A/N Believe it or not, I do try not to use Australianisms but mostly I have no way of knowing if some phrase or word is different to what my readers use. Hessian bag may be an Aussie thing. They are woven jute bags used to bag up grains like wheat etc, then farmers wives reuse them as doormats. Some of you may call them feed sacks, maybe?
About the reviews (Cheers), if you dont review, I cannot tell if anyone is still reading, so when reviews fall way off, I end the story. Its how I judge when to shut up. Basically my readers always have control of when a story is done, so if you are still wanting more, then review. One word reviews are fine. You may even say "Shut up now". When my daughter was a baby, one of the first things she said was "Don't sing". I am used to criticism.
It's Murder Sequel
Chapter Four
EPOV
Somehow the weeks had flown by and we had kept to our resolve.
Our revirginization was still intact and we'd never crossed the line. Mind you we did everything short of the actual act and to my delight, it was working out just as I'd hoped.
Joy and playfulness had returned to our relationship and Bella would tease me unmercifully when we sat together on the sofa downstairs surrounded by the other tenants.
She'd told everyone about my poor circulation, then produced a big fluffy blanket that she covered the two of us with.
Then she proceeded to try and drive me insane as we snuggled together watching television with them, night after night.
Her hands would 'accidentally' stroke a part of my body and I would try and grab her wrists to keep her fingers off me, and we'd end up play fighting until we fell onto the floor.
Jade had backed off once she saw how Bella and I interacted in front of them all, and I was sure they all knew pretty quickly that we were an item.
That was good because it gave us permission to hug and kiss and be together openly.
We went out on dates and held hands across the table.
Lunchtime always found us sitting at 'our' table in our favourite eating place on campus, and after our final class of the day we mixed with the other students wherever they gathered.
We'd both been offered varieties of softer drugs.
I took up the offers and in time, managed to get myself a few names of dealers by offering to pay for the next round myself. I didn't actually use anything, but nobody cared, so long as I was generous with my stash. There were others, 'like me', who only used in the privacy of their own bedrooms, so I wasn't labelled as odd. I was merely a guy who liked to party in private.
Drugs had never been my thing and with my tobacco addiction being so hard to beat, there was no way I was dangling my toes in any new dangerous waters.
Bella did the whole nervous drug virgin act and chickened out at the last minute a few times, scared her 'father' might find out and stop her allowance.
I never let her go anywhere alone. If I couldn't attend a party, neither could she.
It was strange how we got so used to being students together, and this life was slowly becoming our real, actual life.
We both enjoyed our classes, and made friends who we would really like to hang with even if they were of no use to the investigation.
We met up at Riley's bar once a week and he would make a show of training Bella to be a barmaid, and she would deliberately muck up, pouring a beer and making it half foam, from the tap, and so forth.
This meant she never actually got to work any shifts yet, and she and Riley could chat together without anyone thinking anything of it.
The raids that saw a lot of small time dealers arrested seemed to have nothing to do with us; nobody ever saw any connection. We were too ordinary; too obsessed with one another to strike anyone as anything out of the ordinary.
Jade warned Bella now and then that there were other fish in the sea and maybe she should explore whether she was really ready to settle down with just me, instead of playing the field, and once she even said it would never work unless we spread ourselves around and tried a few 'other flavours'.
Obviously the one she wanted me to try was Jade flavour, but I laughed it off and went to meet Bella down the bottom of the long driveway.
She and Siobhan were walking down to the letterbox every afternoon, so Bella could feel comfortable that she was looking after her new friend. The baby was overdue and she'd read gentle exercise could move things along.
Benjamin and Laurent had joined a band made up of several other students so many nights it was just Bella and me and Siobhan at home, while Alex and Jade went to watch rehearsals.
Much cosier inside now anyway.
We warned Siobhan to go into labour during the daylight hours and not in the middle of some freezing cold night or nobody would want to leave their warm beds to go to the hospital with her.
Most nights we talked and played card games together then when Siobhan went off to her bedroom, we'd chase one another upstairs and play Strip Bella Naked, my favourite game.
We'd pretty much exhausted every possible way to make love without breaking the rules, but we were always open to trying something new.
Bella was very much her old self again, giving as good as she took. She'd blossomed and returned to her old persona, though I was pleased to see her pause and consider things now.
When we at the bar and some guy she was chatting to alone would tell her about his dealer, she'd look around for me and make an excuse why she couldn't go with him on his buying mission.
