After all, knowing what you want is half the battle. It is from that point that you get to decide what method to apply in order to get it.
Wily, he remembered Lulu called him. Oh, she didn’t know the half of it.
When Bella hovered beside him, he flashed a smile that seemed to ease her anxiety. Bella doesn’t know the half of it.
Let’s face it, when you’re the youngest, the only boy with twins as sisters, especially loud, boisterous twins in a family that is dominated by females, you know how to bide your time and move fast – to either slide your foot in or blast the door off its hinges when opportunity comes a-knocking.
He placed a hand on the small of Bella’s back, and she smiled as she looked up, grateful for the encouragement.
“Bella.” Charlie’s grin was a mile wide. It hesitated when his eyes landed on Jacob, who loomed over his daughter. Jacob nodded to him, and Charlie gave him a relieved smile over his daughter’s shoulder; apparently worried about his share of hiding his daughter’s whereabouts. “It’s great that you’re here.” Charlie turned his back to her, looking over the loud crowds of people that rubbed up against each other. “Billy, look who’s here.”
Billy might be in a wheelchair, but people parted for him so he rolled easily to where they were standing; people did it out of respect, and because they knew he would not hesitate to ram their ankles to get where he wanted to go. Billy’s ruthless streak was as famous as his fair mind and his creativity with wood.
Bella saw Jacob’s bright, wide grin on Billy’s face and felt her throat close. It was impossible not to smile at the apparent relief and warmth in Billy’s face, and she knew it was because she was alive and human. Not only for his son, or even for herself, but for Charlie as well. It was because of that sole reason that Bella leaned down, hugged him and kissed his cheek. The surprise pleasure in Billy’s dark eyes echoed in his son’s, though both tried hard to hide it.
Bella smiled. “Thank you for taking care of Charlie while I was away, Billy.” She elbowed her father, who grinned good-naturedly. “I hope he hasn’t eaten you out of house and home.”
Billy chuckled. “Not yet, but there were a few close calls.”
Matt and Gabe, who had been standing on the sidelines with Tina, finally inched closer. “Bella brought goodies.”
She didn’t know why she was nervous, but suddenly she couldn’t quite keep her hands still. “It’s just something from the store, just some pastries and pies. My coming here was on such short notice that I didn’t have time to prepare anything—”
“There’s some of her peach pie, Dad.” Jacob cut her off with a smirk, spearing a piece from an open box and putting it on a paper plate from the other box that Tina was holding up.
Bella blushed with satisfaction when Billy and Charlie dug into their slices of pie with gusto. Billy sighed after the first bite. “I’ve missed your cooking, Bella.” Anxious to make things right with Billy – he was, after all, Jacob’s father and Charlie’s best friend – she looked at her father with hopeful eyes. “I’d like to stay the night, we could join Jacob and Billy for breakfast tomorrow. I’m sure I could cook something.” She ignored Jacob’s raised eyebrows, but Billy and Charlie nodded happily, enjoying their sugar rush.
“Why did you wrangle a breakfast invitation from my father?” Jacob asked when both Charlie and Billy left them to join the ‘old crowd’ as they called it. Bella brushed her hair from her face. “I did nothing of the sort.”
Jacob gave her a bland look. “Are you trying to wheedle your way back into my father’s affections with food?”
She grimaced, but from the grin on his face, Jacob didn’t seem to mind. “Yes.”
“Bribery.” Jacob screwed up his face and wiped away an imaginary tear. “I’m so proud.” Bella laughed and playfully shoved him away. Her heart warmed when he put a hand over her shoulder to guide her through the throng of people. The bazaar was big, bright and loud. Colors – red, orange, blue, green, yellow – were everywhere, displayed in beads, woodcarvings, cloths, artworks, even in food. The smell of spices, food, flowers and incense filled the air of the clearing they were in. The modern and traditional twined together in all aspects of the bazaar, right from the food to the music that blared out of the speakers and the languages that hummed from one group to another. Curious, Bella eyed every stand and marveled at woodcarvings, leather, skins, the intricate beadwork that hung from clothes, necklaces, bracelets. She stopped at one of those stands when one in particular caught her eye. It was a necklace made of a black braided threads and multicolored stones. It was the stones that caught her attention; the brownish red one that was set in the middle of a series of darkish brown beads. Before Jacob could pull her away from it – he was making noises about food – she planted her feet firmly on the ground. “Jake. Look at this.”
Jacob sighed, gave the necklace she was pointing at a cursory glance and announced it “Pretty.”
The old lady behind the stand sighed and sent a strained look at him. “I could never teach you to appreciate beauty, Jacob.”
Jacob grinned. “I think I did a good enough job on my own.”
