Idaho 1953

Our house was about five miles from Highway 12, down a little dirt road that no one ever used. We tried to have all our houses like that; completely secluded so no one ever came to visit us. Because of this, it came as a considerable shock when I heard two mental voices come within my telepathic range, and grow stronger and louder with each passing second.

The voices were crisp and clear, so even without listening to what these two people were thinking; I already knew they were vampires. Human thoughts were muffled and more disjointed in comparison to the sharp rapid thoughts of vampires.

I was on my feet and racing to the ground floor the moment my mind registered the intruders.

"Is anyone expecting visitors?" I asked the house at large. They all registered the seriousness of my tone and took pause in confusion as they processed my question. Carlisle was in the living room reading with Esme seated beside him on the couch and they both looked at me curiously.

"There are two vampires approaching from the road. They're driving," I continued.

This detail in and of itself was fairly odd. Most nomads didn't bother with cars.

Rosalie and Emmett were downstairs within the next moment and everyone was waiting for me to continue.

I focused on the thoughts of the two vampires, fishing for details.

"One is male, the other is female. The male seems... nervous? I can't really tell. Perhaps just on edge. The girl's thoughts are... erratic. But she's very excited."

"...I hope Rosalie knows of at least one decent place within 100 miles to shop. I hate that they're so out in the middle of nowhere. I think Lewiston is the closest city with a decent sized population. Carlisle works in Powell Junction, but it's so small that shopping there is probably abysmal. Ugh... Wonder how many hours it would take to drive to Boise from here? I'll have to look into that..."

"The female seems to know Rosalie," I said hesitantly.

Rose's eyes widened in surprise. "Me?"

"She thought about you, she wondered if you know of any decent places near by for shopping."

Rose snorted and rolled her eyes. "Fat chance."

"So they don't seem hostile?" Carlisle asked, looking hopeful.

"I'm not picking up on any hostile thoughts," I replied slowly as I continued to listen in.

They were close now. I made my way out the front door and the family followed. The group of us came to stand in front of the wide porch that stretched along the front and side of the first floor of the house, just as a red 2-door Chevy Styleline; my guess was that it was the '49 model; emerged from the tree line and came to a stop directly behind my Eldorado, effectively blocking me in since Carlisle's Studebaker was beside me on one side, and a tree was on the other.

"Oh, the house is just beautiful!" the female's thoughts came out cheerful and light. She hopped out from the driver's side door of the car as soon as the engine was cut and she jumped up and down in place excitedly as she looked around at the house and then us with her wide golden eyes.

Carlisle was the first of my family, aside from myself, to pick up on this detail. His excitement at seeing it was palpable.

Rosalie watched the energetic young woman with confused curiosity. I could tell from Rose's thoughts that she did not know the girl, and she was wondering what this girl was doing thinking about her only a moment earlier.

The only friends that Rosalie had outside of our family was our very limited extended family – a trio of female vampires that currently resided in Northern Canada. "I wonder if they know Tanya and her sisters. Edward?"

I glanced over at her quickly, giving her a sharp shrug before turning back to our visitors.

Carlisle was wondering the same thing since aside from us, Tanya's family was the only other group we knew of who followed our untraditional 'vegetarian' diet. My family's choice to feed off of animal blood, instead of human blood, led to our unusual eye colour. The eyes of vampires who fed on human blood were red. Ours were golden; just like the eyes of the hyper girl running towards my family right now.

She was racing over, still jumping up and down excitedly while she did it, so she came off as anything but threatening. Just the same, Emmett refused to take any risks and was immediately standing in front of Rosalie in a protective crouch.

The girl finally came to a stop, although she was still bouncing with excitement. She was short. Very short. Probably around 4'10", with oddly-short, black hair, however she was wearing a rather fashionable 2-piece dress. The top was white button-down with black trim around the collar0. The wide flared skirt was black as well, and pleated. It came down to just below her knees and flowed and bounced as she hopped around excitedly.

"I am so excited to finally be here!" she was squealing as she clapped her hands together in front of her. "I have been looking forward to this time in my life for so many years! When I first began having visions about your family I was just in absolute awe of you all and just couldn't wait until it was finally time for me to come and join you. I've been so excited knowing that the time was finally drawing near!" She continued to ramble at a mile a minute and my family and I simply stood there dumbstruck.

"Heaven's that girl never shuts up, does she? Doesn't know the meaning of the word subtle." The male's smooth mental voice drifted into my mind almost lazily. His thoughts were odd, his voice smooth but so subtle I only just caught it as I shifted my attention back to the car to watch as he opened the passenger side door and took a step out.

