About an hour later, Sam and the others returned, he and Jared carrying Paul. The latter had blood on his clothes and scratches all over, and he was unconscious.

"What happened?" I exclaimed as they placed him on the table.

"Emily, get some water." Sam barked.

"Shouldn't we call a doctor?" I asked.

"Let them do their thing, Nani." said Leah beside me.

"Well, what about Carlisle?" I asked the room at large. "We can call him, he's a doctor, right?"

"No!" Sam growled, almost like a dog. "Emily, water!"

"I've got it, I've got it." she said, putting a pitcher on the table. Same and Jake each took a cloth and began cleaning the wounds, but I stopped them.

"Here, give me that." I said, starting to clean them myself. "Haven't you ever cleaned blood off before? You don't wipe it, you dab it."

"How do you know so much?" Embry asked.

"Ranch hands get hurt all the time. Traditionally, it's a woman's work to take care of the wounded. Plus, Dad taught me all he knew about Native American medical practices." I explained.

"So you know a lot about injuries." Jared inferred as they watched me work.

"Yeah. Hey, can someone get some rubbing alcohol?" I asked.

"I'll get it." said Seth, leaving the kitchen.

"Mm... mmmm..."

I looked over to see Paul groaning as he made it back to consciousness. "What..."

"Great, now he's conscious." I muttered. "Here." I stuffed a clean rag into his mouth, startling him. "Sorry, but this is gonna burn like hell." I poured the alcohol onto the numerous scars, and two of the guys automatically began holding him down. "Just stay calm, it'll be over in a minute." He tried to say something past the cloth, but all that came out was unintelligible mumbling. I wrapped the scars with gauze and tied them off. "What happened?" I asked, washing my hands. I plucked the cloth from his mouth so he could answer.

"Bear." was all he said.

Lie. Bears have wider-spaced claws than that. "Oh. Well, you're still gonna need to see a doctor. Some of those need stitches, and I really don't want to do that in Emily's kitchen." I told him.

"Thanks." he said, sitting up. "For... whatever you did do." He seemed to be recovering fast.

"No problem." I said. "Just don't challenge the bears."

. . .

Another hour later, I was typing away on my laptop when Seth came and sat next to me. The way he sat was odd, like it was against his better judgment, but also something he badly wanted to do. Either way, I couldn't see how either feeling would apply to sitting on a couch. "That was cool, what you did for Paul." he said. "I had no idea you knew so much about med stuff."

"I'm not really an expert." I said distractedly.

"Well, still you knew more than us, and we've been doing this a while-" He cut himself off, as though he'd gone too far.

"Doing what?" I asked, looking at him.

"Er... hunting." he said, even though he knew it was a lost cause. "So, did you like to do anything special back in Hawaii?"

I leaned back, knowing he was avoiding the topic. "I dunno... I surfed when I had time, and I danced a bit."

"Danced?"

"Yeah. Like, you know, hula dancing." I said. "Except, I just did it for fun."

"Do you remember any dances?" he asked.

I shrugged, unable to help but grin a little. "Not really. I mean, I'd need the music for it..."

"That's cool." he said. "Is Hawaii fun?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask." I told him. "I've lived there all my life. Yeah, you can find fun things to do, but I'm not a tourist so I don't know what you're looking for."

"Can you answer anything specifically?"

"I don't know, maybe you should ask some specific questions." I shot back.

"What's your favorite type of orange?"

I smiled. "Sunset. See? Was that so hard?"

He smiled back. "Nope." he said, popping the 'p'. "So are you going to that party tomorrow night?"

"I think so. I mean, there's nothing else to do, right?" I asked.

"You think it's boring around here?" he asked, sounding amazed.

I looked at him. "Other than a few choice occurrences, yeah, I'd say it's pretty dull."

He rolled his eyes. "That's it, you're coming with me."

"Where are we going?" I asked as he pulled me off the couch.

"You been to the beach yet?" he asked.

"Uh, no..."

"Good. Because that's where we're going."