Chapter 37

~Edward~

I removed my jacket from her shoulders as she sat on my lap by the side of the creek, using the inside of my shirt to wipe away what I could of the soot and dust that had settled on her. The grime and grunge that was made up of everything she'd ever owned had dissolved to dust. She cried silently every few minutes, her tears falling and making the dirt trails linger down her chin, drops of wreckage spotting her nightdress a speckled gray.

Her home was gone. The only place she'd ever lived was destroyed, still smoking and marking the ground beneath it with a black, angry spot. The nosy neighbors who never bothered to come by until there was drama didn't doubt her tears at the mouth of that fire. The firemen who responded looked at her with pity as they packed up their gear when all they could do was done. Of course the Swan girl was distraught, they nodded. What did she have, after all? No one. Nothing.

But Jake, maybe even Jasper, and I knew that her tears were mostly falling in relief.

There was no question in my mind when she was being asked where she was and what did she know that I would step up and claim her whereabouts, and at the same time, claim her in front of all these people who whispered and cut behind her back.

And there was no question that the house needed to go. Even though I was shocked when I first saw the flames and realized what she'd done, I got it. I understood it. Understood the why and the need.

So when she handed me that camera, the one thing I hated more than myself—there was no better place for it than the hell she'd created.

"It's all gone," she said as she sat limply on top of me. I stroked her arm and removed it from the sleeve of her soiled nightgown, black with soot and tainted by the smell of smoke.

"I know." I pulled her other arm out, and she shimmied her body to release the gown from underneath her. Up and over her head it went, and I wished I had some of that lilac-heady soap she'd used the first time I'd ever laid eyes on her.

"Edward, what did I do? I burned down my house." She pulled at the creek water and splashed it on her legs as I rubbed the dirt on her arms.

"I know."

"I got rid of everything I've ever known." Her eyes widened as the enormity of what she'd done hit her.

"I know."

"Edward." I looked up at her as I moved her to a standing position. "I wanted it gone."

I smiled and stood to join her. "I know."

We lazily splashed some water on her and some on me, taking turns because my arms were pretty filthy as well. The soft buttery sound of water on skin was interrupted when she stood ramrod straight. "Oh, my God! Your camera! Edward, I—" She shook her head and slapped her hands on her dirty cheeks. "I don't know why I had it, I just left the attic in a hurry and—"

I cut her off. "Best place for it. I'm glad it's gone."

She sat back down on the grassy edge of the creek. "Me too. It was cursed."

Cursed.

Not a strong enough word. Relief that I didn't ever have to touch that thing again flowed through me so completely I didn't understand why I'd kept it in the first place. "What were you doing in the attic anyway?"

She looked up, slightly guilty. "I couldn't sleep. My feet just took me. I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't be sorry. Just tell me what happened."

She continued rubbing at her skin, pink now, the same color as the flowers on the water lilies that pooled around her legs. "My house was staring at me from the window. The moon was so bright last night, and it made it look alive. Like that picture I hate…"

I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"Your jacket was there—maybe I got chilly, maybe I wanted to feel you close to me, I don't know. I put it on, and I found a lighter. The initials EC. I didn't know you smoked… then?"

The lighter. The catalyst. "I didn't. It was Emmett's." She scrambled behind herself and rummaged through the pocket of the jacket.

"I didn't throw it in. I used one of Mom's old scarves to set it and threw that in." Her palm opened, and Emmett's lighter lay within. "Here."

My chest spasmed, remembering the lighter I'd given him on his 21st birthday to use on the cigars he insisted on smoking for every milestone of his life. His engagement, his first medal of honor, when he found out about my first award-winning photo. I didn't want it. But I didn't want it destroyed like I did the camera either. "You hang onto that for me, okay?" She nodded and closed her fist tight around the Zippo. "So you found the lighter, then what? You went to your house?"

She shook her head. "I looked at some of your pictures. All of the pictures I could only dream of taking. Even the horrible ones. You've lived so much and had so many experiences, and there I was, a stupid girl haunted by a house." She stopped and bit her lip. "I found the award."

"Should've taken that with you too." My stomach protested for real on that one. That fucking award my editor submitted me for. The one I had strived for so badly my whole career, turned into a prize for the monstrous act I'd committed. A trophy soaked in evil. "Burned it to hell."

"You never cashed the check."

"Blood money." I rolled my hand at her. "Then what happened?"

"I started playing with the lighter, and the house came into view. I could see the photograph it would make. The orange flame flickering bright in a dark attic, touching the silhouette of the house bathed in moonlight. Like a black and white picture bursting with energy in the middle. So I held the lighter up to kiss the house in my eye…" She shrugged and trailed off. I didn't need to hear the rest, fury began boiling within me at her as the adrenaline of the night wore off.

"You could've been hurt, Bella." My mouth tensed into a straight line, thinking about all the ways she could've been injured.

"I wasn't."

"But you could've been." I walked away from her, my feet splashing the water and sending sparks of water across the surface. My hands fisted, and my eye pulsed—thinking about losing her made me ferocious. "You can't do that again. You can't take a chance with your life."

