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.

Edward was frowning at this.

"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.

"Hm... I wonder how strong the wolves are in their human forms," Carlisle mused. "Obviously, much stronger than a normal human, but not close to their wolf form...Hm..."

"Well, we're just going to have to befriend one of the wolves so you can do all your tests on them," Emmett chuckled.

"I would like that," Carlisle said wistfully.

"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 definitely wouldn't say that about her," Jasper said. "They're just too human."

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."

"No, it was just your luck working against you again," Edward muttered.

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.

Emmett chuckled at that.

"Well, they certainly have a way of climbing a mountain," Carlisle said, looking amused too.

"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."

Edward narrowed his eyes at that, not looking very friendly towards this book.

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.

Edward shook his head, smiling at that.

"Think again," Emmett smiled.

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.

"Gee...I wonder why," Rosalie hissed. "Stupid mutt."

"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."

"There's only so much forgiveness one can give," Rosalie spat.

"I didn't know you had any forgiveness in you," Edward teased and Rosalie glared at him.

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."

"Well, she might be the stubbornest person alive, but as far as I can see, she isn't lying either," Emmett laughed.

"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.

"Torture...that's pure torture," Rosalie shivered.

"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."

"The decision was made a long time ago, the conversation doesn't have anything to do with anything," Edward said.

"When did she make that decision then?" Emmett asked.

"Well, when they first met," Esme said.

"No, that can't be it, the wolf wasn't even in the picture then...there really wasn't anything to decide," Emmett said.

"When Bella went to save this idiot, then," Alice supplied. "She decided who was most important to her then."

"Right," Emmett allowed.

"That conversation isn't relevant to my decision."

"It's nice to see how similar you two think," Esme smiled.

"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?"

"Does that mean that he's a better kisser that I am?" Jacob asked, suddenly glum.

"I really couldn't say, Jake. Edward is the only person I've ever kissed."

"Besides me."

"But I don't count that as a kiss, Jacob. I think of it more as an assault."

"Ouch! That's cold."

"It's true," Edward and Rosalie hissed.

I shrugged. I wasn't going to take it back.

"I did apologize about that," he reminded me.

"And I forgave you . . . mostly. It doesn't change the way I remember it."

He muttered something unintelligible.

It was quiet then for a while; there was just the sound of his measured breathing and the wind roaring high above us in the treetops. A cliff face rose sheer beside us, bare, rough gray stone. We followed the base as it curved upward out of the forest.

"I still think it's pretty irresponsible," Jacob suddenly said.

"Whatever you're talking about, you're wrong."

"Think about it, Bella. According to you, you've kissed just one person - who isn't even really a person - in your whole life, and you're calling it quits? How do you know that's what you want? Shouldn't you play the field a little?"

"Why?" Alice asked. "When you find the one you want, you don't need to keep looking. You know that's what you really want."

Jasper smiled at her; she never knew what her life was like before she was turned, though now they had an idea. So the only person she knew to have been with was him and she definitely wasn't looking for anyone else.