Thank you Egratia for all your awesome Beta skills. There might me a few errors in this chapter though because I've done a bit of cut and pasting and a lot of re-writing from how I'd originally written this chapter and when it was Beta'ed. I hope it all gels together still.

Thank you so much for all the kind reviews last chapter. I generally write back to everyone, but life got too hectic this week and getting the chapter out became the priority. I'm sure you all don't mind ;-)

Let's get back to our couple, figuring out what the hell's going on between them and where they're headed.

Chapter 4 – The garden in my heart

"That'll be forty-five dollars."

The elderly lady with her purple rinse perm smiled at Jake as I handed him a fifty. He was now sporting a new—kind of new— t-shirt as he then handed over the cash to the thrift store volunteer. We'd spent almost an hour there and had managed to pretty much empty out all the extra-large sized t-shirts in the little Portland thrift shop. Jake now had a dozen pairs of shorts and a pair of sneakers that actually fit Jake's giant feet-they'd been the find of the day.

We'd dumped the loot in the back of the truck and walked, now newly fitted out, side by side in search for a cheap lunch.

A small Wendy's on the fringes of Downtown was now in significantly shorter supply of their hot 'n juicy's thanks to the werewolf passing through.

We sat outside the store people watching as Jake finished off his second shake and my left over fries. Feeding the giant was an expensive undertaking.

I popped another cold fry in my mouth, chewing. They really weren't good cold. "I want to find somewhere to get some portable kitchen supplies so I can cook at least some of our meals."

He nodded as he slurped on his straw. "I think I saw an army surplus store on our way in. We can go there."

"Yeah, that should do it."

He took the oil soaked bag of fries and tipped it back, emptying it. He tapped it twice, letting the salty crumbs fall before scrunching it up and three-point tossing into a trash can with the accuracy of Reggie Miller.

Taking another sip of his Frosty, he licked his lips before leaning into me. I felt the heat of his arm as he shifted on his hip to pull the phone out of his pocket. He held the little white rectangle in his hand, looking up at me. "I just got to give Sam a call first."

After a few moments of tense silence and then a good minute or two of Sam attempting to obtain Jake's submission telephonically, something had seemed to click in Jake.

All of a sudden Jake was taller in his flip-flops and Yaquina Bay Yacht Club shirt. His shoulders squared and he somehow stopped the one-sided conversation dead in its tracks.

"The vampire's name is Victoria, Sam". There was a brief pause, I could hear Sam's tone but not what he was saying as he yelled at Jake through the cell phone.

"Just shut up for a second and listen would 'ya. This isn't about me doing a runner. It's important."

I watched Jake as he didn't just re-direct the one sided conversation, he turned the phone call on its head. Jacob began to tell Sam what we were planning on doing. He didn't ask permission. He didn't request absolution. He just started to apprise Sam of the situation.

As I listened in, it seemed to me that Jake wasn't talking to Sam as his leader or due to the alpha wolf compelling him to talk, rather more as a courtesy to an ally.

Jacob paused until he was happy he had the full attention of the wolf back home. "Bella knows who the redhead is, Sam. Her mate was killed by a few of the Cullen's but she blames Edward for it."

Another pause. "The cold bitch wants retribution. She wants Bella…. My Bella."

I could hear my name being called out as Sam repeated what Jake was saying.

"Yeah," Jake said. "The parasite wants her dead, and not in a quick, thirsty way either."

I felt my heart quicken as I remembered what Laurent had told me about Victoria's plans for me. I leaned minutely closer to Jake. My shoulder pressed in to his arm. His nearness and the protective feeling that he brought was the only thing keeping my lunch from coming pack up in dread.

I felt my arm start to shake. The arm that was pressed up against Jacob's. It wasn't me shaking though, it was Jake. His whole body was tremoring.

He looked at me with a worried and almost broken torment in his eyes. I could see the conviction of his need to protect me as it radiated from him. It was literally pulsating from him as his body shook.

"It's okay," I said quietly. I lay my hand softly on his. "I'm okay Jake. She's not going to find us. And if she does, I know you'll protect me."

