The mist is lying low in the valley as Bella watches the sunrise out of her bedroom window. Light rises, the pinkness of the morning illuminating the carpet of crocuses on the front lawn: purple, yellow and white dots.

Behind her, Edward is finishing off a boiled egg from his breakfast tray as he sits up in their four poster bed.

"Bella, did you hear me?" Edward's voice rises crossly.

"Sorry." She turns back to the bed. That's happened a lot lately to her – tuning out.

"If Jasper comes home to the estate, it would be more company for you, and that would be a good thing, Alice and the children being around, wouldn't it? The little ones love it here…the space…running around."

Bella bites her lip, turns back to the window. She knows it makes sense. The house is too big for them. Jasper has a family, with sons and daughters to ensure the future of the Estate.

"So you are giving up?" She says softly.

Edward sighs. "It's just…gone on too long. Aren't you tired? Maybe we should face facts and get on with living our lives."

"You might still pass on the estate to your children, Edward. The problem might be me, not you. Who knows, with another wife-"

Edward slams the egg spoon down on the silver tray.

"-Don't be ridiculous."

The bed sheets are thrown off, and Edward wraps his dressing gown around him, pads away in his slippers to the bathroom.

Later in the morning, Bella spends an hour filling black bags to throw out. Empties the bathroom cabinet of all her herbal pills from the 'Witchy' lady in Braco whom Alice had recommended: black cohosh, agnus castus, chasteberry, flaxseed oil. Tips the rest of the endless supplements she'd taken over the years into the rubbish bag: fish oils, vitamins, creams. Grabs the fertility stones Esme had given her from her dresser, throws it in alongside an Aphrodite bracelet and a fertile flame aromatherapy candle. Next, the shelf-full of books is attacked. Books on healthy eating, dream study, listening to your body, Chinese Medicine…

Enough, Bella thinks.

Enough of being told all the things you were doing wrong. If Edward is giving up, then so is she.

Dragging two full bags down the carpeted stairs, she heads off down the quiet side-corridor, out to the door she imagines will make a decent disabled entrance for toilets. Onto the crunch of gravel and pulling along the plastic bags like two reluctant toddlers.

Two headlamps beam through the morning mist, tip and jolt over the humps in the road and rattle across the cattle grid.

Jacob is early.

In frustration, Bella heaves one bag up and over into the tall wheelie-bin. Yet when she tries to lift the second, it weighs too much and rips jaggedly, spilling its contents onto the ground. Hastily, she tries to gather up the plethora of shameful objects on the ground, but it's too late: the car door is slamming and Jacob is calling out a cheery Good Morning Bella, can I help you there?

Before he can see too much, Bella throws a couple of crystals into the bin, picks up the remainder of the ripped bag and hoists it over the side of the bin in desperation.

There!

She turns to see that Jacob has collected up a book that has gone astray. 'Inconceivable: A Woman's Triumph over Despair and Statistics.' He hold it in his hand for a moment, as if weighing its value.

Then Jacob chucks the book in the wheelie-bin, slams the lid, and takes her arm with a grin.

"C'mon Bella, I brought Angus to show you today. I bet you would love a go on him."

Bella is so surprised at the sudden contact – his warmth even through his winter jacket, the cheekily casual manner – she allows herself to be led to the truck in a state of confusion.

"Meet Angus," Jacob announces with a flourish, and stands proudly at the rear of the truck, where a shiny yellow mini-digger is raised up on the flat bed.

"He's going to make your new garden today…but first, shall we have coffee?" Jacob pulls a thermos flask from the passenger's seat of the truck. Bella can't help but smile.

"I have biscuits in the treehouse."

Jacob gently blows on the kindling where a tiny spark is growing and devouring scraps of paper in the wood burning stove.

"Reminds me of camping when I was a Boy Scout. We used to have to learn to light fires in the pouring rain, from wet wood."

"Is that even possible?"

"Sure. There's a trick. Petroleum jelly and cotton wool. Tiny sticks to start with gathered from beneath trees and bushes – where the rain has not been so bad – then gradually building up larger and larger until you have a proper fire." Jacob gestures with his large hands, breaks off small sticks from the kindling to demonstrate. "I learned to start a fire with just a single match." He grins at his own child-like boast.

