Maybe Someday He'll Find You

Chapter 1

For a moment, Jarrod Barkley didn't believe what he was seeing. He came out of his office to almost run into a couple walking down the street. "Oh, pardon me," he said, tipping his hat to the lady.

And then he saw her.

She looked away and the couple kept going.

Jarrod stood there for a moment, watching, unsure but then sure. He had seen those deep brown eyes, almost black, and the dimpled chin and most important, the small beauty mark to the left of her mouth. It was her. It was Belinda Fisk.

What was she doing back here? It had been seven years since she disappeared completely, leaving Nick utterly distraught. He tried to track her down for months. Jarrod even had Pinkerton looking for her, and even the sheriff had asked questions and gone looking for a body. But there had never been a trace of her.

Now, here she was, walking away with a man Jarrod didn't know.

Jarrod made up his mind quick and ran to catch up with the couple. "Excuse me," he said as he pulled around in front of them and settled his eyes on Belinda. "Don't I know you?"

The woman looked at her husband with a sigh. The man said, "I'm Michael Limpert. This is my wife, Belinda, and maybe you do. She used to live here in Stockton before we were married."

Belinda's gaze left Jarrod's. Jarrod just said an almost plaintiff, "Oh – " and then he said, "Belinda, we were afraid you were dead."

Limpert looked surprised – a little.

Belinda said, "Jarrod, it's a long story and this really isn't the place or the time."

"No, of course not," Jarrod said. "Perhaps my office, it's right up here – "

Limpert interrupted. "Actually, we're not available right now. I'm an auditor for the government and I'm here to audit one of the banks. We'll be in town for a few days, but right now we're returning from breakfast and I need to be getting to work."

"Of course," Jarrod said. "Uh, but, Belinda – Nick – "

"I'd appreciate it if you kept seeing us to yourself," Limpert said, "until the three of us have had a chance to talk."

"Today, please," Jarrod said. "This is not something I can keep from my family. I – " He stopped. He suddenly wondered if Limpert even knew that his wife was once involved with Jarrod's brother.

"I'm available at four," Limpert said.

Jarrod pointed toward the sign with his name hanging over the door to his office. "My office is right there. I'm Jarrod Barkley. Perhaps you can come by."

Limpert nodded. "I'll do that."

He and his wife continued on their way, leaving Jarrod standing there with widened eyes that sank into a furrowed brow. Belinda Fisk was now Belinda Limpert. She wasn't dead. For reasons Jarrod had to know, she had just left Stockton and never contacted anyone here, not any of her friends or acquaintances. And not Nick – the man she was supposed to have been in love with.

Jarrod saw Limpert turn to his wife and say something. Jarrod was not a lip reader, but he caught a snatch of the words "we had that talk." And Limpert looked happy – no, not happy, just relieved. He and his wife had had some talk sometime and now, Jarrod would bet, they'd have more. If Limpert didn't know about Nick when he married Belinda – he knew now or he probably would know before four o'clock.

Jarrod turned and went back toward the courthouse, where he intended to go in the first place, but he was frowning and staring at his feet as he walked. He didn't know how in the world he was going to explain this to his family – especially to Nick.

XXXXX

What had happened bothered Jarrod most of the day, and when four o'clock came around he was downright anxious – especially when he looked out the window and saw only Limpert coming in. He greeted the man with a handshake, saying, "I was hoping Belinda was coming too."

"Well," Limpert said as Jarrod closed the door and motioned him to sit down. "She's a little touchy about the whole thing and frankly she's been back and forth about the idea of coming to Stockton at all."

Jarrod took his seat behind the desk as Limpert sat down in one of the chairs in front of it. Jarrod got straight to the point. "Just what has she told you about her life here before she met you?"

"She told me long ago – before we were even married - that she had been practically engaged to marry a man here in Stockton – practically, but not quite," Limpert said. "I never asked for a name until we ran into you today. She told me he was your brother, Nick."

"Did she tell you the circumstances under which they parted company?"

Limpert took a deep breath. "She told me she had just up and left, without a word. She told me that when she first told me about her life here in Stockton."

Jarrod was half curious, half angry. "It never occurred to either of you that people here in Stockton might have been worried about her?"

"Not until she and I talked today, after running into you," Limpert said. "We'd never discussed it beyond her telling me how she left Stockton. I'm not a man who needs to know every detail of my wife's past, Mr. Barkley."

"My brother was heartbroken and worried," Jarrod said. "He looked for Belinda for months. We even had the sheriff looking and I had the Pinkerton agency looking, and we never found a trace of her. We finally decided she was dead – and now I'm going to have to tell my brother she's alive and back in Stockton. Now, I know you don't know my brother, but he's an explosive man. He's going to explode when I tell him."

"Belinda told me he had a temper, but that he had never taken it out on her."

"Then why did she leave?"

Limpert gave a sigh. "She told me the affair wasn't what she wanted it to be. Frankly, Mr. Barkley, she just got scared and ran away. Afraid of the intimacy. Afraid of the commitment."

Jarrod sighed himself, leaning back in his chair. "She just ran."

"Yes."

"Why is she here now?"

"To be with me because Stockton is just a stopover on a longer trip," Limpert said. "After a few days here, I will go on to San Jose and three other towns to audit banks. I didn't want to leave her alone in Sacramento for that length of time, and she didn't want to be alone. She wanted to take a chance we could be here and not run into her past."

"And you went along with that?"

Now Limpert smiled. "If you knew my wife at all, you know that she is a woman who makes up her mind about what she wants to do and she does it, no holds barred. If she wanted to leave Stockton years ago, she left. If she wanted to come back to be with me, she'd come back. If she had wanted to give your brother's name to me years ago, she'd have given it to me and if she didn't want to, she wouldn't do it. She gave it to me today because she decided to do it after we ran into you."

Jarrod nodded a little, remembering that Belinda Fisk had indeed been a woman who made up her mind and then followed through, no matter what. There never had been anything wishy-washy about her. That was why her running didn't make much sense. "What else do you want to tell me?" Jarrod asked.

"She and I are very happily married," Limpert said, "and while she realizes you're going to have to tell Nick she's here, she doesn't want to see him. And I won't make her."

"My brother deserves an explanation from her," Jarrod said, almost snarling on that. The fact that Belinda still didn't plan to explain herself infuriated him.

"I wish I could talk her into giving it to him," Limpert said, "but I won't force her. The best I could do is get her to tell me what she thinks you should say to him."

"That she just got scared."

"She ran. She got scared of the thought of getting close and staying close. And she ran."