We continued to sit on the bench outside the Wendy's we'd had lunch at. It seems such a normal thing to do for such an extraordinarily abnormal conversation. Occasionally a person or two walked past. Traffic flowed by. The world kept spinning around us. Time didn't stop just because I had a homicidal vampire searching for me.

My pulse throbbed in my ears and the outside world suddenly shrunk to just Jake and me as we sat on that bench. I couldn't tear my gaze from the desperate need to protect that was emanating in hot shudders from Jacob Black's, café-noir eyes. Jake stared into my soul as his hand squeezed around his almost empty frosty cup. Almost empty.

His arm continued to shake and then suddenly bubbles of white froth from his vanilla shake gurgled out the lid. The moment— whatever it had been— was broken as milk sprayed over his tanned knuckles as he unintentionally squeezed the yellow paper cup. He looked down as the cool liquid hit his heated skin.

"Fuck!" He shook his fingers, flicking the sticky liquid onto the pavement. "No, not you Sam, I… I just… don't worry. "

This time, he looked back at me with an apologetic frustrated frown.

"It's okay," I whispered as I ran inside and grabbed a pile of paper napkins to help clean up the mess.

I came back and held out my hand for Jake to let me clean him up.

He snatched the napkins and silently insisted on cleaning his own hands. He held the phone with his shoulder as he attempted to wipe his fingers. With each hurried wipe he got more wet and shredded tissues stuck to the tacky mess.

I watched as more and more little pieces of tissue got stuck to his sticky knuckles.

"Would you just let me," I insisted, shaking my head.

I pulled his hand out and poured a little of my water over his hand and wiped them clean with more care and patience than he'd shown himself.

I could feel Jake's eyes on me as I slowly wiped each of his fingers, smoothing the dampened napkin over his palm.

"I don't know, Sam," he continued, his focus still on me.

The hairs on the back of my neck raised in gooseflesh as I felt his eyes still on me. "We're going to be gone for a while. At least until this threat against Bells is neutralized."

I tried to block out the prickle of heat washing over me as I held his hand and wiped it clean. I focused on the task at hand, literally.

His hand was warm and rough. He had callouses on his palm. I turned his wrist over and wiped along each of his long and dexterous, but somehow still powerful, fingers. I wiped gently over oily nails that were cut down to the quick. They were the hands of a man who knew hard work but also how to handle the delicacy of fine and sensitive mechanisms.

I followed Jake's eyes as they flicked over to our truck parked up the street. "No Sam, I'm not doing that." Another pause. "I'm not."

He pulled his hand out of mine, mouthing, "Thanks," as he stood up and paced a few feet back and forth. I watched as he made room for a mother pushing a stroller along the footpath before turning and pacing back towards me once more.

"We'll be in contact, but on our terms. You hear me?" Jake paused, waiting for conformation. He's brow smoothed infinitesimally and his head dipped once in approval before he continued.

"I want you to let us know if the cold one is either killed or stops hanging around Forks. Because if she comes looking for us outside of the northwest then we're going to have to ramp-up the obscurity effort. Big-time."

Jake looked over at me as he paced. I met his eye for a split second before lowering them to the crumpled napkins in my fist.

I didn't want to think too much about that… About what we really were going to do if Victoria showed up. I wanted to believe that Jake could fight her… and win. He seemed to think he could. But I'd seen the ferocity of a vampire attack. I'd barely lived to tell the tale… twice. I wasn't convinced either Jake or I would come out of the onslaught alive. So I pretended the perpetual threat wasn't there and I folded the crumpled, unused napkins.

When I had a neat little pile of three white rectangles, I slid them into my purse, next to the three fifty dollar bills I had left in there.

I didn't have to force the constant but silent threat out of my mind for long. Seeing the meagre amount of cash in my purse took my mind to the more immediate issue.

Money was a big enough concern to distract me from the real threat.

The one-fifty I'd managed to grab from home was gone. And the last two hundred I'd withdrawn from the ATM at that grubby no shoe, no pump policy shop was already about to be half spent now too.

Jake must have seen a change in me as I thought about how we were going to survive any of this. Physically or fiscally.

Or maybe as I'd opened my wallet, he'd seen all we had left to live on for the indefinite future.

