Chapter 14 ~ Deceivingly Simple

A double dose of POVs

~ Edward ~

To say that it was a godsend that my commanding officer…and coincidentally, good friend…showed up at the vineyard when he did, would be a ridiculously huge understatement.

The fact that I’d used his first name like that, would not have gone down well, by the way, had we been anywhere but on a vineyard, thousands of miles from base.

It’s not looked upon, lightly, in the armed services, to use your commanding officer’s first name like that, but let’s just say, Jasper has a way with persuasion…and we’d come to a mutual agreement a long time ago.

It didn’t happen often, to be honest with you.  I didn’t feel comfortable with it, all that much, but shit…the guy caught me a little off guard, ya know?

I truly hadn’t realized how much I missed the Army, missed what we accomplished, day in and day out, until he’d arrived.

I also hadn’t quite processed just how much of an effect all those confrontations I’d been running into, since returning home, were having on me.

Or how much Bella Swan was affecting…me in general.

It seemed like a lot of things were being pushed out of my mind, when she was in there.

Jasper’s presence gave me a whole new breath of fresh air, though…cleared my head…like the morning runs.

My only question was…

“What in the hell are you doing here?”

I hadn’t asked it to be rude…I wasn’t pissed, or anything…I was just…really curious.

“Well your calls stopped, and I worried…so I took a leave, thought I’d come out here to see what all the uproar was about…”

He paused, giving me that look he always gave me, when he was trying to mind fuck me, and then, added, “And…some of your men are a little worried about you, too, Edward.  Some of them think you’re not gonna make a return appearance.”

Ah.

Truth be told.

“So, you came to make sure I did,” I said it.  Didn’t ask.  Jasper Whitlock was a good guy.  But highly predictable.

“Somewhat,” he admitted, but smiled as he did.  “But also because you’re mah boy, Cullen, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I let out some air.

“You want a drink?”

“Love one,” he answered, grinning ear to ear because back in Georgia, that how all epic conversations with Jasper Whitlock had begun. 

From the very start.

We went with beer, since, you know…the wine bottles were sorta…gone.

And Jasper’s not a big wine drinker, anyway.

I showed him where he could sleep, right quick, and then he followed me down to the back patio.

We were sitting down to start talking business when I felt the distinct pang of something inside of my chest, like something was missing.

No, not a pang…maybe a reminder, or…a bitch slap, telling me I was being an ass to the one person I’d considered a friend in Napa.

Possibly even more.

“Here,” I handed him a cold one, then started back for the house.  “Start without me, will ya?  I gotta make a call.”

He cocked an eyebrow, as he sat down into one of the chaise lounges and asked me, “A call?  I was under the impression you didn’t have many ties here, Sergeant.”

“Not many, Sir,” I told him, half smiling, half trying to hide the smile, thinking of Bella. “Just one.”

“Your dad?” he asked, seeming to become thoughtful about it.

“Nope,” I said, leaving him out on the porch alone, as I dialed up Pie Girl to apologize for being MIA when she’d come by.

And for just…for my all around bi-polarness, in general.

I, honestly, don’t know why I’d expected anything other than the reaction I’d gotten from her.

“I’m not talking to you, right now, Edward,” she said, with a little bit of snark in her voice, before I could even tell her it was me.

Which, aside from the fact that she seemed quite peeved, I somehow managed to deduce that, her knowing who was calling, meant that she probably had programmed my cell number into her phone, already.

And I smiled at that thought.

“Hey, what’s my name come up as, anyway?” I asked her.

And she wasn’t a liar.

She really wasn’t talking to me…so I filled in the silent gaps of our conversation.

“Sexy vineyard owner down the lane?”

Nothing.

“Guy I’m trying to seduce?”

I thought I heard the faint sound of a snicker after that one, but still, she was being stubborn.

So I broke out the big guns.

“The anti fiance?”

There was a small giggle, then.

More like a huff of air, actually, but I could tell it was a laughing huff and not so much of an annoyed huff.

Then I had to stop for a minute to process the fact that I knew the differences between Bella’s laughing huffs and her annoyed huffs.

