Stephenie Meyer 24 страница

“Oh” was all I could say.

“I know,” he whispered.

We stood there for a minute, remembering. Though the memories were human and clouded, they took over my mind completely.

He smiled a wide, gleaming smile and then laughed. “The closet is through those double doors. I should warn you—it’s bigger than this room.”

I didn’t even glance at the doors. There was nothing else in the world but him again—his arms curled under me, his sweet breath on my face, his lips just inches from mine—and there was nothing that could distract me now, newborn vampire or not.

“We’re going to tell Alice that I ran right to the clothes,” I whispered, twisting my fingers into his hair and pulling my face closer to his. “We’re going to tell her I spent hours in there playing dress-up. We’re going to lie.”

He caught up to my mood in an instant, or maybe he’d already been there, and he was just trying to let me fully appreciate my birthday present, like a gentleman. He pulled my face to his with a sudden fierceness, a low moan in his throat. The sound sent the electric current running through my body into a near-frenzy, like I couldn’t get close enough to him fast enough.

I heard the fabric tearing under our hands, and I was glad my clothes, at least, were already destroyed. It was too late for his. It felt almost rude to ignore the pretty white bed, but we just weren’t going to make it that far.

This second honeymoon wasn’t like our first.

Our time on the island had been the epitome of my human life. The very best of it. I’d been so ready to string along my human time, just to hold on to what I had with him for a little while longer. Because the physical part wasn’t going to be the same ever again.

I should have guessed, after a day like today, that it would be better.

I could really appreciate him now—could properly see every beautiful line of his perfect face, of his long, flawless body with my strong new eyes, every angle and every plane of him. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensitive fingertips.

My skin was so sensitive under his hands, too.

He was all new, a different person as our bodies tangled gracefully into one on the sand-pale floor. No caution, no restraint. No fear—especially not that. We could love together—both active participants now. Finally equals.

Like our kisses before, every touch was more than I was used to. So much of himself he’d been holding back. Necessary at the time, but I couldn’t believe how much I’d been missing.

I tried to keep in mind that I was stronger than he was, but it was hard to focus on anything with sensations so intense, pulling my attention to a million different places in my body every second; if I hurt him, he didn’t complain.

A very, very small part of my head considered the interesting conundrum presented in this situation. I was never going to get tired, and neither was he. We didn’t have to catch our breath or rest or eat or even use the bathroom; we had no more mundane human needs. He had the most beautiful, perfect body in the world and I had him all to myself, and it didn’t feel like I was ever going to find a point where I would think, Now I’ve had enough for one day. I was always going to want more. And the day was never going to end. So, in such a situation, how did we ever stop?

It didn’t bother me at all that I had no answer.

I sort of noticed when the sky began to lighten. The tiny ocean outside turned from black to gray, and a lark started to sing somewhere very close by—maybe she had a nest in the roses.

“Do you miss it?” I asked him when her song was done.

It wasn’t the first time we’d spoken, but we weren’t exactly keeping up a conversation, either.

“Miss what?” he murmured.

“All of it—the warmth, the soft skin, the tasty smell… I’m not losing anything at all, and I just wondered if it was a little bit sad for you that you were.”

He laughed, low and gentle. “It would be hard to find someone less sad than I am now. Impossible, I’d venture. Not many people get every single thing they want, plus all the things they didn’t think to ask for, in the same day.”

“Are you avoiding the question?”

He pressed his hand against my face. “You are warm,” he told me.

It was true, in a sense. To me, his hand was warm. It wasn’t the same as touching Jacob’s flame-hot skin, but it was more comfortable. More natural.

Then he pulled his fingers very slowly down my face, lightly tracing from my jaw to my throat and then all the way down to my waist. My eyes rolled back into my head a little.

“You are soft.”

His fingers were like satin against my skin, so I could see what he meant.

“And as for the scent, well, I couldn’t say I missed that. Do you remember the scent of those hikers on our hunt?”

“I’ve been trying very hard not to.”

“Imagine kissing that.”

My throat ripped into flames like pulling the cord on a hot-air balloon.

“Oh.”

