Chapter 13 ~ Firm Intentions

Edward

You’re the reason I’m here.

Bella’s words were replaying over and over in my head as her lips met mine and as much as I wanted to tell her, that she was wrong…that it wasn’t me, I wasn’t anybody’s…beacon, or lighthouse…that she’d gotten it wrong…

I couldn’t.

I was too selfish.

I wanted her tongue entwining with mine.

Her hands against my chest, around my waist…

Her fingers, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind them as they travelled my body.

Her legs…brushing against places, waking my senses. 

Arousing me.

Blocking out the pain.

It all just felt, too good.

Too warm.

I let my hands go free, to find soft breasts, hard nipples, warm skin.

I heard the intake of her breath.

Felt the stirring it was causing.

And then, with conflicting thoughts about what I was doing, I determined myself, pulling away from her kiss, finally, before I made yet another mistake that was going to haunt me.

“Stop,” I breathed out, letting our foreheads meet.

It was the wrong word, though.

It didn’t sound right.

“Stop what?”

She was breathless.

She wasn’t the only one.

Another step away, and, “I don’t want to…I mean, I…we…we can’t do this.”

“This, as in…”

I motioned between us, it was pretty obvious what I was talking about.

To me, anyway.

But Bella became confused.

“I thought you said…”

“I said a lot of things, Bella, some were called for, some weren’t.”

“I told you Edward, I’m not engaged, anymore,” she started, in her attempt to convince me this was a good idea. “…there’s nothing…”

“It’s not that.”

She’s Emmett’s cousin…

And then, she pulled away, a bit.

“Then what?”

Among other things…

“I’m leaving…Bella…in…I mean, soon, and I don’t want to lead you on, or…”

“I’m a big girl, Edward, I know what I’m doing.”

Defensive mechanisms.

Funny little buggars.

“Really?  Because I’m pretty sure you just told me, that on a whim, you left your home town that you’d grown up in, never left, because of a feeling.”

Her expression changed, on me.

Obstinence?

“Don’t push me away.”

“I’m not, I’m…” I took a breath, for myself and tried using hand gestures to make my point. “Trying to do the right thing, here.  You’re making it very hard, by the way.”

“I am?” she smiled, again, pushing up onto her tippy toes, to kiss my neck while she slid her hand directly to just exactly what was really hard about the whole situation and I felt my head tilt a little to the side, giving her the go ahead without my permission.

I closed my eyes and let the air escape me.

God, she felt good.

Right.

Everything felt…so right…there.

“Yes,” I whispered, letting her continue.  I just couldn’t stop her, she was like crack, and I needed a hit.

Badly.

“Then, kiss me,” she told me.

“I want to.”

Her lips were travelling now, to my jaw line…my cheek bone…

“Please.”

Shit, I am so fucked, here.

What was the right thing, anyway?

“Bella…”

Please don’t stop.

“Edward.”

Her voice was like sin, right next to my ear as she said my name.

I swallowed.

My hands were fighting me.

Fighting my words.

They clearly didn’t agree with the decision I was trying desperately to come to.

As Bella backed me up to one of the chairs in the wine room, she took my hands into hers and we curled our fingers together.

Her eyes were fixed on mine and I felt like no matter how badly I wanted to look away, it was simply impossible.

“You don’t need me as an excuse to leave your fiancé, Bella.”

“I left him before I’d even met you, Edward.”

Right.

“You’ll get hurt.”

“No, I won’t.”

Every challenge I threw at her, she batted it away with one of her own and I was running out of reasons to not let her win.

How did she always remain so goddamn…confident?

It didn’t help that things had become muddied, to me, the reasons I was doing this.

Was it really for her?

Or was it for me?

“I know you feel something,” she said.

“Oh, I…definitely feel something.”

Something about seven or eight inches long, hard, and in desperate need of release.

I let my knees buckle and sat down into the chair while Bella smoothly hooked a leg over my own to sit, facing me on my lap.

