Disclaimer: I still don't own Edward, Seth, the Cullen's house, and First beach at La Push but that's really about all I don't own in this chapter

Chapter 7.

Collin's POV

"We're going to the beach!" Shelby called, racing outside after Channing. Sometimes it seemed like those two were attached at the hip.

"Mommy, can I go too?" Ivy asked.

"Only if you put on your jacket," Abby said.

Ivy ran back to our room to get it. It took a while, but finally she came sprinting back out. "Okay, okay, I'm ready! Come on! They're gonna leave us." She grabbed my hand and started pulling me along.

"Baby, I think they already did," Abby laughed.

"Well then what are we waiting for!" she said, starting to tug on Abby's hand as well.

"We're going, we're going!" I said, picking her up and swinging her over my shoulder. She squealed in delight.

We walked out the door, but the others were out of sight. "Do you know the way?" I asked Abby. We had been with Billy and Leah a few times before, but I never could remember the way, we had to go through a lot of forest, I knew that.

"Um, I think so. I'm pretty sure we go that way," she said, stepping into a section of woods. There was a worn path, just like the one that went to the beach, but I didn't exactly recognize it, of course, I didn't recognize much around here, even in the way of people. I still had no clue why Kelsey brought us here, but it was alright, we were having a good time, Seth's family was nice; huge, but nice. I wondered how long we'd be up here, Christmas was only a few days away.

"Maybe not," Abby shrugged. We had already been walking for about twenty minutes and there wasn't anything suggesting a beach in sight, even the air didn't smell salty. That girl could be such an airhead sometimes, a literal dumb blonde. She may look like me, but she was her mother reincarnate in terms of personality.

"You mean we walked all this way for nothing?" Ivy complained.

"I guess so, sorry babe," Abby said, tousling Ivy's hair.

Ivy shrugged and started running in the other direction.

"Stay where I can see you!" Abby called after her, but that wasn't an issue as Ivy came running back screaming as soon as she rounded the turn.

"What's wrong baby?" Abby asked, picking Ivy up.

"L..l...l…" but she didn't need to finish the word.

A low growl erupted from the trees as a mountain lion stalked up the path.

Abby stumbled back into me and I wrapped my arms around her. I didn't need her running off and getting chased by something much faster than her. I racked my mind of what to do. I knew I read this somewhere. Finally I remembered, I read about it in a magazine.

"Abby, put Ivy on your shoulders, both of you unzip your jackets, try to make yourselves look as big as possible." I demonstrated by unzipping my own coat and pulling it open as wide as possible. It was cold, but better than getting eaten. Unfortunately, the mountain lion was not impressed. In fact, it seemed to be snickering at us as it approached. Despite the fact that we were backing away it got closer and closer; twenty, fifteen, ten, five feet away. I stepped in front of Abby and Ivy.

Suddenly there was a howl in the background. A lone wolf came running up towards the mountain lion. The cat snarled. As the copper colored wolf got close, the mountain lion finally lost its courage and bolted into the woods. The wolf went running after it, totally ignoring us. We could hear them run off into the horizon. For a while we just stood there in shock, finally letting our jackets fall around us, then Abby took Ivy down from her shoulders, but kept holding her, and Ivy wasn't about to be let go of. We'd need to get going soon, it wouldn't be good to be here when the lion got back, but I didn't know which way was home anymore.

"Are you all okay?" a voice asked from behind us.

I spun around to see a young man, about seventeen or eighteen with reddish brown hair and pale skin, very similar to Ava's, standing behind us.

"We just saw a mountain lion…"

"Saw!?! We were nearly killed!" Abby exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, mountain lions are somewhat common in this area. Not as common as the wolves, but a little more aggressive as you saw," the young man said smoothly, it was oddly very soothing. "My name is Edward Cullen," he said, extending his hand.

"You must be Ava's brother!" Abby smiled.

"Collin, Collin Jacobs," I said, taking his hand, it was cold; he must have been outside for a while.

"I'm Abby Cunningham, and this is my daughter Ivy."

Edward nodded. "Ava's told me about you. It's nice to make your acquaintance. May I invite you to our house? I'm sure your family would be worried if they knew about your…encounter."

"Sure, that sounds great, thank you so much!" Abby smiled.

I still wasn't so sure, but Edward seemed like a decent young man.

We walked a short way through the woods and came up to a huge house.

"Please, have a seat," Edward said as we walked through the door. "Is there anything I can get you?"

"No, we're fine," I said warily. This was slightly suspicious, how many teenagers were this polite? It was slightly creepy, like he was from a different era or something.

Edward smiled, "Alright, well, I'll tell Ava you're here, I'm sure she'll be very glad to see you."

There were a few minutes when we were there alone. I looked around the house. Everything was white, making the already huge room look even larger.

"Hi you guys! I totally wasn't expecting anybody! I'm a mess!" Ava grinned sheepishly.

Was she kidding? She looked gorgeous! She was possibly the fourth most beautiful woman I'd ever seen (Rosalie, Abby, and Kelsey took spots 1-3 of course). It probably helped that, aside from the pale skin and almost yellow looking eyes, she could have been Rosalie's clone, which of course, made me stare. Especially in the early days, I missed Rosalie so badly that I'd stare at anyone who looked remotely like her, not even knowing what I thought would happen, but no one even came close in similarity compared to Ava.

