A/N "Friendly Foe" was never meant to be over 30 chapters, let only have a sequel appear. In fact, I seriously thought about changing the epilogue and just leaving it as a single story...guess you can tell how the characters liked that idea. Anyway, thanks to two of my online friends from another site...they helped me come up with a title to this sequel, one that was easily worked into the story.

"Question is, what can we do to help you?" She then rehearsed what Nick had found out after Julia Saxton left town…and why he'd done the research in the first place. "I might not like it; you might hate it, only Georgia was killed when the train she was on derailed outside Denver. It's been twelve years, son. From everything you said in that letter and what you told us after the war, she'd be here with you if she were alive. Why not have her declared dead?"

Jarrod shrugged his shoulders. How could he explain a feeling he did not understand. Though, one look at his mother's face and he knew he'd have to try. "I..." he started to answer only to have Silas appear in the room.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Barkley."

"No problem, Silas, What is it?" Jarrod' smiled at their butler, wanting him to know he wasn't in trouble.

"You've got a visitor" came the reply.

~oOo~

Jarrod sat back in his chair that sat behind his desk in the study. He was holding up a necklace; his eyes were glued to it as he did so. As the study door was slightly open, Jarrod might have heard Nick giving their visitor of piece of his mind, if he hadn't been so deep in thought, that is. As it was, Jarrod's mind turned back to eighteen sixty four and the stop that Georgia and he had made before he put her on the ill fated train bound for California.

"Oh Jarrod!" Georgia stood in one of Springfield, Illinois many jewelry stores. Her husband had just bought her a gorgeous gold necklace with a single sky blue, oval shaped, 'tear drop' sapphire stone attached at the bottom. "May I really have it?" The piece of jewelry had caught her eye from the moment they'd opened the store doors and stepped inside.

Jarrod, who has seen his wife's eyes start to sparkle as bright as ever when she'd laid her eyes on the necklace, smiled and picked it up. "It's yours. Let's go pay for it though, don't think the clerk or the owner of the store will simply give it to us."

Jarrod sighed and laid the necklace their balding visitor, a gentleman by the name of Bryon Hammer had handed him as proof of the tale he bore, down upon his desk. A part of Jarrod, the part that had stubbornly refused to file a death certificate for his Civil War bride wanted to believe him; the other part told him his mother was right, Georgia had to be dead. As he continued debating the issue again, Jarrod heard a portion of Mr. Hammer's words once more.

"I know what the railroad said, Mr. Barkley." Mr. Hammer looked at Jarrod with a sympathetic look on his face. "But, they were wrong. Yes, they counted forty bodies after the wreck only what they didn't know was the conductor hadn't recorded the fact that the train picked up an extra passenger along the way. That extra passenger was a brother to an acquaintance of mine and…when she learned of the accident….she went and identified one of the bodies as that of her brother's."

"And you say Georgia is alive?" Jarrod asked, wanting to believe, but not daring too, not after what his mother had said. After all, Jarrod had to admit she was right. Georgia would have been waiting for him with open arms if she'd been alive.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." Mr. Hammer explained once more about how he'd found a very badly injured Georgia a good hundred feet from the wreck. "I don't know how she got that far from the wreck, or why the people attending to the accident missed her, but she was still lying there when I came upon the scene and found her. She was almost dead." He looked at Victoria, whose eyes also held a mountain of doubt. "I rushed her to my home in a small mountain community outside of Denver. Then, the doctor, along with my wife tended to her wounds. Before you ask why I didn't talk to the railroad back then, I'll tell you. Me and my family were too busy trying to save the girl's life to worry about talking to the railroad. We figured at the time she could tell us who she was herself, when she woke up which she did. Second, that acquaintance I talked about? The times we see her are few and far between. We saw her shortly before the accident, and then it was years before we saw her again."

Jarrod picked up the necklace again and ran the fingers of his free hand over the tear drop once more. He'd questioned Mr. Hammer and asked why they hadn't contacted the family.