And the way she moved, while sitting there.

Jesus.

Someone help me.

Then she put her hands on either side of my face and held me still while she put her lips against mine, repeatedly.

I held onto her jeans, at the hips, fisting the material, in hopes it help me stay where I was, like a good boy.

“What happens at the end of the summer? When I go back to the Army, and you go back to…wherever you’re headed to from here?”

I  thought I’d had her, there, but no…

Pie Girl always had a come back.

“Can’t we just…deal with that, then?  I mean, It’s summer, Edward.”

She smiled.

“We’re in one of the most romantic places, in the United States, wine country…”

She whispered those last words.

But I laughed.

Because there was nothing romantic about Napa, to me.

With Bella, there, though…it could be, I thought.

She pressed her chest into mine and kissed me again and I was coming undone by her.

She did have rather convincing arguments, I had to admit.

And it wasn’t like we weren’t two, smart, consulting adults.

Her hands raked through my hair as mine slid up the back of her shirt, ready to take it off and…

Then Alice cleared her throat.

I jumped up out of the chair, setting Bella down, beside me and she straightened her clothes while I wiped my mouth like I’d just been caught eating the last of the chocolate cream pie at Thanksgiving, or something.

Alice looked like she wanted to smile.

But she didn’t.

“The hospital is on the phone, they’d like to talk to you…”

“Right, okay,” I said, wondering why that was cause for interrupting the best make out session of my life, figuring I could call them in the morning but then Alice added, “Tonight.”

Oh.

I breathed in.

And then let it out, quietly.

Signs.

They pop up at the most bizarre moments.

“Okay, I just…” I turned a little toward Bella and Alice excused herself.

“I should…” I told her, nodding, inconspicuously toward Alice’s wake, as my hands grazed Bella’s arm, a little. 

How she wasn’t cold down in that cellar, I had no idea.

She smiled up at me.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to me. “Do you…want help cleaning?” she asked, looking around at the debris throughout the room. 

It was tempting.

But I figured, it was probably best to put the demons away, myself.

“Nah, it’s my mess, Pie Girl, I’ll clean it up.”

A twist in Bella’s lips told me she was a tad disappointed and I just wanted to…ruffle her hair or something when she did that.

“I’ll call ya tomorrow?”

“Okay,” she told me, and then arched a single eyebrow at me.  “But if you don’t, I’m coming to find you.”

I huffed out, shaking my head at her.

But then I smiled.

“Deal.”

She held my hand in hers as I walked her to the door, upstairs and then I leaned against it for a minute or two, after she was gone, wondering what in the absolute hell I was getting myself into.

I mean it wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

Getting even remotely emotional involved with a woman who’d just broken things off with her fiancé of…however many years…

Someone who obviously was used to investing time and caring into people.

Someone who was sweet, and funny.

Kind.

Thoughtful.

Someone who made me pies.

But then, she seemed as though she was maybe taking a turn in the life she’d described to me, before meeting me.

As though she wanted something other than the straight laced, commitment focused life she’d left in Chicago.

Maybe she could handle it.

Maybe this could just be…something both of us needed for the time we were together and then we could just…move on.

“Edward?”

Alice again.

My thought preventing savior.

“Right,” I said, pushing off of the door with a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I wasn’t exactly sure what it was stemming from, though.

Thinking about Bella.

Or thinking about my father.

Alice watched me, intrigued by the facial expressions and I somehow felt the need to offer her some small explanation.

“She scares me,” I said, passing her on my way to the phone.

Avoiding eye contact.

“About time someone did,” she said but when I went to ask her what exactly it was that she meant by that, she had disappeared and I needed to see a phone about a headache.

Turned out, the doctors had found some abnormalities in Carlisle’s blood stream and they’d needed some paperwork filled out, in order to run some additional tests.

The nurses had started it for me but they needed some answers to a few questions and all that conversation did was remind me how little I knew my father.