Even though ninety nine per cent of the time she would be perfectly safe, seeing most exchanges took place just outside the bar in the car park, she still kept to our agreement and excused herself.
I was pleased, because we had become very comfortable around all these people and nothing bad had ever gone down, but still, Bella played it safe.
Her erratic impulses seemed to be very under control.
xxxx
The night Siobhan went into labour was one none of us three would ever forget. The others were out as usual. The band was attracting a lot of attention and Jade and the others wanted to be known as their staunchest supporters so they attended every rehearsal.
It was just the three of us left home.
We'd been rugged up around the kitchen fire, while Bella's cookies baked in the oven. Now they were cooling on racks on the table.
All of Bella's and my own laundry had been washed and dried in the utility room, so I'd folded everything as it came out of the dryer nice and warm.
Siobhan had been yawning, and I was getting impatient for her to go to bed so we could, so I was tidying the room while the girls talked.
Come on, come on, it's time.
All I could think about was holding Bella in my arms and getting lost in her kisses, and maybe banning all hand contact, leaving our mouths to do the work. I was feeling unsettled and a little concerned as I felt my jeans becoming tighter.
I leaned a hand on the wall and tried to give Bella the signal to wind it up and come to bed, when Siobhan stood up and said she had to go get some sleep now.
We both said goodnight and headed for the staircase when a cry made us freeze in our tracks.
"I think my water just broke."
"Oh great timing," I growled sofly, turning to head for the phone while Bella raced back to her friend's side.
"We need an ambulance," I stated , giving our address. I guess I could have offered to drive her to the hospital myself but I still had visions of naked Bella in my head and it would be hours before Siobhan needed anyone at her side helping her through the final stage.
Bella and I could follow her into the Delivery Room in an hour or two, once we...cleaned up the kitchen.
"What?" I said to the 911 operator in surprise. "No, it's fine. I'm a fourth year medical student raised by a doctor. I can handle things here until the road is cleared. I'll put the outside lights on. We are the long driveway third from the corner of Turlington Street."
I turned to the girls, who were both looking at me questioningly.
"Apparently we are snowed in. It's been snowing for the last three hours and the roads are blocked. We have to stay put until they can clear a path out to here for the ambulance. It shouldn't take more than an hour or so. Don't worry, it's only in movies that babies arrive within half an hour of the first contraction."
"How long will it take?" Siobhan asked, leaning back with her hand on her hip. "I haven't had any contractions, it's just my back. It hurts like a bitch."
Back labour. Perfectly normal and common.
It rarely presented as the only symptom of labour.
Really, really rarely.
But my medical training told me I needed to be sure.
"Bella, take Siobhan to her bedroom and help her undress and put her into a nightgown or something with access. I have to check and see if her cervix is dilating. I'm sure it will be early stages, but I have to monitor progress."
I grabbed some clean towels from the pile of my newly laundered linens and placed them by the fireside to warm up again. Just in case.
I went upstairs and came back with my basic emergency kit. There wasn't much in it until I was qualified to carry what real doctors carried in their bags. My hands were soon gloved and lubed and Bella sat at the bedside level with Siobhan's head as I approached and tried to keep the light hearted banter up. I'd never had to insert my fingers inside someone in front of my girlfriend before.
"Lie back and think of England," I joked, lifting her nightgown up a little and pausing at the sight before me. Clearly this birth plan had been written by a screenplay writer. The top of the baby's head was crowning.
This was not going to be the night I had anticipated.
Even the second place scenario was out; a night of helping our friend pace the floor and encouraging her to breathe through the pains while listening for the sound of an ambulance approaching. This was the real deal. I couldn't control the pace, all I could do was adapt and accept I had little control over how quickly this was happening. It was another lesson in accepting things I couldn't change.
I'd talked to Siobhan half a dozen times, tweaking her Birth Plan, and I'd felt confident it would all come together in an organized manner and proceed perfectly. She'd have a few weak contractions, I'd assess her and either drive her to the hospital, or call an ambulance if things progressed faster than normal, and she'd be in the safest place available to give birth, with lots of white coated fully qualified professionals, and at most, I'd be an observer.
Maybe a birth partner.
Just there to cheer her on.
It was not supposed to happen like this.
"I feel funny. I can't just lie here on my back," Siobhan exclaimed. She would be more stable leaning face down on her hands and knees and nothing was going to slow this down anyway.
