you this afternoon?" he suggested, unable to keep the worry out of his voice. "I don't want to leave you right now. I can go first thing tomorrow."

She shook her head against his chest, but her arms around him tightened despite her words. "No, it's okay. I need this to happen. I need to know she's been found. I just need it all to be over."

He pulled her back just far enough, with his hands on her shoulders, to see her. "Only if you promise me we're okay. You're my top priority, Bella. I'm not leaving you with something wrong between us. Not today, not ever."

"I'm fine," she assured him, but the way her lip trembled, it wasn't convincing. "Just be careful, okay?"

He brought one hand gently to the back of her head, as he leaned down and very intentionally kissed her on the cheek, not far from the corner of her mouth. "I will."

And he would, especially with the knowledge that no one else could protect her from Albert and Victoria more effectively than he could.

He moved his lips back up to her forehead for one more adoring kiss, and then he quickly left.

Jasper and Emmett had been able to give him the coordinates of the spot they and Jacob had found Bella and Albert, so Edward found it easily.

Not so easy was keeping a lid on his emotions when he stood for the first time at the scene of her attack, a place that he recognized after seeing it vividly through Jacob's memories.

There wasn't much to see there, aside from some impressions in the ground. The outdoor elements had long since washed away any scent trails. It was more what that spot represented.

What lay just a short distance away was nearly as disturbing. That was where he found the pile of Lacey Matthews' ruined belongings, dumped in the woods, with the back of the cabin visible to his eyes through the trees. At least now he understood what Bella had been talking about, when she mentioned seeing the girl's pictures in the woods. This must be the direction Bella had run when she made her escape attempt, only to find this macabre pile of the remnants of a life.

He picked up a picture frame, letting it dangle between his fingers, using his sleeve to wipe off the filthy glass.

And the picture, when he had cleaned it enough to see, hit him harder than he expected.

A smiling brunette with long glossy hair and a heart-shaped face, proudly holding up a set of car keys in front of an old red SUV. Close to the same age as Bella, in that picture. Similar build. Warm brown eyes. Even the same ridiculous pride in an old beater of a vehicle.

There was little doubt why Albert had chosen her as a practice target before going after Bella. The physical resemblance was striking.

If he were human, he'd have emptied the contents of his stomach all over the ground. Instead, he swallowed the venom pooling in his throat and carefully gathered the rest of the picture frames and a few other mementos the family might want. He carried them with him as he made his way into the cabin, leaving them on a small table just inside the front door when he gently forced it open with his shoulder.

Inside the closed-up cabin, where there had been no rain to dilute the scents, the very first thing he smelled was Bella. And Albert.

He hated the mingling of those two scents. He hated it with a passion.

There were other scents that surely belonged to the owner, Lacey Matthews, and her ill-fated pet. He committed them to memory. But Bella's and Albert's scents were the most recent.

The police must not yet be aware of Lacey's disappearance. No one else had been inside since the night Bella and Albert spent there together.

Spent the night together. With Albert disguised as him.

His jaw clenched at that thought, fear chewing on his insides — fear of what he would learn there. He and Bella had both done too good a job of denying reality for the past several days, while working on their cabin, pushing everything under the rug to face later.

But the fact was that he still didn't know everything that had happened between them, and it was eating him alive.

He would keep his promise and look for Lacey Matthews. But first, he would go over that cabin with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anything that might tell him what happened there.

As he made his way slowly through the cabin, in each new location that he found her scent, Bella's words rang in his mind, with perfect recall.

The living room first drew his attention, the mingled scents strongest on the living room couch. The two of them had sat there together. Very close together.

Every time he touched me or kissed me, I knew it didn't feel right.

His hands balled up in fists. He had a feeling he knew where some of that had happened.

He walked through every room in the house, one at a time, inhaling deeply. He knew exactly which rooms Bella had entered, right down to the things she had touched — like the kitchen cabinets, as she had gone looking for food, clues, or both.

