Chapter 3

Belinda also prayed that night, and continuing into the next day, that she could keep a vow she had made to herself. She felt the guilt she'd been carrying was getting stronger and she admitted, at least to herself, that it had been increasing little by little for a long time. She had come here to unload that guilt. It was time. She had to do it. But could she do it? Now that she was here, now that it was do it or run again, what would she do? Would coming here to Stockton somehow force her to tell the truth to her husband?

To Nick?

The little tricks we play on ourselves, she thought as Limpert went off to work, without her saying anything more than she had already said to him. I'm punishing myself for doing what I did seven years ago, and I'm playing that punishment trick on myself to force myself to tell the truth, at least to Michael.

And then to Nick?

XXXXXX

Jarrod came into town realizing that he had no idea what bank Limpert was auditing or where he and Belinda were staying. He took a guess at the latter. The Stockton House was not the priciest hotel in town, nor the cheapest. It was where many businesspeople stayed who were not on elaborate budgets, and an auditor for the government would not be on an elaborate budget.

The Limperts were not staying at the Stockton House.

Jarrod gave it some more thought, and tried a slightly better hotel, the Constitution. Still no luck.

Then his brain kicked into gear. What direction were they going in when he ran into them? Toward the railway station. The Cattlemen was closest to the railroad station. He decided to try that one.

"Yes, the Limperts are registered here, but neither one of them is in right now," the desk clerk told him.

Jarrod had known Louis, the desk clerk, for a lot of years. "Do you have any idea where they've gone?"

"Mr. Limpert left very early – I suppose he was going to go do his job."

"Ah," Jarrod said. "Do you know which bank he's auditing?"

"The Cattlemen, right down the street," Louis said.

Jarrod thanked him and headed straight there. The manager there was also an old friend and he verified that Limpert was there but he couldn't be disturbed while he was working on the audit. "Would you tell him I was here?" Jarrod said. "Ask him to stop by my office at the end of the day. It's a personal matter. Tell him I'd like to talk to him some more about what we talked about yesterday."

The manager agreed to do it, and late in the afternoon Limpert came to Jarrod's office. Limpert knew he should have realized that a man like Jarrod Barkley had connections and knowhow and would figure out where the audit was taking place, even where he and Belinda were staying, but he let all that go as he sat down in front of Jarrod's desk. "I assume you told your family and your brother we were in town last night," Limpert said.

Jarrod nodded. "Nick was understandably upset. Frankly, it was all I could do to keep him from coming into town right away, but he's agreed to hold off. He's hoping, and I'm hoping, we can find some way for him and Belinda to talk. So much between them is unsettled."

"That may be," Limpert said, "but she's reluctant to talk to Nick. I think she's just flat out ashamed she ran out on him like she did."

"Probably," Jarrod agreed, "but Nick is a forgiving man. He blows his stack fast, but he settles down fast too, and he's a big-hearted fellow. There's no way he'd want to hurt Belinda, no matter what she's done."

"That doesn't mean Belinda isn't still afraid of talking to Nick now. Maybe in a day or two she might change her mind, but not today."

"How long will you be in town?"

"Two more days at least."

"Will you try to talk her into seeing Nick?"

Limpert sighed. "To talk her into it? No, I won't try. I will talk to her about it but I won't try to force her decision."

"What about getting her to talk to me?" Jarrod suggested. "I don't have as much invested in her as Nick did, and still does. Maybe if I could understand what happened I could tell Nick and he'd be satisfied."

"Mr. Barkley, I'm not going to rock the boat of my marriage for my wife's former lover," Limpert said plainly. "Frankly, I'm sorry I ever brought her here. I knew better but she wanted to come, and it was a mistake."

"Was it?" Jarrod asked. "She obviously had a reason for wanting to come that was beyond just being with you. Isn't it possible there's a part of her that wants to explain things to Nick? Maybe things that you and I aren't a part of."

"She's my wife. I'm a part of everything she is."