"Bella, let's get Siobhan more comfortable," I said, explaining what we were doing.
"It's going to happen very soon, so we just need to remain calm and there will not be any reason to panic."
I sounded sincere.
My heart thumped a little but my automatic response, born from my medical training, took over instantly. Maybe I'd never delivered a baby unassisted, let alone in a bedroom of a snowed in house with no hope of medical support for hours, but I knew what to do. I was confident I could handle things and the girls would react to however I reacted. If I showed any fear, they'd panic .
Much better to just do what I'd been trained to do, and let them follow my lead.
Bella got the towels then stayed at the bedside, with an arm across her friend's back while I sat cross legged on the bed between Siobhan's legs and held my hand against the emerging infant's head to slow it down so she didn't tear.
My brain switched to automatic and as the head eased out, I checked for the cord around the baby's neck; and eased it off when it did indeed prove to be there.
The baby's shoulders rotated and out the whole slippery body slid as I watched in awe. I caught the baby in my hands and lowered it onto the mattress, then waited for the cord to stop pulsing before clamping it twice, then severing the link between mother and child. Once that was done I told Siobhan to step off the bed. She'd need to squat to encourage the placenta to come away quickly.
Bella helped her as I rubbed the baby with the warm towels and it's skin pinked up and turned purple as the newborn howled.
Good.
One screaming baby.
I showed the little boy to her mother, and Siobhan smiled weakly. I was shocked at her reaction. Had I been able to grow an entire new human being inside me and push it safely out into the world, I would have been doing handstands.
Okay, maybe not, in the circumstances, but I'd definitely be reacting a whole lot more enthusiastically than she was. At the very least giving myself a high five. She looked the baby over closely as I peeled back the towel for a second so she could see he was perfect, and saw her face drop in disappointment.
She didn't speak so I handed the baby to Bella.
" I want you to place the baby down your top, between your breasts, and wrap yourself in that comforter again. Sit on the sofa by the fire, while I deliver the placenta."
While we took care of the messy business, Bella sat transfixed by the infant against her heart and waited.
"Your son looks good," I informed Siobhan as I held her hands and let her brace herself against me as the afterbirth slowly appeared. It came away without any problems and she climbed back into bed.
I kept talking while I opened her hospital suitcase and helped myself to the necessary supplies inside.
"Had you been hoping for a girl?" I finally asked. She looked shattered. I'd hoped my first solo delivery would be a happier occasion to look back on.
"God no. Life's too hard for girls. I'm glad he is a boy," she answered.
"Then what's wrong?"
"Despite what you may think of me, there were only two possibilities for father. I had my heart set on it being Laurent's. But it isn't, is it?"
"Unlikely, but not impossible," I replied. "The baby is a very pale skinned blonde, but sometimes one set of genes is a lot more dominant and take over. In time, he may get darker. Who was the other contender, if you don't mind me asking."
"Luke," she replied. "He used to live in your bedroom in the attic."
"And he left," I stated.
"Worse, he ran off with Lucy. Apparently he'd been sleeping with us both all along. When I found out about them by walking in on the two of them in his bed, I got a little drunk. Things happened, and I woke up in Laurent's bed. Naturally that had to be nine months ago, so I've never known who did the deed. You must think I'm a terrible person."
"Siobhan, you won't find either Bella or me sitting in judgement for you making a poor choice when it comes to sexual hook ups. Neither of us have lived very wisely, shall we say. You have a very long way to go before you'd rival my track record. Let's just say we all have made mistakes in our pasts and maybe from now on we will all be a little smarter. Okay?"
"I want to be a good Mom to my baby," she replied.
"I'll get Bella to bring him in to you. You need to keep him warm against your skin until the ambo arrives. I'll have to keep checking your loss, but everything looks normal so far. Congratulations by the way. You did really well."
"Thank you, Edward. I don't know what I would have done if I'd been here alone."
"Much the same I imagine. It was a textbook delivery. Women have had to deliver their babies alone for centuries and they usually manage without a man interfering. You'd have coped. Like they say, you cannot judge the strength of a teabag or a woman until you put them into hot water."
Bella was reluctant to hand the baby over, I noted with delight.
We arranged the infant on his Mom's chest and covered them both with blankets, then sat there together by the bedside until they were both taken to hospital.
There was a paramedic on board, so I stayed and helped Bella get the bloodstained sheets into the wash, and cleared away all signs of what had happened here.
