But I wasn’t hunting now. And this was my father.
Edward squeezed my shoulders sympathetically, and Jacob shot an apologetic glance at me across the room.
I tried to collect myself and ignore the pain and longing of the thirst. Charlie was waiting for my answer.
“Jacob was telling you the truth.”
“That makes one of you,” Charlie growled.
I hoped Charlie could see past the changes in my new face to read the remorse there.
Under my hair, Renesmee sniffed as Charlie’s scent registered with her, too. I tightened my grip on her.
Charlie saw my anxious glance down and followed it. “Oh,” he said, and all the anger fell off his face, leaving only shock behind. “This is her. The orphan Jacob said you’re adopting.”
“My niece,” Edward lied smoothly. He must have decided that the resemblance between Renesmee and him was too pronounced to be ignored. Best to claim they were related from the beginning.
“I thought you’d lost your family,” Charlie said, accusation returning to his voice.
“I lost my parents. My older brother was adopted, like me. I never saw him after that. But the courts located me when he and his wife died in a car accident, leaving their only child without any other family.”
Edward was so good at this. His voice was even, with just the right amount of innocence. I needed practice so that I could do that.
Renesmee peeked out from under my hair, sniffing again. She glanced shyly at Charlie from under her long lashes, then hid again.
“She’s… she’s, well, she’s a beauty.”
“Yes,” Edward agreed.
“Kind of a big responsibility, though. You two are just getting started.”
“What else could we do?” Edward brushed his fingers lightly over her cheek. I saw him touch her lips for just a moment—a reminder. “Would you have refused her?”
“Hmph. Well.” He shook his head absently. “Jake says you call her Nessie?”
“No, we don’t,” I said, my voice too sharp and piercing. “Her name is Renesmee.”
Charlie refocused on me. “How do you feel about this? Maybe Carlisle and Esme could —”
“She’s mine,” I interrupted. “I
want
her.”
Charlie frowned. “You gonna make me a grandpa so young?”
Edward smiled. “Carlisle is a grandfather, too.”
Charlie shot an incredulous glance at Carlisle, still standing by the front door; he looked like Zeus’s younger, better-looking brother.
Charlie snorted and then laughed. “I guess that does sort of make me feel better.” His eyes strayed back to Renesmee. “She sure is something to look at.” His warm breath blew lightly across the space between us.
Renesmee leaned toward the smell, shaking off my hair and looking him full in the face for the first time. Charlie gasped.
I knew what he was seeing. My eyes—his eyes—copied exactly into her perfect face.
Charlie started hyperventilating. His lips trembled, and I could read the numbers he mouthed. He was counting backward, trying to fit nine months into one. Trying to put it together but not able to force the evidence right in front of him to make any sense.
Jacob got up and came over to pat Charlie on the back. He leaned in to whisper something in Charlie’s ear; only Charlie didn’t know we could all hear.
“Need to know, Charlie. It’s okay. I promise.”
Charlie swallowed and nodded. And then his eyes blazed as he took a step closer to Edward with his fists tightly clenched.
“I don’t want to know everything, but I’m done with the lies!”
“I’m sorry,” Edward said calmly, “but you need to know the public story more than you need to know the truth. If you’re going to be part of this secret, the public story is the one that counts. It’s to protect Bella and Renesmee as well as the rest of us. Can you go along with the lies for them?”
The room was full of statues. I crossed my ankles.
Charlie huffed once and then turned his glare on me. “You might’ve given me some warning, kid.”
“Would it really have made this any easier?”
He frowned, and then he knelt on the floor in front of me. I could see the movement of the blood in his neck under his skin. I could feel the warm vibration of it.
So could Renesmee. She smiled and reached one pink palm out to him. I held her back. She pushed her other hand against my neck, thirst, curiosity, and Charlie’s face in her thoughts. There was a subtle edge to the message that made me think that she’d understood Edward’s words perfectly; she acknowledged thirst, but overrode it in the same thought.
“Whoa,” Charlie gasped, his eyes on her perfect teeth. “How old is she?”
“Um . . .”
“Three months,” Edward said, and then added slowly, “rather, she’s the size of a threemonth-old, more or less. She’s younger in some ways, more mature in others.”
Very deliberately, Renesmee waved at him.
Charlie blinked spastically. Jacob elbowed him. “Told you she was special, didn’t I?”
Charlie cringed away from the contact.
