I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 5

"What happened?" Embry asked. "Did he hang up?"

She just nodded. She had never imagined that Charlie would take it this badly. She knew she hadn't treated him well over the years. The wonder of hindsight. She carefully placed the receiver back on the telephone base.

"Brace yourself," suggested Embry.

She looked blank.

"He's probably coming here," he added.

She hadn't thought of that. "Oh, fuck."

She walked out onto the porch and she could hear him coming; the grating noise of tires on gravel. The patrol car screeched to a halt, the door flung open and her father, neatly pressed as always in his uniform was running towards her. He must have been about to leave for work.

She emitted a stifled sob. "Dad!" she wailed, as she moved towards him. He grabbed her, holding her in against him and she sobbed. "I'm s-sorry."

He didn't say anything at first and it took her a while to understand that he was crying as well. He was doing a good manly job of trying not to.

"Oh, kiddo," he finally got out. "Five years. I have missed you so much."

"I didn't even call you for Christmas."

"You're here now, that's the best present I could ever get."

They hugged each other again. He felt so familiar in his uniform with his belt and badge and everything else pressing against her. Noses were blown and eyes wiped. Sue and Embry had carefully waited for them.

"Maybe we should all go inside?" Sue suggested. She hugged Charlie, too and gave him a worried smile.

"I need a coffee," Bella said.

By the time they were all seated at the kitchen table, everyone had got themselves under control.

"I hesitate to ask why you have come back now," Charlie said.

"It was a kind of an accident," she said.

"You accidentally came home?" Charlie asked.

"There was supposed to be a tribal council meeting," Sue put in, "But I'm not sure if that is happening now, either."

Charlie glanced at Embry and Bella somehow got the impression that Charlie was now privy to the wolf pack secret. If so, it was a recent thing. She was sure he would have roared at her on the phone for dating a vampire, if he had known the whole story the last time they spoke.

She tried to ask Embry the question with her eyes and a head jig at Charlie; he got it. He nodded.

She huffed out a breath.

"Yes," said Charlie ominously.

Bella cursed him silently for never missing a beat.

"Should I ask what on earth you thought you were doing?"

"Well, I didn't, did I?" she argued. "Didn't marry him." Didn't become a vampire, she left unsaid. Even though it was all she had wanted at that stage.

Charlie humphed and mumbled something.

Feet thundered on the porch again.

"Uh-oh," said Embry.

"Where is he?!" a woman roared, as she came storming into the suddenly even smaller house. Bella had never seen her before.

"Who the fuck are you?" she snarled at Bella, the second she caught sight of her.