A/N Stephenie Meyer owns everything Twilight. I own the rest.

Thank you again to the people who have read and reviewed. I really, really appreciate it. I hope that you all are enjoying the story.

This is a short chapter, sorry. It's just the way it has worked out :)

Thanks also to the lovely betas from PTB – thalia_csiny and Pain Jane.

Chapter 3

Bella

It was Wednesday morning, and I was so bloody tired. It was so quiet here at night, which made it difficult to sleep. I had started to leave the television on in my bedroom for a bit of background noise during the night. It helped, but I had now discovered there was a bird who liked to sing right outside my window every morning at 5:30 am. I wanted to squirt him with the hose.

I yawned and leaned on the counter in the waiting room of the surgery. I could see Rose watching me, amused, out of the corner of my eye.

"Didn't sleep well again?" she asked chirpily, sitting in her chair and typing quickly on the computer. I also wanted to put the hose on her.

"No. The bloody bird woke me up again, and this place … it's too … quiet," I whined.

She laughed. "What you need is some more noise in that house. You know, maybe another voice." She shrugged her shoulders innocently. "I know where I could find one who might-be-interested," she sang the last part, and leaned back in her chair.

I turned and stared at her. "No," I said firmly. "No offence Rose, but no, thank you." I sighed and dropped down in to the chair next to her. "I know that you and Emmett are trying to be kind, but I'm really, truly. Not. Interested."

She mumbled to herself, "Fine, fine. But if you change your mind, I heard last night from Emmett that -" I didn't let her finish.

"I won't. Please, Rose?" I asked quietly.

She acquiesced. "Okay."

I smiled at her and she returned it, turned back to her computer and started to type again. I was just about to stand when the front door opened. I looked up to see a woman entering with a dog, which was more like a horse. It was an Irish Wolfhound, lean with wiry grey fur. Its head easily reached the woman's waist, and it stood next to her, passively looking around.

"Hi, how can I help you?" I asked her, standing up.

She smiled warmly at me. "Hello, you must be Dr. Swan? My name is Esme Cullen, and this is Tinker bell-TB for short." She giggled. "We have an appointment at 10 o'clock?"

I looked at Rose's screen. "Oh, of course. Come on through."

I walked around the counter to where she was standing and led her through to the consulting room. I noticed that she was small and slender, with light brown shoulder-length hair, and was classically beautiful. She was dressed casually in jeans, a short-sleeved shirt and boots.

When we reached the room and stood opposite each other at the table, she continued to smile warmly at me. I looked down at TB.

"Well, I don't think I'll need you to stand on the table, will I?"

Esme laughed and placed her hand on his head fondly. "No, you're so tiny, I think he'll be above your head if you do that!"

I knelt down in front of him and scratched behind his ears. He gratefully leaned into my hand and licked it, then looked at me trustingly. I smiled.

"He's beautiful, Mrs. Cullen-"

"Call me Esme, please," she interrupted.

"Okay, Esme. But, tell me … where did he get the name Tinker bell from?" I looked at her questioningly, and she burst out laughing.

"Don't blame me for that one! I so desperately wanted to call him Sam. But my sons, Jasper and Edward, continued to call him Tinker bell as a joke. Unfortunately, he answered to it, and it has stuck. Now, we shorten it to TB, which isn't really much better." She smiled down at him.

I continued to pat TB, wanting to reassure him that I was a friend. He wagged his tail, and finally sat, offering me his paw. I loved this gesture from dogs. In my opinion, it was a sign of friendliness, and with an animal the size of TB, I needed it.

"He likes you."

I looked up to see Esme watching me with him. She was smiling. "He doesn't usually warm up to people so quickly."

I stood up. "Oh, I have a thing with dogs, I think. I always have. They are easily my favourite animal, and the main reason why I became a vet," I explained.

"Well, it's wonderful to see another female vet here. The previous vet, Lou, was a lovely girl. It was a shame she and her husband left. My husband, Carlisle, was always very impressed with the work she did with our stock."

"You have a farm?" I asked her.