I gave them a verbal approval to do the tests but had to agree that I’d be there first thing in the morning to sign the papers.

Also, I didn’t think I could avoid paying another visit to Carlisle if I was going to already be about a hundred feet away from his room.

He’d know I was there.

Those nursed loved him.

They told him everything.

I just hoped they never found out what I’d done to Carlisle’s wine collection.

Once I got off of the phone with the administration, there, I turned to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen area, only to find Alice.

Standing there with a broom and dust pan held out to me.

Not exactly subtle with the hints, wouldn’t you agree?

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to…”

“I told you, Edward, I’m not cleaning up your mess.”

And she was right.

I needed to face the consequences of my temper.

It would serve as a good reminder that I should probably work on putting all that anger to better use.

Alice would have made a great drill sergeant.

It took me a good two hours to get all the broken glass up, then I hosed the room down, so it didn’t smell quite so much like alcohol.

When I was done, I set the bags of trash and the broom, with its matching dust pan, in the hallway and turned back to face the room.

It was so empty.

Like there’d never been anything there.

A clean slate.

It should have given me a feeling of accomplishment.

A feeling of relief, at the very least.

What it did was give me a feeling of loss.

And I was conflicted about that.

Reality, meet expectations.

I walked over to the picture of Emmett and I that I’d nearly destroyed, before Bella had so gallantly interrupted me and picked it up.

Staring at it, at Emmett’s smile, staring back at me, I heard his voice or warning, from outside the hardware store that day, in the midst of Felix-gate, and wondered if there was maybe a part of him that still gave a shit.

Wondered if Bella was right.

That if I gave people a chance, maybe they wouldn’t care so much about the past, anymore.

Then, I rejoined the real world, wiped the dusty glass of the picture off with my sleeve and set it back up onto the shelf that it had been housed on for so long and left the room.

………………..

The next morning, I woke up before the alarm, again.

Run at oh five hundred.

Shower at oh six thirty.

Breakfast by oh seven hundred.

The mornings, I realized, were almost like being at Fort Benning, again. 

The routine helped.

Every day I stuck to it was like a reminder of the structure I had waiting for me back in Georgia.

Those runs reminded me of what I had signed up for, in the first place.

What I felt more at ease with.

It was like a comfortable pair of shoes that I was looking forward to getting back to wearing after trying on new ones that were giving me blisters.

Head cleared, I grabbed the keys to Carlisle’s old car, stopping only momentarily to think about calling Bella for a ride over to Sonoma.

But the time spent away from her over night, combined with the morning run had reminded me, I was just being an idiot about Pie Girl.

So I left a note for Alice that I probably wouldn’t be back for lunch and headed over to see my father.

Alone.

………….

“So you think he was poisoning himself?” I asked, frustrated with where the conversation with the doctor was going. “That’s stupid.”

“I’m not insinuating your father was poisoning himself, Mr. Cullen…”

“Edward.”

“Edward.  I’m just letting you know, there’s a possibility that perhaps some of Carlisle’s medications didn’t agree with the amounts of alcohol he was consuming.”

“That doesn’t…”

Make any sense.

I wasn’t listening much to what the doctor said after that.  I was too busy watching my father, lying in his hospital bed.

Breathing in and out.

He seemed so…peaceful.

What would make a man that looked so at ease, act so…irrationally?

“Edward?”

“Hmm?” I snapped my attention back to him, then.

Blankly.

“I’ll call you when the test results come back.”

“Sure,” I told him, and then stepped into Carlisle’s room, took the seat next to his bed, and watched him for a while.

“You should’ve called,” I said to him, quietly as he slept.

“You should’ve wrote, or called if things were going sour.”

His chest rose and fell, heavily, a few times.

“I was angry, but I would’ve come home, dad.”

He ignored me.

“I would’ve come home.”

And then I sat there, pressing my head against my knuckled, thinking…wondering…why in the world he would do something like that to himself.