“Precisely. So the answer is no. I am purely full of joy, because I am missing nothing. No one has more than I do now.”

I was about to inform him of the one exception to his statement, but my lips were suddenly very busy.

When the little pool turned pearl-colored with the sunrise, I thought of another question for him.

“How long does this go on? I mean, Carlisle and Esme, Em and Rose, Alice and Jasper—they don’t spend all day locked in their rooms. They’re out in public, fully clothed, all the time. Does this… craving ever let up?” I twisted myself closer into him—quite an accomplishment, actually—to make it clear what I was talking about.

“That’s difficult to say. Everyone is different and, well, so far you’re the very most different of all. The average young vampire is too obsessed with thirst to notice much else for a while. That doesn’t seem to apply to you. With the average vampire, though, after that first year, other needs make themselves known. Neither thirst nor any other desire really ever fades. It’s simply a matter of learning to balance them, learning to prioritize and manage. . . .”

“How long?”

He smiled, wrinkling his nose a little. “Rosalie and Emmett were the worst. It took a solid decade before I could stand to be within a five-mile radius of them. Even Carlisle and Esme had a difficult time stomaching it. They kicked the happy couple out eventually. Esme built them a house, too. It was grander than this one, but then, Esme knows what Rose likes, and she knows what you like.”

“So, after ten years, then?” I was pretty sure that Rosalie and Emmett had nothing on us, but it might sound cocky if I went higher than a decade. “Everybody is normal again? Like they are now?”

Edward smiled again. “Well, I’m not sure what you mean by normal. You’ve seen my family going about life in a fairly human way, but you’ve been sleeping nights.” He winked at me. “There’s a tremendous amount of time left over when you don’t have to sleep. It makes balancing your… interests quite easy. There’s a reason why I’m the best musician in the family, why—besides Carlisle—I’ve read the most books, studied the most sciences, become fluent in the most languages.… Emmett would have you believe that I’m such a know-it-all because of the mind reading, but the truth is that I’ve just had a lot of free time.”

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We laughed together, and the motion of our laughter did interesting things to the way our bodies were connected, effectively ending that conversation.

25. FAVOR

It was only a little while later that Edward reminded me of my priorities.

It took him just one word.

“Renesmee . . .”

I sighed. She would be awake soon. It must be nearly seven in the morning. Would she be looking for me? Abruptly, something close to panic had my body freezing up. What would she look like today?

Edward felt the total distraction of my stress. “It’s all right, love. Get dressed, and we’ll be back to the house in two seconds.”

I probably looked like a cartoon, the way I sprung up, then looked back at him—his diamond body faintly glinting in the diffuse light—then away to the west, where Renesmee waited, then back at him again, then back toward her, my head whipping from side to side a half dozen times in a second. Edward smiled, but didn’t laugh; he was a strong man.

“It’s all about balance, love. You’re so good at all of this, I don’t imagine it will take too long to put everything in perspective.”

“And we have all night, right?”

He smiled wider. “Do you think I could bear to let you get dressed now if that weren’t the case?”

That would have to be enough to get me through the daylight hours. I would balance this overwhelming, devastating desire so that I could be a good— It was hard to think the word. Though Renesmee was very real and vital in my life, it was still difficult to think of myself as a mother. I supposed anyone would feel the same, though, without nine months to get used to the idea. And with a child that changed by the hour.

The thought of Renesmee’s speeding life had me stressed-out again in an instant. I didn’t even pause at the ornately carved double doors to catch my breath before finding out what Alice had done. I just burst through, intent on wearing the first things I touched. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Which ones are mine?” I hissed. As promised, the room was bigger than our bedroom. It might have been bigger than the rest of the house put together, but I’d have to pace it off to be positive. I had a brief mental flash of Alice trying to persuade Esme to ignore classic proportions and allow this monstrosity. I wondered how Alice had won that one.

Everything was wrapped in garment bags, pristine and white, row after row after row.

“To the best of my knowledge, everything but this rack here”—he touched a bar that stretched along the half-wall to the left of the door—“is yours.”

“All of this?”

He shrugged.

“Alice,” we said together. He said her name like an explanation; I said it like an expletive.