She nodded. "We did. Carlisle retired a couple of years ago, and our two boys took over the running of it. Carlisle and I bought a house here in town."

Ah... I realised. Cullen, as in Alice's Jasper Cullen, whom I saw at the pub on Sunday. Maybe the other guy I saw with him, was the other Cullen son? Esme continued speaking as I was contemplating. "I heard that you bought Fran's lovely place. We only live four houses down from you."

My eyes widened, surprised. "Wow, so far I have only met a small number of people here and two of them live in the same street as me. Being a city girl, that's difficult to get my head around."

She laughed, "It would be. Bella, it would be lovely if you could come over for dinner one night. I'm sure you and Carlisle would have a lot to talk about."

I smiled slightly. "Well, thank you, Esme. That's very kind of you, we should definitely organise that. But for now, what's going on with this pup of yours? I'm assuming we only need to remove his stitches today?" I asked, as I looked at his lopsided left ear. I knew from his notes that he had suffered from an aural haematoma, or a burst blood vessel, in his ear. Poor little thing, I thought. They didn't look like a lot, but could be extremely painful for dogs. Lou had recently performed the surgery to clean out the blood and clots, and his ear now had a neat row of stitches in it. As if he knew I was talking about him, TB's tail thumped gently on the floor.

"Yes, he's so much better, thankfully. Lou said to bring him around now to have his stitches removed."

I nodded. "Yes, definitely."

I turned and washed my hands and pulled on some gloves. I then picked up the small scissors and crouched down next to TB. "Okay, big fella. I promise this won't hurt at all." I reached up to snip and pull, and removed the few stitches. The entire time, I heard his tail continue its thumping on the floor and felt his paw scratch against my leg in his attempts to get me to shake it again. I finally finished.

"You're such a good boy, aren't you?" I praised him. I stood and removed the gloves and washed my hands. Then I removed a treat from the container. TB noticed this and started to skid about on the floor in his excitement.

"Sit, TB!" Esme ordered. He sat immediately while I gave him the biscuit.

"He's well trained," I said.

She smiled fondly at him. "At his size, he has to be," she laughed.

"Well, Esme, he's as good as new. If you are concerned about anything, give me a call. Okay?"

She nodded at me and smiled. "Lovely, thank you Bella. I will be in touch about dinner."

I watched as TB dragged his tiny owner out the door, into the waiting area to find Rose.

Edward

I rode the bike up to the back of the shearing shed and stopped, turned it off, and looked around. I couldn't see any sign of him. I swore under my breath. Jasper told me he'd be around here just before lunch, so that we could go through the paperwork for the just-finished harvest. I climbed off the bike and kicked at the stand. I knew where he'd be;, it was where he'd been for the past two bloody weeks. Every day, fussing and worrying. I whistled for Gus, who was fossicking in the bush at the back of the shed, and turned right, in the directed of a large pen. As I got closer to it, I could see him. He was in his usual spot, forearms leaning on the top of the gate, watching the pig inside sleep.

"Back again?" I asked as I reached him.

He turned his head to look at me. "Yeah, I'm still deciding about whether to mate her or not."

I sighed. This had been an on-going drama for a while now, and with any other sow, it wouldn't be. The problem was that this pig wasn't just another pig on this farm. She was Jasper's pet. He bought her from a mate of Dad's, when his sow had her last litter, and he was extremely fond of her. He called her Tanya, God knows why, and Tanya lived a very comfortable life in her pen. It wasn't until Jacob pointed out to Jasper that she must be missing out on something by never being mated, that Jasper started to worry about it.

"Why don't you talk to Dad about it if you're so worried? It's no big deal," I suggested.

He shook his head with a smile on his face. "No way, you know I'd never hear the end of it."

I smiled too. I knew Dad well enough to know that if one of his sons came to him stressing about his pet pig getting some, then that story would provide him and his mates months of enjoyment down at the pub.

"Yeah, fair enough."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then smirked and looked at me out the corner of his eye.

"You know … I could get Bella Swan to come 'round. I'm sure you'd be pretty happy for me to organise that." His smirk grew into a smile.

