“You’re monopolizing the bride,” Emmett said, coming up behind Edward’s shoulder. “Let me dance with my little sister. This could be my last chance to make her blush.” He laughed loudly, as unaffected as he usually was by any serious atmosphere.
It turned out there were actually lots of people I hadn’t danced with yet, and that gave me a chance to truly compose and resolve myself. When Edward claimed me again, I found that the Jacob-drawer was shut nice and tight. As he wrapped his arms around me, I was able to unearth my earlier sense of joy, my certainty that everything in my life was in the right place tonight. I smiled and laid my head against his chest. His arms tightened.
“I could get used to this,” I said.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten over your dancing issues?”
“Dancing isn’t so bad—with you. But I was thinking more of this,”—and I pressed myself to him even tighter—“of never having to let you go.”
“Never,” he promised, and he leaned down to kiss me.
It was a serious kind of kiss—intense, slow but building.…
I’d pretty much forgotten where I was when I heard Alice call, “Bella! It’s time!”
I felt a brief flicker of irritation with my new sister for the interruption.
Edward ignored her; his lips were hard against mine, more urgent than before. My heart broke into a sprint and my palms were slick against his marble neck.
“Do you want to miss your plane?” Alice demanded, right next to me now. “I’m sure you’ll have a lovely honeymoon camped out in the airport waiting for another flight.”
Edward turned his face slightly to murmur, “Go away, Alice,” and then pressed his lips to mine again.
“Bella, do you want to wear that dress on the airplane?” she demanded.
I wasn’t really paying much attention. At the moment, I simply didn’t care.
Alice growled quietly. “I’ll tell her where you’re taking her, Edward. So help me, I will.”
He froze. Then he lifted his face from mine and glared at his favorite sister. “You’re awfully small to be so hugely irritating.”
“I didn’t pick out the perfect going-away dress to have it wasted,” she snapped back, taking my hand. “Come with me, Bella.”
I tugged against her hold, stretching up on my toes to kiss him one more time. She jerked my arm impatiently, hauling me away from him. There were a few chuckles from the watching guests. I gave up then and let her lead me into the empty house.
She looked annoyed.
“Sorry, Alice,” I apologized.
“I don’t blame you, Bella.” She sighed. “You don’t seem to be able help yourself.”
I giggled at her martyred expression, and she scowled.
“Thank you, Alice. It was the most beautiful wedding anyone ever had,” I told her earnestly. “Everything was exactly right. You’re the best, smartest, most talented sister in the whole world.”
That thawed her out; she smiled a huge smile. “I’m glad you liked it.”
Renée and Esme were waiting upstairs. The three of them quickly had me out of my dress and into Alice’s deep blue going-away ensemble. I was grateful when someone pulled the pins out of my hair and let it fall loose down my back, wavy from the braids, saving me from a hairpin headache later. My mother’s tears streamed without a break the entire time.
“I’ll call you when I know where I’m going,” I promised as I hugged her goodbye. I knew the honeymoon secret was probably driving her crazy; my mother hated secrets, unless she was in on them.
“I’ll tell you as soon as she’s safely away,” Alice outdid me, smirking at my wounded expression. How unfair, for me to be the last to know.
“You have to visit me and Phil very, very soon. It’s your turn to go south—see the sun for once,” Renée said.
“It didn’t rain today,” I reminded her, avoiding her request.
“A miracle.”
“Everything’s ready,” Alice said. “Your suitcases are in the car—Jasper’s bringing it around.” She pulled me back toward the stairs with Renée following, still halfway embracing me.
“I love you, Mom,” I whispered as we descended. “I’m so glad you have Phil. Take care of each other.”
“I love you, too, Bella, honey.”
“Goodbye, Mom. I love you,” I said again, my throat thick.
Edward was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I took his outstretched hand but leaned away, scanning the little crowd that was waiting to see us off.
“Dad?” I asked, my eyes searching.
“Over here,” Edward murmured. He pulled me through the guests; they made a pathway for us. We found Charlie leaning awkwardly against the wall behind everyone else, looking a little like he was hiding. The red rims around his eyes explained why.
“Oh, Dad!”
I hugged him around the waist, tears streaming again—I was crying so much tonight. He patted my back.
