Purple monkey dishwasher! No betas, yadda yadda. Thanks to misswinkles for still managing to muster up some excitement about this story and to everyone who has commented and sent along their support.

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The breaking dawn found them moving quickly about the only home Isabella had ever known.

She collected the parcel she'd prepared - full of trappings she could not do without, whether at home, or indeed in the wilderness - while Edward swept away careless tracks they'd left in the dirt, and cared for Isabella's exhausted horse. His dog had long run off after a hare, disappearing into the thicket. He crunched his way through the undergrowth until they heard him no more.

"He'll be back when he's good and ready," Edward had said with a grin. It was the first time she'd seen him smile. It made him look like a boy and her heart ached to see it.

She broke her fast standing for the last time in her father's kitchen, watching Edward through the window. She followed the turns of his big, capable hands as he hefted up and secured her packs, making room for everything she wanted to bring without a word of complaint. It looked like a lot, though she'd been frugal. She had always been a practical woman.

Edward seemed to fill the yard with his presence, and she couldn't take her eyes off him while brushing the dirt of the road from her hair and plaiting it into a neat rope down her back.

She watched him as he tightened the straps of her saddle, diligently checking the fit. He rubbed at them with his thumb, flicking away the many dried specks of mud spattered all over the leather. With a care, he straightened the blanket over her horse's flank, brushing it smooth. He was a doer, her Edward.

The tight knot beneath Isabella's ribs eased with a sigh as she watched him work.

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When time came to finally take their leave, Edward stayed by their horses, hat pulled down low over his face while she walked one last time through the little house to pay her respects.

Isabella sat in her father's chair just as he once had, and chased the ghost of his hands, rubbing her fingers over the armrests, fabric worn dull and thin where he'd worried at it, as was his way.

"I'll be off now, Daddy," she said to the four walls. It felt just right to say it.

In the bedroom, Isabella bent her head and kissed her mother's name, the lines of which had long ago been carved into living wood, the day her father had brought Renee here as his bride.

The tree he'd marked had been struck by lightning when Isabella was very small. She recalled how he had painstakingly removed the carving right along with its bed, how his fingers had followed the shape of her mother's name before he dressed it into a plaque and worked the panel into a drawer of her wardrobe.

Isabella smiled, knowing how Sheriff Charles Swan would bristle at being called sentimental.

She pressed her own fingers to her mother's name, too, and asked for the blessing a bride would wish to receive on her wedding day, for this was the closest she'd come to having one. The closest she had ever wanted to.

She took a deep breath and cast about her a last glance at the old life, then closed the door without turning back.

Outside, she looked to Edward and her heart smiled. She could regret nothing. He had taken off his coat and secured it to the pommel of his own horse, warmed by the work and by the rare spot of mid-morning sunshine. Sweat glistened on his neck. He had rolled up his sleeves.

Isabella stared at his forearms, veins brought to the surface, muscle cording beneath browned skin. Something twisted hotly inside her, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Are you certain?" he asked quietly, and her eyes shot up to where he was now looking at her with eyes so intense that they seemed to read her mind. Trapped like a fly in his golden sap gaze, Isabella's belly tightened, wondering how far inside her he could really see.

Taking the rein of her horse from his hand, she opened her mouth to tell him always, completely, then paused, both of them turning at the sudden burst of sound coming toward them, a concert of hooves rising like a rumble from the road.

They had to hide. Edward's wild eyes swept up the hill to the deep forest, but there was no time to run, she knew. They had to hide.

"In here," she whispered urgently, pulling at Edward's arm. She led him into the barn, the horses trailing behind, until they could push themselves in behind the stalls amongst the wood her father had prepared for fires he'd never light. They wedged themselves in tight with the horses either side, coming to uneasy rest where the shadows were deepest. Edward put his hand over his horse's nose, murmuring quietly to it.

They waited side by side, listening as men dismounted and began nosing about in Isabella's yard.

As the sounds neared the barn, Edward stiffened beside her.

"House is locked up tight," a man yelled from across the yard.

A beat of silence, then, "Looks in order," said another, sounding a little closer to their hiding place.

"The sheriff," she whispered. Edward's eyes grew hard and resigned.

They both started at the sound of footsteps in the barn, turning first to each other and then to stone in the shadows, knowing there was nowhere left to go. A dog whined, and Edward froze. They had a dog, and it'd probably scented them already. They would be discovered now, all their plans for naught. Isabella closed her eyes tight, sent a silent plea to her father and mother, then looked up and straight into the face of Pastor Newton.

She could have laughed for the irony of the man she had rejected holding her future within his grasp after all.

With her heartbeat thudding sickly in her throat, Isabella took Edward's hand in her own, twining their fingers together. They stood motionless in the dark of the stable watching as the pastor's eyes drew down to where she held on to the man she had chosen, white-knuckled and desperate, and where Edward's grip matched hers for intensity.

