Chapter Four
Jasper POV
Edward and I returned to the house to tell everyone the news about the woman we assumed was the baby's Mother. What we found surprised us both no end. Sitting cross legged on the couch with a replay of a football match on low on the TV and the baby cradled in his arms was Emmett. Instead of being focused on the TV, Emmett's face was trained on the baby in his arms with a look of utter adulation on his face. He looked up as Rose entered the room and grinned at her stupidly as she handed him a bottle and he put it to the baby's mouth. I could feel the love and contentment literally floating around the two of them and a lazy grin broke out on my face in response. Edward elbowed me hard in the ribs and I snapped out of the emotions I was getting caught up in.
Esme and Alice were sitting on the sofa adjacent to where Emmett, and now Rose sat with the baby, looking every bit the perfect all American family. Alice had a laptop open on her knee and Esme was pointing and murmuring to her. I walked behind them to see that they were ordering baby gear online. The happiness surrounding them was also intense. I forced myself to focus and not get wrapped up in the emotion. It seemed to me a little too soon to be treating our small house guest as a permanent factor in our lives. Just because one assumed parent was gone didn't mean there weren't other family members who wanted her back. But on the other hand, if there were and they were good people, why had she been dumped on the doorstep of a stranger? I had to hand it to the tyke. She couldn't walk or talk, or even sit up or roll over yet, and from the looks of it she'd been asleep pretty much the whole time we'd had her, but I hadn't felt my family this content in decades.
Carlisle POV
I ushered Edward and Jasper into my office and closed the door. Why I bothered I wasn't sure, the whole family could hear every word we said regardless, but it seemed best to see what they had found out away from the members of my family who felt most attached to Isabella. Edward explained that they had found the body of who they assumed to be Isabella's Mother in a ravine in the woods a few miles away, not far from a hikers trail. It appeared she had jumped. Who does something like that when they have an infant to take care of? The car was parked on the shoulder of the road about twenty minutes away from where they found her. We decided that we'd call the emergency services in the morning, on the premise that we had gone for a morning hike when saw some disturbed bushes and checked it out. Once they got her to the hospital where I worked, I would find a name and look for family who might want the child back. If there was none, well, then we could consider it. I saw the looks on the faces of my family though. I knew that the small human infant completed us.
Edward POV
God Dammit! Even Carlisle wanted to keep her. I could hear his resolve weakening as he thought of the way Esme looked at her and the way Rose and Emmett were with her. Even if she had no traceable family members it wasn't a good idea for her to stay. We were vampire's for Christ's sake. She was a fragile little human. A human who could bleed by accident in front of any one of us at any given time. If that happened, there was no saying that even those who wanted her the most would be able to stop themselves attacking her. No, it couldn't happen. She belonged with humans, not with soulless immortal beings. I'd just have to convince Carlisle when we are at the hospital tomorrow and the rest of my family wasn't there. "Don't you dare Edward! You don't even know whether we have souls! And you know none of us would hurt her!" Stupid psychic pixie.
I wandered downstairs to see Alice sitting in Jasper's lap with the baby cradled in her arms. "Jesus has she been left alone since she got here?" I huffed. "She came in a shoebox Edward, we can't put her back to sleep in that. Besides, it's not like our arms get tired and she's wrapped up so she won't get cold" replied Alice. "She really is quite adorable" Jasper stated. "Not you too Jazz", I groaned. "Oh just shut up and hold her for a sec" Alice said holding the baby out for me to take. I awkwardly took the small bundle in my arms and cradled her against my chest, I took her and sat in one of the big armchairs by the fireplace. As I went to move the blanket out of her face, she yawned and brought her tiny fist up to her face where it encountered my finger. She unclenched her hand and re-clenched it around my pinky. Her little eyes fluttered open and made contact with mine. And just like that, I was gone on Isabella. I was just as bad as the rest of them.