Bella's POV

My new apartment was all finished, and I was moved in. I'd invited Edward over for a celebratory glass of wine. After a light dinner and a few glasses of wine, we sat, kissing, on the sofa. Soon, I led him to the bedroom and told him to make himself comfortable on the bed and that I would be out in a minute.

I came out of the bathroom in a short, pale blue, soft silk babydoll and panties. Edward, wearing nothing but a pair of black silk boxers, was reclining on my bed, waiting for me. His bronze-colored, messy, gorgeous hair and light skin contrasted beautifully against the dark headboard. He smiled that sexy half-smile he knew I loved and then crooked his finger.

"Come here, my beautiful Bella."

I walked over to the bed, an outward confidence hiding my inner nervousness.

"Do you have any idea of how dangerous you are? You make me think thoughts that a man really should not think about the woman he cares for." His eyes traveled from my head to my toes and back up again, pausing at my breasts to watch my nipples harden under his gaze. A soft growl escaped him before he could stop it.

I suddenly felt powerful, and I let that feeling flow through my body, holding my head up a bit higher, pushing my shoulders back and my breasts out. I knew it had the desired effect when he sat up, reached out, and pulled me tightly to him.

"See something you like?" I purred seductively.

He buried his face in my neck, licking and sucking lightly and sending shivers down my spine. "You vixen!" His hands moved down my back until they cupped my ass. He easily picked me up and deposited me gently onto the bed beside him.

Sliding down, he slowly parted my legs, and I lifted my hips so he could slide my panties down and off over my feet. He moved back between my legs, running his hands up from toes to my knees and higher, slowing until he was within a breath of the spot I wanted him to touch the most.

"Please," I whispered, every nerve in my body alert.

"Please what?" he asked quietly, his breath tickling the skin of my inner thigh.

"Touch me," I begged, my body aching.

He lightly ran a finger in slow circles around my thigh. "Like this?"

I fisted the sheet and shook my head.

He leaned down, dragged his tongue around the same circles, and then looked up. "Maybe like this?"

"Edward," I whined softly, my body throbbing with anticipation.

He leaned back down, and with his eyes on mine, he slowly licked from the bottom of my slit to the top, stopping before he reached the little bundle of nerves that was tightening up more and more every second my body was feeling his touch.

"Yesss," I hissed. "More, please!"

His fingers suddenly moved up and parted my lips. I gasped when I felt his tongue slide in as far as it could go. "Mmm, Bella, you taste just like I knew you would. Strawberries and freesia, exactly like the scent of your hair and skin."

He made love to me with his tongue for several minutes until I began thrusting my hips up, silently begging for more. I felt his finger at my entrance, and he slowly slid it inside, making me cry out. "Oh God, Edward! Harder, please!"

I felt my body beginning to tighten when he added another finger, and his tongue began lapping at my clit, making it feel like it was on fire. I felt my orgasm rising and...

Brrrrrring! Brrrrrring!

What the hell?

"Hello?" I mumbled, half asleep.

"Hey, can I talk to Jamie?" The young girl's voice sounded way too cheerful for this time of day.

"You've got the wrong number, sorry." I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Is this...?" She rattled off a number that had two digits switched from mine.

When I told her that she'd dialed the wrong number, I heard the dial tone and hung up, frustrated and angry at being interrupted.

Unfortunately, I'd been woken up much earlier than I needed to be. I didn't even have to glance at the clock to know that, because the sky outside my window was still dark.

It was at the worst possible time in my dream, too! I closed my eyes, desperately trying to get back to it. After five minutes, I knew it wasn't going to happen. Groaning softly, I rolled over and picked up my phone to look at the time. It wasn't as early as I'd feared, so I got up and on threw my standard jeans and a T-shirt before heading into the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone.

When I reached into the cabinet for the pancake mix, my muscles twinged, so before starting to cook, I grabbed another dose of the Ibuprofen and set the bottle on the table for Angela in case she needed it. I started the coffee and then mixed up the batter and heated the griddle. Since Angela liked bananas and Ben liked blueberries, I got them both out and sliced up the banana before pulling out the chocolate chips for myself.