“Fine,” I muttered, and I pulled down the zipper on the closest bag. I growled under my breath when I saw the floorlength silk gown inside—baby pink.

Finding something normal to wear could take all day!

“Let me help,” Edward offered. He sniffed carefully at the air and then followed some scent to the back of the long room. There was a built-in dresser there. He sniffed again, then opened a drawer. With a triumphant grin, he held out a pair of artfully faded blue jeans.

I flitted to his side. “How did you do that?”

“Denim has its own scent just like anything else. Now… stretch cotton?”

He followed his nose to a half-rack, unearthing a long-sleeved white t-shirt. He tossed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said fervently. I inhaled each fabric, memorizing the scent for future searches through this madhouse. I remembered silk and satin; I would avoid those.

It only took him seconds to find his own clothes—if I hadn’t seen him undressed, I would have sworn there was nothing more beautiful than Edward in his khakis and pale beige pullover—and then he took my hand. We darted through the hidden garden, leaped lightly over the stone wall, and hit the forest at a dead sprint. I pulled my hand free so that we could race back. He beat me this time.

Renesmee was awake; she was sitting up on the floor with Rose and Emmett hovering over her, playing with a little pile of twisted silverware. She had a mangled spoon in her right hand. As soon as she spied me through the glass, she chucked the spoon on the floor—where it left a divot in the wood—and pointed in my direction imperiously. Her audience laughed; Alice, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle were sitting on the couch, watching her as if she were the most engrossing film.

I was through the door before their laughter had barely begun, bounding across the room and scooping her up from the floor in the same second. We smiled widely at each other.

She was different, but not so much. A little longer again, her proportions drifting from babyish to childlike. Her hair was longer by a quarter inch, the curls bouncing like springs with every movement. I’d let my imagination run wild on the trip back, and I’d imagined worse than this. Thanks to my overdone fears, these little changes were almost a relief. Even without Carlisle’s measurements, I was sure the changes were slower than yesterday.

Renesmee patted my cheek. I winced. She was hungry again.

“How long has she been up?” I asked as Edward disappeared through the kitchen doorway. I was sure he was on his way to get her breakfast, having seen what she’d just thought as clearly as I had. I wondered if he would ever have noticed her little quirk, if he’d been the only one to know her. To him, it probably would have seemed like hearing anyone.

“Just a few minutes,” Rose said. “We would have called you soon. She’s been asking for you—demanding might be a better description. Esme sacrificed her second-best silver service to keep the little monster entertained.” Rose smiled at Renesmee with so much gloating affection that the criticism was entirely weightless. “We didn’t want to… er, bother you.”

Rosalie bit her lip and looked away, trying not to laugh. I could feel Emmett’s silent laughter behind me, sending vibrations through the foundations of the house.

I kept my chin high. “We’ll get your room set up right away,” I said to Renesmee. “You’ll like the cottage. It’s magic.” I look up at Esme. “Thank you, Esme. So much. It’s absolutely perfect.”

Before Esme could respond, Emmett was laughing again—it wasn’t silent this time.

“So it’s still standing?” he managed to get out between his snickers. “I would’ve thought you two had knocked it to rubble by now. What were you doing last night? Discussing the national debt?” He howled with laughter.

I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of the negative consequences when I’d let my temper get away from me yesterday. Of course, Emmett wasn’t as breakable as Seth. . . .

Thinking of Seth made me wonder. “Where’re the wolves today?” I glanced out the window wall, but there had been no sign of Leah on the way in.

“Jacob took off this morning pretty early,” Rosalie told me, a little frown creasing her forehead. “Seth followed him out.”

“What was he so upset about?” Edward asked as he came back into the room with Renesmee’s cup. There must have been more in Rosalie’s memory than I’d seen in her expression.

Without breathing, I handed Renesmee off to Rosalie. Super-self-control, maybe, but there was no way I was going to be able to feed her. Not yet.

“I don’t know—or care,” Rosalie grumbled, but she answered Edward’s question more fully. “He was watching Nessie sleep, his mouth hanging open like the moron he is, and then he just jumped to his feet without any kind of trigger—that I noticed, anyway—and stormed out. I was glad to be rid of him. The more time he spends here, the less chance there is that we’ll ever get the smell out.”