Once we showered and changed to go to bed, all thoughts of sexual shenanigans were long gone, and I lay there with Bella in my arms and smiled at how well things had happened. It could have ended badly, but instead, all was well. Mother and baby had survived and come through as well as could be hoped.
I'd delivered a new life into the world.
It did occur to me that tonight mirrored Riley's experience with his niece's birth almost exactly.
And this new baby had managed to have the same effect on Bella.
She turned and faced me.
"I want us to have a baby. We've proved we can weather anything thrown at us. I want a baby of our own."
"Maybe we could announce our engagement officially, as the first step towards that goal." I suggested. "Maybe in a year or so, we may be at that place, ready to begin our own child."
"Okay," she agreed, "We wait one year. From when we got back together."
"So, one year less seven weeks," I confirmed.
I guess it was time to inform the family.
xxxx
Esme was naturally delighted to hear the mystery girl was Bella. She wanted us to return home but I reminded her Bella was actually on assignment here, and I was attending college for real, not just as a way to be with her. Our time was not our own.
Emmett and Rose decided they had to come see us, at the very least, so we could have a celebratory dinner out together.
Bella was thrilled, she missed Rose a lot.
Now things were sorted and back on track, there was nothing to stop them being besties again.
Alice and Jasper were not joining us this time. Alice was suffering from morning sickness already, so air travel was out of the question. We promised to come home during our first break and they could hold our engagement party then.
We were back on track.
Maybe we could race my older brother and Rose, and see which couple got married first, and joined Alice in the maternity stakes.
Maybe they would not remain ahead of us after all.
I shook my head, laughing at myself.
The whole idea was to slow down, not try and drag Bella to the finish line before she was really ready to get there by herself.
It was working.
We were solidifying and regaining trust in one another by leaps and bounds. Just as she was learning to control her impulsive nature, I was learning to give up my need to control everything, and let things happen at their own pace.
xxx
BPOV
Rose greeted me like we had simply been apart due to our jobs or whatever, and it seemed the past was firmly laid to rest for us as well.
Thank God.
I'd worried it might permanently change things, with what had happened to her because of me.
However, it seemed Rose was still a silver linings girl, and she had decided getting Emmett as her forever partner was compensation enough.
He and Edward went to visit Riley's bar so Rose and I could catch up on all each other's news before joining them there.
I showered and came back into the bedroom, opening my closet and looking through the dresses, trying to decide which one was Edward's favourite. He had not commented on my change of style, other than to constantly assure me that I looked beautiful.
"What's with the fancy frocks?" Rose asked, no doubt confused. I'd always worn jeans, even to work if I could.
"I decided I needed a makeover. Guys prefer girls who dress feminine, right? I want Edward to like me as well as love me, and be proud to have me as his girlfriend."
"Bella, seriously? He'd love you if you wore hessian bags. You don't have to change any aspect of yourself for him."
"But I want to be better. I want to be good for him," I sighed, dropping the dress of choice onto the bed.
"You already are. Put on those two tone denim skinny jeans, they look awesome. When it comes to men noticing clothing, I'd be fairly certain all they care about is that they get to see some cleavage now and then, and that what you wear is somewhat accessible, should the opportunity arise when he can get a hand inside whatever you are wearing."
"He likes to see my legs," I confessed. I knew he did. Whenever I wore a short skirt, his hands would twitch and he'd lose concentration.
"That's fine but it's freaking cold outside. Wear the jeans."
I put them on and decided she was right. No matter what I wore, I knew Edward would love me. At some point I had to let my insecurities go.
"I bet he likes lingerie. Emmett has this thing for red lace. Honestly, I could ask him to sign over every single dollar he owns to me and he'd do it, if I was lounging about in something red and see through at the time. Men. I just love it. It's so good to have some power over him. I can't handle it when the man takes over."
She shuddered.
"So, want to hear about the night Edward delivered a baby?" I said, to distract her.
She was enthralled with my version of the birth of Laird Edward , and confided in me that although she and Emmett had only known each other a few months, they both knew it was the real thing, so she wasn't doing anything to prevent conception.
They were not officially trying to conceive, but when it happened, they'd both be thrilled. Esme was well aware of this fact and was pushing for another Cullen wedding.
"Do you and Emmett want to get married?" I asked. Marriage had never been a topic of conversation between us before, so I really didn't know if it was something she thought still had value.