Once I heard stirring from the other end of the house, I began ladling batter onto the griddle, adding blueberries to some, bananas to a few, and bananas and chocolate chips for the ones meant for me. Once I had a big stack, I placed them on a plate and put them in the oven to keep warm. I was just slicing some cantaloupe and adding it to small bowls, along with strawberries, blueberries, and grapes, when Angela and Ben walked in.

"Mmm, smells good, Bella! Please tell me there's coffee," Ben begged.

I laughed. "Freshly made. Pour us all a cup, please, while I get the pancakes out. Ang, could you get out the butter and syrup? Ibuprofen is on the table if you need it, by the way."

The next few minutes were filled with nothing but the sounds of hunger being satisfied and the occasional slurping of coffee. By the time we'd finished, all of us looked a lot more bright-eyed and awake.

"What are your plans for today?" Ben asked, looking from me to Angela.

"I wanna clean and inventory the store."

"Bella, don't forget that we still need to go shopping for some things for the apartment. We can do that this afternoon after finishing up in the store."

"There ya go," I told Ben. "Our plans." I grinned.

He nodded. "Always listen to the boss. That's what I've learned." He stood up and kissed the top of Angela's head. "I'm gonna rinse my plate and head to work."

Angela chuckled. "Go on. I'll take care of your plate. But you can cook dinner tonight since Bella and I are gonna have another long day of shopping and working at the store."

"Works for me. We can cook out since we didn't do that yesterday. Maybe I'll bring you both some lunch today, too. No promises, but we'll see how work's going." He grabbed his jacket and keys and left with a wave.

Ang and I finished eating and then rinsed all the dishes. "Oh, should we be nice and unload the dishwasher before go?" she asked, looking down at the machine in question.

I nodded. "Since he's gonna cook, it's probably the least we can do."

We put away the clean dishes and loaded the breakfast ones before grabbing both our laptops and some notebooks and pens, since I wasn't sure which way would be easiest to do the inventory.

"You ready to go?" I asked Angela.

"I'm ready," she said. "Hey, you think Edward got the trim finished?"

"I'm sure he did. I'll call him once we get to the store." I turned my face slightly to hide the blush that was heating my face, but it didn't escape her notice.

"Bella, dear..." Angela's voice had a definite teasing tone. "Why the blush? Thoughts of your new neighbor?"

"Mmm, maybe," I confessed. "A few dreams, too."

Angela tried the entire way to the store, but I wasn't going to give her any details, no matter how much she begged. "Fine..." She gave in with a grin. "I'll just let my imagination fill it in."

"Ahh, your imagination wouldn't even come close." I felt my face flame again and slapped a hand over my mouth.

She teased me as we parked and began grabbing our stuff.

We both jumped when we heard, "Good morning, ladies."

"Ow, shit!" I cried, rubbing my head where I'd smacked it on the car door frame.

Angela laughed and said, "Hi, Edward. See you inside, Bella!"

I turned my head so Edward couldn't see and stuck my tongue out at her for running off and leaving me alone with him. Then I turned around and smiled. "Good morning! The trim looks great!"

Edward's face was a mask of worry. "Bella, are you okay? I'm sorry I surprised you."

I waved off his apology. "I'm fine, really. Stuff like this happens to me so often that if I let it bother me for long, I'd never get anything done. I promise."

"Okay, but if your head hurts later, let me know, please. Oh, and I'm glad you like the trim. It really didn't take me long to do. If you wanna go on in, I'll bring the stuff over."

"Great, thanks," I murmured, smiling.

I grabbed my laptop, wallet, and notebook before heading inside. I set everything down on the counter and started pulling open all the drawers to see what, if anything, had been left behind. Angela had begun to clean the ends of each bookshelf, and I was shuffling through the papers in the first drawer, when there was a knock on the door.

I hurried over to open it for Edward and took the tray and paintbrush—both perfectly clean, I was happy to note—and smiled. "Come on in," I encouraged. "You can put it all back in the storage room."

Once he was back, he asked, "Do you want me to run the paint upstairs?"

