Tag Archives: Charlie Swan

The First Dance at Midnight

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Nearly a year after the Cullens leave Forks, Bella Swan has a published novel, a job at The Last Page Café, and a second book that refuses to write itself. At midnight, she reaches for her pen and finds herself on a grand staircase in a white silk gown, with a ballroom full of strangers waiting below—and Jasper Whitlock staring up at her.

Somehow, they’re in Texas in 1859, where Bella is his father’s ward and his family has decided Jasper ought to ask her to dance. By morning they’re back in their own time, but neither can forget the evening—or explain the memories of a life they’ve apparently been sharing.

Between unexpected visits to the Whitlocks and increasingly comfortable evenings in Charlie’s kitchen, Bella and Jasper find plenty of reasons to want another dance. Then the Cullens return, still making plans for Bella and Edward, and discover that Charlie has become very fond of the gentleman who keeps bringing his daughter home happy.

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A Hauntingly Bad Idea

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The windows had gone the color of weak tea when she heard the creak.
It came from the corner. It was a slow, familiar sound, wood shifting against wood and then shifting back, the unhurried rhythm of a rocking chair moving under someone’s weight. Creak, and a pause, and creak again.
Bella’s whole body went still. She did not turn her head right away. She sat with her hands flat on the coverlet and listened, and the sound went on, perfectly calm, as if it had every right to be there.

Then she turned.

There was a young woman sitting in the rocking chair.

She had not been there a moment before. Bella was sure of it. She had looked at that chair a dozen times during the afternoon, disliking the way it faced the bed, and it had been empty every time. Now a girl sat in it with her ankles crossed and her hands folded neatly in her lap, rocking gently, watching Bella with a bright and unembarrassed interest, the way a person might watch a new animal at the zoo.

“Oh, good,” the girl said. “You’re awake properly this time. You kept waking up and then going back to sleep, and I was starting to think you might do it forever. It was very dull to watch.”

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Before Forever

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“That’s the deal,” Bella said. “You move in, and you stay a year. One year exactly. And then you go. And you can’t fall in love with me while you’re here.”
He had loved her since the peaches.
She was asking him to promise he wouldn’t do the one thing he had already done.
“All right,” Jasper said. “I’ll move in. One year. And I promise I won’t fall in love with you.”
It was the first lie he ever told her. He told it looking straight into her face, with the brass key warm in his palm.

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The Heartbeat He Thought Was Gone

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Bella Swan had finally learned that being loved and being allowed to choose were not always the same thing.
In New Orleans, behind the walls of an old house that had become both sanctuary and fortress, Bella was building a life she had never expected with Jasper Whitlock. There was a baby coming, a family forming around them, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, Bella could say she was happy and mean every word.

But across the street, the Cullens were waiting.
Alice had seen a monster. Carlisle believed Bella was dying. Edward was certain she needed to be saved, whether she wanted saving or not. Night after night they stood beyond a threshold they could not cross, waiting for one mistake.

Inside, Jasper, Bella, and the family who had chosen them prepared to hold the line.
Because this time, Bella would decide her own future.

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What You Took

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After returning from Italy, Bella discovers that Edward has already planned the rest of her life without asking what she wants, so she buys a converted little red school bus, leaves Forks and begins a yearlong adventure of roadside attractions, mechanical disasters and questionable navigation. Before leaving, however, she gives Jasper Whitlock a poem, a riddle and an invitation to meet her at Lake McDonald six months later, where the heart he unknowingly stole may finally lead them both home.

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How Am I Suppose to Live Without You

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Bella Swan is four hours from marrying Edward Cullen when Jasper Whitlock comes through her window at half past four in the morning and tells her the truth: she was never Edward’s mate. She was his.
What follows isn’t a rescue. It’s a runaway bride, a thousand miles of open road, and a girl who spent a year being told what she felt finally learning to say it out loud.
How Am I Supposed to Live Without You is a story about the difference between the person everyone chooses for you and the one you’d run toward in the dark.

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Locker Letters

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She opened the locker and knew immediately.
It hadn’t been there before.
The paper sat folded, deliberate, like it had been placed by someone who understood exactly how long she would take to notice.

Bella didn’t reach for it right away.
She just stood there, aware she wasn’t alone.

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The Witch, the Cowboy, & the Moonleaf Errand

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“She liked that about him. She liked a lot of things about him. The thought arrived without warning, warm and certain, and Bella felt her cheeks flush before she could stop it. At her feet, something rustled. The small fern growing between two rocks at the edge of the clearing was growing. Visibly. Its fronds unfurled in slow, deliberate spirals, stretching upward like fingers reaching for sunlight. Bella stared at the fern, then slowly looked at Mabs. Mabs sat perfectly still on her log. She said nothing. Her expression said everything. ‘Don’t,’ Bella said through her teeth.”

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