"Sure. Why not? I get to wear a big dress and be the star for a day. I quite like having everyone's undivided attention, you may have noticed."
"But if Emmett doesn't want marriage? Would you be willing to have a baby still?"
She shrugged.
"We'll never know, because he is pushing for a date before the local clergyman as hard as his Mother is. Neither of them let me walk into a room without one or the other showing me a dress pictured in one of Alice's bridal magazines, or suggestions how I could wear my hair under a veil. Carlisle is just as bad, he's always telling me about their bloody private island, where we would be most welcome to go for our honeymoon. It's a conspiracy."
"Private island?" I replied. Of course they had a private island. I should have suspected it.
Edward had never told me much at all about growing up in a family dripping with money. All of his childhood anecdotes had always been about times he and his parents and brothers had spent some vacation away somewhere unnamed, and the gist of the story had always been about the love they shared. Or the wild schemes the two boys been drawn into by Emmett.
Listening to him you'd never know they'd stayed at the most exclusive resorts, probably in their own luxury condos, all around the world. He referred to 'the beach', as if it could have been La Push and not an island in Hawaii. Once he was telling me a tale about the hi jinx Emmett got up to while they were dining in a restaurant and he referred to the view from the window of the Eiffel Tower in passing, as naturally as it had been the view from the Fork's Diner.
Edward spoke of the time Carlisle risked his life to swim out and rescue them when the brothers 'borrowed' some locals leaky dinghy, and later I'd asked where that happened.
"Spain, I think," he'd answered.
Or the time Esme took them to a theme park and became paralysed by fear when they reached the pinnacle of some ride, and to her horror she screamed obscenities in her panic, the whole way back to earth. Luckily nobody watching knew the words she'd screamed...because they'd been in Disneyland, Tokyo.
Or the time Carlisle was served a plateful of raw hamburger mince when he used the wrong word ordering.
"Why would a waiter presume he wanted it raw? That makes no sense. Even if he didn't specify he wanted it cooked, surely they'd assume it."
"Apparently it's a common dish eaten in Germany," he'd replied.
It seemed he was simply unaware that their family trips had been more global than vacations average families went on.
Okay, I'd had to teach him how to pitch a tent, and I suspect he'd been surprised to hear I'd never been abroad, like it was so common to travel overseas that he couldn't imagine why I hadn't been taken off to Paris by Charlie, for some little weekend getaway.
Our childhood worlds had been vastly different, but maybe surprisingly, I envied his more because he had basked in the love of two parents than because his family had travelled everywhere.
I'd have been happy camping in the forest surrounding Forks with my Mom and my Dad, had Renee ever wanted to do that. I hadn't hankered after around the world cruises.
"So, are you going to just give in to them and be a blushing bride in a white frilly frock?" I asked Rose.
"White. Nobody cares about the whole virginal inference of a white wedding dress nowadays, right? I would have had to do the walk up the aisle a very long time ago to be worthy of that little detail."
"I don't think a majority of brides these days could pass that test," I assured her.
"Anyway, as it may not happen until I have a bun in the oven, we wouldn't be fooling anyone ."
I just wanted to know one thing.
"Rose, can I ask you a question about something you banned me from talking about?" I said hesitantly.
"Okay. One question."
"Why were you so sure that it wasn't Emmett's?"
I didn't want to say 'Emmett's baby' and make it feel more real. Now we had Laird in the house, I was finding it harder and harder to understand how some women just went to clinics and discarded the group of cells that carried the potential to one day be a live healthy baby.
"Because Emmett had not touched me."
"But at the castle..."
"Emmett reasoned it would be you and Edward that Aro would be interested in, seeing it was his money, not Emmett's. I dare say he couldn't have cared less whether I was to Emmett's liking or not. He could see Edward was determined to buy all three of us, and that was all Aro cared about."
"But what if he'd watched you two and seen you just sitting there? It could have blown the whole deal."
"We didn't sit there. We got naked and got into bed and Emmett made sure we were covered from head to toes the whole time, and we faked having sex. He howled out my name and carried on, and yelled all the shit men supposedly yell when they are having the best time of their lives. If anyone was watching, they must have bought it as the real deal"
"Why?"
She shrugged.
"He knew I had been Edward's girlfriend, once, and believe it or not, your boyfriend once adored women and treated them with the utmost respect. Before he became a manwhore like his older brother.
