Chapter Two

"Come in," Bella said, gesturing to the sofa. Emmett scanned the room quickly and was relieved that the windows were blocked by thick drapes. "Make yourself comfortable. Would you like some coffee?"

"Maybe later." He smiled tightly, trying to conceal his fangs. Her scent was stronger in the house despite competing with the strong odors of disinfectants and cleaners.

"Excuse me for a moment, then, because I badly need a cup." She slipped through the doorway into what was, presumably, the kitchen.

Emmett looked around, noting the utter lack of a decorating theme. The room was cluttered with a seemingly random blend of antiques, junk and mementoes and art, with books crammed into every possible spot, but stringently clean without a speck of dust in sight. He couldn't imagine how much time it must take to dust her eclectic collection.

If a person's home was an expression of their personality, Bella was a fascinating jumble. Hers was the only scent he detected; she lived alone (aside from a cat) and hadn't even entertained visitors in a very long time.

He stepped closer to a shelf and studied the ushabti functioning as a bookend. To his surprise, it seemed genuine. He wouldn't thought of her as wealthy enough to own Egyptian pharaonic antiquities.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Bella asked from the doorway. A light blue mug was cupped in her hands.

"It is," Emmett replied, "How did you come to have this piece?"

"My mother," Bella gestured to a framed photograph of a blonde woman with Bella's soft eyes that was perched beside a struggling philodendron. "She traveled and always brought back treasures. I always wished I could go with her. These pieces were like sharing the experience."

"Why didn't you go with her?"

Bella gave him a small smile and sipped her coffee. "Various reasons."

He nodded, accepting and respecting her privacy. For the time being, that is. His curiosity was piqued and he had every intention of delving into her mind.

Bella tilted her head. "You need to rest."

Emmett looked away, his eyes landing on the cheap particleboard bookcase beside the door. (A material that Edward scathingly referred to as "pressed horseshit".) Its shelves sagged from the weight of the books stacked two rows deep. Mostly fiction, he noted, with a heavy emphasis on the classics, all of them battered with broken spines. She didn't have Bronte and Tolstoy tomes to impress visitors; these were books that had been worn heavily by multiple readings.

"You look very tired," Bella said. "Why don't you lie down for a while? You'll feel better after some sleep."

Emmett doubted that but acquiesced. She led him down a short hallway to a bedroom. Hers, judging from the scent of it. He hung back until he had confirmed that all of the windows were thickly covered with drapery.

Here the furniture matched, an early American four-post bed opposite an enormous Chippendale highboy that would make an Antiques Roadshow appraiser weep with lust. A washstand at its side held a Wedgewood bow and pitcher, the latter stuffed with dried flowers. Beside the bed, a spindly-legged table was perched, a Tiffany lamp atop it, a colorful incongruous note. It was Bella's room, from the scent of it.

"Get some sleep," Bella urged.

Emmett felt he could happily wallow in linens drenched with her scent. He kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed. Bella stood in the doorway, nibbling her lip. She wanted to say something.

He broke the small silence. "Thank you."

She smiled and he ached at the sight. Bella was pretty but when she smiled, she was the most gorgeous sight he'd beheld in years. He wanted nothing more than to rise, pull her into his arms and brush that soft hair from her neck. She would arch into him, that same smile lighting her face, and he would bite-

Stop! he commanded himself.

"You're welcome, Emmett", she said and something inside him leapt when she spoke his name. "I hope... I hope I can help you. I do want to help you."

"You have," he assured her, and meant it.

"I was telling the truth when I said I've been there myself." She bit her lip again and he trembled with the urge to bite it himself. "For years, I kept digging a pit. Every day, a little deeper. A few times I climbed out, a few times those who loved me draggedme out, but depression gets to be a habit, you know? That pit became familiar. It became comforting, and I didn't want to leave."

Emmett knew what she meant. Over the last decade, he'd been weaving in and out of these spells and when he felt himself going back into the black, back into the numb detachment, he felt like he was walking a well-worn path to where he belonged. Hello darkness, my old friend.

She reached toward him, as if to caress his cheek or run her fingers through his curly hair, but she abruptly drew back, an expression of faint surprise flitting across her face as if her hand had pulled a Dr. Strangelove on her.