The old lady lifted her brows and glanced to Bella, whose concentration was still on the necklace, and laughed. She leaned over her stand to talk to Bella. “You’re Bella, Charlie’s daughter, right? I’m Maia, I taught art in grade school. Other than carving, Jacob didn’t do quite so well.” She smiled. “Do you want to touch it, dear?”
Bella nodded, and Jacob smiled at the excited glow on her face. It was strange for her to be so excited about jewelry. His eyes dropped to the bracelet, his bracelet, with its wolf and seashell carving, and he felt his stomach flutter at how it dangled from her wrist. He’d noticed it, of course, noticed how the diamond heart was no longer there, and noticed how often she played with it whenever she was deep in thought. Jacob blinked when she turned to him and raised the necklace to his face. “Look, Jake.”
He nodded. “Hm. Pretty.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, the stone in the middle is the exact color of your fu—I mean skin.” Her face was so twisted into the very picture of horror at her mistake that Jacob laughed. She held it up to his neck and beamed. “It looks good on you.”
His dark eyes looked straight into hers. “Is this another bribe?”
The smile slid away from her face as her shoulders hunched. “No. I just—” She paused, her hair moved to cover her face, her fingers picking nervously at the necklace. “It reminded me of you, that’s all.”
How can I be mad at her when she keeps being so cute? Jacob rolled his eyes when he noticed the wide grin on Maia’s face. He sighed softly and cupped a hand under her chin, lifting up her face. “Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Her face was still crumpled in miserable lines that only softened when he touched her cheek. He watched her smile at Maia as she paid her and walked toward him with nimble steps, well, at least as nimble as you could manage when you’re as klutzy as she was. He blinked when she thrust out the necklace to him. “Here.”
He frowned. “What?”
“For you.”
He eyed the necklace in her hands. “You bought it for me?”
She nodded, carefully, not looking at his face. “I missed your birthday again.”
“I missed yours.” He pointed out.
She shuffled her feet. “Well, yeah, but you’ve already given me too much. I just—” She grimaced. “Ah, hell, Jake. You want it or not?”
He chuckled at the embarrassment on her face, caught her hand that was holding the necklace and waited until she looked at him. “Thank you, Bells.”
Her lips curved with shy gratitude. “You’re welcome.”
He fingered the necklace that was still in her hands and leaned forward. “If you don’t mind?”
His heart throbbed when her eyes brightened with pleasure. “You’ll wear it?”
“You’re wearing my gift, it’s only fair, right?”
Her eyes settled on his in acknowledgement that she knew that he noticed the bracelet. They laughed when she had to stand on her tiptoe to reach his neck. Her laughter thrummed over his chest, the scent of her hair whirled against his nose when she eased her arms around his neck. “I think I need a chair. Scratch that, a ladder.”
He could hear her heartbeat, loud against his ears, taste the panic and awareness that she felt because of their close proximity, felt the heady, strong beat of it on his cheek that was pressed against the side of her neck. There will never be a sound as beautiful to him as the sound of her heart, beating. His smile widened as he felt her fingers fumble and twist when he accidentally touched his smiling lips to her ear. He wasn’t merely grandstanding when he told Lulu that he already knew what he needed to know. She was still attracted to him, that was pretty much obvious, and it wasn’t his imagination that made him see the slow, unfurling affection that glowed in her eyes whenever they landed on him.
Jacob was sure, as he was years ago, that Bella Swan loved him, just as much as she had loved him before.
“There.” She said with a relieved sigh that made Jacob want to laugh. Her eyes went to the necklace that hung around his neck, clashing with the moss green of his T-shirt, and back to his face. “The darker beads are the color of your eyes.”
The look in her eyes and the blush that followed made Jacob think that she didn’t mean to say it out loud. He would have teased her if he hadn’t been suffering from a sudden attack of shyness as well. “Thanks, Bells.”
The silence was suddenly painfully awkward so that Jacob stifled a relieved sigh when someone called out his name. When he realized exactly the identity of that person, he stifled a resigned curse.
Quil, Embry and Seth cantered toward them, big, wide smiles spread on each of their faces. Embry took a second to watch Jacob’s face, but Seth and Quil ambled good-naturedly toward Bella.
“Hey, Bella.” Seth grinned at her when Bella goggled at him. “Seth, is that you?”
Seth grinned proudly and looked down at her from his great height, which was all leg. It wasn’t just his height, it was the width of his shoulders and the clear hard line of his jaw. Quil elbowed Seth away and held her hands. “Bella, the cookies you left at the front porch? Fantastic. Did you bring some?”
Bella smiled at Quil’s disappointment when he saw that her hands were empty. “No, but I did bring some pastries and pies.” She waved her hand at the crowds of people. “They’re there somewhere with Gabe and Matt.”