"We used to have camp fires in Arizona. The problem was never getting them started, more putting them out. They can go underground, you see – with woody soil and pine needles, so you always had to throw a bucket of water over them to make sure they had gone out."

"Wow, really? That's amazing." Jacob shakes his head.

There is a pause as he passes the thermos of coffee to Bella – hot and sweet – just the way she takes it.

"So, do you still have family over there?"

Bella shakes her head. "No, not in Arizona. My Mom moves around a lot with her husband, and my Dad lives in Washington State. I don't get back much."

"I would!" Jacob pronounces. "If I had the excuse, I'd love to travel. Never even been across the Scottish Border before."

"Really?" Bella is incredulous. "But that's only a couple of hours away."

"Well, I did nearly go, on a school trip, but then I had to have my appendix out…and then later Dad had his accident, and then I took over the business." Jacob shrugs and grins. "I'll go someday."

The fire begins to grow, and Jacob proudly puts on a log.

"Don't you miss the States?"

"Sure…" Bella can hardly begin to describe the chasm of homesickness that she feels. "Mostly for Charlie – my Dad. He's chief of Police in a little town called Forks. He has a house there I spent all my summers in, growing up. The town – well, it's quite like here, really. Everyone knows everyone. It rains a lot. Beautiful scenery…"

"It sounds like you'd like to go back."

"I'd love to go home!" Bella pauses. "I mean, this is home now, of course. Anyway, maybe I'll get to go soon, when Edward's sister moves in. I won't be needed much then with paperwork or answering the phone…"

She's babbling now. Jacob's looking at her with his deep brown eyes. The fire catches a glow from them. God, she's staring now. Jacob smiles, looks right back at her. He looks like he wants to say something, but then he blinks, looks away.

"Shall we get Angus started up?"

Bella spends the afternoon working with Jacob. He's serious about her learning to use Angus, and within minutes has shown her how to use the mini-digger, scraping the lawn away and rotating to dump the earth in a pile on the side.

"It's like being a kid again!" Bella says breathlessly. "I've not had so much fun in basically forever." Being around Jacob is like having a friend around to play when you were a kid. Okay, admittedly, he's also really easy on the eye, which Bella keeps trying to suppress. He's just like this with everyone. I'm just a sad old woman paying someone to entertain them. It's like Edward said. This is just something to keep me busy. It's not real. He can't be real.

And yet, when they sneak into the kitchen behind Mrs Cope's back and make sandwiches to eat at lunchtime in the treehouse, and Jacob smiles and touches her hand to see if she is too cold…then Bella really wishes that it could be real. As they lie on their bellies together on the rug on the treehouse floor, elbows propped up, poring over plans for the garden, making amendments to the paths, and calculating the trajectory of the paths to make sure they are not too steep…then Bella fantasises that she is his assistant in his company. That this is what they always do, and always will do, day after day. That Endrick estate belongs to Edward Cullen, and she and Jacob just work for him. And that tonight when he loads Angus into the truck, that she'll get in the passenger seat and they will roar away through the gates and away across the Scottish Border…

But it's then that the fantasy breaks down, because Bella can't imagine that part at all. Any sort of life after driving through the gates of Endrick Estate. Even through those gates she becomes Bella Cullen again. And the thought of her and Jacob out there, past those gates…well, it's laughable.

Sure enough, the darkness comes down too soon. Jacob waves goodbye and she's left standing beside a mound of turf and stones as he speeds down the driveway. A cloak of reality settles back on her shoulders as she turns back to the treehouse – the only place she can bear going right now. Inside, there is a tiny ember in the fire, and she sits and feeds it - wishing she could keep it going all night. The room feels different – full of Jacob and his presence. She wants to stay as long as possible and soak it up. He won't be back for three days as he's working on another – probably more important –job.

Then Bella realises that he has left something more than his presence behind. She picks up the green thermos flask and holds it in both hands. Ridiculously, hugs it to herself as she curls up on her sofa chair, pulls a blanket over her and begins to drowse in the glow of the fire.