***A/N: Thank you again for my sweet comments, and I know you probably weren't expecting a cliffhanger quite so soon but given the length of the chapter it was unavoidable so my apologies***

Disclaimer: The characters setting and familiar situations belong to Stephanie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended. I'm not making any monetary profit from this.

Secrets II

(Continued -)

"Uh, I did tell you about it, a few minutes ago," I said, cringing. The blushing continued.

His eyebrow arched as he said, "No, I found it in your glove compartment just now, looking for a pen. When you saw me pull it out, then you told me about it."

Knowing he wasn't going to let this go I decided to come clean. "Yeah, I know. I, um, I don't know. It didn't seem like it was important I suppose. I mean, it's just my mother trying to be helpful. It's a mother thing, she worries and I guess I didn't feel like it would be anything you'd be interested in. I wasn't deliberately trying to keep anything from you, it just never came up."

'…just never came up.' Even I knew that was dumb.

He continued to look at me as if trying to understand and not understanding much at all. But he let the matter drop as he put the letter back into the envelope and returned it to its place in the glove compartment.

"I suppose you have your reasons. So where is this journal? Have you been writing in it?" he asked.

"Uhh yyeess," I said, reluctantly. Another confession was about to happen, but I didn't know how he was going to take it, seeing how he was with the letter. "It's been helping me a lot, actually. In fact, I'm into my third book."

His eyes got as wide as saucers. "Third book! Are you kidding? Why didn't you tell me?"

I looked at Edward confused, didn't we just cover this?

He read my face and said, "What I mean to say is, I had no idea you had so much weighing on your mind. You've been writing enough to fill two plus books?"

And another confession.

"Well, to be perfectly honest I'm not starting the third as much as I'm nearly finished with it. In fact, I'm about to start a fourth. And yes, there's been lots to write about, Edward. Just when I thought I was done writing about something, another memory would pop into my head. Things I thought I didn't want to think about anymore kept popping into my head. It helps me figure things out. When I write, it just all starts flooding back to me, like a deluge. Once it starts I can't stop it." His worried face returned.

"Is it anything I can help you with, love? When do you even have time to write four journals' worth? You know you can always talk to me if something's bothering you," he assured me. "I'm not mad or upset about the journals, I think it's a very good idea actually, I just wish these were things you felt you could talk to me about." I could tell he was clearly taking this more personally than I would like. He's been so sensitive lately.

Smiling, I said, "Edward, they're just memories. You can't help me with that. You're not scared of a few memories are you?" I said, trying to keep things light. But I could see he wasn't convinced. "Most of the things I write are things you already know about, so there's no point in discussing them. I use this to help me remember the order of things, what happened when. To keep it all straight. Your memories are completely different from mine. I'm fine, Edward, really. So much has happened, I just have concerns and questions and crap that needs sorting out. It's nothing I can't handle and nothing you need to worry about, really.

"And since you asked, I take my journal with me to work. We sometimes have lulls and rather than just standing there doing nothing, I write. It's a good way to fend Mike off, too," I smiled to show how ludicrous a statement that was.

I've been working at Newton's Olympic Outfitters again since the announcement of my engagement. I explained to Karen, Mike's mom and store manager, that Charlie didn't quite have enough for a nice wedding and I felt guilty asking Edward's family for money. Even though they could probably afford a wedding to make any royal family jealous, I just would have felt really bad being indebted to them in that way. It already feels like I owe them so much. Plus, staying busy helps keep my mind off things.

I thought if I took on a full-time job for a month or two it would really help things out even though between mom and Phil, my dad and the Cullens picking up the slack it was all paid for and then some, but it was important to me to do this, to pull my own weight. It was the least I could do. Karen found this endearing and always really liking me was more than happy to let me come back. And there's something about making My money that I liked. Seeing my name on the paycheck, it's unlike any other feeling I've had. Pride, maybe. It was just fortuitous that the girl she had hired to replace me ended up not lasting even a month. Karen was so relieved to have experienced help during the busy season.