Quil didn’t shift his eyes from her face. “Seth.”
“On it.” Seth closed his eyes and Bella watched Seth sniff the air with an amused grin on her face.
“Handy.”
“So, Bella. Have you seen everything? You haven’t? Well, we can’t have that. So, here on our left…” Bella grinned when Quil put an arm across her shoulders, bumped against Jacob, who stood beside her, and proceeded to walk away with her in tow.
Bella knew it would be hard to meet all those familiar faces, especially the faces of the pack and it was hard.
Terribly, horribly so.
Especially without Jacob by her side, since he was recruited by Sam for something. But now, right this minute, it was hard for her not to laugh, especially when her gaze met Quil’s twinkling, impish dark eyes.
Embry groaned when her lips twitched. “No, do not smile. Do not encourage him, Bella.”
She met his eyes and struggled again to keep her lips steady. “Really, Quil?”
Quil proudly thrust out his muscular chest, making the words on his T-shirt – earlier on he wore a hoodie – even more eye-catching. “What? I think it’s cool.”
Seth grinned. “Me, too. I’m getting one.”
Quil frowned at him. “I already made you one, stick with it. And why aren’t you guys wearing yours?”
Embry moaned and shook his head. Bella couldn’t help but drop her eyes to Quil’s chest and once again read the inscription. There, written in red flaming colors on his black T-shirt, were the words HOT DOG.
When Quil smirked at her, she laughed. “You guys have similar T-shirts?”
Quil nodded. “Yeah. It’s like a pack thing, you know. Personalized T-shirts.”
“Personalized.” She repeated, a smile on her face.
“Yeah, each one is different. Embry’s is Sly Dog ‘cause, well, you know, he’s sly. He looks quiet Bella, but—”
“He’s not?”
“No, he’s not.” Both he and Seth shook their heads while Embry merely smiled. Slyly.
“Seth, Colin and Brady’s are Puppy Dog, because they’re the youngest. Sam’s is Black Dog, naturally.”
“Naturally.” Bella agreed with a false nonchalant air.
Seth’s face twisted into a grin. “Leah’s is the one that takes the cake.”
“Why?” she asked, wondering why the boys were suddenly laughing. “What does she have?”
Quil grinned before announcing in an offhand but dramatic kind of way, “Bitch.”
They laughed again when Bella’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t. And nobody was hurt?”
Their faces wore identical smirks. “Actually, she liked it.” Quil explained. “Laughed like a mad woman when I gave it to her. She’s wearing it right now.”
Bella let out a surprised, disbelieving laugh. “She’s not.”
Seth nodded. “She is. Mom asked her not to, but she wore it anyway.”
She shook her head, laughing softly. “Wait, you missed Jacob. What’s his?”
Their dark eyes exchanged meaningful looks. “Well, Jacob’s is a done deal. Pretty much a no-brainer.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What?”
Embry smiled softly. “Alpha Dog.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know quite what to say, so she settled for repeating it again. “Oh.”
Seth nodded. “Yeah, we were pretty surprised about it, since Jacob was against the whole alpha-hood thing, but…”
They shrugged in such perfect synchronization that Bella had one of those unsettling moments where she couldn’t tell them apart. She wondered whether anybody else experienced the same difficulty as her.
“So, one day he just announced that he’s alpha?”
Embry shook his head. “No, nothing like that. We were out phasing.” He smiled. “There was a full moon, so we’re out running and playing around, and then wham!”
Bella jumped on her seat when Embry’s fist hit the table.
“Suddenly there was just this shift of power, everybody felt it, like something intangible passed through our bodies and when it was gone we just knew that Sam was no longer alpha.”
Quil fingered his ball cap. “Later Jake said that it was the exact second he decided to take on more responsibility, in the tribe, in the pack.”
“So, just like that?” Bella asked. “Because he decided to be alpha, he became alpha?”
Seth shrugged. “Nobody really knows how you become alpha, some say it’s by bloodline, some say it’s through will, but I think it’s just like everything else that’s connected with the wolf thing – you’re either it or not.”
“And Jake is, well, no matter if he’s human or wolf...” Embry smiled and jerked his chin to where Jacob stood surrounded by people all vying for his attention. “He’s alpha.”
********
I don’t know anything about being alpha, but Jacob is surely a dog, she thought, confused when a group of four girls accosted her by the candy cane stand. Bella didn’t have a lot of female friends, actually she didn’t have a lot of friends, period, and her survival instincts weren’t as up-to-date as normal people, but she knew when a woman was out to get her.
Especially when it was over a man.
Some instincts just don’t disappear from lack of use.
Bella Swan, all-around danger magnet, eyed the brown-skinned, tall foursome and felt fear.