I peeked out at Jasper, who now had two empty bottles of beer sitting next to his chair, and he was standing, staring out at the vines.

Welcome to my world, sir.

I turned, talking lower, then, so no one could hear me.  “Do you have it on vibrate?”

She was one tough stalkerish, pie baking, woman, I decided, when she still didn’t answer me.

Then I grinned even wider.

“Do you wanna know what your number comes up as, on my phone?” I asked her, as I watched him for a few more seconds…and I was about to tell her when she finally said something.

“What is it that can I do for you, Edward?”

And…ouch.

I didn’t like the tone in her voice, knowing I’d put it there.

I sucked up the inner stubborn ass and told her, “I’m sorry I wasn’t home today, I had to…”

“I don’t really care why you weren’t there, Edward, but I do care about looking like an idiot…do I seem like an idiot to you, Edward?”

Uh…

“No, it’s just that…”

“Do you think I just go around …chasing after men who think they’re hot shit because they know a lot about wine and…Napa…and yeah, maybe they’re cute and sexy and probably look even cuter and sexier in their Army uniforms, but do you think I care?”

“Do I…?” I started, but frankly, I was just trying to keep up.

Was she saying she wanted me to dress into my uniform for her?

“Bella…”

“Listen, Edward, I know you have a lot of things on your mind…I know your father is sick, and that there are people in this town who just want to give you a hard time and there are even people who are so very narrow minded that they don’t see the wonderful things about you…”

“I just…”

Wonderful?

“I do happen to care about you, and I think you are wonderful, but I refuse to be treated like a child anymore….do you understand what I’m trying to say to you, Edward?”

“Um…”

If I was to say I understood, at that point, did that mean I thought she was childish?

“Because I just spent the majority of my life being treated like a child, like I don’t know how to make my own decisions and take risks and….have sex with REALLY adorable vineyard owners….”

“Did you just…?”

She wants to have sex with me…

I had no idea what to do with that information.

“But you know what? I’m done.”

“Done.”

“Yes, done…I’m not going to chase you and make myself feel stupid for investing the time and energy I have on someone who just…”

“But I…”

“I won’t be calling you anymore, Edward, do you understand me?  I won’t be coming by, I won’t be … making you pies, or giving you the benefit of the doubt, anymore, either…If you want to show a little interest…you’re going to have to make it abundantly clear to me, understand?”

“Could I just…”

Say. Something?

“I have work to do and a business to build, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to go…start….building that business…”

“Would you please…”  Stop talking for a minute.

“Goodbye…Edward.”

“But…”

And then she was done.

Gone.

Hung right up on me.

I stared at the phone for a few seconds, scowling at it, as though it was a live person that had just said something I couldn’t quite comprehend.

Something in some alien language that could only be translated with special alien translation devices otherwise known as…

Another woman.

And then, as if right on cue, Alice appeared.

“Who is that?” she asked, annoyed as hell.

I knew who she was referring to, of course, but I followed her glare, anyway.  “That’s my…that’s Jasper Whitlock, he’s gonna be staying with us a few…something.”

She tapped her foot.

And breathed in.

Held it.

Then let it out, trying to remain cool.

Lucky for me.

“It would have been nice to…”

“Well, hello there,” he said, sauntering into the house, through the sliders and I had never seen Alice so…extremely annoyed, before.

Not even with me.

It was kind of amusing.

“I…” she started, as he held a hand out in front of him, the other behind his back…and he was bowing slightly.

And I watched him with a sort of perturbed amusement.

I also watched, as Alice offered her hand in return, almost without her own knowledge and he took it, then bent down to kiss the back of it as he kept her gaze the whole time.

Now, I’d seen Jasper put the charm on women, before.

Hell, I’d seen him disarm, disrobe and deplete them of all resistance in less than sixty seconds but this…

This was pure poetry.

“First Lieutenant, Jasper Whitlock,” he said and I told her, “I uh…put his things in the room a couple doors down from Carlisle’s.”

She seemed to realize what was happening to her, all of a sudden…whatever that was, narrowed her eyes at him and then snatched her hand out of his.

Not harshly, just…taking something back that belonged to her.

“I’m going to go…make sure there’s enough for dinner,” she told us and then left pretty quickly.

