“Yes, that does make the trail stronger. But you don’t need to pull your hair out, Bella. It will be fine.”

“I’ve got a few extras I can spare.”

It was gloomy under the trees, and I wished I could walk closer to Edward and hold his hand.

I wedged another hair into a broken branch that cut through my path.

“You don’t need to let Alice have her way, you know,” Edward said.

“Don’t worry about it, Edward. I’m not going to leave you at the altar, regardless.” I had a sinking feeling that Alice was going to get her way, mostly because she was totally unscrupulous when there was something she wanted, and also because I was a sucker for guilt trips.

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I want this to be what you want it to be.”

I repressed a sigh. It would hurt his feelings if I told the truth — that it didn’t really matter, because it was all just varying degrees of awful anyway.

“Well, even if she does get her way, we can keep it small. Just us. Emmett can get a clerical license off the Internet.”

I giggled. “That does sound better.” It wouldn’t feel very official if Emmett read the vows, which was a plus. But I’d have a hard time keeping a straight face.

“See,” he said with a smile. “There’s always a compromise.”

It took a while for me to reach the spot where the newborn army would be certain to cross my trail, but Edward never got impatient with my pace.

He had to lead a bit more on the way back, to keep me on the same path. It all looked alike to me.

We were almost to the clearing when I fell. I could see the wide opening ahead, and that’s probably why I got too eager and forgot to watch my feet. I caught myself before my head bashed into the nearest tree, but a small branch snapped off under my left hand and gouged into my palm.

“Ouch! Oh, fabulous,” I muttered.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Stay where you are. I’m bleeding. It will stop in a minute.”

He ignored me. He was right there before I could finish.

“I’ve got a first aid kit,” he said, pulling off the backpack. “I had a feeling I might need it.”

“It’s not bad. I can take care of it — you don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” he said calmly. “Here — let me clean it.”

“Wait a second, I just got another idea.”

Without looking at the blood and breathing through my mouth, just in case my stomach might react, I pressed my hand against a rock within my reach.

“What are you doing?”

“Jasper will love this,” I muttered to myself. I started for the clearing again, pressing my palm against everything in my path. “I’ll bet this really gets them going.”

Edward sighed.

“Hold your breath,” I told him.

“I’m fine. I just think you’re going overboard.”

“This is all I get to do. I want to do a good job.”

We broke through the last of the trees as I spoke. I let my injured hand graze across the ferns.

“Well, you have,” Edward assured me. “The newborns will be frantic, and Jasper will be very impressed with your dedication. Now let me treat your hand — you’ve gotten the cut dirty.”

“Let me do it, please.”

He took my hand and smiled as he examined it. “This doesn’t bother me anymore.”

I watched him carefully as he cleaned the gash, looking for some sign of distress. He continued to breathe evenly in and out, the same small smile on his lips.

“Why not?” I finally asked as he smoothed a bandage across my palm.

He shrugged. “I got over it.”

“You . . . got over it? When? How?” I tried to remember the last time he’d held his breath around me. All I could think of was my wretched birthday party last September.

Edward pursed his lips, seeming to search for the words. “I lived through an entire twenty-four hours thinking that you were dead, Bella. That changed the way I look at a lot of things.”

“Did it change the way I smell to you?”

“Not at all. But . . . having experienced the way it feels to think I’ve lost you . . . my reactions have changed. My entire being shies away from any course that could inspire that kind of pain again.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He smiled at my expression. “I guess that you could call it a very educational experience.”

The wind tore through the clearing then, lashing my hair around my face and making me shiver.

“All right,” he said, reaching into his pack again. “You’ve done your part.” He pulled out my heavy winter jacket and held it out for me to slide my arms in. “Now it’s out of our hands. Let’s go camping!”

I laughed at the mock enthusiasm in his voice.

He took my bandaged hand — the other was in worse shape, still in the brace — and started toward the other side of the clearing.

“Where are we meeting Jacob?” I asked.

“Right here.” He gestured to the trees in front of us just as Jacob stepped warily from their shadows.

It shouldn’t have surprised me to see him human. I wasn’t sure why I’d been looking for the big red-brown wolf.

Jacob seemed bigger again — no doubt a product of my expectations; I must have unconsciously been hoping to see the smaller Jacob from my memory, the easygoing friend who hadn’t made everything so difficult. He had his arms folded across his bare chest, a jacket clutched in one fist. His face was expressionless as he watched us.