Emmett felt he should treat me like Edward had.
But more than that, he says he knew instantly he saw me that we would click, and he didn't want us starting out forced to bonk before we even had a conversation. And, Bella, I could not let him risk his own health, anyway. I needed to wait and be tested in case Aro... You know what I mean. He's the one and only person I've...been with...whose sexual history is completely unknown to me and while I wasn't aware of much that happened, I knew later that he had not bothered to use a condom."
She stopped and looked at me.
"Okay, I answered your question. Now swear you will never refer to any of that shit ever again or so help me, Bella, I will beat you to death."
"No beatings necessary. Actually, I think it sounds really sweet , what Emmett did."
"He's a pretty sweet guy, for a big lummox. We actually dated before we consummated. How about that? It was a first for both of us. Sure, I slept in his bed from the night we got back here but we didn't actually have sex until I joined him in Forks,and recovered from the termination. He doesn't know about the procedure; he thinks I just had a little minor surgery to fix some damage Aro inflicted on me. That's close enough to the truth, and with Bree needing to have 'repairs' done, I guess Emmett just accepted it.
He didn't take into consideration that Bree was fifteen and I had been around the block a time or ten over the years ... Though I suspect anyone Aro gets his filthy hands on probably needs medical attention afterwards. The man is an animal."
"How did you bear it, Rose?" I whispered in horror.
"The one decent thing he did was drug me up beforehand. Not to spare me pain, of course, just so I didn't put up any resistance. I still can't remember any details, just flashes. They are enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. Do you understand know why I went to that clinic?"
I nodded my head. I totally got it.
"Anyway, Bella, this is just too heavy and depressing. It's all over now. I've put it behind me and moved on."
"And now you are going to get married and have a family," I stated. "You are getting your well deserved Happy Ever After."
"I really believe we will, Bella. Who'd have thought? Emmett has made me want all sorts of things I never wanted before. I didn't hesitate to quit my career to follow him home. I'm adapting to working in a normal job.
Alice and I are even thinking of starting some type of online shopping site or something like that. We could sell quality brands and of course, shoes. She knows every decent designer's name and what their creations cost and how much mark up is acceptable to the public. I have a feeling we could do quite well."
"And the good thing is, your profit won't be vital. You'll both have very rich husbands."
"Always a bonus. Never underestimate the convenience of having a man who doesn't bitch about the credit card bill."
I laughed.
Marcus had always ranted and raved about how much money Rose had spent on 'essentials'. If she was undercover in some place where the wives drove fancy cars, she'd just buy one. If nothing else, she filled the car pool with some lovely new vehicle when she finished each assignment.
"So, when will this be over? When are you and Edward coming home? His house is finished, structurally. All that needs to be done is the painting and decorating. I don't think Esme is game to take over this time. I think she knows Edward would just give all the furniture away if he didn't like what she chose. He's done that before."
"I'm not sure. Marcus hasn't actually given me a timeline for when this winds up. I'm on trial here. I guess if I do well he will offer me something more complex next assignment. If I stay in the job. Until Edward and I do something real like get married, I have no idea where my future is headed. Naturally, he will want me to quit and settle down to domestic bliss, if we really do make it all the way to the finish line this time around.
By the way, Edward offered to buy out my share of the loft apartment, and gift it to Riley."
"Why? He doesn't like you two owning joint real estate?"
"He wants us to live in Forks, and doesn't see any reason for me to keep it on unless I want to."
"Do you want to?"
"Not really. One thing I've discovered is, we were happier when we shared the little one roomed place. It feels like 'ours', much more than the loft. Riley can have it."
"Have you seen the little apartment since Emmett redecorated?" she asked.
I shuddered.
"Bella, he was only winding Edward up when he said he was converting it into a playroom. It's not much different to how you had it."
"Playrooms are definitely not my thing," I said.
"Same here. If I ever see another whip it had better have a cowboy attached to one end."
xxxx
We went downstairs and visited Siobhan and her baby and I watched Rose morph into one of those needy women who feel their life is incomplete without offspring.
She walked around the lower rooms, cradling Laird in his blue blankets, singing to him and raising him to her lips now and then to kiss his head.
"I could just take him home and keep him. He is so adorable. Do you think he's going to have curly hair? You can see sort of swirls here and there against his skull," she said happily.
"If he proves to be Laurent's, I'm sure he'll have a full head of curls," Siobhan stated.