I shook my head. "Nah, that's okay. I'll probably just keep it all down here. Thank you again."

"You're welcome." He smiled. "It really was no trouble and was probably safer than you getting up on the ladder again."

Angela stifled a laugh from across the room as I pretended to shove him toward the door.

"All right, thank you very much. Another klutzy moment I'll never live down. Now scoot. We have work to do, and you can't keep leaving your assistant alone to hang out here," I said with a sweep of my arm around the store, "even as fun as it may be."

He smirked. "Oh, I dunno about that. I think I could have plenty of fun here...but yes, I need to go. Give me a call if you need something or have any questions. See you later, Angela!" He waved and then left the store, closing the door behind him.

I locked it and fanned myself. "Whew! I just knew I was gonna do something else to embarrass myself."

"I'm not sure he cares, Bells. I think Mr. Cullen may be sweet on you." She waggled her eyebrows at me.

"Whatever," I said, feeling my face flame. "I'm sure he's just being friendly since we're neighbors now. Keep cleaning, and stop making up stories about my sexy new neighbor. I'm gonna finish going through the drawers, and then we can look at how to do the inventory."

She turned back to the shelves, but I could hear her singing softly, "Bella thinks he's sexy. Bella thinks he's sexy."

I rolled my eyes, but grinned goofily, nodding to myself because she was completely right.

The first two drawers were mainly trash, with a few papers that included important vendor numbers, as well as other helpful information. In the third drawer, I hit pay dirt. "Ang, come check this out."

She walked over, and I handed her a computer CD labeled Final Inventory. "Wow, that's great! Do you still wanna check it?"

"Yeah, I think I'd feel better that way. Let me see the disc, and I'll see how it's listed on there. Then I can make a copy so we each have one on our computers. We can start at opposite ends and meet in the middle, dusting and cleaning as we go. How's that sound?"

She handed me the CD. "Sounds good to me. I'll get two sets of cleaning stuff and set them at the places we'll need them to start."

I popped the CD into my laptop and quickly figured out that it was simply a spreadsheet with the books listed by category and then in alphabetical order according to author's last name. Perfect!

After copying the file to my computer, I put the disc into Angela's computer and copied it to hers before carrying her laptop to her and pointing out where she should start on the list. Then I made my way back to where the list started.

Three hours later, all the books had been checked off, including the ones in the storage room, and everything had been dusted and cleaned till they sparkled. Somewhere during that three hours, Ben had called and said he'd bring Chinese for lunch. When we finished the list, it was just about time, so we put away all the cleaning stuff and our laptops and then washed our hands.

Ben got to the store a few minutes later and banged on the door with a foot while calling out, "Lemme in, you guys! My hands are full!"

We laughed, and I went to unlock the door, opening it before taking a drink tray full of cups from one of his hands. "Ooh, good call on the drinks! We didn't think to bring anything with us this morning."

"I made sure to ask him when he called," Angela said, coming out from behind the counter.

"Oh! Hah, that shows where my mind was... I didn't hear anything during the call."

Ben had asked them to include some plastic silverware along with the chopsticks, and I smiled gratefully when I grabbed them. We all sank to the floor and grabbed our food, eating and talking about the day we'd had so far. Ben told us a story about a new customer that had come in for help with their computer that had us almost literally rolling on the floor laughing.

"Seriously, how the guy even manages to find the power button is beyond me!" He snickered again before taking another bite of his cashew chicken. "Oh, and Bella, I told them I was taking a long lunch. If you'll leave the keys for the store with me, I'll bring your new Mac in and get it all set up. I picked it up from the house on my way here."

I immediately pulled the keys from my pocket and slid them to him. I could use the computer easily, even figure out how to solve some issues with hardware and software on my own, but I really hated getting a new one set up. "Thanks, Ben! Did you grab the software I bought, too?"

"Yeah, I saw the sack beside the computer box. You got business software, right?"

I nodded. "I told the guy at the store what I was buying it for, and with my research and his recommendations, I got the latest version of Office, QuickBooks, as well as a few others. I also bought the system that came with Leopard pre-installed, which I researched and found is supposed to work well for business use."