“Oh, c’mon, Charlie,” Jacob groaned. “I’m the same person I’ve always been. Just pretend this afternoon didn’t happen.”
The reminder made Charlie’s lips go white, but he nodded once. “Just what
is
your part in all this, Jake?” he asked. “How much does Billy know? Why are you here?” He looked at Jacob’s face, which was glowing as he stared at Renesmee.
“Well, I could tell you all about it—Billy knows absolutely everything—but it involves a lot of stuff about werewo—”
“Ungh!” Charlie protested, covering his ears. “Never mind.”
Jacob grinned. “Everything’s going to be great, Charlie. Just try to not believe anything you see.”
My dad mumbled something unintelligible.
“Woo!” Emmett suddenly boomed in his deep bass. “Go Gators!”
Jacob and Charlie jumped. The rest of us froze.
Charlie recovered, then looked at Emmett over his shoulder. “Florida winning?”
“Just scored the first touchdown,” Emmett confirmed. He shot a look in my direction, wagging his eyebrows like a villain in vaudeville. “’Bout time somebody scored around here.”
I fought back a hiss. In front of Charlie? That was over the line.
But Charlie was beyond noticing innuendos. He took yet another deep breath, sucking the air in like he was trying to pull it down to his toes. I envied him. He lurched to his feet, stepped around Jacob, and half-fell into an open chair. “Well,” he sighed, “I guess we should see if they can hold on to the lead.”
26. SHINY
“I don’t know how much we should tell Renée about this,” Charlie said, hesitating with one foot out the door. He stretched, and then his stomach growled.
I nodded. “I know. I don’t want to freak her out. Better to protect her. This stuff isn’t for the fainthearted.”
His lips twisted up to the side ruefully. “I would have tried to protect you, too, if I’d known how. But I guess you’ve never fit into the fainthearted category, have you?” I smiled back, pulling a blazing breath in through my teeth.
Charlie patted his stomach absently. “I’ll think of something. We’ve got time to discuss this, right?”
“Right,” I promised him.
It had been a long day in some ways, and so short in others. Charlie was late for dinner —Sue Clearwater was cooking for him and Billy.
That
was going to be an awkward evening, but at least he’d be eating real food; I was glad someone was trying to keep him from starving due to his lack of cooking ability.
All day the tension had made the minutes pass slowly; Charlie had never relaxed the stiff set of his shoulders. But he’d been in no hurry to leave, either. He’d watched two whole games—thankfully so absorbed in his thoughts that he was totally oblivious to Emmett’s suggestive jokes that got more pointed and less football-related with each aside—and the after-game commentaries, and then the news, not moving until Seth had reminded him of the time.
“You gonna stand Billy and my mom up, Charlie? C’mon. Bella and Nessie’ll be here tomorrow. Let’s get some grub, eh?”
It had been clear in Charlie’s eyes that he hadn’t trusted Seth’s assessment, but he’d let Seth lead the way out. The doubt was still there as he paused now. The clouds were thinning, the rain gone. The sun might even make an appearance just in time to set.
“Jake says you guys were going to take off on me,” he muttered to me now.
“I didn’t want to do that if there was any way at all around it. That’s why we’re still here.”
“He said you could stay for a while, but only if I’m tough enough, and if I can keep my mouth shut.”
“Yes… but I can’t promise that we’ll never leave, Dad. It’s pretty complicated. . . .”
“Need to know,” he reminded me.
“Right.”
“You’ll visit, though, if you have to go?”
“I promise, Dad. Now that you know
just
enough, I think this can work. I’ll keep as close as you want.”
He chewed on his lip for half a second, then leaned slowly toward me with his arms cautiously extended. I shifted Renesmee—napping now—to my left arm, locked my teeth, held my breath, and wrapped my right arm very lightly around his warm, soft waist.
“Keep real close, Bells,” he mumbled. “Real close.”
“Love you, Dad,” I whispered through my teeth.
He shivered and pulled away. I dropped my arm.
“Love you, too, kid. Whatever else has changed, that hasn’t.” He touched one finger to Renesmee’s pink cheek. “She sure looks a lot like you.”
I kept my expression casual, though I felt anything but. “More like Edward, I think.” I hesitated, and then added, “She has your curls.”
Charlie started, then snorted. “Huh. Guess she does. Huh. Grandpa.” He shook his head doubtfully. “Do I ever get to hold her?”