“There, now. You don’t want to miss your plane.”
It was hard to talk about love with Charlie—we were so much alike, always reverting to trivial things to avoid embarrassing emotional displays. But this was no time for being self-conscious.
“I love you forever, Dad,” I told him. “Don’t forget that.”
“You, too, Bells. Always have, always will.”
I kissed his cheek at the same time that he kissed mine.
“Call me,” he said.
“Soon,” I promised, knowing this was
all
I could promise. Just a phone call. My father and my mother could not be allowed to see me again; I would be too different, and much, much too dangerous.
“Go on, then,” he said gruffly. “Don’t want to be late.”
The guests made another aisle for us. Edward pulled me close to his side as we made our escape.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, and I knew that it was true.
Everyone applauded when Edward kissed me on the doorstep. Then he rushed me to the car as the rice storm began. Most of it went wide, but someone, probably Emmett, threw with uncanny precision, and I caught a lot of the ricochets off Edward’s back. The car was decorated with more flowers that trailed in streamers along its length, and long gossamer ribbons that were tied to a dozen shoes—designer shoes that looked brand-new—dangling behind the bumper.
Edward shielded me from the rice while I climbed in, and then he was in and we were speeding away as I waved out the window and called “I love you” to the porch, where my families waved back.
The last image I registered was one of my parents. Phil had both arms wrapped tenderly around Renée. She had one arm tight around his waist but had her free hand reached out to hold Charlie’s. So many different kinds of love, harmonious in this one moment. It seemed a very hopeful picture to me.
Edward squeezed my hand.
“I love you,” he said.
I leaned my head against his arm. “That’s why we’re here,” I quoted him.
He kissed my hair.
As we turned onto the black highway and Edward really hit the accelerator, I heard a noise over the purr of the engine, coming from the forest behind us. If I could hear it, then he certainly could. But he said nothing as the sound slowly faded in the distance. I said nothing, either.
The piercing, heartbroken howling grew fainter and then disappeared entirely.
5. ISLE ESME
“Houston?” I asked, raising my eyebrows when we reached the gate in Seattle.
“Just a stop along the way,” Edward assured me with a grin.
It felt like I’d barely fallen asleep when he woke me. I was groggy as he pulled me through the terminals, struggling to remember how to open my eyes after every blink. It took me a few minutes to catch up with what was going on when we stopped at the international counter to check in for our next flight.
“Rio de Janeiro?” I asked with slightly more trepidation.
“Another stop,” he told me.
The flight to South America was long but comfortable in the wide first-class seat, with Edward’s arms cradled around me. I slept myself out and awoke unusually alert as we circled toward the airport with the light of the setting sun slanting through the plane’s windows.
We didn’t stay in the airport to connect with another flight as I’d expected. Instead we took a taxi through the dark, teeming, living streets of Rio. Unable to understand a word of Edward’s Portuguese instructions to the driver, I guessed that we were off to find a hotel before the next leg of our journey. A sharp twinge of something very close to stage fright twisted in the pit of my stomach as I considered that. The taxi continued through the swarming crowds until they thinned somewhat, and we appeared to be nearing the extreme western edge of the city, heading into the ocean.
We stopped at the docks.
Edward led the way down the long line of white yachts moored in the night-blackened water. The boat he stopped at was smaller than the others, sleeker, obviously built for speed instead of space. Still luxurious, though, and more graceful than the rest. He leaped in lightly, despite the heavy bags he carried. He dropped those on the deck and turned to help me carefully over the edge.
I watched in silence while he prepared the boat for departure, surprised at how skilled and comfortable he seemed, because he’d never mentioned an interest in boating before. But then again, he was good at just about everything.
As we headed due east into the open ocean, I reviewed basic geography in my head. As far as I could remember, there wasn’t much east of Brazil… until you got to Africa.
But Edward sped forward while the lights of Rio faded and ultimately disappeared behind us. On his face was a familiar exhilarated smile, the one produced by any form of speed. The boat plunged through the waves and I was showered with sea spray.
Finally the curiosity I’d suppressed so long got the best of me.
“Are we going much farther?” I asked.
It wasn’t like him to forget that I was human, but I wondered if he planned for us to live on this small craft for any length of time.
