“And now your stutter is gone. It’s hard to believe you’re the same person.”
“I’m not. Living with Gish and my brothers changed my life. There was a woman who worked at the bar...Her name is Becky. She acted more like a mother to me than my own ever did. I wished Gish would marry her and make it official, but their relationship is a whole other story for another day. Anyway, she helped me learn to control my stutter, and she said with my imagination and my gift for pretending, I should be an actor. My brothers were big into sports. I started acting in plays at school.”
Paige smiled. “That’s hard to picture. I mean, I always knew you had a fun personality. I just never imagined you’d show that to anyone but me.”
“I had the chance to take a theatre scholarship when I graduated from high school. It would have been the only way I could have afforded college because my grades were mediocre atbest. I didn’t take it, though. My brothers and I decided to follow in Gish’s footsteps, so we enlisted in the Army.”
She digested that bit of information and felt like there was more to that decision than what he’d told her. She didn’t have to wait long for him to enlighten her.
“Remember I said Gish often helped people who needed it?”
She nodded. “That’s why he took you and our brothers in.”
“And the Becky that I mentioned?”
“Who is like a mother to you.”
“Well, Gish had been helping people long before my brothers and I came into the picture. He helped Becky, too. She had an abusive boyfriend who got her hooked on drugs. Gish helped her get clean. He gave her a job at the bar and helped her start a new life. He’s helped a lot of people, but he made sure what he did wasn’t public knowledge.”
She tilted her head, her face twisted in bewilderment. “What are you trying to tell me, Ben?”
“Not many people know this, but I trust that what I tell you is between us and just us.” At her nod, he continued. “Gish is a former CIA operative. After he left the Agency, he continued to help people who needed it but couldn’t get it any other way. When my brothers and I found out about what he was doing, we decided we wanted to do the same.”
“Like you’re giving back to someone else because of the people who helped you. They call it paying it forward, I think.”
Ben nodded. “Exactly. Our training in the Army and what Gish taught us prepared us to help people in all sorts of situations. Even dangerous situations.”
There it was. The bombshell he wanted to drop on her. The proof that she trusted him to help her.
“Ben—”
“Wait, please. Let me say this. We call ourselves the Legends because that’s how Gish was known when he was in the CIA. We each own our own business, and when someone reaches out to us, we figure out the best way to help them. We either work together or separately based on what is needed. We’ve helped people with stalkers, with missing persons…well, you get the idea.”
“If you own your own business, why are you working construction?”
“I was here on a case. I was only on the construction crew to get close to our suspect. That’s why I had to leave you so suddenly last night. We got what we needed to close the case, and my brothers and I needed to be there for the arrest.”
“I guess if I asked about the case, you would tell me, but then you’d have to kill me.”
He grinned at her use of spy-inspired humor. “I can tell you some. The arrest makes it public record. A man and his wife kidnapped a little boy because they were unable to have children of their own. This happened five years ago. His wife committed suicide a year ago, and last night the man was arrested for the kidnapping. The little boy is being reunited with his birth family today. There’s still a lot to unwrap from all of this, but that’s the gist. I came here to investigate the man because he was suspected of abusing the boy. There wasn’t any evidence of physical abuse, but from what we’ve uncovered, there’s been emotional and psychological abuse.”
She felt her eyes widening the more he shared. “Oh, my God. I don’t even know what to say to that. I can’t believe that happened here. Ivy Springs is such a quiet town. It’s why I stopped here.”
“Stopped?”
She hesitated. This was part of her story that she’d shared with people in town, but somehow sharing it with Ben felt like a slippery slope, as if opening up to him about this detail would compel her to tell him all of it. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. But he could glean this information from Wally if he’d thought to ask, so it didn’t make sense for her not to tell him.
“I was on a bus heading to Atlanta. We weren’t supposed to stop here, but there was a problem with the bus. It was fixed pretty quick, but I decided to stay behind instead of going to Atlanta. That was over a year ago.”
“Let me guess. A fresh start in a new town and a new name.”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
“It’s more than that,” he countered. “The first time we met after I came to town? Aside from the fact that you broke my nose, I saw that you were afraid. You are afraid. You didn’t settle in this town. You’re hiding here. You’re running from something. And don’t deny it because I won’t believe you. One of my talents is discerning what people are dealing with.”
She scowled. “Why do you care what I’m dealing with? You don’t owe me anything. It doesn’t matter that we once knew each other some twenty-something years ago. It sounds like the reason you came to town has been taken care of. There’s nothing keeping you here. Unless you’re trying to fulfill some need to bea hero or something. If that’s it, forget it. I’m not your charity case.”
“Paige—”