They made their fingers into a tight nest. The pastor said nothing at all, nor moved an inch, no doubt shocked by his discovery.

Outside, the sheriff's men could be heard poking and prying into this and that, making no bones about keeping quiet; they thought the house deserted. Pastor Newton raised his eyes and looked from Isabella to Edward, who was drawn as tight as a bow beside her.

Isabella's breath came fast. Unmindful of propriety, she turned to Edward and wound her free arm around his waist, grasping a fistful of shirt and hanging on tight, anguish rising in her chest at how close they'd come to a chance at some kind of life, snatched and cobbled together and taken by sheer will of wanting.

"Anything in the barn, Reverend?" The sheriff called from outside.

The pastor's eyes were glued to where she clutched at Edward. She tightened her fingers. Edward was still as a pillar and just as solid as one beneath her hand. She looked up and whispered, "Run, just run, if you go now while they're busy—"

But Edward just smiled, let go of her hand and brushed his fingers over her hair.

"I've been wanting to do this," he whispered, slowly working his fingers into her hair to loosen her plait where it lay hot and heavy on her neck. He tugged it free from its ribbon and let it fall and sift between his fingers, sighing in contentment. Isabella felt the prickling of unshed tears burning in her throat. Edward gave her a smile that barely quirked his mouth and then faced Pastor Newton as though waiting for the axe to fall.

"Nothing here, Sheriff," Michael Newton said, looking them both in the eye as the lie tumbled from his mouth, smooth as silk. Isabella's mouth fell open in a silent gasp.

With a last unreadable look at her face, Pastor Newton turned away. Isabella looked up and caught Edward's eye, finding stunned disbelief painted there to match her own.

"Ol' Joe Cope's so close to the ground, he's seeing ghosts, if'n you ask me," someone said nearby, and another man could be heard laughing.

"As it happens, I did not ask you," the sheriff replied, even and calm, sounding closer. "Now go round back and make double sure the house is secure."

"Come now, Sheriff, the old man's sent us on a fool's errand, there's nothing here but ghosts," Pastor Newton said, and had Isabella not seen him do it with her own two eyes she'd not believe Michael Newton had it in him.

"Maybe not, but it's still worth seeing to properly," said the sheriff. The scuff of boots signalled that he was but a few feet away and Isabella's stomach dropped sickly. No, she thought. No, no, no. If Edward could be persuaded to crouch down out of sight, maybe she could convince the sheriff it was only her, that she'd changed her mind, that she'd grown fearful of the prospect of moving away from the only home she'd ever known and had come back cowed and ashamed. Maybe he'd believe it if she told it just right.

Desperate, she turned to try and persuade Edward to go, to run goddamnit, when a sudden commotion broke out in the yard, low growling giving way to the frantic barking and yapping of dogs, making a racket that could probably be heard for miles around.

"I told you to tie up that damn cur," someone shouted over the scuffle of men trying to separate two dogs with their hackles up for each other.

Edward's horse's ears flicked in anxiety and he gently covered its nostrils with his palm, stroking it to calmness, then risked a crane of his neck to look over the stall, eyes round as saucers.

"It's Jim," he whispered urgently, then shot Isabella a look of pure, wild joy, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. "He's bailed up their dog and— Oh! Oh no." Edward had gone from happiness to dread and Isabella stood on her tiptoes to see one of the sheriff's men taking up his rifle.

"No, it's all right, look!"

Jim, no fool when it came to men, had seen the glint of metal and had shot off like a rock from a sling, having unintentionally worked the miracle of drawing everyone's attention away from the barn.

Sure enough, the Sheriff backed off until his shadow no longer lengthened over the dirt floor of the barn and they could hear his men heaving back into their saddles and ribbing each other about giving chase to the crazy dog which had burst into the open from out of nowhere and whipped everyone into a frenzy, the most excitement the little town had seen in months.

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Before long they'd all taken themselves back to the road and the house lay as quiet as though it had always been that way, nothing but the mild sweep of a breeze to stir the leaves of the forest as far as the ear could hear.

"Son of a gun just saved my skin," Edward muttered, and quietly led the horses from the barn. He turned as if to help Isabella into her saddle, but she'd already slipped her boot into the stirrup and vaulted lightly to her seat. Edward's gaze slipped over the trousers hugging her thighs and if it weren't for his thick beard, she'd swear he was blushing.

"Our skins," she said, shooting him a look of mild reproach. She could not yet bring herself to so much as think on what Pastor Newton had done for them. Not until they were truly safe.

Edward gave her an upraised brow and a manic grin that sent a thrill up her spine, the curl of his lip slipping through the lattice of her ribs like a sharp and perfect blade, making a home in her heart as they rode away into the woods.

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A/N Thank you for reading.