"Sounds good," he agreed, nodding. "I'll get those all installed, and then later on, I can help teach you the basics of anything new to you. Most of it should be pretty simple for you, since you've used them for your personal stuff before."

We talked some about their upcoming move while we finished eating and then gathered up all the trash and threw it away.

"Okay, Bells, let's hit the road. We have more shopping to do!" Angela sounded much more cheerful than I felt.

"Woohoo," I said halfheartedly.

She laughed, grabbed our stuff, and then pulled me toward the door.

"Lock up when you leave, Ben, and thanks again!"

The door closed behind me, and Angela shoved me gently to the car. I got into the passenger seat, letting her drive since I wasn't sure where we were headed.

~*~*~CIBD~*~*~

Ben's POV

I waited a couple of minutes after the girls left and then grabbed the keys and left the store, locking the door behind me. Instead of going to the car to get the computer, I went next door to Cullen's place. I had a few words to say to him and then a favor to ask.

"Hi, welcome to Masen Music. Can I help you find something?" The girl behind the counter was tall and pretty, with an accent that made me realize she was from Australia or the UK—I could never tell which.

"Actually, I need to speak with Edward Cullen, if he's available. My name's Ben Cheney." I smiled to let her know that I was there for—what I hoped, anyway—a friendly visit.

"Oh, sure! Hold on just a minute while I call him down." She picked up the phone and dialed. After a few seconds, she said, "Hey, Edward. Ben Cheney just came in and said he'd like to speak with you." She was quiet a moment and then said okay into the phone before hanging up and turning back to me. "He'll be right down. He was just finishing lunch."

"Thank you," I replied, smiling at her.

She was obviously curious, but too polite to ask what business I had with her boss.

A couple of minutes later, a man walked out of the office behind the counter. "Thanks, Sasha. I'll be outside or next door if you need me."

She nodded and watched as he walked around to me.

He reached out his hand, and I shook it as he said, "Hello, Ben. Nice to meet you. Bella's told me a little bit about you, so I know who you are." He grinned. "Why don't we go outside and talk?"

"That would be great." I smiled at the young woman who was trying hard to look uninterested. "Thank you, Sasha. Nice to meet you."

She nodded her head in return as Edward and I walked out.

"Would you like to sit?" Edward asked, indicating the bench.

"Thanks, that would be fine." After we got situated, I finally got to the reason for my visit. "This may seem a bit forward...or premature...and I want you to know that neither Bella nor Angela knows I'm here. In fact, if Bella finds out, she'll probably have my head." I smiled ruefully, relieved when he chuckled. "But Bella is my fiancée's best friend, and she's the closest thing I have to a sister. So I feel like it's my duty to talk to you, especially since Angela and I are moving so soon and I won't be around to keep an eye on things. I know it's really too early to ask what your intentions are, and from everything they've both said, you seem like a nice guy, but know that if you ever hurt her or treat her badly, it won't matter where I'm living. In fact, you would probably have to worry about Angela more than you'd have to worry about me, and trust me when I say that you do not want that. All I'm asking is that you treat her with respect and remember that if she were your sister and our positions were reversed, you treat her as you would want me to treat yours."

He looked at me quietly for a second and then nodded. "Understood. And Ben..." He waited until I was looking at him before continuing. "Thank you. I don't know her very well yet, but from what I do know, I know Bella is a beautiful, funny, friendly person and someone I definitely wanna get to know better. I'll treat her as well as I do my own mother and sisters. She's lucky to have you on her side looking out for her, even if she doesn't know it."

We both laughed, knowing that Bella wouldn't necessarily consider herself lucky to find out I was butting in.

"Good, then we're on the same page."

He inclined his head.

"Now, I have a favor to ask," I said, smiling.

"Sure, what's up?"