He stood up and I could tell he was tall; probably two or thee inches taller than me, even. He was wearing deep blue denim jeans that were worn-in and faded. They were boot cut and tattered and stringy along the bottom hem, revealing a pair of scuffed dusty cowboy boots underneath. He was wearing a western-style button-down shirt that was a maroon-brown colour with a grey along the top of the shoulders, the cuffs of the sleeves, and the trim on the two front chest pockets. His hair was shaggy and had a light wavy curl to it. It was a dish-water blond with darker roots and brighter highlights scatter throughout.

He had a beautiful structure to his face. Bright, piercing eyes; a long nose with a bit of a bump along the bridge and a small dimple in the centre of a sharp chin. I found him ridiculously attractive.

This realization was honestly rather depressing. The last thing I needed was a new unavailable temptation to be dancing around in front of me, taunting me. My intention to leave tomorrow would likely be postponed thanks to their arrival, if they were staying more than a day. Once they were gone, I'd still leave, but I couldn't risk abandoning my family and leaving them vulnerable with two unknown strange vampires having suddenly made an appearance.

Being the mind-reader of the family left me with the responsibility of digging around in the minds of these two to make sure they didn't have some ulterior motive, or a potentially dangerous hidden agenda in being here.

As the male turned and walked closer my gaze was drawn to his piercing eyes. They were golden, like ours, but there was a dark maroon ring along the inner and outer rims. He had either slipped sometime within the last month or two, or he was a recent convert.

The next moment my attention was drawn to his skin and I felt myself startle at the sight. Every bit of exposed skin was littered lightly with faint silver crescent-shaped scars. Emmett was observing this newcomer as well and the moment he registered the scars Emmett grew excited and stood even taller in front of Rosalie.

In his mind, Emmett registered both wariness and palpable excitement. This vampire was potentially very dangerous. The number of scars littering his skin denoted just how much action he must have seen in his years. But the truly impressive thing was that he had suffered that much action and survived it. That took skill.

But while Emmett was admiring the fact that this vampire was probably a skilled fighter, and potentially dangerous; I was consumed with the strangest excited arousal. The scars gave him a rugged, dangerous, and yet entirely far too enticing quality.

The things I wanted this man to do to me...

I shook the thought aside and refocused on what was going on around me. The short, crazed girl was still talking at a mile a minute and I realized I'd missed some things.

"Hey, hey, girly!" Rosalie said in a loud voice all of a sudden, raising her hands and stepping out from behind Emmett. "You are seriously going to need to slow down and explain because most of what you're saying makes absolutely no sense at all."

"Oh! I'm sorry," she said, finally pausing in her bubbly bouncing. She turned and watched as the male walked up behind her slowly, eying her with an amused expression, and shaking his head while chuckling. "I'll start with introductions. I'm Alice, and this is Jasper," she said nodding to the man.

She turned back to the group of us and began pointing. "Jasper, this is Carlisle Cullen and his wife Esme. This is Emmett McCarty and his wife Rosalie, and this is Edward," she finished with a bright proud smile on her face, while the group of us just stared at her in surprise.

"It's... it's a pleasure to meet the two of you," Esme said after a moment of stunned silence passed between the group of us.

"Mmmhmmm... now that's one tall drink of water..." Jasper's mental voice drawled appreciatively. I glanced over at him, trying to catch who he was referring to, but just caught him staring at me. Our eyes met for only a brief moment before we both looked elsewhere. His mind was… strange, his thoughts, while there flowed like water through is mind never seeming to take root. Further immersing myself in his delicate flow of thoughts I swiftly came to the conclusion that Jasper seemed to relate to the world in emotion and senses rather than solid thoughts which is what I was used to. It was strangely relaxing whilst being rather worrying.

His thoughts quickly turned negative as he scolded himself to stay focused.

"Alice," Carlisle began, drawing me back to the conversation that was going on around me, and snapping me out of the natural calm the surrounded me in Jasper's head. "I must say, I'm curious as to how you –"

"Know who you all are?" she asked, cutting him off and smiling knowingly. He simply nodded. "Well, I should start out by telling you all that I have a rather unique power."

Carlisle's eyes lit up at this. He was always fascinated to meet vampires with powers. I was the only one in our family that possessed one. Vampires with gifts weren't terribly common, but he'd met a fair number during his many years, and his travels before he sired me.

"I have visions," Alice said simply.

"Visions?" Carlisle asked, hoping for clarification.

"Yes. I can see events that have yet to happen, based on people's decisions and choices. I can't say for sure why I've had visions of your family, but I've had them my entire vampire life. Ever since the day I woke to this life."

"You've been having visions of us?" Rosalie asked disbelievingly.

"Yes," Alice answered cheerfully with a bright smile. "For literally decades I woke to my life as a vampire all alone and with no memories of my human life. Who ever sired me left me. The only reason I had any idea of what I was, or how to live my life, was because of the visions I had of Carlisle and Edward, when Edward was still fairly new to this life."

Carlisle and I shared a stunned look. Neither of us was quite sure what to make of this revelation.

"When were you turned?" Carlisle asked.

