"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."