A/N: First a little background... I am often inspired by songs that I listen to... I almost always have music playing when I am writing and I love to incorporate lyrics into my stories. This particular fic is called Hold Steady... it was inspired by my buddy Cam Spinks and his song sharing the same name... he's an up and coming country artist from Alabama. Cam's actually featured on the current season of NBC tv show The Voice and his voice truly is something special. Ya'll go check him out if you like country music... you won't be sorry that you did.

You can find the song Hold Steady in a link on my profile, it's available on all music platforms along with Cam's other originals... and you can follow along on Cam's journey and support him on Facebook or Instagram. Those links are on my profile too. I hope you guys enjoy this story, I'll be updating on Monday's coinciding with the tv show The Voice... and possibly switching to twice a week as we get a little further along.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters or the rights to any song lyrics, no copyright infringement is intended.

Special Thanks: to Ashley - Pandora's Box is Heavy for her pre-reading and encouragement and to the best Beta in the world Di - Midnight Cougar. I'm blessed to have you both in my corner. Love you ladies.

Summary: Bella lives alone in the small town where she grew up, dividing her time between the bookstore she runs, the bar she half-owns, and the big, expensive dream house she bought with money she doesn't know what to do with. She exists quietly at the edge of the circle of friends she's known since school and avoids everybody else—until the new guy in town crashes a bike in front of her store and wedges himself into her world.

Warning: Brief descriptions and references to past, non-sexual assault against the main character. Themes of physical and emotional recovery from the same.

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Chapter 1

When the bell above the door at the front of the shop rings, it's the first time Bella's heard it all day. It's instantly irritating. This is her writing time; the fact that she's spent the past two hours alternating between Angry Birds, Facebook, and Google on her laptop has no bearing on the issue.

Writing time is sacred.

The guy with the hair doesn't know that. He comes up to the counter, where she's sitting next to the cash register and a little rack of candy bars, and says, "Is there a bathroom here somewhere I could use?" in a very intense voice.

Bella's about to say no when she notices the guy is bleeding from the head. A tiny part of her freezes up, for a split second, and her hand jerks up to her hairline. Her fingers rub at a long, white line of a scar that's invisible unless you know what to look for, or unless she's randomly pointing at it for no good reason. Kind of like now. She drops her hand casually to the counter.

"Are you sure you don't need a paramedic more than a bathroom?"

"Just some tissues or something," the guy says. "Some running water. It looks worse than it is."

The cut slants down from his hairline toward his right ear. A steady trickle of blood runs from the gash down to the neck of his T-shirt, which suddenly resolves itself into carnage rather than the arty design Bella thought it was at first. Between the shredded edges of flesh, she believes she can see the guy's brain.

"What happened to you, anyway?"

"Hey, I know, let me explain it to you while I bleed all over your counter. I'm sure that will be great for business. Come on. Bathroom? Please?"

Not even Bella can make a case that the sarcasm is unwarranted; it's a "bandage first, ask questions later" situation. "Sorry. Come on back. I think there's a first aid kit under the sink."

She leads the guy around the end of the counter and into her office. The door to the bathroom is off to the right of her desk, and there is a first aid kit under the sink, though God only knows how old it is. She pulls it out and sets it on the back of the toilet, pulling out a roll of gauze.

"I can handle it. You don't have to—"

"No offense, but you're turning transparent. You should probably sit down."

"It's just a little cut," he protests.

"So is the Grand Canyon."

She gives the guy the lightest of pushes; he folds down onto the toilet seat as if he's been punched in the gut.

"Yeah, you're totally on top of this," she mocks. "Now hold still."

She cleans the cut with peroxide and a wad of the gauze, which she very much hopes is sterile. The guy hisses and lets loose with a moan that would make a zombie proud.

"Sorry, I left the morphine at home." She doesn't call the guy a wuss—because that would be rude—but she tries to get the point across through tone and exaggerated eye-rolling. From the way the guy straightens up and glares, she's pretty sure she's succeeded.

The cut isn't as bad as it looked at first. It's ugly, but not particularly deep. No brain is showing after all. Bella cleans it out and pats it dry while her patient hisses at her, then paints the whole thing with a bottle of iodine of indeterminate age and provenance. When she's done, she covers the cut with a pad of gauze and some white tape, washes and dries her hands, then steps back to survey her work.

"I think you'll live."

"I fell off my bike. Out in front of the shop." Red spots stand out on the guy's cheeks. "There was a cat, on the sidewalk, and—"

"You're not supposed to ride your bike on the sidewalk."

"Yes, I know that, but—"

"You didn't hit the cat, did you?"

"No, I didn't, but—"

"Where's your bike? If you left it outside, I'm sorry to tell you it's probably already been stolen. The kids in this neighborhood are vicious little bastards, and they operate outside of any conventional moral framework."

"My name's Edward," the guy blurts out. "I locked my bike to the 'No Parking' sign before I came in; I didn't hit the cat, and I was only on the sidewalk because I nearly got run down by a catering truck in the street. I just moved here, and I'm still learning my way around town. I live out on Hill Road, the old place on the pond. I like biking," he finishes in a rush. "It's relaxing."

Bella stares at the guy with the hair, recently downgraded to the guy with the gaping head wound, and now upgraded to Edward.

"Okay," she says when she's sure the flood of information has stopped. "I have a spare shirt you can borrow."

"Sweet," Edward replies, and smiles up at her. "You don't have to, though."

"You look like an extra from Saw III," she says, but she can't help smiling back. That's the kind of face the guy has. "I can't have you scaring off all my customers. Just give me a minute." She closes the door to give Edward some privacy, goes back into her office, and fishes out a T-shirt with the store's logo from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. It's deep blue, short-sleeved, and it's going to look great on him.

When she knocks on the bathroom door, he opens it and asks, "Hey, what's your name?" He's naked from the waist up and looks like an ad for sunshine and clean living.

Bella's forced to re-evaluate. The shirt is going to look fucking amazing.

So there we go... let me know who is coming along for the ride and what you think so far! Until next time...

Jess