“About another half hour.” His eyes took in my hands, clenched on the seat, and he grinned.
Oh well, I thought to myself. He was a vampire, after all. Maybe we were going to Atlantis.
Twenty minutes later, he called my name over the roar of the engine.
“Bella, look there.” He pointed straight ahead.
I saw only blackness at first, and the moon’s white trail across the water. But I searched the space where he pointed until I found a low black shape breaking into the sheen of moonlight on the waves. As I squinted into the darkness, the silhouette became more detailed. The shape grew into a squat, irregular triangle, with one side trailing longer than the other before sinking into the waves. We drew closer, and I could see the outline was feathery, swaying to the light breeze.
And then my eyes refocused and the pieces all made sense: a small island rose out of the water ahead of us, waving with palm fronds, a beach glowing pale in the light of the moon.
“Where are we?” I murmured in wonder while he shifted course, heading around to the north end of the island.
He heard me, despite the noise of the engine, and smiled a wide smile that gleamed in the moonlight.
“This is Isle Esme.”
The boat slowed dramatically, drawing with precision into position against a short dock constructed of wooden planks, bleached into whiteness by the moon. The engine cut off, and the silence that followed was profound. There was nothing but the waves, slapping lightly against the boat, and the rustle of the breeze in the palms. The air was warm, moist, and fragrant—like the steam left behind after a hot shower.
“Isle
Esme
?” My voice was low, but it still sounded too loud as it broke into the quiet night.
“A gift from Carlisle—Esme offered to let us borrow it.”
A gift. Who gives an island as a gift? I frowned. I hadn’t realized that Edward’s extreme generosity was a learned behavior.
He placed the suitcases on the dock and then turned back, smiling his perfect smile as he reached for me. Instead of taking my hand, he pulled me right up into his arms.
“Aren’t you supposed to wait for the threshold?” I asked, breathless, as he sprung lightly out of the boat.
He grinned. “I’m nothing if not thorough.”
Gripping the handles of both huge steamer trunks in one hand and cradling me in the other arm, he carried me up the dock and onto a pale sand pathway through the dark vegetation.
For a short while it was pitch black in the jungle-like growth, and then I could see a warm light ahead. It was about at the point when I realized the light was a house—the two bright, perfect squares were wide windows framing a front door—that the stage fright attacked again, more forcefully than before, worse than when I’d thought we were headed for a hotel.
My heart thudded audibly against my ribs, and my breath seemed to get stuck in my throat. I felt Edward’s eyes on my face, but I refused to meet his gaze. I stared straight ahead, seeing nothing.
He didn’t ask what I was thinking, which was out of character for him. I guessed that meant that he was just as nervous as I suddenly was.
He set the suitcases on the deep porch to open the doors—they were unlocked.
Edward looked down at me, waiting until I met his gaze before he stepped through the threshold.
He carried me through the house, both of us very quiet, flipping on lights as he went. My vague impression of the house was that it was quite large for a tiny island, and oddly familiar. I’d gotten used to the pale-on-pale color scheme preferred by the Cullens; it felt like home. I couldn’t focus on any specifics, though. The violent pulse beating behind my ears made everything a little blurry.
Then Edward stopped and turned on the last light.
The room was big and white, and the far wall was mostly glass—standard décor for my vampires. Outside, the moon was bright on white sand and, just a few yards away from the house, glistening waves. But I barely noted that part. I was more focused on the absolutely
huge
white bed in the center of the room, hung with billowy clouds of mosquito netting.
Edward set me on my feet.
“I’ll… go get the luggage.”
The room was too warm, stuffier than the tropical night outside. A bead of sweat dewed up on the nape of my neck. I walked slowly forward until I could reach out and touch the foamy netting. For some reason I felt the need to make sure everything was real.
I didn’t hear Edward return. Suddenly, his wintry finger caressed the back of my neck, wiping away the drop of perspiration.
“It’s a little hot here,” he said apologetically. “I thought… that would be best.”
“Thorough,” I murmured under my breath, and he chuckled. It was a nervous sound, rare for Edward.
“I tried to think of everything that would make this… easier,” he admitted.
I swallowed loudly, still facing away from him. Had there ever been a honeymoon like this before?
I knew the answer to that. No. There had not.