Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,131

her.

She jumped quickly out into the rain, but there wasn’t any time for her to get inside before they saw us together. She slammed the door, but then hesitated there, staring at the oncoming vehicle.

The car parked facing mine, its headlights shining directly into my car.

And suddenly the older man’s thoughts were screaming with shock and fear.

Cold one! Vampire! Cullen!

I stared out the windshield, meeting his gaze.

There was no way I would find any resemblance to his grandfather; I’d never seen Ephraim in his human form. But this would be Billy Black, no doubt, with his son Jacob.

As if to confirm my assumption, the boy leaned forward with a smile.

Oh, it’s Bella!

A small part of me noted that, yes, she had definitely done some damage during her snooping in La Push.

But I was mostly focused on the father, the one who knew.

He was correct before—this was neutral territory. I had as much right to be here as he did, and he knew that. I could see it in the tightening of his frightened, angry face, the clenching of his jaw.

What is it doing here? What should I do?

We’d been in Forks for two years; no one had been harmed. But his horror couldn’t have been stronger if we’d been slaughtering a new victim every day.

I glared at him, my lips pulling back just slightly from my teeth in an automatic response to his hostility.

It would not be helpful to antagonize him, though. Carlisle would be displeased if I did something to worry the old man. I could only hope that he adhered to our treaty better than his son had.

I peeled out, the boy appreciating the sound of my tires—only street legal by the smallest degree—as they squealed against the wet pavement. He turned to analyze the car’s exhaust as I drove away.

I passed Charlie as I went around the next corner, slowing automatically as he noted my speed with a businesslike frown. He continued home, and I could hear the muffled surprise in his thoughts, wordless but clear, as he took in the car waiting in front of his house. He forgot all about the silver Volvo that had been speeding.

I stopped two streets up and left my car parked unobtrusively beside the forest between two wide-spaced lots. In seconds I was soaking wet, hidden in the thick branches of the spruce that overlooked her backyard, the same place I’d hidden on that first sunny day.

It was hard to follow Charlie. I didn’t hear anything worrisome in his vague thoughts. Just enthusiasm—he must have been happy to see his visitors. Nothing had been said to upset him… yet.

Billy’s head was a seething mass of questions as Charlie greeted him and ushered him inside. As far as I could tell, Billy hadn’t made any decisions. I was glad to hear thoughts of the treaty mixed in with his agitation. Hopefully that would tie his tongue.

The boy followed Bella as she escaped to the kitchen—ah, his infatuation was clear in his every thought. But it was not hard to listen to his mind, the way it was with Mike Newton or her other admirers. There was something very… engaging about Jacob Black’s mind. Pure and open. It reminded me a bit of Angela’s, only not so demure. I felt suddenly sorry that this particular boy was born my enemy. His was the rare kind of mind that was easy to be inside. Restful, almost.

In the front room, Charlie had noticed Billy’s abstraction, but did not ask. There was some strain between them—an old disagreement from long ago.

Jacob was asking Bella about me. Once he heard my name, he laughed.

“Guess that explains it, then,” he said. “I wondered why my dad was acting so strange.”

“That’s right,” Bella responded with overdone innocence. “He doesn’t like the Cullens.”

“Superstitious old man,” the boy muttered.

Yes, we should have foreseen that it would be this way. Of course the young members of the tribe would see their history as myth—embarrassing, humorous, even more so because the elder members took it so seriously.

They rejoined their fathers in the front room. Bella’s eyes were always on Billy while he and Charlie watched television. It looked as if, like me, she was waiting for a breach.

None came. The Blacks left before it was very late. It was a school night, after all. I followed them on foot back to the boundary line between our territories, just to be sure that Billy didn’t ask his son to turn around. But his