Another noteworthy change of events this summer is that even Mike has moved on it seems. He and Lauren Mallory have begun to see each other more and more. I wasn't too happy about that at first. You could hardly call Lauren a friend of mine. She's been on an anti-Bella trip for a while now even though I still have no idea what it was I did, but now that she's with Mike it's beginning to make sense. Frankly, at first I thought he went out with her just to see what I would say, they have nothing in common, but I really think they're beginning to like each other. Lauren mellowed out over the summer just about the time Mike was growing out of his puppy love phase. Everybody's going through lots of changes.

Edward seemed fine with my explanation for now, but I could see a storm of doubt surging underneath. Where was this coming from? He clearly had more questions and I could only guess as to what or to whom it entailed.

Not wanting to bring in Jacob's face into the forefront of my mind, I quickly leaned over, held Edward's face with my free hand and kissed his cheek, inhaling deeply. That familiar sense of swirling I always get when I'm near him was comforting. "I love you, sweetheart," I whispered into his ear and I could feel him smile as he nuzzled into my neck.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me close.

"I love you, too," he whispered, and kissed the area of skin just under my earlobe, giving me chills.

I sensed the discussion was over. A heady feeling took me over as his hands pulled me even closer and his lips reached for mine, softly but urgently. Kissing Edward…it was so easy to forget myself. It's enough to make me forget even the simplest things. His lips found their way down my neck and stayed there lightly kissing, then moving up just under my ear. It was driving me crazy!

He heard me gasp and the next thing I knew his face was back with mine, kissing my lips and taking my breath away. I could feel my heart thump loudly, but I didn't care. Being in the moment, my tongue moved along his bottom lip. I could tell he was restraining himself because he paused all movement and let me play with his mouth a little before devouring my kiss again. It was heavenly.

A few intimate moments later, I knew he would be pulling back at any time, so I braced my arms tightly around his neck hopefully giving me an extra few seconds of this bliss and pulled myself as close to him as I could, nearly straddling him.

He pulled out from under my arms with zero effort and said, "Bella, we are in my parents' driveway and you're kind of steaming up the cab."

My hormones gave me a false sense of power, prompting, "Well I'm not steaming it up by myself," and I continued to try to nip at the exposed area on his neck.

A little breathless, he continued to push me away, "Yes, yes you are. You're the only one with warm breath here, remember?"

Taking a deep breath, I blinked as I recovered. Embarrassed, I said, "Oh, right." It was so easy to forget who and what Edward was.

I pulled back and tried to remember myself. There was no point in trying to persuade him or push the issue. I had heard "no" enough times to last me for a lifetime. I definitely won't miss this feeling. This human feeling of frustration, not only with my surging human hormones, but how it feels when someone says no to it, constantly. I knew all too well Edward's reasons behind the relentless chastity and they all made really good sense and were actually prudent. It really is possible that Edward could maim or kill me if we made love right now. I knew all of his reasons like the back of my hand, but it still hurts like hell. Rejection hurts, end of story.

Knowing that this was going to go nowhere I didn't fight it. The blushing continued as I gave up, trying to preserve what dignity I had left, and made a motion to open my truck door when Edward touched my arm.

"Sorry, love. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I promise, Bella, it won't always be like this."

I wanted to argue and say, "Yes, yes it will always be like this, at least until we get married and probably afterwards, too, for as long as I'm human," but I didn't. To be honest, it was my one reason for getting married, the only one. I just smiled a little smile to let him know I would get over it, when he held me in the cab a little longer.

"Oh yes, there's a little situation in the house I should probably warn you about, but it's something you'll just have to see for yourself. You'd never believe it if I told you and we can't seem to get through to her. We were hoping you could," Edward said.

Her? Who does he want me to get through to? I'm sure I must have looked as confused as I felt.

He then said, "You'll see."

Alice, of course, knew we were coming and practically ambushed me upon entering the house chatting away as if picking up where we left off on a conversation we haven't even had yet. It sometimes helps to have a psychic for a best girlfriend, but sometimes I have no idea what she's talking about.