Jasper watched her and watched him with a weird sort of creepy, my commanding officer just totally hit on the groundskeeper of the vineyard I grew up in, sort of way.

“Interesting,” he mused.

“Yyyyyyeeeah,” I replied and then encouraged him to follow me back outside where we reclaimed our spots out on the porch to catch up on life in the Army…and life in Napa.

Four beers later, I was knee deep in explaining the ins and outs of wine bottle bashing and how Bella had shown up when he stopped me.

“Let me just try and understand this situation a little, before you keep on going, here…”

I took a long swig of the beer I’d just opened.

“This cute…pie baking woman…practically throws herself at you…and you…send her home?”

“I had to go to the hospital,” I said, defending my actions, then threw my hands up in exasperation.  “It’s fucking complicated.”

“Doesn’t sound too complicated to me.”

He watched me while I tried to avoid eye contact.

“I mean, unless you’re worried about gettin’ tied down, or somethin’.  ‘Cause then, I could…”

I shook my head.  “She says she’s not expecting that…I mean, we both know we only have until I wrap things up and head back to the Army, and she….”

Goes off to live her life with Mr. Right.

And Jasper Whitlock’s laugh.  Well, you’d have to be around him to understand, but it’s kind of…infectious.

And very telling about what he’s thinking, when you think you’re being all, noble and thoughtful about something.

“Well if you’re not worried about making any commitments, or tying yourself down, then what are you waitin’ for, Sergeant?”

Good point, if it had been someone I barely knew, but…

“It just doesn’t seem right.”

Did it?

“What doesn’t?”

“I mean, what am I gonna…woo her for a few more weeks and then, leave? That’s kinda shitty, don’t you think?”

He took a drink of his beer and sat up, facing me, then began a check list of sorts, with me. “Edward, she knows you’re in the Army, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Knows your base is located in Georgia?”

I nodded, taking another drink.

“She’s a consenting adult?”

“Yes.”

“You’re…a consenting adult…” he narrowed his eyes at me. “Technically.”

“Ass.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

It took me a few minutes to let what he was trying to say sink in.  To realize that maybe people were placed into your life for certain reasons.  Bella certainly seemed like she had her head on properly.

She hadn’t pressured me for false securities…she’d just recently become fiance’-less…it wasn’t like she would be wanting to jump into anything serious.

And what exactly was the problem, anyway?

He was right, after all.

She was right.

I was being a complete idiot about the whole thing.

Thinking way too deeply about something that she was pursuing in the first place.

And then suddenly, I got up, setting my then empty bottle down onto the table.

“I gotta go.”

Jasper laughed and patted the cooler, housing the rest of the beer. “I’ll finish this for ya.”

“Tell Alice to start dinner without me,” I told him and then took a jog over to the Hale’s place to see a girl about a summer fling.

I ran through what I should probably say to her as my feet led me to the Hale’s place.

I had no idea how they’d react to me showing up…or how Emmett would react…so I tried coming up with some circumstances that would require my needing to speak with Bella…

Things that wouldn’t appear sexual in nature at all.

I felt rather prepared.

And good about what I was about to embark on, with her.

I felt, surprisingly, elated about the whole thing, actually.

The only thing I hadn’t accounted for when I left…was the rain.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~ Bella Swan ~

“Jake, you have to call me back, sooner or later,” I said into our old answering machine, back in Chicago.

He still hadn’t changed the incoming message and still hadn’t called me back.

I was getting worried about him.

“You can’t just avoid me, forever, you know.”

I couldn’t remember just how many times I’d called him since my babbling break up with him that week but I was getting highly frustrated about the whole silent treatment he was giving me.

I let out a hard breath of air and then hung up, not having much else to say…staring at the phone as though I could make it ring from pure will.

“No luck?” Emmett asked from the doorway of my make shift bedroom and I shook my head, feeling tears begin to sting my eyes.

I felt like I was failing.

At everything.

Life.

Love.

Career...

Edward.

After I’d dropped by, unannounced, earlier that day and he wasn’t there, I started feeling like a complete…moron.

I mean, how many hints did he have to give me before I started actually getting them? 