Maybe the Volturi’s had been putting pressure on him…

For being father to a son who did nothing but cause them trouble.

Maybe once I’d gone, the town’s annoyance of me was, by default, transferred to him.

“I’m not the same person, anymore, dad.”

In, and out, the air went through his body. 

Up and down, went his chest.

“I promise I’m not that kid anymore.”

I don’t know why I wanted him to know that, so badly, all of a sudden.  Why it mattered, or what difference it would make.

I just, needed to say the words.

Maybe for him.

Maybe for me.

And then he woke up for a minute or two. 

Looked up at me.

And smiled.”

“Hey dad,” I said, leaning forward, onto the bed and Carlisle put a hand on top of mine.

“You came…back,” he forced out.

“I told you I would.”

“Thought you were…just saying that to…make me feel better.”

I laughed.

“When have I ever done anything to make you feel better, dad?”

The smile on his face widened.

“Good…point,” he breathed.

And then we just sat there for a bit, in silence.

We were good at silence.

I flipped through some magazines while Carlisle watched the local news and when he fell asleep again, I checked in with the Doctor and then headed home.

“Your friend came by,” Alice told me, before I’d even hung the keys to the Bug up.

“Bella?” I asked, but really, who was I kidding?

Of course it was Bella.

“She mumbled something about you avoiding her and left, didn’t say anything else.”

I paused.

I should have called her.

Should have explained why I hadn’t been there.

Because I could pretty much guarantee, Alice hadn’t said anything.

I looked over at her, chopping vegetables and glancing out the window at the vines every so often.

“What do you think?”  I asked her.

I couldn’t help myself for some reason.

It seemed lately, I was all about other people’s opinions.

At first, I thought she was gonna give me one of her, typical Alice responses.

“Not my business, Edward,” or, “I keep my opinions to myself, Edward.”

But then, she stopped chopping her vegetables, stared out of that window and said, “I think you’re getting what you need, from exactly where you need it,” then promptly went back to chopping.

And ignoring me.

I didn’t dare ask her if she was talking about Bella or the vineyard.

Because with Alice, knowing her…she was talking about both.

I nodded, went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water and headed outdoors, where the scent of the grapes was becoming more and more noticeable and I realized, they were blooming.

And not just blooming, but they were developing, prospering.

They were flourishing.

I mean there was still some work to be done, and the landscaping could use some work, but all in all…

It was a vineyard, again.

And I hadn’t realized I was grinning until one of the workers passed me by, carrying a basket of grapes, smiling back.

He held it up so I could see his small bounty.

“Is good, Mr. Cullen,” he said and I watched him disappear into the smaller building, next to the house, where the wine process was typically conducted.

“That is is,” I said, and then I chugged the water before heading out to inspect some of the vines.

Time passed and I had lost track of how long I’d been out there when I heard a harsh, yet semi jovial voice from behind me.

Something that was hard to accomplish by most.

But not all.

“So this is what’s been hindering you from checking in, lately.”

It was a tad softer than I remembered.

But it was still the authoritative one I knew so well, even all those miles away from the barracks.

It kicked me into motion.

A habit.

A lifestyle.

“Sir,” I responded.

I’d dropped the vines, flew into a standing position, back straight, feet together, hand at salute.

Eyes forward.

Because you never look an officer in the eyes.

“This isn’t Fort Benning, Edward, you don’t need to stand at attention.”

I stood at ease, then, looking him in the eyes and smirked a little.

He was standing there with a duffle in one hand, the other extended out toward me.

That crazy Texan grin on his face.

Then I finally relaxed, fully, took the hand that he’d held out to me and shook it with a tight grip.

I was glad to see him.

He felt more like home to me than any vineyard you could drum up, in Napa.

A sense of relief, of sorts, filled me as I greeted him, finally.

“Good to see you, Jasper.”

A/N: FIRM refers to being assertive, but not unbalanced, acidity particularly in wines requiring more aging.