I turned to him, crossing my arms. "What do you mean by that?" I asked him, faking curiosity. In truth, I was seriously considering suggesting it myself.

He laughed, "Oh come on, you don't think I noticed?" he asked incredulously.

"Noticed what?"

Now it was his turn to cross his arms, and he raised both eyebrows at me.

"Noticed what?" he mimicked me. "I haven't seen you look like that since Colleen Armstrong's bather top came undone at Grade 7 camp!" He looked off into the distance dreamily, tongue lolling out. I laughed and reached out to punch him. He jumped back to avoid it, laughing as well.

"I wasn't that bad!" I defended.

He gave me his 'bullshit' look straight on and raised his eyebrows again. I groaned.

"Alright, maybe I did stare a bit. But I was taken by surprise, you know? She's … I don't know … " I ran my hand through my hair, frustrated. I couldn't explain it, because I didn't know. All I knew was that since Sunday at the pub, I had been feeling … something. And it was pissing me off.

I thought about this woman all the time, for Christ's sake, and what I had seen of her wasn't enough. There was still the shape of her hips and her legs. I had yet to see her face completely front on, or hear the sound of her voice. Not to mention I wanted to know how far down that bloody necklace went. My imagination just wasn't doing her justice.

Jasper laughed. "You've got that face on you again."

I looked at him and ran my hand through my hair again, embarrassed.

"Fuck off," I told him. The bastard snickered and then became serious again as he looked back into the pen.

"So … you reckon I should call her out here, seriously?" he asked.

I nodded. "If it's worrying you that much, then yeah," I said, reassuring him. I continued under my breath, "But make sure when you do, that you send bloody Jacob to the other end of the property."

"Got a bit of competition there, little brother?" He elbowed me slightly in the ribs.

"Nah," I said nonchalantly. "Not if I run him over with the tractor."

Jasper laughed, "I don't think you have anything to worry about, unless she's into younger men. He's only nineteen, after all. Emmett told me she's about twenty eight."

I was surprised because she looked much younger than that. Although thinking about it, she was a fully qualified vet.

Jasper continued, "Emmett said that she's a really nice person, with a great sense of humour. Apparently, she absolutely hates Jane -"

"I like her more already," I interrupted dryly.

He continued again, "He did say something interesting though."

I turned and frowned at him. "Oh yeah, what's that?" I asked.

He turned and leaned his back against the gate, crossing his feet at the ankles. He looked more serious now.

"I don't know the story behind it, he wouldn't say. I don't think he knows either. But apparently, she's dead set against getting involved with anyone."

I groaned, "Shit, really?" I leaned against the gate also, and looked up at the sky. "Is he sure?"

Jasper nodded. "Yeah. He reckons that both he and Rose have tried to get her interested in at least looking, but she won't budge. But … " he stopped and looked down at the ground.

"But, what?'' I prodded him.

He swallowed. "Well … Alice mentioned something to Emmett about how Bella seems to understand what it's like to be … hurt by someone," he continued to look at the ground and crossed his arms again. There was silence as we both thought about that statement.

"Oh," I said finally.

He nodded. "Yeah. So, if some arsehole did to her what I did to Alice, then it's no wonder she's not interested in anyone." He frowned to himself, and I stood up straight and faced him.

"Look, at the risk of you getting pissed off and punching me again, I'm gonna say this. Stop with this bullshit and talk to the girl." He looked up at me, and I continued, "That's right, talk to her. Yeah, you fucked up and made a really stupid mistake – so fix it." He shook his head and I raised my hands. "Okay, conversation's over and I won't mention it again. Now ring Bella and get her over here to look at Tanya. But make sure you send Jacob away for the day. I don't want him anywhere near her," I said firmly.

He chuckled, "A little bit possessive about the vet there, Edward, wouldn't you say?" he asked smugly.

I looked at him squarely. "Yeah, I am," I said.

He lost his smugness and it was replaced with surprise.

"Okay, I'll give Rose a call now." With that, he pushed off from the gate and we walked towards the house.

I followed him, quietly excited. With any luck, I was actually going to get to talk to this woman.

Oo-oO

See you next time :)