"Rest," she said, turning to walk away. "I'll bring you something to eat later."

"Thank you, but there's no need-"

She tossed a smile over her shoulder. "Not to be rude or anything but it really looks like you need it."

He imagined he did, pale and shaky as he was. She couldn't understand, of course, what he really needed. She closed the door, smiling as she backed away, her soft eyes full of compassion.

Emmett laid back on her bed with a soft groan. He rolled over and tugged her comforter down, burrowing his face into the sheets. To his disappointment, they were freshly laundered, but her scent still clung to them, faint but sweet. What was that scent? What made it so different, so succulent? He was sure she had never encountered his kind before. Few vampires would be able to resist draining her.

The bed crinkled strangely as he moved. He pulled up the edge of the bottom sheet and stared in puzzlement at the plastic lining. Why would Bella have a mattress cover? He smelt no traces of incontinence. Another mystery to tuck away and ponder.

He nuzzled his face into her pillow and arranged his body into the proper position, chuckling at the way his legs hung out over the end of the bed. It was a bit shorter than modern beds (likely she had to have the mattress custom made) and he was a very large man.

He closed his eyes and found that he was tired after all. He hadn't slept in days. At his age, he no longer slept every day but the three days he'd been awake were stretching his limits. He slipped into the dreamless sleep of his kind. His last waking thought was a hope that Bella didn't come in to check on him and freak out at the unbreathing body lacking a pulse.

In the late afternoon, he woke with a start. He heard footsteps heading away and realized that it must have been the door shutting that woke him. The scent of human food caught his nose and he found the source of it on the bedside table. A plate wrapped in plastic had been placed there, along with a glass that also bore a cover of cling-wrap. Maybe this chick had a thing for plastic.

"Mrow."

Emmett looked down and beheld a contender for World's Ugliest Cat sitting on the floor, and staring intently at his plate. The door must not have securely latched when Bella left, because it was pushed open just enough to admit the scraggly creature. Tufts of its tortoiseshell fur were missing, as was its left eye. Both ears were missing pieces.

"Mrow."

He was glad Bella had a cat as a pet rather than a dog. For some unknown reason, cats loved vampires but dogs feared and despised them. The cat leapt up onto Emmett's chest and immediately began using his paws to knead. Apparently satisfied that he'd softened the spot sufficiently, the cat curled up in a purring ball, turning his head upside down to look into Emmett's face.

"Mrow?"

"Is that Cat-ese for 'I want a piece of your sandwich'?" Emmett asked, stroking the scruffy feline. Up close, Emmett could see the scars where fur would never grow again. "You've had a rough time of it, eh?"

The cat confirmed this assumption with an emphatic "Mrow." Emmett reached for the plate. "All right, let's see what we've got." He peeled away the plastic cover to reveal a turkey club with a side of potato chips and a pickle spear. "Ah, it must be the pickle you want," Emmett said, waggling it in front of the cat. It gave him a disdainful look, clearly doubting his intelligence.

"Are you even allowed to eat People Food?"

"Mrow."

"I suspect you're lying, but I'll give you a bit anyway. Just don't tell Bella."

"Mrow," the cat promised.

Emmett tore off a piece of turkey and fed it to the cat. For all of his rough appearance, the cat was a dainty eater. Emmet fed him a few pieces and then gently deposited the feline on the bed beside him. He got up and peeked out the door. Bella was nowhere in sight.

Emmett tiptoed down the hall to the bathroom. Just follow the smell of bleach, he thought. He entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He'd heard the expression You could eat off the floor but he'd never encountered a place that literally embodied it. Surgical suites were not as clean as Bella's bathroom. Everything in the room was white, half-tiled in shiny white porcelain with white paint on the walls above. The floor was also tiled in white with no grout between them. The old-fashioned freestanding tub gleamed and not a hair disgraced the drain.

Emmett shredded the sandwich into bits and dropped them in the toilet along with the chips. He left a small potion of the sandwich on the plate and took a bite out of it, spitting it into the bowl. He admired the nice bitemark he had left. He flushed away the evidence.