"If you have an hour free, I could use your help. Bella and Angela just left to go shopping, so they should be gone for most of the afternoon. I spoke to Angela about this, and asking you was actually her idea. Bella needs her store name painted on the window. Angela came up with a tagline to go under it, and we had a stencil made up with the name and the tagline done in a nice, easily-readable font. I'm gonna be installing Bella's new computer in the office, and I was wondering if I could get you to paint the stuff on the window as a surprise for Bella. Angela knew what color she was gonna use, so we know it's what she'll want on there; she just won't be expecting it to be done when she gets here in the morning."

He smiled. "I'd love to help. Let me poke my head in and tell Sasha I'll be gone for an hour or so, and then I'm all yours."

"Great, thanks. I know she'll appreciate it."

~*~*~CIBD~*~*~

Bella's POV

"Where are we going first, Oh Great Leader?" I chuckled when Angela shot me a dark look.

"No need to be condescending," she said with a sniffle.

I looked at her, baffled, until I saw the smirk peeking out.

"Damn it! I thought I had it with a straight face." She giggled.

I laughed. "Nope, you've never been able to hide your emotions very well from me for long," I teased.

She made a sound that sounded vaguely like "hurmph" before answering my question. "How about we go simplest to hardest? Cheapest to most expensive? Same thing. I thought we'd start at Target and get the trash cans, the shower caddy or whatever, and anything else from there you can think of. Then we can go to Office Depot and get a desk chair and a guest chair for your office. Then we'll end up at Macy's for bedding and linens. How's that sound?"

I nodded. "Sounds good, actually. I wanna add one more place to the end of the list. Sitting there eating Chinese gave me an idea."

She looked at me expectantly before turning her attention back to the road.

"I'll tell you when we're done at Macy's."

I bit my lip to keep from grinning when she pouted.

"Fine, then," she huffed, turning up the radio.

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, worried I'd upset her, but I was relieved when I saw that she was looking at me the same way. We both started laughing and didn't stop until we reached Target.

It didn't take us long there. We grabbed one shopping cart, and within twenty minutes, we had six trash cans, a shower caddy to hold all my shampoos and stuff in the shower, plus a few other odds and ends. After checking out and loading the stuff into the trunk, we headed to Office Depot.

Shopping for a desk chair at Office Depot was a lot of fun.

"Hey, Bells, look at this one," Angela called out.

I walked over to see her sitting in a black chair that didn't look much different than some of the ones I'd already tried and rejected.

"Yeah, okay," I said, drawing out the word. "So is it more comfortable than the others we've tried or something? It looks the same." I shrugged.

She stood up and gestured for me to sit down. After I was seated, she picked up something and hit a button. Before I could say anything, my back and thighs were being massaged.

"Oh..." I groaned. "It's a massage chair! Wow, this feels amazing," I exclaimed, sighing as I relaxed back against the seat. "It's probably a lot more than I wanna spend, though." I started to get up.

"Sit there for a minute and give it a chance," Angela suggested. "Lemme read to you about it."

It had all the normal office chair features, plus three massage modes with three intensity levels and a rechargeable battery so you didn't have to worry about plugging it in. I still wasn't sold until she told me it was just under two hundred dollars.

"Woah, seriously? That's pretty much the same cost as the normal chairs. What the heck...I'm in!"

She clapped her hands once and grinned, picking up a slip to give the checkout person.

"Okay, now let's choose a guest chair for the office, too. Do you think only one, or should I get two?"

"I'd say two. You can always put it in the storage room, but that way if you have more than one person come in and need a chair, you have it available and don't have to drag something down from upstairs."

I nodded. "That makes sense. Okay, let's go see what they've got."

We laughed at some of the guest and reception chairs they had available. Some of them cost nearly a thousand dollars. I knew I'd like my customers and guests, but I didn't want them to be so comfortable in the office that they'd never leave. I shook my head, and we continued looking. After just a few more minutes, I found the one I wanted. It was a soft, comfortable leather, with arms and a metal base, so it should last for a while, and it was just under a hundred and fifty bucks. We grabbed a ticket for it, as well, and then began shopping for some office essentials. Six hundred and fifty dollars later, we pushed out our cart full of the office supplies.

"I'm so glad they said they would deliver the chairs on Monday. I don't think we could have stuffed all of them into the car!"