Chatting away at maximum speed, "And so, Bella, per your request we are keeping the guest list small. We've invited all of your family which is nearly as small as the Cullen's side. I only invited the few small covens we keep in touch with on a friendly basis like the Denali clan, for example. I know there was some bad blood there for a little bit involving the Laurent-Trini thing but they're the closest thing to family that we have so we've agreed to disagree and put aside any hard feelings for a day. So, all totaled together it looks like it'll be somewhere around 35 plus about 10 local friends from school, a few of your dad's friends and about 15 from the reservation for a total of 75, not counting the wedding party. Does that sound about right?"

I knew it must have taken great restraint on her part to slow down her speech enough for human ears to understand, but even then it was all I could do to make it out.

Alice looking always so cute and perfect was absolutely adorable with a measuring tape hanging over her shoulder and pencils sticking out in her hair. I mused to myself that she looked almost too perfectly disheveled, as if she had seen this image somewhere in a magazine or a movie and recreated it perfectly to fit the image of a person under stress from assembling a wedding from scratch.

But if I didn't know better I would swear that Alice really did look stressed. On top of the mussed up appearance, Alice had dark circles and eyes to match. It was then I realized that Alice was the one which Edward was worried.

"Yes, that sounds fine. Um Alice, why are you so hungry? Haven't you been going hunting with the others?" I asked.

"Hunting? Who has time to hunt, what with the cake order being screwed up twice now, the venue we had originally planned on double booked and canceled so now I'm running around looking for another one on short notice which is unheard of in wedding circles in which case looks like we may be having the wedding here after all, in which case I'm going to have build it all from scratch, call all of the guests again and tell them of the change in plans, the flowers have been ordered but now because of the impending hurricane in the pacific the orchids I ordered may not get here in time, everyone still hasn't RSVP'd so since I don't know for sure the size of the list I'm having a hard time ordering the food. The caterers are being such..."

"Alice, Alice slow down!" I couldn't help but laugh a little. I've never seen Alice in such a state. It would have actually been a very funny moment, but this was beyond anything I would have ever thought possible. This wasn't an act. Alice appeared completely and totally overwhelmed.

"It's going to be okay. You've still got time to plan all this out. I know you've had some setbacks, but you did a wonderful job on the graduation party and -"

"The graduation party ?" Alice repeated excited.

I shouldn't have said that.

"Do you know how easy the graduation party was compared to this? This is insane! Nobody but me cared about the specifics of the graduation party. I could have served cat food and hired the high school marching band for all they cared. All anybody wanted was to get a look inside the house. But this wedding will be a direct reflection on me, on what I can do. I won't half-ass this! It has to be right, Bella, and so far nothing has turned out right. NOTHING! Just when I think I've got something planned right down to the precise orchid or the exact specific style of Alencon lace for my maid-of-honor dress, of which due to yet another mess up I had to opt for Valenciennes, which is not really what I had in mind but it'll do, but then I get one guy saying they can't get it to me on time or they needed six months' advance notice or the person I need to talk to is on vacation or some such shi...!"

"Alice!" Edward growled. She was literally shouting at me.

"Calm down! Bella said it was going to be okay and it will be. We're both here and we can both do errands and make calls every bit as much as you can. It's our wedding after all," Edward argued, clearly not liking her tone.

The look on Alice's face was one of both disgust and shock. You would have thought Edward had pulled his own head off and sent it across the room by the look of her.

Carlisle put his hand on Alice's shoulder. "He's right Alice. It's their wedding, maybe you should ..."

Before Carlisle could get another syllable in, Alice turned on her heel and was already halfway up the stairs. I was barely able to register what was happening when I felt a whoosh of wind and looked over my shoulder with only enough time to see her little feet ascending the stairs moving quickly out of sight.

Total shock must have been written all over my face because Edward lightly put his hands on my shoulders to urge me forward. His hand eventually found mine and led me to the sofa.

"Well what's with her? I've never seen Alice so, so..." The shock hadn't quite worn off yet.

"I know, love. I had no idea of the extent of her state until a few days ago. Jasper didn't tell us she had been having problems with the wedding plans. She apparently swore him to secrecy and she's been carefully avoiding me. I've been away so much…."