He couldn't help it, he had to snoop a bit. He opened her medicine cabinet and found it bare of most of the things other humans thought essential. She had a bottle of Vitamin E capsules and a tube of "all-natural" toothpaste, a brand he didn't recognize. Her toothbrush was on one of the shelves, sealed in a plastic container.

Under the sink, he was surprised to find none of the ordinary feminine hygiene products. Only a bottle of bleach and a box of disposable toilet brushes beside a package of toilet paper made from recycled fiber.

He picked up the bottle that rested on the edge of the tub. It was shampoo/body wash that smelled like freesia but had no chemicals or dyes, according to the text on the reverse. He popped the cap open and inhaled. It smelled like Bella. He put it down and went in search of her.

The smell of food led him to the kitchen. Bella was standing at the stove, humming as she stirred a pot. Emmett intentionally took heavy steps as not to startle her and she gave him one of those beautiful smiles over her shoulder. "Hello, Emmett. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, I did," he replied. "Thank you. I needed that." He put his plate on the counter. "What are you making?" It looked like a Thanksgiving feast. She had every burner occupied by a pot or pan and something baking in the oven. A water distiller in the corner of the counter was dripping into a pitcher.

"It's Wednesday," she said absently as a timer dinged. She put mitts on her hands and pulled the oven door down a bit. "Five more minutes," he heard her mutter.

"Wednesday?"

"Oh, yes." Bella straightened up and joined the conversation. "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I cook dinner for my friends."

"Can I help?"

Her eyes shone as if his offer was her dearest wish. "Would you? Everything's almost done. Could you please go to the balcony and get my wagon?"

Okay, that was an odd request, but Emmett complied, following her pointing finger to a sliding glass door. He checked the floor beneath the curtain for any indication of sunlight before pulling it aside and going outside. The sun had set recently; he could still feel its warmth on the handle of the wagon. Made of heavy-duty plastic, the wagon had a cooler-style lid that snapped shut and large wheels for rough terrain. He pulled it back into the kitchen and froze as his ears caught an approaching sound. It was the engine of his 1962 Stingray.

Mortal ears could not discern that every car engine sounded different, as unique as a fingerprint. It was his car, and only one person could be driving it.

Edward had always coveted Emmett's Stingray. He made outlandish offers for it at least once a month (the last was 2.6 billion dollars and a villa in the south of France) occasionally tried to "steal" it with elaborate, good-natured ruses. When Emmett had left the house for what he thought was the last time, he'd taken the key from his ring and left it in the middle of the counter.

Emmett pulled the wagon over to Bella and told her he needed to step outside for a moment. She was back in her cooking mode and simply nodded. Emmett closed the door behind him and waited.

It didn't take long. Edward pulled up in the driveway. He had the top down, as he always did when he drove it, but for once, didn't have his music blasting. Disdaining the door, he hopped out and trotted up the driveway, his eyes snapping around, his face and posture screaming tension. Edward's reddish-brown hair was a mess as usual, a contrast with the sharp perfection designer suits he always wore, but somehow he carried it off.

"Hey", Emmett said from the balcony.

Edward looked up and his face flooded with relief."I've been looking for you everywhere," he said, his British accent particularly crisp, as it was when he was angry. "I followed your scent here." He looked around. "Why are you here?"

A question Emmett didn't want to answer. He was working on his response when Bella called his name from the kitchen. Edward raised an eyebrow and jumped up onto the balcony. Emmett wanted to block the doorway. Women flocked to Edward, stylish, handsome and witty whereas Emmett was huge, clumsy and tongue-tied. Emmett would vastly prefer if Edward never laid eyes on Bella, but there was no avoiding it; she called Emmett's name again. Emmett sighed in surrender and led Edward into the kitchen. He noticed the instant when Edward caught her scent. He went still and his eyes went wide, snapping to Emmett with sudden understanding.

"Could you please reach into the top cab-" Bella froze as she laid eyes on the newcomer.

"Hello, love," Edward said, flashing her his patented crooked smile. British badboy in Armani. Women swooned.

Bella did not. Her cheeks pinkened and she retreated back a step. Edward glanced at Emmett, giving him a cue to speak. "Bella, this is my friend Edward. Edward, Bella."