“Wanna talk?” Emmett asked and I shook my head again, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat.

“Want icecream?” he added and I started to break.  He was getting very good, again, at knowing just exactly what to say, and when to say it.

The phone rang and I jumped to answer it. “Jake?”

“Bella, what have you done?  Do you have any idea the amount of work that is going to go into canceling a wedding?”

My shoulders slouched and sat down, onto the bed, pleading with Emmett silently to ignore my prior response to his request and just…get me out of there.

“Mom.”

And Emmett mouthed, “Ouch,” before coming into sit next to me, on the bed.

“You bet your sweet tooshie, it’s your mother….what is the matter with you, Bella?”

And oh, the disappointment in her voice.

Well, it might have worked at one time in my life.

But I was changed.

I’d changed the night I left Chicago.

“So…Jake called you?” I asked, hoping she could tell me why he wasn’t returning my calls.

I was literally starting to imagine that he’d drank himself into some sort of stupid and had driven into a river, somewhere and no one could find him because the current had dragged him too far away from the city.

“No, Jake didn’t call me…I was at the apartment and heard your message.”

Oy.

That figured.

And although it had seemed like a good idea at the time, I was really regretting ever giving my mother a key to our place.

“You heard my…mom, it’s rude to listen to other people’s personal messages without their permission...and what was Jake doing?”

“I don’t know honey, he wasn’t there when I stopped by…that’s not why I called you, anyway, I called because you need to fix this…I don’t know what you’re doing out there in Napa with your cousin, but…”

“Mom…I’m not doing…anything….”

Yet.

And not by my choice, might I add.

“I better not hear about you getting into trouble and…”

Ugh.

I rolled my eyes as my fingers pinched at the bridge of my nose, a little.

“I gotta go, mom, listen…tell Jake to call me, please…will you?”

“Bella…”

“Bye, mom…” I sang and then hung up on her.  Which was not going to go over well, but in all honesty, I just couldn’t handle her at that point in time.

Emmett laughed as he put his arms around me, hugging me, tightly.

“Man, you really know how to stir shit up, Bells.”

I closed my eyes, laughing into his chest, because, honestly, he was right.

I mean for someone who’d spent her entire life, practically, making others happy via her choices in lifestyle, college courses and boyfriends…I was really going for the opposite end of the spectrum.

“Hey, Rose and I are hittin’ a movie tonight, wanna come with?”

He was so sweet.

So…Emmett…

And I, once again, felt thoughts of Edward, invading my mind…wondering how someone so completely thoughtful as Emmett could treat Edward with such disregard, after they’d been such good friends for so long.

But then again, with Edward’s mood swings…I guess I could also kind of relate.

“No thanks, I think….I should probably focus myself and get some more work done on the Hale’s website.”

Keeping an arm around me, he relaxed and with a small nod of his head and a pout in his lips told, I figured he understood.

“Well, you should have the peace and quiet tonight, at least…” he told me. “’Cause the mister and misses are heading over to the City for the weekend.”

“The City?”

“Yeah, San Francisco?  They like to head over and do some marketing that way, every few months.”

“Huh…”

Emmett let go of me, finally, after a final squeeze and we sat there for just a moment in silence before he slapped me, playfully on the leg and said, “Okay, well, if you change your mind, Bells…let me know, okay, it’s not gonna do you any good to stay cramped up inside, all the time.”

I smiled up at him.

“Deal,” I told him and after he’d gone, I threw myself back onto the bed, thinking about nothing, for once.

Later, after the Hales had left and Emmett had gone off to have dinner and a movie with Rose, I was working on the laptop, trying to get an application installed that would help them follow their stats and sales easily.

And I began to be just a little irritated, clicking the mouse, just a little harder than it needed to be clicked.

Tapping on the keys a little harsher than they deserved.

At first I felt silly, like I was irritated with nothing in particular but then I realized, it wasn’t with nothing…but rather, everything…and everyone that thought they knew what I should have been doing with my life…where I should work, or not work, what city I should live in…who I should be with…or better yet, without.

Mothers…telling me what my decisions should be about my own heart.