“Rose,” Esme chided gently.

Rosalie flipped her hair. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. We won’t be here that much longer.”

“I still say we should go straight to New Hampshire and get things set up,” Emmett said, obviously continuing an earlier conversation. “Bella’s already registered at Dartmouth. Doesn’t look like it will take her all that long to be able to handle school.” He turned to look at me with a teasing grin. “I’m sure you’ll ace your classes… apparently there’s nothing interesting for you to do at night besides study.”

Rosalie giggled.

Do not lose your temper, do not lose your temper, I chanted to myself. And then I was proud of myself for keeping my head.

So I was pretty surprised that Edward didn’t.

He growled—an abrupt, shocking rasp of sound—and the blackest fury rolled across his expression like storm clouds.

Before any of us could respond, Alice was on her feet.

“What is he doing? What is that dog doing that has erased my schedule for the entire day? I can’t see anything! No!” She shot me a tortured glance. “Look at you! You need me to show you how to use your closet.”

For one second I was grateful for whatever Jacob was up to.

And then Edward’s hands balled up into fists and he snarled, “He talked to Charlie. He thinks Charlie is following after him. Coming here. Today.”

Alice said a word that sounded very odd in her trilling, ladylike voice, and then she blurred into motion, streaking out the back door.

“He told Charlie?” I gasped. “But—doesn’t he understand? How could he do that?” Charlie couldn’t know about me! About vampires! That would put him on a hit list that even the Cullens couldn’t save him from. “No!”

Edward spoke through his teeth. “Jacob’s on his way in now.”

It must have started raining farther east. Jacob came through the door shaking his wet hair like a dog, flipping droplets on the carpet and the couch where they made little round gray spots on the white. His teeth glinted against his dark lips; his eyes were bright and excited. He walked with jerky movements, like he was all hyped-up about destroying my father’s life.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted us, grinning.

It was perfectly silent.

Leah and Seth slipped in behind him, in their human forms—for now; both of their hands were trembling with the tension in the room.

“Rose,” I said, holding my arms out. Wordlessly, Rosalie handed me Renesmee. I pressed her close to my motionless heart, holding her like a talisman against rash behavior. I would keep her in my arms until I was sure my decision to kill Jacob was based entirely on rational judgment rather than fury.

She was very still, watching and listening. How much did she understand?

“Charlie’ll be here soon,” Jacob said to me casually. “Just a heads-up. I assume Alice is getting you sunglasses or something?”

“You assume way too much,” I spit through my teeth. “What. Have. You. Done?”

Jacob’s smile wavered, but he was still too wound up to answer seriously. “Blondie and Emmett woke me up this morning going on and on about you all moving cross-country. Like I could let you leave. Charlie was the biggest issue there, right? Well, problem solved.”

“Do you even realize what you’ve done? The danger you’ve put him in?”

He snorted. “I didn’t put him in danger. Except from you. But you’ve got some kind of supernatural self-control, right? Not as good as mind reading, if you ask me. Much less exciting.”

Edward moved then, darting across the room to get in Jacob’s face. Though he was half a head shorter than Jacob, Jacob leaned away from his staggering anger as if Edward towered over him.

“That’s just a theory, mongrel,” he snarled. “You think we should test it out on Charlie? Did you consider the physical pain you’re putting Bella through, even if she can resist? Or the emotional pain if she doesn’t? I suppose what happens to Bella no longer concerns you!” He spit the last word.

Renesmee pressed her fingers anxiously to my cheek, anxiety coloring the replay in her head.

Edward’s words finally cut through Jacob’s strangely electric mood. His mouth dropped into a frown. “Bella will be in pain?”

“Like you’ve shoved a white-hot branding iron down her throat!”

I flinched, remembering the scent of pure human blood.

“I didn’t know that,” Jacob whispered.

“Then perhaps you should have asked first,” Edward growled back through his teeth.

“You would have stopped me.”