He stepped back over to me on the bench, puling me up standing and tucking me under his arm in a one-armed embrace. I leaned into his side. I knew we'd figure something out eventually, even If I ended up asking Charlie for help.

Together, in step with the other, we crossed the street, back up to the truck as Jacob keep talking. "Okay Sam, we'd better go."

Jake handed me the keys, it was my turn to drive.

"Just one more thing, Sam."

I could see something in his face; A resigned pain. A loss of… something… something he loathed to loose. But behind the superficial sadness, I could see the hurt of a loss of something less tangible, but somehow immeasurably more valuable.

"I want you to sell something for me." Jake paused as Sam answered. "Just… just listen." Jake licked his lips and looked over at me with sad eyes.

Then it clicked. "No."

I felt my heart break for him as I realized what he was about to do.

I shook my head. "You don't have to do that Jake."

He put his hand over the mouth piece. "Yes I do, Bells. We'll be broke in a few days otherwise."

"We'll figure something out, Jacob."

"Bella, this is figuring it out." He gave my hand a tight squeeze before dropping it and walking around to the passenger side of the truck.

Our eyes met across the hood of the car.

Then he shut his eyes and sucked in a slow breath. "In the big shed of my dad's house, under some old tarps are two bikes, Sam. There's a Honda XL and a Harley sprinter."

I could see the muscles in his jaw work as he pressed his teeth together. He loved that bike. I loved mine too. But I knew that the Harley that I'd gifted Jake was more than just a fixer-upper to him. More than just a way to have some thrilling and fun to do.

Fixing that pile of old parts and rust into a shining, unfettered classic had been a symbol of his ability to make something of himself.

Turing that bike into something noteworthy and outstanding, something that took him outside the boundary lines of the reservation had been a parallel of what he'd wanted for himself.

It was the validation that Jake had needed. He'd given himself proof that he had what it took to get himself up and out. Those two wheels had been the first step to Jake making his own way in this world…

Before his genetics had tied him to his heritage. And before his foolhardy and myopic love for me had left him no choice but to sell them.

His jaw tensed again, then he licked his lips. "I need you to get what you can for them. Get Embry to do it if it's easier."

Jake was silent as he listened. With his eyes still closed, he nodded to whatever Sam was saying on the other line. "Yeah."

His eyes opened, and instantly drew a line straight to mine. He looked over at the miserable assortment of second hand possessions loaded in the back of the truck and then back to me. "We need the cash more then we need the nostalgia."

With that last request and a simple goodbye, Jake hung up.

He sighed, tossing the phone on the seat through the open window and leaning his huge frame against the door. "Well that's done."

We were silent for a moment or two as I watched him use the truck as a prop from across the hood. His shoulders were slouching a little, yet, somehow, they were more square and self-assured than I'd ever seen him. I couldn't understand how, but he almost seemed bigger after his conversation with Sam.

I walked around the truck, up to him and wrapped my arms around his side and squeezed.

I understood the emotional attachment he had to those bikes and all that they represented to him. But, as the heat of his skin soaked into my bones, I wondered if it was more than just what it represented to him personally. To Jake, with the special and bonding time we'd shared together as he'd meticulously restored them, where the motorbikes also a symbol of us.

I was terrified to let that idea take root.

"S'okay Jake. They were death traps anyway," I mumbled against the massive valley of muscle between his shoulders in a futile attempt to distract.

His hand reached down smoothing softly over mine. "Yeah, but they were our death traps, ya know?"

I felt the roots of something more for Jake and I stretch out under the surface of my skin, growing and holding me together.

They felt like the roots of a giant cedar, one that would send down shoots to make the foundations of a sturdy and enduring tree. One that gave back to its surroundings; that added to the splendor of the landscape but was understated in its gargantuan beauty. A tree that provided shelter and food and the very air that I breathed.

As remarkable as that tree might have been, it wasn't the magnificent bloom of jeweled color of the annual flower in my wild meadow though. That unique flower had bloomed brilliantly and perfectly. Like a flawless work of art.

The flower was gone now, left cold and frozen in the barren winter. But there was still a part of me that was hopeful that it would bloom again… one day.