"Days? You've known about this for who-knows-how-many days and you never said anything? Edward, how could you keep something like that from me? You know what she means to me! Why didn't you say anything?"

Edward looked at me amused. "Oh, well, I suppose I thought it wasn't anything you needed to be concerned about. It just never came up," he added.

I immediately recognized those words. Touché Edward, damn you. I could feel the heat in my face betray me, and he then put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my head. "Don't worry yourself, Bella."

Still irritated, I continued, "I don't understand, Edward. How could you have not known this was happening, even with her avoiding you?"

"In spite of what you might think, I'm not infallible, Bella, and besides, there are ways around all of our abilities. Which is why we must trust each other, implicitly. Between Jas covering for her, and her thinking being so erratic all of the time anyway, the wedding was just one more reason for her mind to be even more frenzied. I hadn't noticed anything exaggerated. In fact, she asked that I not peek into her business as she didn't want any interference. We've been going hunting so much lately and I've been spending so much time at your house that it wasn't until I got back a few days ago that I saw her thoughts and saw just how far gone she was. We thought if we gave her time to sort it all out everything would fall into place, but it hasn't."

Esme strode over fluidly and bent over the sofa to lightly kiss the top of my head. I barely felt her cool lips touch me.

"Esme," I pressured, "Another thing that confuses me is why no one else told me what was going on. Surely, you or Carlisle could have called me?" I didn't want to seem accusatory, but I was upset.

"No, we couldn't, Bella. You see, we're just as upset about this as you are, although for a very different reason," she looked at Edward as she said this. I was confused at their silent exchange.

"There's a very good reason why our little family is one of very few on record. Not just because of our diet of choice, not just the fact that there are so many of us, but that we've lasted as long as we have without going feral. It's not in a vampire's nature to want this. Many times bands/families if you want to call them that who tried this, failed. One reason for this is because of the inevitable dissension that almost always seems to happen. One way it always seems to start is with a secret. That's it. That's all it takes."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, how can one secret be so destructive?" I asked.

"A family dynamic such as ours is fragile, as fragile as a teacup. And as you know it only takes one chip to ruin a tea cup. All vampires are nomadic by nature, Bella, we're also vicious by nature. Creatures like us can't coexist without one simple common thread that we have ALL agreed upon, trust. Absolute, unequivocal trust. Trust that we won't murder each other when our backs are turned, trust that we won't attempt to steal from the other, trust that you will never deprive your brother/sister of food or something they need and trust that what we say to each other is 100% true. That means…"

"No secrets," I finished.

Esme smiled, "That's right, of any kind. There can be no mistakes. We can't afford them. These rules may seem rigid, but it's the only way we've all learned to live together. I won't lie, this way of life can take years to perfect."

"So does that mean Alice is in trouble?" I asked trying to understand.

Esme smiled, "No, not exactly but she's, uh, what's the term?" she asked Edward.

"She's grounded," he grinned.

Esme chuckled, "Yes. Because of the circumstances and because of our devotion to each other and our way of life, we can overlook it this one time."

"And Jasper?"

Esme continued, "Yes, poor Jasper. He's caught in the middle. It's not just humans he's learning to be around, it's us as well. His first duty is to Alice, his mate. Alice was wrong to ask him to cover for her. She relies on her visions as much as we do to tell her what to do, but what if she was wrong? By going off on her own like that she created a potentially sticky situation. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing, but we needed to be sure that their devotion to our family and our way of life was still intact before inviting you back over. And it is by the way. Plus, we didn't want to alarm you, we know how you are when it comes to Alice," she said, glowing with affection.

I shook my head like I understood, but I was still worried.

"It's okay, Bella, really. She'll be fine, I promise," she said, patting my shoulder. "Alice is too proud to admit she's in over her head. Speaking of that, I'm so glad you're here. We have a job for you."

***A/N - I hope you're liking it so far. As this is fanfiction there will be times when I'll need to take the story in a different direction than the series in order to accommodate my storyline, but I do try to stay within the spirit of Ms. Meyer's works and be respectful to the original content. So if something seems off that's probably because it is lol. However, it's also probably something that will be explained in later chapters. I can't reveal all my tricks at once!***