She must have been terrified. At what point had her worst fears started to set in, he wondered, when she'd begun to doubt every single word he'd ever said to her; begun to believe he was nothing but a murderer who would have eventually killed her too?

Then at some point, I realized you must have killed her ... I even started to wonder if this was something you did all the time, some kind of sick game ... I thought maybe your family was even in on it, that they covered for you; that I was just the last in a long line of play toys.

That had hurt. He hadn't let her see it, because he'd desperately been trying to prove himself to her, prove his unconditional devotion.

It had hurt, nonetheless.

But it was the cabin's small master bedroom that nearly pushed him over the edge.

It was stripped bare of anything personal, like the rest of the house, but the woman's scent was strongest there.

Unfortunately, so was Bella's and Albert's. The bed covers were completely saturated in all three scents.

Bella had not once mentioned a bed to him. But she'd spent quite some time in that bed. All night, perhaps.

And so had Albert, at some point. Albert and his venom, to be precise. That was the other lingering scent assaulting his nose.

The bed reeked of sex. Albert had had Lacey Matthews there, without a doubt.

Had he had Bella too?

You don't know what I did. You wouldn't want me anymore.

His earlier fears and suspicions came roaring back.

Bella had been crystal clear that there was something she didn't intend to tell him. And she couldn't even bring herself to kiss him.

What had happened in that bed?

He felt on the edge of losing his mind. He needed the full truth of what had been done to his mate.

And he needed it yesterday.

Once he had gleaned every piece of information possible from inside, he left that cabin as quickly as he could.

He ran a grid pattern in a radius around it, trying to pick up any scent of rotting flesh.

And five miles out, he caught a whiff that led him even deeper into the woods, straight to a shallow grave.

An empty one, as it turned out.

Lacey Matthews' body had been there, for at least a few days. There was no doubt of that.

But it wasn't anymore. He didn't even need to pick up the other scent there to know who had removed it — very recently removed it.

Albert was back in Forks.

Further confirmation of that chilling fact came when his phone started ringing near immediately.

It was Carlisle. And he did not have good news.

"I think you should come home, Edward," Carlisle told him grimly, as worried as the usually calm doctor ever sounded. "Something just happened, and I'm not sure what it means yet."

Edward was already moving.

"Bella?" he asked in a panic.

"She's fine. She's in the living room with your mother and sisters, and I'll be with them again the moment we hang up. As far as she's concerned, everyone just spontaneously decided to watch a movie together today. She isn't aware there's anything out of the ordinary going on. If anything, she seems annoyed with our hovering."

"What is going on?" Edward demanded tightly.

"I received an interesting phone call a few minutes ago. I haven't left the house today, as you know. But apparently, I had a conversation with Dr. Granville in the hallway outside my office this morning at the hospital. I agreed to do a consultation with him on a patient of his over lunch, and then I never showed up."

Jesus. Edward pushed his speed to its limits. "It was him, Carlisle. He's back in Forks. I found where he buried Lacey Matthews. He dug her back up very recently. I lost the trail at the road, so he must have moved her in a vehicle."

Carlisle made a disapproving sound in his throat, sounding aghast at that information. "I just spoke with Jasper. Albert's trail went cold about 36 hours ago while they were running down a new batch of false scent trails he left. Your brothers suspected that might mean he was on his way back to Forks, so they started home this morning. They'll be here any moment now. When they arrive, I'll leave them here with the girls and make a trip to the hospital to check on things there."

Edward swore under his breath. "No. I need to be there when they get there. I'm the only one who can know for sure if they're both...them."

Carlisle rushed to reassure him. "Jasper thought of that. They've stayed within each other's sight since the moment they started tracking, so there will be no issue of identity."

"Fine. I'll be there as fast as I can, regardless," Edward promised grimly.

"I know, son. We'll take care of her. Just be safe."

His phone started ringing again, just as he finally reached the edge of the woods outside the main house. Carlisle again, probably at the hospital by now, because he could hear the thoughts of Jasper and Emmett inside the house. Edward stayed hidden where he was to take the call.