I knew there would be no room for the resplendent flower in the clearing if I allowed the giant tree to grow.

I was scared to let anything grow in that turned soil in my heart. It had been left to fell for months now. But I was scared what might happen if I didn't keep the space clear.

I really did like the sun on my face while I waited at least. Surly a seedling wouldn't take up too much room.

I broke away from his embrace, releasing my hand as I stepped back and moved to get in the truck.

"Yeah, I know." I forced a smile, ignoring the feelings that were coursing through me. "But we can make plenty more memories on this suicide run."

"Speaking of death traps and suicide runs, it's time we got us a new truck," he added, grabbing my phone and starting to look for second-hand vehicles for sale in the area. "We got to make us some obscure memories."

.

There were a few trucks for sale in our price range in the county of Multnomah, and even fewer in Hood River County, where we were headed.

"Here," Jake said, holding my phone out so I could have a quick look at the photos as I drove along the twenty.

My screen showed a white minivan with a wood-grain appliqué running along its sides.

I turned to look at Jake. "Are you kidding me?" I could feel the sides of my face contorting in revulsion. "That car is hideous!"

"No it's not, it's boring. It's so, soooo boring." He pulled the phone back, scrolling though the page. "And more importantly, it's common. Or at least common enough to buy us some obscurity."

I couldn't argue with his logic. I wanted to— the car really was ugly— but I couldn't. It was practical, and economical and most of all… boring.

"It's got those fold down seats, and AC, and a stereo, Bells, a stereo! I know you don't like music anymore and stuff, but we can't go on a perpetual road trip without a stereo. It's killing me." He gestured to the hole filled with gouged plastic and torn wires. "You can't shut music out of your life because your heart's broken, Bella. It's music. It's the oldest art form that there is. Christ, even animals make music."

I bristled. A part of he hated that he'd taken such a simple joy from my life when he'd left. And the other part of me didn't like that Jake new me so well. "I never said I didn't like music anymore."

"Yes you did, when we were fixing the bikes, you turned off the radio, and it was a good song too."

That day flashed into my mind. We were in Jake's garage pulling the first bike apart, just before his friends Embry and Quil and arrived. I had turned off the song. All music had reminded me of him. I'd felt that the notes were pulling the hole inside my chest wider.

But that had been months ago: before the bikes were finished, before the movies, before Jake's fever, before he'd disappeared without word, before the meadow where the wolves arrived just in time to save me.

That girl who couldn't stand the sound of music for fear that she'd fall apart, that was who I'd been before I'd run away from home with Jake. We were certainly miles away from that world of heartbreak now. At least physically, and the hole in my chest was starting to crust over too. The seedling had broken the surface overnight when I wasn't looking.

I gripped the steering wheel tight, my fingers curling around the Bakelite as I held the truck straight. I was taking my joy back… one note at a time. "It was a good song, I suppose."

"It was."

He shifted, moving closer and lightly elbowing me in the side. "They were good times." There was a sincerity in his voice, a pleading for me to let my own logic rule, instead of my pulverized, minced-up heart.

His fingers brushed under my arms, grazing against the corner of my elbow where it reached up to the steering wheel I was still gripping tight.

He leaned into my side, his warm breath tickling down my neck as he whispered, "These are still good times, Bella. It's just up to you what you make of it, of our time here together on this road."

I hazarded a glance over to Jake. He was looking at me funny. His jaw was clenched, waiting. His eyes, for a moment, were boring into mine, silently pleading with me for something I didn't know. It was different to how he'd been when he wanted me to guess the wolf thing. This was my Jacob, not Sam's, and he was asking something of me I didn't understand. Or at least something that I wasn't prepared to acknowledge yet. The roots were strong.

Then, mercifully, his eyes softened back to the Jake who'd brought me warm sodas and conversation hearts. Back to the boy who didn't make my skin prickle with his heat.

He laughed, leaning his enormous arm on my shoulder. "You know, one day, when we're old and gray, we're gunna reminisce about this. About us running away and sleeping in the back of an Aerostar."

"I never said we were getting that hideous van."