“You should have been stopped—”

“This isn’t about me,” I interrupted. I stood very still, keeping my hold on Renesmee and sanity. “This is about Charlie, Jacob. How could you put him in danger this way? Do you realize it’s death or vampire life for him now, too?” My voice trembled with the tears my eyes could no longer shed.

Jacob was still troubled by Edward’s accusations, but mine didn’t seem to bother him. “Relax, Bella. I didn’t tell him anything you weren’t planning to tell him.”

“But he’s coming here!”

“Yeah, that’s the idea. Wasn’t the whole ‘let him make the wrong assumptions’ thing your plan? I think I provided a very nice red herring, if I do say so myself.”

My fingers flexed away from Renesmee. I curled them back in securely. “Say it straight, Jacob. I don’t have the patience for this.”

“I didn’t tell him anything about you, Bella. Not really. I told him about me. Well, show is probably a better verb.”

“He phased in front of Charlie,” Edward hissed.

I whispered, “You what?”

“He’s brave. Brave as you are. Didn’t pass out or throw up or anything. I gotta say, I was impressed. You should’ve seen his face when I started taking my clothes off, though. Priceless,” Jacob chortled.

“You absolute moron! You could have given him a heart attack!”

“Charlie’s fine. He’s tough. If you’d give this just a minute, you’ll see that I did you a favor here.”

“You have half of that, Jacob.” My voice was flat and steely. “You have thirty seconds to tell me every single word before I give Renesmee to Rosalie and rip your miserable head off. Seth won’t be able to stop me this time.”

“Jeez, Bells. You didn’t used to be so melodramatic. Is that a vampire thing?”

“Twenty-six seconds.”

Jacob rolled his eyes and flopped into the nearest chair. His little pack moved to stand on his flanks, not at all relaxed the way he seemed to be; Leah’s eyes were on me, her teeth slightly bared.

“So I knocked on Charlie’s door this morning and asked him to come for a walk with me. He was confused, but when I told him it was about you and that you were back in town, he followed me out to the woods. I told him you weren’t sick anymore, and that things were a little weird, but good. He was about to take off to see you, but I told him I had to show him something first. And then I phased.” Jacob shrugged.

My teeth felt like a vise was pushing them together. “I want every word, you monster.”

“Well, you said I only had thirty seconds—okay, okay.” My expression must have convinced him that I wasn’t in the mood for teasing. “Lemme see… I phased back and got dressed, and then after he started breathing again, I said something like, ‘Charlie, you don’t live in the world you thought you lived in. The good news is, nothing has changed—except that now you know. Life’ll go on the same way it always has. You can go right back to pretending that you don’t believe any of this.’

“It took him a minute to get his head together, and then he wanted to know what was really going on with you, with the whole rare-disease thing. I told him that you had been sick, but you were fine now—it was just that you’d had to change a little bit in the process of getting better. He wanted to know what I meant by ‘change,’ and I told him that you looked a lot more like Esme now than you looked like Renée.”

Edward hissed while I stared in horror; this was headed in a dangerous direction.

“After a few minutes, he asked, real quietly, if you turned into an animal, too. And I said, ‘She wishes she was that cool!’” Jacob chuckled.

Rosalie made a noise of disgust.

“I started to tell him more about werewolves, but I didn’t even get the whole word out—Charlie cut me off and said he’d ‘rather not know the specifics.’ Then he asked if you’d known what you were getting yourself into when you married Edward, and I said, ‘Sure, she’s known all about this for years, since she first came to Forks.’ He didn’t like that very much. I let him rant till he got it out of his system. After he got calmed down, he just wanted two things. He wanted to see you, and I said it would be better if he gave me a head start to explain.”

I inhaled deeply. “What was the other thing he wanted?”

Jacob smiled. “You’ll like this. His main request is that he be told as little as possible about all of this. If it’s not absolutely essential for him to know something, then keep it to yourself. Need to know, only.”

I felt relief for the first time since Jacob had walked in. “I can handle that part.”

“Other than that, he’d just like to pretend things are normal.” Jacob’s smile turned smug; he must suspect that I would be starting to feel the first faint stirrings of gratitude about now.