"Apt name," Edward purred. He put out a hand, probably to take hers and kiss it, but Bella did not extend her own. Edward simply smirked and dropped his hand to his side.

"I was worried when you didn't come home," Edward said to Emmett, his light green eyes boring into his friend's. "Usually you leave a note."

"The two of you live together?" Bella asked.

"We're room mates," Edward replied, avoiding any misconceptions. He lowered his voice to a conspirational whisper. "Emmett's not my type."

Bella gave a little chuckle and turned back to her stove. "Emmett, could you please get me the large dish from the cabinet above the refrigerator?"

He complied. From there, Bella began to direct the two men as if they had been hired specifically for the task. Edward was a bit surprised to find himself suddenly under this small general's command, but he obeyed without question.

They transferred food from their cooking pots into insulated bowls with snapping lids and packed them into the wagon. The distilled water was used to make a pitcher of tea (Emmett had never known there was such a thing as organic tea bags), sweetened with unbleached organic sugar. The last things packed were a stack of Royal Doulton plates, a sheet of bubblewrap between each, a set of glasses in a box and a wood chest of sterling silverware.

"What the fuck is she doing?" Edward asked as they arranged the items per her instructions.

"I have no idea," Emmett confessed.

"All set!" Bella said brightly. She handed Emmett a duffel bag and grabbed the wagon handle. She went out the front door of the house and started down the street, Emmett and Edward trailing behind.

Edward was the one who asked.

"We're taking dinner to some of my friends," Bella explained. "They can't cook themselves a nutritious home-made meal, and so I bring them one three times a week. At least I know they're getting good food on those nights."

"Very kind of you," Edward complimented.

Bella blushed. "It's no trouble. I like cooking."

The neighborhoods through which they walked became steadily worse. He saw Edward's brow wrinkle with consternation as they left the safe blandness of the suburbs and entered the outskirts of the city.

All the while, Edward and Bella chatted, Emmett trailing behind them. Rather, Edward chatted and Bella answered in monosyllables. She was one of the rarest of creatures: a person who did not like to talk about themselves. She would reply to inquiries about books she'd read, local politics, movies and so on, but when it came to her personal lie, she answered vaguely or not at all.

Emmett was in despair. By the time he thought of a line to contribute to the conversation, they had moved on to another topic. He had a sinking feeling in his gut. It wouldn't be the first time a woman had lost interest in him in favor of his suave and gorgeous friend.

He consoled himself that at least he was learning a few things about her. She was twenty-four and had lived alone since her parents had been killed in a car accident a few years prior. Her father, Charlie, had been in real estate. Her mother, Renee, had been a school teacher.

They crossed over a poorly maintained bridge and Bella immediately steered them to the left, dragging the wagon down a dirt path. On the underside of the bridge, men were setting up makeshift tables: a sheet of plywood across two sawhorses, a large wood crate, a folding card table with only three legs (they propped the edge upon the crate to steady it) and a door laid across a large spool which had once held some sort of cable. Seats were brought. A few chairs, crates, a stump, even a broken television shared by two.

Poorly dressed, dirty people were swarming into the area seemingly from out of nowhere. Bella took the bag from Emmet and started distributing the contents: white linen table cloths and napkins, ornate silver candlesticks and trivets. The tables were covered quickly and neatly. One man opened the wagon and retrieved the plates. Another started setting the silverware. When they had finished, it looked like a formal setting in any fine restaurant, excepting, of course, the fact that each table was a different height. The napkins had even been folded into fans. The fine china and silver gleamed in dirty hands.

Bella put on her mitts and started placing the food containers onto the trivets. Everyone pitched in, a coordinated dance that showed familiarity.

Finally, they all took their seats. Twenty people of various ages, races and genders, all of them homeless. Bella stood to the side with Emmett and Edward. An older man wearing a tattered suit took place at the head of the table and cleared his throat. "Shall we say grace?" Everyone around the table joined hands and bowed their heads. The man began to pray aloud. Emmett noted that Bella did not bow her head. As soon as the last "Amen" had sounded, Bella began putting serving implements in each dish. Hungry as they must be, everyone politely passed plates, dished out food and waited for everyone to be served before beginning. Once they began to eat, the decorum slipped a little with their haste, but everyone tried to remain polite.