I paused, my eyes flicking over to Jake and back to the road as, once again, my old truck got passed by a newer, faster version of herself.

After a few miles of stand-off silence only broken by the crunch of corn chips every ten seconds or so, and the constant hum of the motor, I sighed. "How much is it?"

Jake smirked, knowing he'd won. "Three and a half."

"And where in Oregon is this feat of motoring design located?"

"It's not in Oregon, it's in Boise."

"Idaho?"

"The one and only. If we keep following the eighty-four tomorrow, we can make it there in a day, easy. And if we keep going west," he smiled, reaching for the big bag of Doritos he'd all but devoured in the last ten minutes and stuffing a huge handful in his mouth, "then we're definitely going all the way to Yellowstone. I wanna see the wolves they reintroduced there."

"The wolves?"

He chewed, swallowing, "Yes Bells, my cousins in the supernatural world." His lips turned up into a smirk.

He knew as well as I did, that we hadn't had that conversation yet. That conversation where I ask all the weird questions and he gives me all the weird answers.

I supposed that time had finally come. "So you can run with your cousins? Is that why you wanna go to Yellowstone? Won't they treat just you as a lone wolf, like a threat? Or are you so huge that they're scared of you?"

"I wanna go look at them as a human, Bells."

"Oh."

"I don't know about these ones, but the ones back home take off as soon as they hear us coming," he said, chewing still.

I glanced over to see his muscle in his arms bunch as his hand dived in to the bag. His hand made the big share bag look like a snack size.

"Because you're so huge?" I remembered that wolf who'd stalked by me, the familiarity in his eyes—Jake's eyes. That light brown, reddish wolf had been enormous. He was like a horse, only stockier— and far more lethal.

"Maybe," he shrugged, offering me the bag of chips before reaching in for another handful, "but I think it's the sent. I think we'd smell human to real wolves. A wild human, but human nonetheless."

We drove on for a few minutes. I watched as Jake proceed to single-handedly devour a sixteen ounce bag of corn chips. Then, in a matter of five bites each, I listened as Jake inhaled three of the four huge apples we'd bought on the side of the road somewhere near Corbett.

I nibbled at mine, unhurried, enjoying the warmth of the juice as I bit into the crisp, white flesh. "Why do you eat so much now? Is it the wolf?"

"Uh huh," he nodded through a mouthful. He wound his window down further, pegging the thin core out into the pine forest surrounding us. "It crazy Bells, I'm so hungry, like, all the time. Dad says it's because of the energy it takes to phase."

"Phase?"

"Morph, transform, change, shift; whatever you want to call it, I don't know why, but us guys morphing into giant wolves has, for some reason, been given the very scientific name of phasing." He shook his head, chuckling to himself, "As if it's a phase and I'm gunna grow out of it."

I hazarded a glance at him, the way his lips thinned as the spoke about his lack of choice on becoming a wolf. I could see the muscles of his jaw working, his jaw was angular and sharp now. No sign of the boy with the long black hair. I missed his long hair, but I liked the short on him too.

"Is that why you're so hot? It's like you've got a fever of a hundred and four."

He smirked at me, "I've always been hot Bells, it just took turning into a giant hairy monster to get you to notice."

Then he winked at me, clicking his tongue in the back of his teeth. Typical guy. I just chuckled at him. I liked the freedom I could see in his eyes. The old Jake was there.

"You know I meant your temperature, smart ass."

"I know, I know," he chuckled, settling back in his seat. "Actually, Sam's girlfriend, Emily, measured him and Paul, we're closer to one-oh-eight."

I looked over at him, his dark tanned skin was smooth and absent of any kind of feverish flush, "Whoa, Jake, that's dangerously high! You're gunna cook your brain."

"I don't think so, again, dad recons we have the heat as a by-product of our increased metabolism, everything is higher, bigger, faster… enhanced, Bells. Everything."

"Tell me, Jake. Tell me what it's like."

…

So there. They're still Best friends. Bella's still in denial about what's going on her garden of hearts. And Jake eats a lot.

It's a slow and steady climb up that tree of love. But the sapling will grow. It's got all of Jake's sunshine after all.

Tell me your thoughts.