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“Indirectly,” Ben said, settling into his seat.

I leaned back in my chair. “Ya got past my familiar, which is no simple task, even in dog form. That earns ya the right to state yer piece. So let’s hear it.”

“Wow. You are less social than I am and I know I’m terrible.”

The mild way he delivered the insult to both of us had me grinning. “It’s because I’m going to have to tell ya that I don’t want any part of helping yer military. Too many rules annoys me and slows me down.”

Ben shook his head. “This visit is not about the military. I’m retired from them and I won’t be taking any more contracts. The last short one was enough proof that I was done there. They let me and my men be caged.”

I nodded at his reasoning. “I’d spend all day in yer backyard if I had one as nice as yers.”

Ben smiled at my compliment, and maybe at the wistfulness in my words.

“An independent organization looking for someone to help them do a startup approached me. Its current members were reluctant to approach you on their own but suggested I get in touch. They didn’t seem too surprised that I knew you already.”

I chuckled dryly. If word of my magick was getting around Salem, Jack was to blame. We were divorced and done, but everything in my life still circled back to my ex and his machinations. I was trying not to resent it as much as I did, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Infamous is my middle name,Ben. Didn’t ya know that?”

“No. It wasn’t in the intel they sent me about you.”

“Am I on some terrorist list? Goddess, I hope not. Ma won’t be happy to hear it.”

His chuckle was low and sexy. For a moment or two, I envied his wife. He wasn’t my type, not really, but Rasmus kept running off. I was as vulnerable as any woman would be to a handsome man laughing at every word she spoke.

My reproachful sigh was quiet as I made myself quit flirting.

Ben filled in the gap my silence caused. “The organization I’m talking about helped us disband the military group your ex-husband worked for and widely published the story of its failure to make sure they lost credibility. But you and I both know the program wasn’t a failure at all. It was wildly successful in ways that could be terrible if the knowledge they gained fell into the wrong hands.”

“That was the reason I made sure most forgot what happened,” I conceded.

Colonel Benson spread his hands. “Let’s be honest, Aran. All you and I did was delay things that will come up again. Keeping balance in the world is a big job and an ongoing one.”

“Ya’re preaching to the choir, Colonel.”

“Ben,” he said reminding me.

I smirked at him. “Well,Ben, I’ve been keeping the world in balance for a long time. It’s more than a job. It’s my mission in life. My family has been doing it for centuries.”

“What tasks did you and your partner do before your wrongful incarceration at the hands of the demon hunters?”

It was Ben’s acknowledgment of my proclaimed innocence that softened my feelings enough to answer him properly. Maybe I would always be a sucker for validation that I hadn’t deserved to be imprisoned.

“Conn and I did little work here in the States because Jack found reasons to keep me too busy at home or helping him to take on jobs. Whenever I wasn’t busy being a demon hunter’s wife, I sold potions, healing salves, and other magickal things and made plans to open a store of my own.”

“You lead strike teams better than most generals and are braver than any soldier I’ve ever worked with. When did you last work in the field? It couldn’t have been that long ago.”

“It’s been a decade. I was at my most active in Ireland when Fiona was still a toddler. Conn and I hunted down rogues of all sorts: trolls, fairies, sprites, dark witches, and more. I did all sorts of magickal work back then.”

“Would you have called yourself a paranormal bounty hunter?”

I thought about that moniker, then chuckled as I shook my head.

“Those I tracked down might have described me that way but I didn’t collect a bounty to bring them in. I got paid by a group of benefactors. A bunch of cattle farmers might contribute money to pay someone like me to convince trolls to stop eating their livestock. People with troll problems are often desperate to pay.”

“That tells me you worked for the original Shadow Breakers.”

Though I still didn’t know where this was going, I smiled at him for his research. “Yes, and I enjoyed working for them. I did a couple of jobs they sent me on when I first got here in the States but found it much harder to be effective here.”