Mr. Hammer shook his head and said, "I did send two wires to your family, but no reply came."

"We never got any telegrams!" Victoria spoke up and defended her and her late husband when Jarrod looked at her questionably only to have Mr. Hammer speak up again.

"We found that out almost six years after the fact, ma'am." He then shocked Jarrod by telling him he'd sent him a couple of telegrams too only, before Jarrod could say the same thing as Victoria, the man added, "Come to find out the telegraph operator had a drinking problem and there were a number of telegrams never sent. The man pocketed the money and never sent the wires. By the time we found out the damage had been done. While she could never bring herself to look at another man, Georgia was convinced too much time had passed and that you had had her declared dead and gone on with your life. When I suggested sending telegrams and finding out for sure, she let me have both barrels. She restated that too much time had passed."

"Then why are you here now? Why isn't she with you?" Jarrod asked, not understanding why the man would make the trip if what he said was true or why he was alone.

Mr. Hammer turned up his hands and shocked them all when he answered, "She had an accident last year, one that paralyzed her from the waist down. While she was fighting for her life once more, she continued to call out for you time and time again. When she pulled through and lived, I told her about it. She had no answer for me sir, but I can tell you the look in her eyes tell me she's still very much in love with you. I tried to convince her to come and see you herself, but the idea petrified her. Not only does she believe there's no man would want her as a wife now, but she continues to say that too many years have gone by. She was sure that you, believing her to be dead, would have remarried and she didn't want to ruin that for you. However," Mr. Hammer shook his head, "when I had business come up that called me out this way, I just had to find out if you were still in the area and see you, find out if you did indeed have a family and all that."

Standing up, Jarrod put the necklace in his shirt pocket and then put on his light brown jacket. He then walked out of the study. As he walked towards the living room, he could hear Nick, who was once again raising his voice. However, when his brother saw Jarrod standing just outside the living room, Nick grew instantly quiet.

"Jarrod?" Victoria asked as Jarrod entered the room saying nothing, and doing nothing but looking at Mr. Hammer, who had taken Nick's verbal attack like the gentleman he was.

"When are you going back to Colorado?" Jarrod asked as he kept his eyes on Mr. Hammer, knowing he had to go with the gentleman. He didn't care about the paralysis; he had to see Georgia, had to see it they could pick up the pieces the train wreck and a drunken telegraph officer had taken from them.

"You're not taking him seriously, are you?" Nick, still feeling an overwhelming need to protect his older brother from any unnecessary pain, exploded. The force of his reaction was met with just as much energy when Jarrod turned on him.

"I have to look into it, Nick!" He looked at his mother and then back to Nick, "For years I've dreamed of her, dreamt of us." His voice took on a pleading tone, one that begged his mother and brother to understand. "The few times I went to file that death certificate I would get sick to my stomach. I could almost hear her begging me not to do it." he said as he turned to look at Mr. Hammer.

"Why didn't you say something?" Nick asked, his voice much quieter than it had been.

"And what would you have done, Nick? What could you do?" Jarrod gave him a look that said 'please, don't tell you don't know what you would have done'.

Nick sighed. He knew exactly what he and the family would have done. Still, he didn't like the idea of Jarrod traveling to Colorado by himself. "I was with the two of you for a short period of time." Nick turned the palms of his hands, which had been resting on his hips, outwards. "Let me come with you. Heath can run the ranch while we're gone, and McColl can help him if he needs it."

Jarrod couldn't help but smile. As always, Nick was ready and willing to help him…as all of the family members were. "Thanks for your concern, Nick, but no, I need to go by myself. Stay here and work with Heath." He held up his hand when his brother started to object. "I promise, first sign of the smallest trouble, and I'll send you a wire." He might have said differently only he felt the strongest impression there would be not be that kind of trouble. That seemed to appease Nick and his mother, who had a silent protest in her own eyes. Jarrod then excused himself and went to pack.