Angela laughed and nodded before sobering. "Okay, off to Macy's for bedding, right?"

Her serious expression had me grinning. "Yes, Master," I said solemnly, trying to stifle the giggle threatening to burst out of me.

She grinned. "That's Mistress, thank you very much."

I rolled my eyes as she drove out of the parking lot.

Macy's was only a couple of blocks from where we were, so we got there quickly. It took us nearly two hours, but by the time we finished, we each had five huge, full bags of bedding and other linens, including two cute, almost sheer curtain sets for the windows in the bedroom and living room, plus some drapes that should work well with the paint color and most of the bedding I'd gotten to have some privacy in the bedroom. I kind of liked Edward, but I didn't want to give him a show—yet.

When we finished at Macy's, I directed Angela to one of the local furniture stores. "I decided I wanna get a small table and a couple of chairs to put in the front of the store, by the window. That way, people can sit down to read through their books to help them choose or just relax and read for a bit."

"Great idea, Bella! When did you think of that?"

I smiled. "At lunch with Ben. If I'd thought of it while we were in Seattle, I'd have had us look then, but when we had to sit on the floor to eat lunch, I realized it would be the perfect place for something like that."

Before we could even get out of the car, Angela's phone rang. "Speaking of Ben..." She pushed a button on the phone and said, "Hey! What's up?" She paused for several minutes, making mmhmm and other similar noises, before saying, "Okay, great. We're still shopping, but I'll tell her. Thanks, honey. See you later."

"What's up?" I asked.

"Ben got finished setting up the computer and had to head back to work. He wasn't sure if we'd be going back there today, so just in case, he left the keys over with Edward." She couldn't help but laugh when I blushed.

"Oh, okay," I replied, grinning even through my embarrassment. To distract her from asking any questions or making any comments, I quickly got out of the car.

We walked in to the small store, and it didn't take us long to find the perfect items.

"Look at this table," Angela pointed. "It's got a glass top with dark wood, which makes it look really homey and nice, and the bottom part has four stools that people could pull out to sit on. They have leather tops, which is really nice, too."

We pulled out a couple of the stools and tried them, and they were pretty comfortable, even though they looked kind of small.

I nodded. "I love it. I love the idea of the extra seating, even though I dunno if I'll ever need it. Now to find chairs. I'd love to find some in a burgundy or something similar to match the awning and paint color that I'm gonna use for the store name on the window."

We walked around, waving off the salesman who started to come ask if he could help us. We both knew we'd rather just look around on our own first. Finally, we gave up, unable to find anything in the right color.

"I love this collection," I told Ang, "but I really wish it wasn't in tan."

"Let's ask and see if they have it in another color," she suggested. She waved over the salesman, who'd been standing near the register, waiting to see if we needed him.

"Hello, ladies. Did you see something you like?"

I smiled. "Actually, I really like this collection—the chair without arms and this chair with arms, although I don't want an ottoman. Unfortunately, I'm not too keen on the color. I don't suppose you have it in any other colors, do you?"

"Hmm, I believe we do, but I'll have to go check the computer. Why don't you follow me, and we'll look it up?" After he read the tag, we followed him to the counter. He punched in a few numbers and then turned the screen so we could see. "You're in luck. We have it in black, gray, and red. Do any of those interest you?"

"Oh! What color is the red? Could we get a look at it?"

He nodded. "Sure, give me a minute." He picked up the phone and punched a button. After asking whoever had answered the phone to bring up the right item number in the red color, he turned back to us and smiled. "Chad will be up with it in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, is there anything else I could help you with?"

"The round table with the stools that pull out from underneath that we were looking at... I'd love to get it, please."

"Oh, I know just the one you mean. Do you have a vehicle we can load it into, or would you like us to deliver it? It's a bit late to schedule today, but I think Saturday and Monday have a few openings."

"Delivery, please. Is there an extra charge?" I knew there would be, but since I had no other option at the moment, I figured that was our only choice.

"There is, unless your order is over one thousand dollars. We'll work that out after you see the chair." He pointed over our shoulders. "Speaking of, here's Chad now."