"What the fuck is this?" Edward said, his voice low so Bella could not overhear. She was chatting with the man in the suit and dishing out seconds. "She's friends with twenty homeless people? How long do you think she's been coming down here in the fucking dark? Jesus, it's a miracle she hasn't been-" He cut off, but Emmett knew what he was thinking.

As the meal finished, Bella began collecting dirty plates. Emmett noticed she was wearing latex gloves, but decided he'd ask about them later. The people thanked Bella, complimented her on her cooking and made requests for Friday's meal.

The man in the tattered suit stood. He gave a courtly little bow to Bella and complimented the meal before making his way over to Emmett and Edward. "I know what you are," he said without preamble. He kept his voice low as to not be overheard but hatred coated every word.

"Oh?" Edward said, arching a brow in challenge. "What might that be?"

"Vampires!" the man hissed.

"Vampires don't exist, old man," Edward drawled.

The man's eyes narrowed. "Kindly refrain from insulting my intelligence. Your kind prey on my people, those on society's fringes, and rarely bother to conceal themselves because they know we won't be believed. Not that anyone cares if the homeless are thinned out. No one cared when Maggie vanished. The police wouldn't even take a report. They said she'd probably just moved on. No one cared about my friend David. Just a bum found in the river, his throat torn open, his death attributed to a robbery. But I saw the one who did it, even if no one believes me."

Edward dropped the pretense. "Killing mortals is against the code of our kind."

"Ha!"

"It's true," Emmett confirmed. "We do have laws. Killing mortals risks our exposure. We will call down the Volturi, our queen's enforcers."

The man scoffed again and kicked a clump of earth with his battered loafers. "What do you want with our Bella?"

Both men were silent.

"That's what I thought," the man said grimly. "I won't let you hurt her."

Edward wasn't cruel. He didn't laugh. He nodded gravely as if he respected the old man in the filthy, tattered Brooks Brothers suit as a worthy opponent. "Perhaps you won't believe it, but neither of us has any desire to harm Bella."

"You're right. I don't believe you. But there's little I can do."

"There you are!" Bella chirped, coming over to their small group with bundled linens in arms. "Could you help me fold these, please? Mr. Grayson, did you want me to leave you a plate of leftovers? The vegetables and bread should keep for another night."

"Thank you, but no. If I broke one of your lovely plates, I'd never forgive myself." Mr. Grayson smiled tenderly at Bella.

"I have service for forty, Mr. Grayson. If you did break a plate, it would hardly be a tragedy."

"Nevertheless, I must decline." He bowed to her and walked away, toward the bridge that served as home to their small tribe.

Once everything was packed in the wagon, they the journey back to Bella's house. This time it was Emmett who spoke up first. "Bella, it's sort of dangerous to be walking down here at night."

Bella shook her head. "No one has ever bothered me. Besides, I have my cell phone. And sometimes, Mr. Grayson walks me home."

Protected by a frail homeless man. Jesus.

Edward spoke up. "Perhaps you should drive."

"I don't have a car," Bella replied.

"How long have you been doing this?"

"About six months now."

At that, Edward began to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut tightly with frustration.

"Why don't you work in a soup kitchen?"

Bella was silent for a moment. "I did, for a little while. One of the local chruches had a daily meal for the poor. It's just... I didn't like how the people were treated."

"In what way?" Emmett asked.

"It was the little things. They made them all wait outside until the 'official' time the kitchen was open. Even when it was cold. I never understood why they couldn't let them wait inside. The kitchen and serving area was in the basement. They could have let the people sit in the pews, and they wouldn't have been in the way. But they made them wait in a line outside. It felt like it was a... status thing. Maybe I'm just over-thinking it."

"You seem rather perceptive to me," Edward commented. "So maybe you were reading it correctly."

"They fed them cheap, low-nutrient, processed food. And there was this hostility, like 'You should be grateful for what you get.' And don't get me wrong, the people were grateful, but it was like they didn't matter as much as regular people. I asked one of the cooks one time, 'Would you feed this to your kids?'" Bella sighed. "I know all of this sounds silly, but it bothered me. It bothered me that they were given their food on disposable plates with plastic forks that kept breaking while they were trying to eat. It bothered me that it was such a sterile, impersonal, institutional-style environment. There was no effort to make it nice. So, I decide if I was going to feed people, I'd do it my way."