She grazed a finger against his cheek and smiled at Rose.
"He's the best thing I have achieved in my life and I know he always will be. Emotionally I hope he isn't Luke's son, but it doesn't really matter, because he's my son. I can be everything to him."
"Laurent seems quite keen to be part of his life," I commented. The man was no longer in the band, and spent every evening helping Siobhan with whatever she needed him to do, even though the chances this baby was his was probably remote.
Edward argued that it was actually entirely quite possible, so I deferred to his superior knowledge of genetics.
I wanted kids, but only with Edward. If anything prevented us from reproducing, I could not imagine adopting.
The real attraction was the hope of being able to create a child just like it's father, in looks and temperament. Though maybe tweak the moodiness and over thinking a little. Actually, his natural caution mixed with my impulsiveness might just make a balanced kind of child.
xxxx
I managed to drag Rose away finally and we went to the bar to join our men. They'd come in Edward's car so we arrived in the junk heap and I parked well out of sight around the back.
Rose sat there quietly in the dark as I turned off the ignition.
"I really want to have Emmett's babies. Can you imagine how adorable they will be? I bet they are born with a head full of black curls. There won't be any wondering like there is with Laird. They'll be little Emmett clone babies."
"Maybe not the girls," I joked.
"I think Emmett would be a better father to boys, don't you? I really wouldn't want a couple of sweet little girls in hand smocked dresses getting splattered with paint balls when it's Daddy's turn to play."
"You may have a point," I conceded, reaching to open my door.
A headlight lit up the immediate area and Rose and I instinctively ducked, then laughed.
In our college days, we may have dated some guys we later wanted to shake off. More than once we'd ended up sneaking out to the car park and hiding in our car while they scanned the area, looking for their disappearing dates.
Rose had come to the same college that Alice and I attended only for the final two years, but we'd both liked her instantly. I guess she and I had more in common than she and Alice.
They were both my best friends.
"So, what's this? Are we witnessing a drug deal? I'm guessing the dirty blonde on the motorbike is the local dealer," Rose said quietly, keeping the lower half of her face below the dashboard.
I peered out into the night and gasped.
"That dealer is none other than James Hunter. The biological father of Alice's son Tommy."
"God, lucky the kid got Jasper's genes by osmosis then," Rose replied. "James is hardly what one would call attractive."
"Alice thought so, once upon a time," I admitted.
"But you didn't."
"Never. A douche is a douche and they can't camouflage their true selves from me. I've met too many of them in our line of work."
"I guess with Alice working in a baby creche, she just thought all men would morph into good little Daddies at some point. Seeing that's all the type of men she met each day."
"Well, she was wrong about James. I'm glad he tossed her aside. I'm so happy she is with Jasper."
Rose sat there for a minute.
"You know James. Would he be the type of person who would sign away his parental rights if there was a cash incentive for him to do so? Imagine how happy Alice and Jazz would be if we handed them a legal document stating Tommy was legally all her child. Are you game to ask him?"
"Not without talking it over with Edward and giving him the opportunity to come with me. I promised to never do anything reckless ever again, and this would definitely come under that category."
"You are right. But do you think he'd sell his share of Tommy for the right price?"
"The only problem I could see is, if we offered him a million he'd immediately think he could hold out for more. He may have no interest in his son, but he'd be very interested in how much he could get for him."
"So, how do we contact James then? Do you know any of these tweakers he's selling to? Could we get a contact number from any of them?"
I squinted into the darkness, looking at each of the men who were walking up and exchanging money for a handful of small bags before walking quickly away.
"Alex," I said in surprise. I pointed him out to Rose.
"That blonde one lives in the house with us. I guess he must know how to get in touch with James. I will tell Edward and let him decide if it's worth him trying. I have to stay out of it. I just observe and report. End of story."
The sound of James' bike leaving gave us the all clear though we remained in the car another five minutes to avoid stragglers or lookouts before going inside to our men.
xxxx
Emmett and Rose kept me company while Edward met with Alex and purchased whatever he needed to to get the guy's co-operation, and one call later, James and Edward struck a deal.
A few days later, Edward and Jay Jenks met with James, and the actual father of Tommy signed away all his parental rights that he had never wanted anyway. After Jenks left, Edward handed James a plain brown envelope full of cash.
It was all legal and above board. There was nothing to tie the gift to the deed.
But in truth, Edward had just bought yet another human beings freedom.
xxxxx