I'm Not a Puma

Story Summary-Bella a single mother in her early thirties trying to move on from her recent divorce with some unexpected hurdles thrown in her way.

Disclaimer- I do not own the characters from Twilight.

Chapter 1- The Article

I was joking around with Tanya and Emmett in the prep room. Emmett is a really hilarious guy who is such a flirt. He loves the ladies. Tanya was divorced last year and loves the attention she gets from guys. Since the divorced she has been wearing skimpy outfits that have no business in the prep room since it is usually 45-52 degrees. I can understand some of her thought process since I have just gone through it myself. I divorced my husband a month ago. Tanya and I are both experiencing freedom from stifling relationships. Hers cheated on her, mine decided contributing to the household expenses and paying to help raise our son did not fit into his current mind set.

At the moment we are laughing about an article I read in some girly magazine.

"Tanya I was reading one of those fashion magazines on lunch and there was this article about women who date younger men. Since we are in or twenties and thirties we are considered pumas. Cougars are as the magazine stated are women in the forties or over that go for extremely younger men."

Emmett was laughing because he has been telling me for the past year that he love himself a nice cougar as he eyed me. Of course me being me I blushed like the tomato salsa I am always making back there. He was himself in his late twenties not quiet ten year difference. He is also a married man with four children, one being younger than my son who is two.

"Oh Bella baby just the thing I wanted to hear. You are my puma. I'll meet you at you place after work and show you what I want to do with you my little kitten. I will have you purring in no time. I have been wanting to show you what a real man can do to make you scream."

"Emmett I am afraid it won't be happening. You would not be able to handle this girl because a kitten she is not and I would tear you apart."

"That is why I love you. You look so innocent but the things that come out of your mouth sometimes are so unexpected and shock the hell out of me in such good way of course. Damn" He gives me a hug from behind.

"Be careful Emmett her claws looks really sharp." Tanya was referring to the knife in my hand that I was using to cut the fruit. She gets jealous when the attention leaves her for another female. We get along but she can be such a hoochie sometimes. She actually parades herself around the store on her breaks. She takes off her white jacket and baseball hat that is our required uniform and fixed her hair and walks around the different departments flirting with the guys. She even gets too friendly with the married too. That is what causes some of the problems. Her ways of making herself feel better are starting to cause rumors. Situations like that can cause trouble on the job. The last thing she needs is to loss her job with two small kids at home. He ex-husband is almost just as bad with the the financial support as mine. He at least gives some money. Then again we went about our divorces differently. She went to a lawyer and got things settled. Child support, time requirements, etc. I got the quickest cost effective divorce. I just wanted my freedom. I had no illusions about getting a dime from him right now. He is currently living at home with his mother and not working.

"Oh she can claw my back or bite my shoulder all she wants. I can tell she likes it a bit rough. It is the quiet ones that are the freakiest."

Tanya never made a comment but to laugh. It was a very lively discussion considering the remarks from Emmett. That man can put your mind in the gutter so easily.

"Hey Bella, how's it going?"

Bella turns her head away from her work to see Kate sticking her head in between few flaps of the plastic curtain that is used to keep the temperature at fifty degrees. Kate's smile shows off the motherly wrinkles that soften her face.

"Good, we are getting creamed out there. Everything I'm prepping in just barely filling the empty spaces. They are buying it too quickly today." Bella's tired smiles reflects the amount of effort she has been putting towards the daily task of cutting huge amounts of fruit.

"Well I will be in here in few I just have to type up my recipes." Bella turns back to start pricing the fruit cups she has made. The room she isn't as full of people as it was an hour ago. Back then it had a total of five people including herself. The room was not too small, but with so many people you felt like you were fall over each other at times. The room now was peaceful except the hard rock music coming from the old radio that has seen better days. The radio only got three stations on the FM dial- Hard rock, Easy Listening, and adult contemporary. We will not go into the music that sometimes comes out of the AM dial. Lets say that not much music is heard just a lot of fast talking foreign language. Most of the people would not complain if it actually playing music. It seemed like a station with a few songs, lots of talking and even more commercials.

Work continued on in the prep room when Kate showed up half an hour later. There was no pause in Bella's work since Kate came on six months ago there was a set routine she went about to set up her station. Kate and Bella worked well together and understood each others sense of humor. Bella's could be very sarcastic. Their ages would make them like mother and daughter.

"So what are you making today for your demo?" This question was asked every week. It is always interesting to hear the days concoction.

While Kate was still setting up she stopped and looked over, "The demo team are doing salads in each department this week so I am doing a creamy fruit salad with bananas, apples, oranges, grapes, vanilla pudding, and vanilla yogurt."

"Hmm, that actually does not sound too unusual. Whatever will people say? Did you do this just so you wouldn't have to hear comments about putting shredded carrots, apples, and sour cream together with raisins again?"

"Well not intentionally. That will just be a perk to this recipe." She smiles as she left to get her ingredients. Bella liked Kate. Yes she would here the comments about Kate's need for her own work area. She would understand the arguments on both sides. One group would say why can't she use an area that someone in not using. If there is something on the table just move it. Instead of complaining until someone moves it for her. Bella got that but she also got that Kate might not have the knowledge of where she is allowed to move something to.

"What's new with you? How's Jake?" Kate was very sincere in her interest in what goes on in peoples lives. She cared about the people she worked with.

"Same old stuff. Jake is doing good. He is a runner not a talker. That kid is so funny. Do you know what he did yesterday? He grabs his bottle and climbs on top of my laundry basket full of clean clothes and proceeded to lay down to drink his bottle. I really wish I had my camera near me."

She laughed as she continue on with her work. "That's kid for you. They do the silliest things and we love them for it."

"Are you excited that your son is coming home to visit?"

"Oh my God, yes! I talked to him last night. He can't tell me really anything about where he is, but I get him home for a whole two weeks. I asked him what I should buy him to stock the fridge and do you know what he told me? He said just to make sure to pick up some beer. Boys."

I was laughing. After all he was a man in his mid twenties, it was no big surprise.

"He said he would come in Friday to see the store."

"In other words you are bringing him here to show him off to all the young girls."

"Don't you know it."

"Be careful with Tanya. She might try to snare him."

"He is coming in later so he will miss her completely. I already thought of that. Plus there is really no worries Jasper would not be interested in someone like her. He is a more serious boy. She would be too flighty for him. He would rather a girl with more going on upstairs." She paused and then added, "Well that is what I think. I could be wrong, but I am not."

I wanted to laugh at that statement. You can know your child, but still be missing a whole other side to them. For all she knows Jasper could be a totally different person with his buddies. After all he probably has seen a lot since he joined the aviators. He can not tell his mother really anything. There is a lot of times he can not even contact her because security reasons. I know it does a toll on her. I remembered around the holidays her breaking down. He canceled his plans to come home because of something he could not mention. Then she was not able to get in touch with him for awhile. She was beyond worried.

I am thankful I am not in her shoes. I avoid dating anyone in the military because I am selfish. I don't want to worry if they are endanger or hurt. It is the same reason I avoid dating cops, firefighters, etc. I don't want to have that extra reason to be scared. I also rather be with them when ever I wanted. I can't just stand back and wave goodbye everything they are called away to God knows where. Even the thought of the good they are doing to keep people safe does not make it easier. My ex-husband was in the military. But before you say anything, I met him years after he was discharged. He even came from a family of military men. Don't you know I fear he might be able to talk my son into doing it some day.

My son is the most important thing in my life. I hope I am never in Kate's position.