Edward cleared his throat, a sound that was more habit than anything. "Bella, doesn't your expensive silverware get stolen?"

"It happened a couple of times, but the others made them give it back." She shrugged. "And if I did lose it, it's really no big deal. It's not like I throw a lot of dinner parties. I think my mom would be happy it's getting some use." She tilted her head and gazed at Edward speculatively. "You've kept me chatting about myself, but you haven't told me anything about you guys."

"What would you like to know?"

"For starters, how long have you and Emmett been friends?"

"Since college," Edward lied smoothly. Emmett had always admired his ability to make up details on the fly and, more importantly, remember them. "Emmett was my room mate. We were in the same program and we got along well, so it just made sense to keep sharing expenses when we graduated and set out to find jobs."

"What do you do?"

Edward was apparently inspired by a newspaper that blew by."We work for the Daily Recorder."

"Reporters?"

"No, we're investigators. We gather information for the stories. Other people get the glamour." A quick way of explaining why she'd never see a byline with their names.

"Seems like you'd be perfect for the glamour part," Bella said and then flushed scarlet. "Uhh, did I say that out loud?"

Edward laughed. "Quite all right."

"But you're English, aren't you? How did you come to be in one of our universities?"

Edward spun a yarn about his family immigrating when he was a teenager. Truthfully, they hadn't lived in England for more than a century, nor was Edward originally from England, but he used the accent because women found it attractive. Emmett was more practical and always tried to adapt his speech patterns to wherever they happened to live.

They arrived back at Bella's house. Edward held the door open for Bella as she steered the wagon through it. "So, Bella, have you seen the new Edward Norton film? Supposed to be quite good. No? Would you like to go see it with me tomorrow evening? Dinner afterwards?"

Bella's face was crimson and she stammered a bit. "I... I uh, I don't like to go to restaurants."

Edward shrugged. "We could have dinner here if you liked."

Still red-faced she accepted.

"I'll pick you up at seven," Edward said and gave her one of those crooked smiles. Bella stuttered her thanks as he strode toward the Stingray. "See you at home, Emmett?"

"Yeah," Emmett muttered, resentment burning. Goddamit. Edward smirked and peeled out of the driveway. Bella watched until he disappeared and then gave a little sigh. She pulled the wagon into the kitchen.

"Need help unloading?" Emmett asked quietly.

Bella smiled. "That would be great, thanks." She put on another pair of latex gloves and ran hot water into the sink, adding copious amounts of bleach and soap. She wouldn't let Emmett wash them. She scrubbed at each plate so vigorously that he was amazed the pattern remained intact. His task was to stack the sparkling plates into the dishwasher. Her pots and pans were stainless steel. Those she attacked with a steel wool pad.

After all of the dishes had been washed and the dishwasher set to the "Sanitize" cycle, Bella attacked the kitchen. Every surface was scrubbed, bleached and scrubbed again. He didn't know why Bella had accepted his help since she seemed compelled to go back and re-clean what he had done. He didn't mind, though she seemed a little embarrassed about it.

It was after midnight when she ran water into a bucket and poured in another heaping helping of bleach. "Just have to mop the floor and then we're done."

"Where's your mop stored?"

She shook her head. "I don't have one. They're germy." She put on a new pair of gloves and plopped down onto her hands and knees and began to scrub at the tile with a cloth. Emmett appreciated the view of her lush backside waggling in the air for a moment before grabbing a cloth of his own and kneeling down to help.

"You haven't eaten," he said suddenly.

"I'll fix something when I'm done."

"Why didn't you have some of the food you cooked for your friends?"

"I'm a vegetarian. I cook meat for my friends because that's what they like, but I don't eat it myself."

Light dawned in Emmett's mind. A vegetarian who ate only organic foods without preservatives... She didn't smoke, didn't drink, used distilled water, homeopathic remedies... even her body wash was chemical-free.