Ex…fiancés…refusing to talk to me…just because I broke off our engagement…over the phone, granted…from over three thousand miles away…while I was hormonally challenged…about to go drink wine with a very…sexy…army…vineyard owner….who’s smile could make me shiver with anticipation….

Where was I?

Oh.

Right…

And speaking of which.

Edward Cullen, I decided, could kiss my ass if he didn’t have the balls, to…

My cell phone vibrated and I snapped out of my Edward Cullen anger rant, thinking perhaps Jake was finally calling me, but as I checked the number, surprisingly, I wasn’t all that disappointed that it wasn’t Jake.

Not that I was completely happy about who it had turned out to be.

Grape Guy, it said and I steeled myself, as I answered.

He didn’t deserve to get off, easily, this one.

Not anymore.

“I’m not talking to you right now, Edward,” I told him and then he proceeded to try to apologize for his mysterious disappearance that day, make me laugh with his…incredibly sexy, funny, flirty ideas of what I might have had him programmed into my phone as…and then I finally…just, lost it.

Unfortunately, he received the brunt of what had turned into a tirade that I’d been bottling up against my mother, and Jake, but in the end…mostly…

Me.

And when I hung up, I felt a little bad, and just sat there in silence, avoiding the ultimate cry fest that was dying to escape.

I didn’t want to cry.

I didn’t want to dwell on the things I’d most likely missed out on in life; from trying to do what I thought was best for everyone, instead of what was best for me.

I wanted to focus on the positives, on my future, and the possibilities of what I could do…what my future business could do, once it was off the ground, now that I was making decisions for the right reasons.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and steadied myself.

Then I went back to work on the Hales website.

It was coming along with no further incidents of keyboard or mouse abuse until, what seemed like minutes later, but in actuality was a couple of hours later, there was a knock at the front door.

I thought about ignoring it.

I mean it wasn’t my house anyway, right?   Whoever was there, was surely wanting to see the Hales…or Rose, or Emmett, even…and answering it would only break my concentration and I wouldn’t have any answers for whoever it was, anyway.

Plus, I noticed, it had started raining and it could have been some crazy stranger who’d maneuver his way in, requesting to use the phone or something and I’d be too fearful to let him in and then he’d pull a gun on me or something and then I’d be dead.

And I’d never get to live that life I was just beginning to enjoy, again.

And yes, I have an over active imagination, at times.

So I went with that.

I ignored it.

Until there was another knock.

I hesitated, but ignored it again.

And they knocked again.

Louder.

I sat there, with my fingers on the keys I’d been stopped dead in my tracks, typing on and waited.

Another knock and I finally got up, pushing myself away from the desk, in a huff.

“For the love of god.”

I stomped over to the door, feeling a tad bit sorry for whoever it was at that point because now, not only would I not have answers for them but I was also highly perturbed with whoever it was and they were now about to reap the consequences of Bella Swan’s anger.

I swung the door open and my mouth was wide open, for the beginning of the torrent of snarkiness but was stunned into silence.

Because it wasn’t someone for the Hales.

Or Rose.

Or even Emmett.

He was breathing heavy, as though perhaps he’d been running and I peeked over his shoulder to find that indeed, he hadn’t driven his father’s car.

Looking back to him, I noticed an odd expression on his face.

He didn’t seem like the broken person I’d seen the night before, or the light hearted man who had snuck me in and out of vineyards the previous week…or even the passionate wine connoisseur, from our wine tasting.

He seemed, desperate.

And painfully beautiful, despite the fact that he was dripping wet.

Or maybe, more like, because of the fact that he was dripping wet.

Instincts began to take over my body and I had to fight the urge to jump into his arms, wrap my legs around him and lick him dry.

But I held strong.

He wouldn’t melt me, from the inside out with his sex eyes…or, wet hair…or his…

Very strong looking biceps that were bulging through his sleeves.

Arms that I longed to have around me.

Lips I wanted on mine.

He licked his lips and then pursed them, seeming determined about something and I raised my chin a little and stood tall, in spite of my knees that wanted to buckle, badly.

Then I asked him, as dignified as possible, “What can I do for you, Edward?”

A/N: Simple is a wine that is light with limited aromas, flavors, and texture.