Page 5 of The Hometown Legend

“Yeah. Your friend Lydia’s brother. Gideon.”

Her heart tripped over itself and then she managed to hit the zucchini stack with her elbow and send at least five of the long green veggies rolling to the floor.

“What?”

Gideon. Here. Gideon who had been a distant inspiration in her mind because really thinking of him was too big and too bright.

Gideon, who apparently still made her stomach go tight and took her breath away.

Gideon.

Gideon was staying at Sullivan’s Point? She’d known he was coming back to town sometime in the next week, but she’d assumed he’d be getting his own place, or staying with his mother and sister.

She thought of the man in the woods again. No. That couldn’t have been...

Gideon didn’t look like that. He did not look like an invitation to sin and vice.

The last time she’d seen him he had been clean-shaven with his hair high and tight, as he had gone off into the military.

He had always been muscular, but not like that man. That man looked like he lifted tires in his spare time.

Or maybe whole buildings.

“He needs a place to stay and he called asking about one of our rentals. I told him it was free.” Rory bent down quickly and started picking the zucchini up. “Was that the wrong thing to say?” Fia pressed.

“No...” She leaned out long and grabbed a rolling zucchini, standing and trying to position them on the display. “No. I just assumed that he would be moving back home.”

“It’s a long story. I guess he’s buying back the family ranch that they lost after his dad died. But it isn’t ready yet, and I think that wasn’t part of the plan. The owners have some kind of contingency they added to the sale. Anyway. He can’t move in over there for a while, so he needs a place to stay in the interim. I didn’t get the sense that he especially wanted to stay with his family.”

“Oh. He’s rebuying the family ranch?”

Lydia hadn’t mentioned that. She wondered if Lydia knew. The loss of her father combined with the loss of the ranch shortly after had been so traumatic for her—for her and her mother. And now Gideon was being...Gideon.

Being heroic again. Getting the land back.

It was very Gideon. Also very fitting with his mystique.

She did her best not to think too deeply about that, or him.

But he had a mystique, whether Rory wanted to ponder it or not. A soldier, now on his way to being a cowboy via restoration of his family’s legacy.

There was going to be a plaque in town for Gideon Payne someday.

And while Rory herself didn’t want to aspire to a plaque—considering she had never gone to war, that would only ever be some kind of sad memorial she wasn’t especially in a hurry to get—she did wantsomething.

When people talked about her, she didn’t want the words in their mouths to be negative. When they talked about her, she didn’t want them to say she was sad or silly. Rory Sullivan, that quiet girl. Rory Sullivan, the quitter. Rory Sullivan, a nerd.

Or worse yet, for them to not even notice she was gone at all.

The truth was that was more than likely the path she was on at the current moment.Rory Sullivan, who? Oh, did she leave? Didn’t notice.

Yeah. That was Rory.

And it was never Gideon.

Gideon Payne was a war hero. Gideon Payne was the best athlete Mapleton High had ever seen.

“I guess he probably doesn’t need a welcome basket and a guide to the area,” she said.

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