That's why she smelled so good, so clean and natural. And suddenly he understood why her scent tugged at his memory. She smelled like the people of his youth, from a time before the human body was flooded with chemicals on a daily basis from their food, medicines and bad habits, back before meat was mass-produced and cheap enough to be a part of the average person's daily diet.

They scrubbed in silence for a while. Bella glanced over at him, rinsing her cloth in the bucket. "You aren't much of a talker, are you?"

Emmett froze, trying to think of something clever, but ultimately ended up saying, "No, I guess I'm not."

Bella smiled. "It's peaceful. I like it."

They finally finished and Bella dumped the bucket of water into the toilet. She set it aside with a satisfied sigh. "Thank you for all of your help."

"I enjoyed it, actually." Emmett said. "I'd like to help you again on Friday, if you'd like." Well, that didn't come out exactly as he'd hoped.

She smiled. He was hoping for a blush but didn't get one. "That's nice of you to offer."

"I meant it."

"Alright, then, I accept. Thank you." She glanced down at her watch. "Can I get you something to eat? You haven't had anything since the sandwich this afternoon."

"I'm fine," Emmett assured her. Pretending to eat in front of a mortal was tricky. They couldn't eat solid food and so anything that went down had to come back up and it was a very painful and unpleasant experience. Thus meals with humans usually involved slight of hand, at which vampires excelled because they could move faster than the eye could see, but as clumsy as Emmett was, he always feared he'd suddenly dump the hidden food onto the floor. "It's late and I should probably let you get get to bed."

Bella shook her head. "I'm not going to bed any time soon. I- Um, actually I was going to go work in my garden."

"How do you garden at night?"

"Would you like to see?"

Emmett nodded. She led him through the living room to a door at the side of the house that led to a metal fire escape. They took the stairs up to the roof and Bella hit a switch at the top of the stairs. The roof blazed with light. Emmett stared in amazement. Bella had a greenhouse on her roof, of all things. She unlocked the door and they stepped into its warm, humid embrace.

She had created something magical with the dozens of box planters about waist high in orderly rows, each filled with well-tended plants. Each corner post had a floodlight and strung between them, criss-crossing over the plants and twined around irrigation pipes were lines of Christmas lights.

"I grow most of my own food," Bella said.

"This is an amazing set-up. Did you do all of this yourself?"

Now he got the blush he'd been hoping to see earlier. She nodded. "I don't have enough space in the yard, and this way, my plants are protected from weeds and pests without having to use a bunch of sprays." She pinched off a a yellowed leaf from a tomato plant.

"My mother was a great gardener," Bella said, her voice soft and wistful. "She grew the most beautiful roses. She could grow most anything but the roses were her pride and joy. I tried taking care of them after she died, but I guess roses are trickier than vegetables."

There were some ornamental plants in the planters around the walls. The one that caught his eye was a bonsai tree. He inspected it with a sense of awe.

"It's over 200 years old," Bella bragged. She had reason to be proud.

"That's amazing. One of your mom's souvenirs?"

"Yes. She and dad lived in Japan for a while before I was born. Her neighbor was a little old man who had this tree. He didn't speak English and Mom didn't speak Japanese, but she'd always go over there for tea and help him tend his gardens. She said it was as peaceful and restoring as an afternoon nap. When they were packing up to move back to the U.S., he came over with one of the neighborhood kids to translate and gave her the tree. He said it was because he said he didn't have long to live and his son was absorbed in modern culture and didn't care about the 'old ways.' He thought Mom would be good for the tree." Bella tested the dampness of its soil with her finger. "He was right. Mom really loved it and taught me to respect it too. She said this tree would outlive us. Hundreds of years from now, when we are nothing but dust, it would still be around. We were just its temporary guardians. It would have many in its long life."

There was a lesson in there somewhere about human mortality and the things we leave behind, but Emmett felt too weary to parse it out. The night was almost over. "Thank you for sharing this with me," he said softly. "I really should be going."

Bella smiled. Every time she did, it felt like a gift. "Thank you for all of your help this evening. Will... Will I see you on Friday?"

"Count on it," Emmett said firmly. For the first time in such a long while, he felt like he had something to look forward to and it felt wonderful.