"I didn't—"

"I can't lose you too, Bella." I turned and stared hard at her. "I won't."

She looked at me for a long time, I couldn't guess what she was thinking. The water trickling over rocks was the only thing making a sound. "I don't know where I'm going, Edward. I have nowhere. I guess Jasper or Jake—"

"You'll be with me. It's obvious."

She sighed. "Is it? Are you sure you're ready for that? You've only had a few months to build your life back together. Think of yourself."

"I am." I kneeled in front of her, my jeans getting soaked as the water covered my thighs. "I saw you here once, when I first moved in." She looked at me, questioningly. "I was dirty from painting, sweaty and hot. The only thing I wanted to do was wash in the creek the realtor had told me existed on my property. I came across you bathing, and I thought you were a hallucination—you were so pretty."

Her hands covered mine on her knees, grasping my fingers and a blush forming on her chest. "I didn't mean to stare, I promise. But you were the most beautiful thing I'd seen in so long, in such a long time of seeing nothing but nightmares and horrible things, I couldn't help but try to capture the moment—a picture of you in my mind to keep for as long as possible."

"That's why you yelled at me in my garden that the creek was yours? I didn't understand."

I nodded, remembering the day of our first words, her scarf over her eye and my furious blood running through me. "All I wanted when I moved here was to be alone and pity myself, live out the rest of my life punishing myself, but there you were. I was so angry that you were near me, even though I was captivated from the moment I saw you."

I tried to catch my breath and my words. "I do love you, Bella. I have since the moment I saw you. I didn't choose to finally say it as your house burned down because I thought you needed to hear it. I didn't throw it out there because I didn't know what else to say or because I thought it wouldn't be remembered."

I shifted closer to her, our chests pressed together as I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist. "I love you because you make me happy. And I haven't been happy in a very long time. And I want to be happy."

New tears formed in her eyes. "I meant it, too," she whispered, before she kissed me squarely on the mouth and curled her hands around my neck. "I feel like I've always loved you, Edward. I just didn't know who you were."

Two cups of tea sat on the coffee table in front of us, Bella wrapped in a blanket and leaning against me as the words Jake just left with sat light in the air.

Most likely caused by a faulty electrical outlet in an old, rundown house. No suspicious activity detected. Case closed.

Investigations took weeks, not days. We both knew Jake had as much as possible to do with the swift decision to not probe any further. Perhaps the town was just as happy to close the book on the Swan house and all its stories and demons as Bella was.

It would be quite a while before any insurance money would come her way from the destruction of that house; that is, if there was any to be had at all. What little money Bella had saved up from her mom's welfare and disability payments would have to continue until Bella figured out what she wanted to do. The world was open to her, and without the house keeping her shackled like a prisoner, she'd started toying with ideas.

Sell handmade soap. Be a nanny. Work at the florists.

Not once did the obvious occur to her.

"Why not take photographs?" I asked, the irony not lost on me. "You could sell them. You have no idea how good you are."

"My world here will run out of inspiration very quickly."

I nodded, knowing she was right. What attracted me to this tiny town was what had always held her back. I couldn't keep her from growing, from sprouting from this earth and reaching for higher ground.

I'd have to let Bella live.

"What's this?" she asked as she stared at the rectangular piece of paper I'd laid in front of her on the kitchen table where she was rolling dough for a pie. Cherry, my favorite.

"Fifteen thousand dollars."

She looked at the check then at me.

I pushed it closer, the corner sliding into the flour. "You can't very well travel the earth with nothing, I hate to say."

She blinked a few times, her fingers squeezing into the dough. "I'm not taking your money. Especially not to leave you," she bit.

"I'm not giving it to you."

"I don't get it."

"I'm using it with you."

Anger turned to confusion, skepticism, and then a small glimmer of what I hoped was, well, hope. "What do you mean?"

"When I said I wasn't going to lose you, I meant that. I won't. But I also won't make you stay in a place you've hated all your life because I'm too fucking scared to leave it. I want to see you explore the world, Bella. I want to watch your face as you see the sunrise over Machu Picchu. I want to be there the first time you float in the salt of the Dead Sea. I want to be by your side when you take the most extraordinary pictures of whatever captures your eye on this beautiful planet. Everywhere and everything."

"Edward…" Her flour-crusted hand reached up to wipe a tear sliding down her cheek. "Your sister-in-law—she needs you."

"She's leaving. Moving on. But that has nothing to do with my decision. It's a sliver of a string that got cut for me. She wouldn't want me to stay here for her anyway."

A smile formed then grew, big and bright on her face. "You want to travel with me?"

"Not just travel." I pulled her to me and wiped away the flour that had made its way to her hair.

"Bella, I want to spend the rest of my life watching you live yours."

Mad love to LayAtHomeMom, Hadley Hemingway, and CarrieZM for making us pretty.

Enjoy, and leave us your thoughts!

HB&PB