Jarrod realized he had taken the wrong tack with that last sentence. He didn't mention that Limpert himself had said he didn't need to know everything about his wife's past. Jarrod let it go. "I understand you don't want to talk her into anything, and I'll quit asking. But if there is something she wants to talk about, even if she has trouble talking to Nick about it – maybe she could talk to me."

Limpert considered it for a moment. "What I will do is try to get her to tell me if there is something else she wants to talk about. If she won't tell me, she won't tell you and she won't tell Nick."

Jarrod nodded. "Well, I hope she would tell you. You seem to have a close and happy marriage. I don't want to rock that boat any more than you do, and Nick wouldn't either. He just wants to know what happened."

"I can understand that," Limpert said, standing up. "I'll come see you tomorrow morning. We'll see where we are."

Jarrod stood up as well, and offered his hand. "Thank you, Mr. Limpert."

Limpert took it and nodded.

XXXXX

Nick grumbled when Jarrod told him he hadn't gotten anywhere that day with Limpert, but he wasn't as explosive as he had been the night before. Privately, Heath said to Jarrod, "He seemed to let it settle in sometime early this afternoon. I don't think he wants to quit trying to see her, but I think he's getting used to the idea that he's not going to."

Jarrod shook his head. "Something is involved in this that's more than Belinda just being afraid of commitment. I don't for a minute think Nick threatened her or hurt her, at least not physically, but I wonder if there was some kind of misunderstanding or even an argument that got out of control."

"Who knows?" Heath said. "I tried to give Nick an opening or two to talk about it, but he won't talk. I really think he doesn't know what happened. Maybe even if he ought to know, he doesn't know."

They decided to leave it alone for the night, but everyone in the Barkley house was thinking about it when they turned in. Sleep didn't come easy to anyone. This wasn't just another one of Nick's broken love affairs. This one had been different, and not just because Belinda had disappeared and they decided she was dead. There was something else.

Nick knew why it was different, but he couldn't say, especially not to his mother or sister. Belinda had been his first, the first woman he'd made love to, actually feeling love, genuine love, spectacular love. She was his first love where the physical and the emotional intertwined.

And then she left. Just left, and when everyone decided she was dead, he grieved. He mourned. He couldn't bury her and he couldn't even weep over her body, but the loss to him was every bit the loss that death brings. Now she wasn't dead. Now it had been a cruel hoax. Was that it? Had she been playing with him and playing a hoax on him all along? Was that what he needed to know?

Nick got up in the middle of the night and dressed and opened the door of his room to get out and go to town –

And found Heath in the hall, facing him. Heath was in pants but no shirt or shoes. He just calmly said, "I heard you bumping around. Don't go, Nick."

"It's driving me crazy, Heath," Nick admitted.

"I know," Heath said, "but it's two o'clock in the morning. She'll be asleep and no husband is gonna be calm when another man wakes him and his wife up in the middle of the night."

"If I'm there first thing – "

"No," Heath said calmly. "Her husband still ain't gonna appreciate you, and Jarrod said he was a big fella. You two get to fighting, you're gonna fret Belinda even more, and she'll never talk to you if you poke a hot iron into her marriage."

Nick sighed and slumped.

Heath said, "You were easing up yesterday. You're gonna ease up even more today. Any time now you're probably gonna accept that the call is hers, and she'll do what she wants, whether it's what you want or not. Didn't you tell me she was a woman who got her mind set when she got her mind set?"

"It was one of the things I loved about her the most," Nick said quietly.

"Until she got her mind set on something different than what you had your mind set on," Heath said. "Let Jarrod have another try at this tomorrow. It can't hurt."

"Probably not," Nick admitted. "Good night."

He turned and went back into his room, closing the door. Heath ran a hand through unruly hair and went back to his room, hoping he would now get to finish a decent night's sleep without hearing any more bumping around.

XXXXX

Even as Nick was going back to bed, Belinda was sitting up on the edge of hers. It woke Limpert up. He rubbed her back and said quietly, "Why don't you just tell me? It can't be anything we can't handle."

"I'm not so sure," Belinda said.