I blinked in shock and then composed myself. After considering for a half second and judging Renesmee’s appearance—she looked completely out—I decided that I might as well push my luck to the limit, since things were going so well today. . . .
“Here,” I said, holding her out to him. He automatically made an awkward cradle with his arms, and I tucked Renesmee into it. His skin wasn’t quite as hot as hers, but it made my throat tickle to feel the warmth flowing under the thin membrane. Where my white skin brushed him it left goose bumps. I wasn’t sure if this was a reaction to my new temperature or totally psychological.
Charlie grunted quietly as he felt her weight. “She’s… sturdy.”
I frowned. She felt feather-light to me. Maybe my measure was off.
“Sturdy is good,” Charlie said, seeing my expression. Then he muttered to himself, “She’ll need to be tough, surrounded by all this craziness.” He bounced his arms gently, swaying a little from side to side. “Prettiest baby I ever saw, including you, kid. Sorry, but it’s true.”
“I know it is.”
“Pretty baby,” he said again, but it was closer to a coo this time.
I could see it in his face—I could watch it growing there. Charlie was just as helpless against her magic as the rest of us. Two seconds in his arms, and already she owned him.
“Can I come back tomorrow?”
“Sure, Dad. Of course. We’ll be here.”
“You’d better be,” he said sternly, but his face was soft, still gazing at Renesmee. “See you tomorrow, Nessie.”
“Not you, too!” “Huh?”
“Her name is
Renesmee
. Like Renée and Esme, put together. No variations.” I struggled to calm myself without the deep breath this time. “Do you want to hear her middle name?”
“Sure.”
“Carlie. With a C. Like Carlisle and Charlie put together.”
Charlie’s eye-creasing grin lit up his face, taking me off guard. “Thanks, Bells.”
“Thank
you
, Dad. So much has changed so quickly. My head hasn’t stopped spinning. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know how I’d keep my grip on—on reality.” I’d been about to say
my grip on who I was
. That was probably more than he needed.
Charlie’s stomach growled.
“Go eat, Dad. We
will
be here.” I remembered how it felt, that first uncomfortable immersion in fantasy—the sensation that everything would disappear in the light of the rising sun.
Charlie nodded and then reluctantly returned Renesmee to me. He glanced past me into the house; his eyes were a little wild for a minute as he stared around the big bright room. Everyone was still there, besides Jacob, who I could hear raiding the refrigerator in the kitchen; Alice was lounging on the bottom step of the staircase with Jasper’s head in her lap; Carlisle had his head bent over a fat book in his lap; Esme was humming to herself, sketching on a notepad, while Rosalie and Emmett laid out the foundation for a monumental house of cards under the stairs; Edward had drifted to his piano and was playing very softly to himself. There was no evidence that the day was coming to a close, that it might be time to eat or shift activities in preparation for evening. Something intangible had changed in the atmosphere. The Cullens weren’t trying as hard as they usually did—the human charade had slipped ever so slightly, enough for Charlie to feel the difference.
He shuddered, shook his head, and sighed. “See you tomorrow, Bella.” He frowned and then added, “I mean, it’s not like you don’t look… good. I’ll get used to it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Charlie nodded and walked thoughtfully toward his car. I watched him drive away; it wasn’t until I heard his tires hit the freeway that I realized I’d done it. I’d actually made it through the whole day without hurting Charlie. All by myself. I
must
have a superpower!
It seemed too good to be true. Could I really have both my new family and some of my old as well? And I’d thought that yesterday had been perfect.
“Wow,” I whispered. I blinked and felt the third set of contact lenses disintegrate. The sound of the piano cut off, and Edward’s arms were around my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder.
“You took the word right out of my mouth.”
“Edward, I did it!”
“You did. You were unbelievable. All that worrying over being a newborn, and then you skip it altogether.” He laughed quietly.
“I’m not even sure she’s really a vampire, let alone a newborn,” Emmett called from under the stairs. “She’s too
tame.”
All the embarrassing comments he’d made in front of
my father
sounded in my ears again, and it was probably a good thing I was holding Renesmee. Unable to help my reaction entirely, I snarled under my breath.
“Oooo, scary,” Emmett laughed.
I hissed, and Renesmee stirred in my arms. She blinked a few times, then looked around, her expression confused. She sniffed, then reached for my face.
“Charlie will be back tomorrow,” I assured her.
“Excellent,” Emmett said. Rosalie laughed with him this time.