“What did you tell him about Renesmee?” I struggled to maintain the razor edge in my voice, fighting the reluctant appreciation. It was premature. There was still so much wrong with this situation. Even if Jacob’s intervention had brought out a better reaction in Charlie than I’d ever hoped for…

“Oh yeah. So I told him that you and Edward had inherited a new little mouth to feed.” He glanced at Edward. “She’s your orphaned ward—like Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.” Jacob snorted. “I didn’t think you’d mind me lying. That’s all part of the game, right?” Edward didn’t respond in any way, so Jacob went on. “Charlie was way past being shocked at this point, but he did ask if you were adopting her. ‘Like a daughter? Like I’m sort of a grandfather?’ were his exact words. I told him yes. ‘Congrats, Gramps,’ and all of that. He even smiled a little.”

The stinging returned to my eyes, but not out of fear or anguish this time. Charlie was smiling at the idea of being a grandpa? Charlie would meet Renesmee?

“But she’s changing so fast,” I whispered.

“I told him that she was more special than all of us put together,” Jacob said in a soft voice. He stood and walked right up to me, waving Leah and Seth off when they started to follow. Renesmee reached out to him, but I hugged her more tightly to me. “I told him, ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know about this. But if you can ignore all the strange parts, you’re going to be amazed. She’s the most wonderful person in the whole world.’ And then I told him that if he could deal with that, you all would stick around for a while and he would have a chance to get to know her. But that if it was too much for him, you would leave. He said as long as no one forced too much information on him, he’d deal.”

Jacob stared at me with half a smile, waiting.

“I’m not going to say thank you,” I told him. “You’re still putting Charlie at a huge risk.”

“I am sorry about it hurting you. I didn’t know it was like that. Bella, things are different with us now, but you’ll always be my best friend, and I’ll always love you. But I’ll love you the right way now. There’s finally a balance. We both have people we can’t live without.”

He smiled his very most Jacob-y smile. “Still friends?”

Try as hard as I could to resist, I had to smile back. Just a tiny smile.

He held out his hand: an offer.

I took a deep breath and shifted Renesmee’s weight to one arm. I put my left hand in his—he didn’t even flinch at the feel of my cool skin. “If I don’t kill Charlie tonight, I’ll consider forgiving you for this.”

“When you don’t kill Charlie tonight, you’ll owe me huge.”

I rolled my eyes.

He held out his other hand toward Renesmee, a request this time. “Can I?”

“I’m actually holding her so that my hands aren’t free to kill you, Jacob. Maybe later.”

He sighed but didn’t push me on it. Wise of him.

Alice raced back through the door then, her hands full and her expression promising violence.

“You, you, and you,” she snapped, glaring at the werewolves. “If you must stay, get over in the corner and commit to being there for a while. I need to see. Bella, you’d better give him the baby, too. You’ll need your arms free, anyway.”

Jacob grinned in triumph.

Undiluted fear ripped through my stomach as the enormity of what I was about to do hit me. I was going to gamble on my iffy self-control with my pure human father as the guinea pig. Edward’s earlier words crashed in my ears again.

Did you consider the physical pain you’re putting Bella through, even if she can resist? Or the emotional pain if she doesn’t?

I couldn’t imagine the pain of failure. My breathing turned to gasps.

“Take her,” I whispered, sliding Renesmee into Jacob’s arms.

He nodded, concern wrinkling his forehead. He gestured to the others, and they all went to the far corner of the room. Seth and Jake slouched on the floor at once, but Leah shook her head and pursed her lips.

“Am I allowed to leave?” she griped. She looked uncomfortable in her human body, wearing the same dirty t-shirt and cotton shorts she’d worn to shriek at me the other day, her short hair sticking up in irregular tufts. Her hands were still shaking.

“Of course,” Jake said.

“Stay east so you don’t cross Charlie’s path,” Alice added.

Leah didn’t look at Alice; she ducked out the back door and stomped into the bushes to phase.

Edward was back at my side, stroking my face. “You can do this. I know you can. I’ll help you; we all will.”

I met Edward’s eyes with panic screaming from my face. Was he strong enough to stop me if I made a wrong move?