Just then I realized I was staring again. "Uh…um…did you decorate this yourself?" I asked, just using the first thing that came to my mind. I realized how stupid it sounded when I said it.

Ava laughed. "Goodness no! Esme and Alice and probably Rose did it, it was like this when I got here."

"Are they your sisters?"

"Well, Esme and Carlisle are sort of foster parents to the seven of us, but we're all starting to leave the nest now, I'm the oldest, it's fine though, they're still young enough to have kids of their own if they wanted."

I smiled and nodded. I knew what it was like to have a foster child, but I couldn't imagine seven!

"Mommy I've got to go potty!" Ivy whispered. Since the attack she had been clinging to Abby.

"It's up the hall, second door to the left," Ava said.

"Thanks," Abby smiled, getting up, trying to detach Ivy from her.

"Kelsey should be here soon; I called her when Edward told me about your encounter. So much fun," Ava chuckled.

"Oh, yes," I said sarcastically, "tons of fun. But really, it was kind of scary, I mean, before that wolf came, I wasn't sure what would happen; I was afraid someone would get hurt."

Ava smiled softly, almost sadly. "You know, you're a really good dad. It probably sounds weird coming from me, but your girls love you a lot. I'd love to have seen you when they were younger."

"Well…well thank you," I blushed. The compliment seemed whole hearted, but there also seemed to be something hidden in there, some cryptic message.

Ava continued to have a little smile on her face. She moved from her chair to the couch, right beside me, and a little close for my comfort. I scooted over a little to put some space between us. I wasn't sure if she realized that it looked like she was flirting, even though she surely couldn't be. She looked to be in her twenties and I was in my fifties! Still, I felt like a perverted old man even thinking of her behavior as flirtatious.

I was very relieved when Abby and Ivy came back. Once they were back Ava began to act normally again and I started to figure it was all in my head.

Finally Kelsey got there. She greeted us with huge hugs and worried babbling. Of course, this was nothing new; it seemed Kelsey was always worrying about something. Even when I first met her when she was eleven years old she was always concerned about something, though then it was usually about being sent back into the foster care system. I guessed that it was the fact that she had spent most of her childhood in the foster care system that caused this need to try and prepare for and overanalyze things, knowing that basically no one was going to worry about her wellbeing but her.

She seemed especially concerned about Abby and I couldn't help but laugh as she fussed over Abby like a mother hen. I noticed Ava giggling too. It was then that my body reacted to her in the most embarrassing way. Blood rushed to my face (as well as other places if you get my drift) and I muttered some excuse about going to the bathroom as I got up and practically ran out of the room. I knew why it had happened of course, I could remember many a time that Rosalie had giggled exactly like that. Still even if she looked and sounded like Rosalie, I hadn't expected this. I stayed in the bathroom for a while, waiting until I was back to normal.

It was a relief when I was able to come out, but then there she was again, right outside the bathroom, and it happened all over again. I was just about to go back into the bathroom when I felt her touch my shoulder.

"No, it's okay, I want to see you privately," she said, leading me to a room that was obviously hers. The weird thing though, was that there wasn't a bed, although that made me feel a little better. She sighed.

"Look, I'm really sorry if it seems like I'm staring or flirting or…erm yeah…it's just…this sounds so stupid. You look a lot like my late wife," I explained.

Ava's expression softened. "Oh, yeah, Abby was telling me about that. It's fine. Um…I was just wondering if…again, sounding weird…If you were still single? I'm just curious."

"Yes, I dated a couple of times, but it just never worked out. Sometimes I don't think I'll be able to feel that way about anyone again really."

"Oh, that's too bad. You would have made a good catch. But on the other hand, it does make this a lot easier…" she then went in to kiss me.

I tried to stop her, but she was too fast for me. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, yet one of passion and intensity. She seemed to be really enjoying it. Finally I was able to push her away. She seemed startled by what she'd done.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" she gasped. She covered her face and ran out of the room, but I saw the expression on it. It was a combination of heartbreak and horror, distress and desire. It was the strangest thing I'd ever encountered. I was still in shock over her kissing me. Why on earth would any twenty something year old want to waste her time with a fifty something year old man she barely knew? Did she have some sort of psychological problem?

I shook my head and got up, numbly walking out of the room. Abby, Ivy, and Seth were all in the living room, but Kelsey and Ava were nowhere to be found.

"Um, Kelsey said she'd catch up with us later if you ant to head back," Seth said nervously.

"Yeah, that would be good," I said. I wanted to get as far away from Ava as possible, at least until I could think this over. She was perhaps the most psychotic, insane, perverted girl I had ever met, but I couldn't help but think there was something else behind her golden eyes.

Hey readers! I'd like to thank you for all your reviews, I really really really appreciate them! Hope you liked the chapter! I promise I will do more with them later! As always I'd like to thank Megan and Shelby for their constant help and support :). Thanks for reading, I'll try and get the next chapter written as fast as I can!

Hufflepuffbrunette :)