Edward’s lips pulled down at the corners. “There had to have been a better way to do this.”

“Too late now,” I muttered glumly.

He sighed.

“Hey, Jake,” I greeted him when we got closer.

“Hi, Bella.”

“Hello, Jacob,” Edward said.

Jacob ignored the pleasantry, all business. “Where do I take her?”

Edward pulled a map from a side pocket on the pack and offered it to him. Jacob unfolded it.

“We’re here now,” Edward said, reaching over to touch the right spot. Jacob recoiled from his hand automatically, and then steadied himself. Edward pretended not to notice.

“And you’re taking her up here,” Edward continued, tracing a serpentine pattern around the elevation lines on the paper. “Roughly nine miles.”

Jacob nodded once.

“When you’re about a mile away, you should cross my path. That will lead you in. Do you need the map?”

“No, thanks. I know this area pretty well. I think I know where I’m going.”

Jacob seemed to have to work harder than Edward to keep the tone polite.

“I’ll take a longer route,” Edward said. “And I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Edward stared at me unhappily. He didn’t like this part of the plan.

“See you,” I murmured.

Edward faded into the trees, heading in the opposite direction.

As soon as he was gone, Jacob turned cheerful.

“What’s up, Bella?” he asked with a big grin.

I rolled my eyes. “Same old, same old.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Bunch of vampires trying to kill you. The usual.”

“The usual.”

“Well,” he said as he shrugged into his jacket to free his arms. “Let’s get going.”

Making a face, I took a small step closer to him.

He bent down and swept his arm behind my knees, knocking them out from under me. His other arm caught me before my head hit the ground.

“Jerk,” I muttered.

Jacob chuckled, already running through the trees. He kept a steady pace, a brisk jog that a fit human could keep up with . . . across a level plane . . . if they weren’t burdened with a hundred-plus pounds as he was.

“You don’t have to run. You’ll get tired.”

“Running doesn’t make me tired,” he said. His breathing was even — like the fixed tempo of a marathoner. “Besides, it will be colder soon. I hope he gets the camp set up before we get there.”

I tapped my finger against the thick padding of his parka. “I thought you didn’t get cold now.”

“I don’t. I brought this for you, just in case you weren’t prepared.” He looked at my jacket, almost as if he were disappointed that I was. “I don’t like the way the weather feels. It’s making me edgy. Notice how we haven’t seen any animals?”

“Um, not really.”

“I guess you wouldn’t. Your senses are too dull.”

I let that pass. “Alice was worried about the storm, too.”

“It takes a lot to silence the forest this way. You picked a hell of a night for a camping trip.”

“It wasn’t entirely my idea.”

The pathless way he took began to climb more and more steeply, but it didn’t slow him down. He leapt easily from rock to rock, not seeming to need his hands at all. His perfect balance reminded me of a mountain goat.

“What’s with the addition to your bracelet?” he asked.

I looked down, and realized that the crystal heart was facing up on my wrist.

I shrugged guiltily. “Another graduation present.”

He snorted. “A rock. Figures.”

A rock? I was suddenly reminded of Alice’s unfinished sentence outside the garage. I stared at the bright white crystal and tried to remember what Alice had been saying before . . . about diamonds. Could she have been trying to say he’s already got one on you? As in, I was already wearing one diamond from Edward? No, that was impossible. The heart would have to be five carats or something crazy like that! Edward wouldn’t —

“So it’s been a while since you came down to La Push,” Jacob said, interrupting my disturbing conjectures.

“I’ve been busy,” I told him. “And . . . I probably wouldn’t have visited, anyway.”

He grimaced. “I thought you were supposed to be the forgiving one, and I was the grudge-holder.”

I shrugged.

“Been thinking about that last time a lot, have you?”

“Nope.”

He laughed. “Either you’re lying, or you are the stubbornest person alive.”

“I don’t know about the second part, but I’m not lying.”

I didn’t like having this conversation under the present conditions — with his too-warm arms wrapped tightly around me and nothing at all I could do about it. His face was closer than I wanted it to be. I wished I could take a step back.

“A smart person looks at all sides of a decision.”

“I have,” I retorted.

“If you haven’t thought at all about our . . . er, conversation the last time you came over, then that’s not true.”

“That conversation isn’t relevant to my decision.”

“Some people will go to any lengths to delude themselves.”

“I’ve noticed that werewolves in particular are prone to that mistake — do you think it’s a genetic thing?”