"I pulled the security tape," Carlisle informed him, the moment Edward answered. "If I didn't know that I was never here this morning, I would believe it was me too. He broke the lock and entered my office just after 9 this morning, right after stopping in the hall to speak with Dr. Granville, just like he told me."

Edward grit his teeth, eyes scanning the perimeter constantly. "Any idea what he wanted there?"

Carlisle hesitated, and Edward lost his patience. "Damn it, Carlisle, I'm fine. Now is not the time. What was he doing there?"

"He broke into my safe. It was built to withstand humans, not vampires. The only thing missing is the bag with Bella's clothes from the night of the attack."

Edward's eyes closed against the surge of rage that shot through him.

That sick bastard. Sick, deranged, psychotic, fucking bastard.

"I'm going to hurt him, Carlisle," Edward said, very quietly and seriously, feeling the tremor in his fingers. "I have every intention of torturing him when I find him. I'm going to make him beg me to die. You understand that, right?"

Carlisle sighed. "I could have guessed as much, yes. I can't say he hasn't earned whatever happens to him. But don't allow your thirst for vengeance to take your eyes off Bella. That could be exactly what he's hoping to accomplish with this move."

His father was right, and he knew it. He nodded tersely, though Carlisle couldn't see him, and disconnected the call.

The moment Edward walked inside the house, Emmett appeared two feet in front of him. And he was not there to play games.

Edward's usually playful brother was serious as a heart attack, drawn up to his full height and with every muscle coiled and ready. Jasper, he already knew, was fast on his way around the house, intending to come in the still-open door behind him, where they would have him surrounded.

They weren't letting him take another step closer to the living room — where Bella was — until they knew he was him. They would rip him into pieces for one wrong move.

And he was nothing but completely grateful.

He stopped in his tracks. "It's me, Em. Ask me something, in your head."

What year was I changed? Emmett cracked his knuckles, clearly ready for a fight. Jasper was ready for one too, though he hadn't shown himself yet. He wanted the element of surprise.

"1935," Edward replied calmly. "But you should ask me something they couldn't have researched."

What city am I thinking of? That far better question came from behind him, from the still-hidden Jasper, who was quite literally ready to take his head off if he didn't respond immediately and correctly.

"Albuquerque, New Mexico."

Emmett's eyes went over Edward's head, waiting for Jasper to nod the all-clear, which he must have received. His entire demeanor changed, a smile breaking out over his face as he surged forward to hug his brother.

"Good to see you, little brother."

Edward chuckled as Emmett gave it his best shot to crush his spine with a bear hug. "You too, believe it or not," he responded, with a clap on the back. A more reserved Jasper clasped his hand in a warm handshake.

"Thank you, both," Edward said sincerely. "You'll never know what it means to me that you were both there for her."

He didn't mean to, but Emmett's mind automatically flashed back to the moment he'd caught Bella when she collapsed, wearing only his hoodie, after she had run during his and Jasper's fight with Jacob and Paul. He remembered the look on her face as he had tried desperately to calm her and let her know she was safe.

"For that most of all," Edward said quietly. "Thank you."

He hadn't seen it from the perspective of his brothers yet. Emmett's view of Bella's terrified face looking up at him as he carried her, chanting over and over that it wasn't him...it wasn't Edward — the way she'd knotted his tank-top up in her fingers until the fabric was completely stretched out from the terrified way she held onto him — it was all overwhelming.

Jasper's viewpoint was more tactical, less emotional, but he had been affected as well. Bella's complete terror had been almost more than he could handle. As had the smell of her blood. It was he who had collected her clothes to keep from leaving anything at the scene, and he who had run as close to Emmett as he dared, trying to infuse as much calm into the terrified, bleeding girl in Emmett's arms as he could.

Edward had to stop listening. It was simply too much when he needed his head on straight so that he could protect Bella. Instead, he filled them in quickly on what Carlisle had told him.

"She's been through enough," he said in closing. "I have no choice but to tell her about the missing body, but she doesn't need to know Albert is likely nearby. She's on edge enough as it is."