We turned around, and Angela and I both let out a little squeal of joy. He'd brought out the chair without arms, and it was a great color. It wasn't a perfect match, I was sure, but I doubted anyone would be able to tell.

"That's perfect," I said, grinning. "I want that one and one of the ones with the arms in that same color. Can I get it without the ottoman?"

"Absolutely," he answered, turning back to the computer.

A few minutes later, I'd paid and given him the delivery address, and we left the store, ready to return to the bookstore.

"I don't know about you, but I'm shopped out," I told Angela. "Totally and completely exhausted."

"It's a good thing we're done, then," she laughed. "Let's go drop all this stuff off, and then we can go home. You need to call your dad and confirm when he's coming tomorrow anyway, right?"

I nodded. "You know how forgetful he can be. It would probably be safest to call and make sure he even remembers." I grinned, knowing he'd never really forget, but it would be fun to tease him a little bit on the phone.

We drove to the store to drop off all the bags of stuff we'd bought, and when we pulled up and parked, Angela was quiet. I didn't think much of it, just assumed she was as tired as I was, so I just headed to the trunk. Pulling out a stack of the trash cans, I grabbed as many bags of stuff as I could, stuffed them into the top can, and then picked it up carefully, leaving the trunk open for Ang to grab the few remaining sacks.

"Hey, Ang, there aren't many bags left. Could you grab the others and shut the trunk please? I'm gonna set this down by the door and then go ask Edward for the keys."

"Sure, Bella," she said, climbing out of the car. She sounded odd for some reason, but I figured I'd ask what the problem was once we'd gotten inside.

I stepped over the curb and onto the sidewalk and took two more steps before the new paint on the window caught my eye. I stood there, unmoving, for at least a minute, my mouth hanging open slightly. I could hear Ang behind me fidgeting quietly, but it barely registered. I dropped the load in my arms to the sidewalk, leaning on the edge of the trash can to help keep me upright. Tears sprang to my eyes, and even though I swiped at them, I couldn't stop them from falling down my cheeks. I read the window again.

In the perfect burgundy I'd chosen and in someone's beautiful script, it read: Bella's Books. Below it, in the same navy as the trim and written in the same script, was the phrase: Where dreams and imagination live and flourish.

~*~*~CIBD~*~*~

Edward's POV

I was helping Sasha with some paperwork for inventory when I saw Bella and Angela pull up outside. I watched as Bella moved around to the trunk and began to unload some of the things from their shopping trip.

"Sasha, we'll finish this in a bit," I said, smiling. I grabbed Bella's keys and moved to the window, where I could watch until she got closer to her store.

I kept my eyes on her as she talked to her friend and then made her way up to the sidewalk. I knew the moment she saw the window, because she froze like a deer in headlights and dropped the stuff she was carrying. I watched as she leaned on it for support, and then her hand moved to her face, swiping at what must've been tears.

Damn, she didn't like it.

"I'll be back in a minute," I murmured to Sasha and then hurried out of the store. Within seconds, I was at Bella's side.

I handed the keys to Angela, who'd moved up behind Bella, and said quietly, "I'm sorry, Bella. If you don't like it, I can remove it. Ben assured me this would be what you wanted, but if I overstepped my bounds..." I let my voice trail off as she turned to me.

Her eyes glistened with tears that had spilled out and were silently making their way down her beautiful face. "You painted this?"

At my nod, she threw her arms around my neck and wept openly. I nervously stroked her back, whispering my reassurances that it was easily removable.

Suddenly, she backed away and shook her head. "You don't understand. I love it. It's perfect," she whispered, looking back at the window.

I smiled then, relieved. "I'm glad! It was actually Angela's idea. Ben asked me when you guys left to go shopping if I had time to paint it while he set up your computer."

She squealed and threw herself at Angela, who fell back against the car, laughing. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Bella told her. "It's perfect!"

I caught Angela's eye and motioned to my store, letting her know that I was going back inside. She nodded and continued to hug Bella, who was once again crying. This time, I wasn't worried. I knew the tears were ones of happiness and joy, not sadness.