I do not own Twilight or any of its' characters

BPOV

Chapter 9

Anchorage

"Bella, wake up we're here." I opened my eyes and looked around; everybody was up and out of their seats and milling toward the exit. Edward stood up and was reaching into the overhead compartment. He tossed a sweatshirt down at me, "you're probably going to need this."

"What's the temperature out there?" I asked slipping my arms into the sleeves.

"A hot and balmy sixty degrees." He answered as he threw a long sleeved knit shirt on over his t-shirt. "Come on, you're going to love it." He held his hand out to me and he pulled me up and out of my seat without any effort.

There was a playful element to his usual languid stride as he practically dragged me down the corridor to the baggage claim.

"How far are we from the house?"

"About forty minutes." He said as he grabbed our massive pieces of luggage off the carousel with minimal effort.

"How are we going to get there? Are we taking a taxi? Or hitching a dog sled?" I asked, trying to be funny.

"Nope," he said still grabbing at our luggage, "Tanya's picking us up."

My heart nearly stopped. Tanya was from the Denali coven that was close friends with the Cullens. Tanya was also a vampire who had many times tried to 'hook up' with Edward unsuccessfully. This might not go over well. She might kill me on the spot. I suspected that she was probably drop dead gorgeous and made up in my head that if she saw that Edward had chosen plain, old, underdeveloped me over her she would fly into a fit of rage and tear me limb from limb. I accidently let a loud gulp escape from my throat.

"Bella, relax, Tanya will love you just as much as everyone else does, she should be arriving any minute now."

"I think she's already here." I said nervously. Edward turned and saw me staring off into the distance near the airport exit and he looked to see what had drawn my attention.

He smirked and said, "Yes, that'd be her." Less than one hundred feet away stood an enormously tall woman that looked like a goddess. Her skin was pale like Edward's and she had buttery golden eyes. Her long strawberry blond curls draped all around her perfect body down to her waist. She wore a teal sweater dress with a cowl neck and high brown leather stiletto boots. She was absolutely stunning and looked like she belonged on a runway. I looked down at my old sweatshirt and shabby sneakers and immediately felt underdressed in her presence.

"Edward," she purred as she floated toward him.

He read the expression of horror on my face and said lowly so only I could hear him, "don't worry, I prefer brunettes." with that he started toward her, but as he passed me, did something very out of character for him and slapped me on the butt. I let out a cry in surprise as he kept walking away from me, he looked back over his shoulder at me coyly and winked. I couldn't help but laugh softly to myself as he went to greet her, I quickly followed him.

Tanya went to Edward and hugged him. Upon getting a closer look at her I realized that she wasn't enormously tall, but about the same size as Edward and she didn't look too much terribly older than him, maybe in her twenties. I guess that would explain the trendy outfit.

Edward politely removed himself from her eager embrace and said warmly "it's good to see you Tanya, you look lovely as ever. I want you to meet someone very special to me." He gestured for me to come closer, I obeyed, "Tanya, this is my Bella."

"Bella," she said affectionately and held out her hand to me, "it's so nice to finally meet you. Edward and his family positively glow when they speak of you." She sounded genuine as she let her golden eyes study me.

"Thank you," I said taking her hand, "I've heard a lot about you too."

Tanya looked quickly at him and back at me "it's going to be so nice having the two of you so close by. It can get so tedious being so isolated sometimes, it'll be nice to have some friends nearby to talk to and spend time with."

"Absolutely," I agreed, "it'll be great having some familiarity around being so far from home and all."

"Whatever you need, we are here. Bella you'll get to meet everyone else soon enough, but tonight I have to get you and Edward to your new home so you can start to settle in."

"Sounds great!" I said happily, "I can't wait to see it."

We loaded up all of our belongings into Tanya's Yukon and headed to the house. The sun hadn't quite set yet, so I could take in some of the scenery as Edward drove; he insisted. I had expected Alaska to look very different from what it did, even after looking at pictures online. I had it set in my mind that everything would be covered in snow and igloos and there would be people in fur everywhere. But, I was completely wrong about that. The city of Anchorage seemed huge, like Phoenix or Seattle. It was very metropolitan and although it was a little cooler than it was in the summer in Forks, it was actually very comfortable. Everything around me was green, not white. The trees, the land, even the mountains were green. It looked a little misty by the rivers and lakes, but the skies seemed very clear and fresh, everything looked like it was so, unspoiled. Edward was right, I did love it. I never thought I could get used to living around so much green and dampness, but I had grown to love it over the past two years.

We had been driving down a main roadway for about thirty minutes, when Edward suddenly made a turn off the main road toward a more rural area. We took another left, a right, drove for awhile longer and then we were heading down a heavily wooded driveway lined with pine trees. He put the car in park in front of a huge two story log cabin set high off the ground.

"Welcome home." He said pressing a button on Tanya's visor. Tanya smiled warmly at him; I think I felt my cheeks flush. Simultaneously, an overhead door opened. Nestled in the giant garage was Edward's familiar silver Volvo parked next to a larger silver Cadillac escalade sport, I assumed for winter driving.

"Why silver?" I asked sarcastically.