Jasper agreed with that, obviously, so Edward risked another scan of his thoughts. Jasper had apparently borne the brunt of Bella's emotions since he arrived.

Through Jasper's impressions, Edward finally had some idea of exactly what Bella was feeling.

Frustration. Anger. Rage, more accurately. Helplessness. Lack of control. Irritability. Literally everything annoyed her, including the well-meaning efforts of his family, though she politely hid it as best she could. And even that effort was wearing on her.

It was very close to the same emotions he'd struggled with for days.

He'd already known this, deep down, but they had swept everything under the rug for as long as they could. He and Bella were going to have to start facing things.

Together.

That last part was vital. He would not let this drive them apart, no matter what he believed happened in that cabin.

He wouldn't.

When he walked into the living room, his mother and sisters were not surprised to see him. They had heard the entire conversation between he and his brothers at the door. Had he not passed his brothers' identity test, the women had been poised and ready to attack, too — to defend his Bella.

The fact that Bella looked glad to see him flooded him with relief, after what had happened earlier in the day. She jumped to her feet, quickly coming over to him and grabbing hold of his arm. He relished the contact, covering her hand with his own.

"Did you find her?" she asked hopefully.

He could feel every eye in the room focused on him with sympathy, already knowing the answer, but his gaze never wavered from his mate. He shook his head in the negative.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I found where he originally hid her," he told her gently. "But she's not still there."

Her lips parted, her face going white. "You mean...you mean she was already found, right?" she pled.

She already knew the answer to that. He could tell by her face. He put his other hand at her waist, steadying her. "No, Bella. I mean that he came back and moved her."

She licked dry lips. "When?"

"Recently," he said with as gentle a voice as he'd ever used. "I can't be sure. I followed the scent trail to the road, and it disappeared there."

He watched as Bella swallowed hard. "So he must have put her in a car," she said on a shudder. And Edward suppressed his own shudder, because he truly hated that she so instantly knew things like that, thanks to her exposure to his world and all of the violence she'd already endured at the hands of James and now Albert. All because of him.

But he couldn't dwell on that, at the moment. Not when Bella looked ready to come apart.

Edward could feel the fresh wave of calm Jasper pushed in the direction of them both, and he again listened in on Jasper's impressions of Bella's emotions. He was thinking that the poor girl had been so ready to have at least some part of the entire ordeal in the past. If she couldn't accomplish anything for herself, she had been anxious to at least accomplish something for the girl who had suffered a similar but worse fate. To have her plans fall apart, after coming so close, was just too much at the end of an already rough day.

And Edward agreed.

"What do you think he's going to do with her?" Bella pled, her eyes getting misty, and Edward winced.

"I'm not sure. He may have suspected we were getting too close. Maybe he assumed we would try to find her, and he doesn't want her found, for some reason. He likely just moved her to a better hiding place."

Thanks to Jasper, Edward had some idea of exactly how high Bella's frustration level was.

"So what do we do now?" she asked, sounding completely defeated.

He took a deep breath. It was definitely not the time to start interrogating her. She needed his calm, not his storm.

"Now you have dinner," he replied firmly. "We work on your homework, together. Then you get some rest, and we'll go back down to the cottage in the morning and talk about what to do next. Just you and me."

His calm decisiveness, regardless of how forced, must have been exactly what she had needed. Because she relaxed somewhat and nodded her head in agreement.

Esme, bless her, immediately appeared to put a motherly arm around Bella's shoulders and lead her to the kitchen, with the promise of her latest culinary experiments that Bella still hadn't realized were meant solely to fatten her up.

It warmed Edward's heart that Bella looked back over her shoulder as she walked away with Esme, clearly hoping he would follow. Which he did.

He wasn't letting her out of his sight, in fact, other than when she went to take her shower. And even then, he'd be standing outside the house, beneath the bathroom window, with his eyes on the woods and on full alert.

Part of him almost hoped Albert was stupid enough to try him tonight. He was just as dangerously volatile and ready to explode as Bella.

Perhaps even more so.

TO BE CONTINUED...