I winced,

"Worrying about the wolves again... she should know that they could handle a single vampire easily," Emmett rolled his eyes. "I mean, if it was one of us, I could understand her hesitation, but this guy... it would have been a piece of cake."

and Esme rubbed my shoulder.

Jasper looked at Carlisle. "Neither of us recognized him. But here." He held out something green and crumpled. Carlisle took it from him and held it to his face. I saw, as it exchanged hands, that it was a broken fern frond. "Maybe you know the scent."

"No," Carlisle said. "Not familiar. No one I've ever met."

"Then it might not be the Volturi... I know most of them, though they may have acquired a few new members since I left," Carlisle said.

"It could always have been someone that they just associate with -" Edward said. "- someone doing them a favor."

"Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it's a coincidence . . . ," Esme began,

"Even I know that it couldn't be that," Emmett scoffed.

"Hmph," Esme huffed, rolling her eyes. She didn't bother to defend herself, knowing that the book would do it for her.

but stopped when she saw everyone else's incredulous expressions. "I don't mean a coincidence that a stranger happened to pick Bella's house to visit at random. I meant that maybe someone was just curious. Our scent is all around her. Was he wondering what draws us there?"

"Interesting," Carlisle said and Edward hissed loudly at that.

"Why does that bother you so much?" Jasper asked, looking at him nervously.

"Because it could be true," Edward said. "Not in this case... definitely not in this case, but in our reality it might be true. If a vampire decides to pass through here, they might be curious about why we're around Bella so much..."

"Don't worry, we won't let anything happen to her," Esme reassured him.

"Yeah, like we didn't let anything happen to her when James' coven came," Edward hissed, his eyes hard. "We're still dealing with that mistake."

"Relax, Edward," Emmett said. "That's not going to happen and, even if it does, we're not going to let anyone hurt Bella."

"Right," Edward sighed; Emmett seemed to be dead serious about what he just said, and that was very convincing.

"Why wouldn't he just come here then? If he was curious?" Emmett demanded.

"You would," Esme said with a sudden, fond smile. "The rest of us aren't always so direct. Our family is very large - he or she might be frightened. But Charlie wasn't harmed. This doesn't have to be an enemy."

Just curious. Like James and Victoria had been curious, in the beginning?

Edward shivered at this, more so because he had just thought of the same thing.

The thought of Victoria made me tremble, though the one thing they seemed certain of was that it had not been her. Not this time. She would stick to her obsessed pattern. This was just someone else, a stranger.

"That doesn't really make me feel better," Edward groaned.