"Scratches don't show up as easily." He said as he stared at the sparkling SUV, he looked like he would start drooling in a moment. "Ready?" he asked turning his attention back to me. He hopped out of the truck and hurried to the trunk, Tanya and I followed him and helped bring the luggage into the garage. Once we had emptied her car, Tanya got ready to leave us.

"Certainly give us a call when you're all settled in," she said excitedly, "we'll all get together and catch up."

"We'll do that." Edward said smiling genuinely at her, "Thank you again Tanya." He clasped her hands gently.

"Very nice to meet you." I said sweetly, "I look forward to seeing you again soon." Tanya waved to us and got in her car, and in a flash, she was gone again leaving Edward and I in the garage with a pile of suitcases and trunks.

I grabbed up one of my suitcases and started to drag it toward the back door when he stopped me. "That can wait; I'll take care of all that after. Right now I want to show you around."

Instead of going in through the back door, he took me back out of the garage and led me to the front door of the house. A series of fieldstone steps led up to a small porch upon with the door sat. Over the door the Cullen family seal stood proud and prominent carved into the dark wood. Edward took a key out of his pocket and had the door open in seconds, we entered the already lit up living room and I gasped.

Before us stood an enormous field stone fireplace that stretched up all the way to the top of the cathedral ceilings. Strong, thick, wooden beams cascaded across the top of the ceiling and the floor was made up of wide pine boards. The walls were painted off white with the exception of one accent wall that was painted a brilliant joyful burnt orange color, against it was a mocha colored sectional suede couch with a flat screen TV hanging up. Nestled in the corner of the living room was an alcove type area lined with shelves of books and a narrow picture window. A wooden floor lamp sat alongside a green chaise lounge and flooded the area with a warm clean light. The living room gave way into a den that housed two beautiful antique drafting tables facing one another and a stereo system and music collection that took up practically the whole wall. The opposite wall was a convex picture window that overlooked the eastern part of the property. The den led into the dining room, which seated ten and was decorated with elegant matching corner shelves that housed several pieces of amber colored carnival glass. The chandelier was black wrought iron and gothic in nature. I loved it. The kitchen was state of the art with every possible gadget imaginable and decorated in warm shades of olive green and gold. A pair French doors coming off the kitchen led out onto a wide wooden deck that overlooked the sprawling property behind the house. It didn't end there; the living room also had an open staircase that led upstairs. There was no banister on the staircase, which made me a little nervous, it was very modern but didn't look out of place in the rustic cabin. He led me up the stairs without saying anything, a single lit tea light sat on the edge of each step lighting the way. There was art everywhere and color, but nothing seemed overdone, everything matched, but never blended into the background. The cabin had four bedrooms, the master being reserved for us, and Edward had taken one for himself that he had set his computer and guitars up in. The other two bedrooms were just extra bedrooms for now, but he said that I could do whatever I wanted with them.

The master bedroom was very different from the rest of the house because it was primarily black and white. The walls were white and the king sized bed was black wrought iron, similar to the piece in the dining room. The dressers and bedside stands were black as well, but it was very clear what the accent color was in this room; red. Not bright candy apple red, not maroon or burgundy, but autumn red, blood red. A huge red down comforter lay over the bed, making the wrought iron striking. Peacock blue sheets overlaid that and a dust ruffle the same color encircled the bed. A white comforter with black filigree was folded at the foot of the bed with matching pillow shams. The valances over the windows were red, and there were a few scattered pieces of accent furniture painted the same peacock blue, a bench being one of them that was decorated with red throw pillows. Everything that was soft and comfortable in the room was the color of blood, and it all seemed so inviting to me. There was a bathroom coming off the bedroom that housed a Jacuzzi and double sinks and coming off the bathroom was a walk in closet large enough to be a room unto itself.

The whole tour of the house probably took a matter of minutes, but I felt like I had been wandering around it for hours. I realized that I hadn't said anything the whole time and neither had Edward.

He cleared his throat nervously and said "I hope you like it."

I turned to him and said breathlessly, "It's amazing, I love it." a wide grin crossed his face.

"I'm glad." He said running his fingers through his hair and touching the back of his neck.

"Esme and Alice must have really out done themselves." I said turning back to look at the bedroom as a whole.

"Actually, Bella, I did all of this." He said shyly.

I whipped around and stared at him in shock. "You, you did all of this? The decorating the placement? All of it? The candles?!"

"I did. This, um," he couldn't get the words out, "isn't, um, Carlisle doesn't own this house, I do. We do."

I crinkled up my brow in confusion, "you bought a house?" I asked him in disbelief as I stepped closer to him.

"Actually, I had it built, for, us, that is, if you want to. You can say no if you want, I'll just, sell it."

Tears welled up in my eyes and I put my hands together over my face, ".me.."

"The Cadillac's yours to if you want it." He added nervously

".me.." silence was heavy in the air as I stared at him in astonishment, he looked back at me, edgy, like he was afraid I was going to laugh at him. "This is our house?" I whispered.

"If you'd like it to be."

I didn't know what to say, the tears that had been welling up in my eyes started to leak out and I just ran to him and hugged him. "Thank you so much," I whispered into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

"Thank you." He whispered back.