At first, when one of them, she assumed it was the queen bee—they were always the one to talk first, it was, like, a rule—said, ‘So, you’re Bella Swan’ Bella thought it was one of the downsides of being the sheriff’s only daughter; everyone knows your name. Bella couldn’t count how many people had asked her that from the first time she came to Forks. Of course, most of the time it was followed by ‘Charlie’s kid’, but this didn’t seem to be the case.
So, she answered the only way she knew how. “Yes.”
She wished she were one of those girls; girls like Tina or Misha or even Lulu, who could probably stare them down and ask with a polite yet cutting disinterest ‘And you are?’ But she wasn’t, so she merely stared at them mutely as they circled her like vultures going in for the kill. It wasn’t until a smooth, low voice swept through the scene and made the four girls jerk their eyes off of her that she began to understand what this was all about. “Alright, girls, break it up.”
Leah Clearwater was as exotic-looking as Bella remembered her, taller perhaps, her features more defined, her face more angular. Her hair was chin length, and it dropped to curve over her face in fine, straight layers. It accented the depth of her eyes, the sharpness of her cheekbones and chin.
She was no longer only beautiful, but striking as in a-fist-to-your-face striking.
That eye-catching face was now stretched into a sharp smile that could bleed a rock. “No fair picking on a girl.”
The queen bee glared, but its effect was ruined because she unconsciously took a step back. “This is none of your business, Leah.”
“She’s Jacob’s. That makes her my business. Hounding the woman won’t get you the man, Mira.”
Aha, Bella thought and almost said out loud. She didn’t know what to feel about it, and she wasn’t quite sure what ‘it’ was. The fact that she was wondering whether the girl had dated Jacob? Or the fact that Jacob seemed to have lost interest? Or the fact that there were girls that find Jacob interesting enough to fight over? She couldn’t quite decide over the miasma of possibilities and rushing thoughts.
Mira’s pretty face twisted with spite. “Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?”
Bella couldn’t stop the surprised gasp that escaped her lips when she heard what the girl said. She watched Leah’s face pale visibly and noticed her hands were starting to tremble. From her periphery vision, she saw Seth walking up to them, his face tense, but Bella’s whole attention was on Leah; her anger, her pain. Bella could tolerate a lot of things, but one thing she couldn’t tolerate is a person who kicks another person who is already down. She might not be friends with Leah, they might never be friends, and adding to that, she knew for a fact that the other girl, albeit well deserved, hated her guts, but Bella understood where she came from. She knew about a pain so deep that it changed you into someone that you couldn’t recognize anymore. She knew what it felt to have insult over injury, and damn her if she had it shoved in front of her face without her shoving back.
“It’s things like that which didn’t win you any favors from Jake.”
Leah blinked, hell, Bella blinked. She couldn’t quite say where those words come from, but when the Mira girl, her face furious, turned to her, Bella didn’t back down. Alright, maybe a little, but she felt better when Leah gave out one amused laugh that sort of broke through Mira’s anger and made her face crumple and had her running, followed by her entourage. Leah sneered at the guilty look on Bella’s face.
“Charlie’s been trying to find you. Come on.”
Bella tried very hard to keep up with Leah, but following a werewolf, even in her human form, especially among so many people, would be hard even if she weren’t her. Leah waited for her impatiently before she caught her arm and pulled her along.
She watched Leah’s face for any kind of emotion, any kind of softness, but found none. It was exactly what she came here searching for. “Leah, you hate me, right?”
Leah frowned down at her, but kept on going. “Not exactly.” She returned her eyes to the front. “I have to like you first to hate you.”
Gee, you should speak your mind more often, Leah, Bella nodded. “I need to ask you something.”
She watched the expressions that shifted over Leah’s face and doubled back. “No, nothing about that. I promise.”
Curiosity flashed through Leah’s eyes. “Why ask me about anything?”
“Because you’re an objective party.”
“Is this about Jacob?”
“Yes.”
She slowed down, but kept her hand on Bella’s. “And you.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you ask Embry or Quil?”
Bella shrugged, or tried to, she never mastered the art of shrugging casually. “It felt wrong to ask them to…betray a confidence.”
Leah scoffed. “And it’s not wrong to ask me?”
“Quil and Embry will leave things unsaid, soften things up for me and because of their loyalty to Jacob. I’m not asking for details, I just want to know.”
Leah’s brown eyes stared at her for the longest time. “What do you want to know?”
Bella was so relieved she almost sank onto the grass in the middle of the crowd. “How…how was it…for him when I left?”
Leah’s dark eyes were intense and powerful when she finally said three words that grated against Bella’s heart like jagged knives.
“You broke him.” She shook her head. “No, you didn’t just break him. You ground him into dust.”
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