"In 1920."

"We were only just starting to –" Carlisle began, looking at me.

"Just starting to introduce him to humans again. Yes," Alice said, nodding. "The caution you were taking with the reintroduction was what made me first realize that I needed to keep away from humans, if I wanted to prevent myself from attacking them."

"Whoa, there. Wait," Emmett said, raising his hands into the air. "Are you saying, you've been having visions of this family for more than thirty years?"

"Yup," the pixie confirmed.

"Then why didn't you come to find us sooner?" Rosalie asked, with a disbelievingly dumbstruck expression.

"I couldn't come any sooner than this," Alice replied simply.

"Uh... why not?" Emmett asked.

"I just couldn't. It wasn't time yet. It was important that things happen in the right order. It wasn't time for me to join you until now."

My family shared a silent look, not entirely sure what to make of her oddly cryptic statement.

"She does that a lot," Jasper said with a smirk. His voice was warm and rich, it flowed over me like honey and I had to stop myself from shuddering in the pure pleasure I experienced when hearing it.

"The cryptic stuff, I mean," he clarified with a chuckle. "She still hasn't giv'n me a straight answer to why she went t'so much trouble to track me down."

"How long have the pair of you been together?" Esme asked.

"Only fer the last two months, ma'am," he said with a gentle nod of his head.

"Oh? Is that all?" Esme responded, surprised.

"Before I found Jasper, he'd never heard of any alternative diets, so he's only recently started hunting animals," Alice said.

Jasper shot her a wary look and sighed lightly. His thoughts held worry as they flowed through his mind; I only just managed to catch the tail end of his thoughts before they too flowed away from my grasp."…Still don't get why the hell we couldn't have jus' waited another two weeks to come here like we'd originally planned. The red would have been gone by then."

He seemed to be uncomfortably self conscious about his eyes, and was clearly worried about how accepting we would be of someone who had so recently been feeding off of human blood.

From his thoughts I could tell that he was unclear on numerous details, but had gotten the impression from Alice that our entire family had abstained from human blood our entire vampire lives. While that was actually accurate for Carlisle, Esme, and Rosalie, Emmett had had numerous slips in his early years and I... well, I'd had my time away from them when I was younger.

"God I hope I can do this. I need this. I need... fuck. I just need the violence to end. I can't do this alone. So tired of being alone..."

I startled at his thoughts. They were so intense. So desperate. I felt for him. His thoughts were sincere and honest. There was clearly a lot of hurt inside him and part of me yearned to find a way to provide him some comfort. I wanted to go to him, wrap him in my arms and run my fingers through those honey-golden curls. I had never had such a strong desire like this, an incessant pull to comfort another.

Alice began talking animatedly again. She was going on about how she had been looking forward to this point for years. She started explaining the various mechanics of her ability to Carlisle while he asked one curious intrigued question after the next.

I quickly became bored with the current conversation and found much more pleasure in burying myself deep into Jaspers mind, letting his soothing thoughts flow through us both, it was oddly calming and I felt myself relax completely for the first time in my vampire life around my family members.

He was watching each of us individually, sizing us up before swiftly moving on to the next with a calculating look lurking in his eyes.

As he settled his mixed coloured eyes on me a sharp spark of want shoot through my body. He was beautiful and troubled and all I wanted to do was drag him to the forest to have my way with him and his gorgeous body and comforting mind.

His eyes flickered up to me as one word repeated in his mind.

Lust?

My eyes widened in panic, what if he somehow knew what I wanted to do with him, he could tell them, he could destroy my perfectly built mask in just a few seconds.

That boy is fine as a frogs hair split four ways. Hard to imagine how someone like him hasn't been snatched up by some pretty lil' girl. Wonder what could have led to him being solo all this time?

"Hell, fer all I know he jus' prefers staying a free agent. Maybe he doesn't wan' to settle down? Lor' knows I've run into plenty of nomads over the years that have no desire to commit." He gave a heavy sigh at that thought. "'Course none of that really matters, chances that he might actually swing that way are next to nil."

His thoughts had me staring at him openly, in an utterly stunned silence. I wasn't entirely sure if I was reading too much into his words or not... I told myself that I was probably just hearing what my mind wanted to, but it seemed that he might actually be interested in me.

Jaspers eyes met mine then, confusion running through his mind as he examined me, eyes darting from my own over the rest of my body before again meeting my eyes, a small frown appearing on his face.

The small pixie-like vampire he arrived with gave a sudden, high pitch squeal that I'm sure only we and dogs got the pleasure of hearing. Both our heads snapped to the rest of my family. Rosalie was smiling at Alice as they followed behind Carlisle and Esme into the house. Emmett was left to trail in their wake; a pained frown no doubt caused from Alice marred his face. As I trailed after Jasper into our home my eyes could not be stopped as they strayed along his finely toned body. I'm screwed if they decide to stay.