Under Fire (Love Over Duty #1)(50)

She wandered into the kitchen, head down, wearing cutoffs that revealed the long legs he'd seen through her skirt at the fundraiser. His initial impression that they went on for days was completely true. And the cute blue blouse she was wearing was so her. A little prim, but it showed off the figure he was kicking himself for not really having paid attention to sooner.

A piece of screwed-up paper hit him in the face, and he grinned as Mac raised his eyebrow at Six.



       
         
       
        

"Hey, Lou," he called to her, holding his hand out in her direction. It would be interesting to see whether or not she took it because the look she'd given him when he'd gotten out of bed had the makings of regret. "Cabe's here. And I want you to meet Mac."

Gripping the cup with both hands as if her life depended on it, she walked over to the table. When her hair was wet, he noticed, it was harder for her to hide behind it, and he had a feeling she hated being this vulnerable in front of people. "I trust these guys with my life," he said. "We've been friends since school, signed up together, and set up a business together. There isn't much they don't know about me, and I know they have my back."

As he expected, she didn't take his hand, just kept her hold on her coffee cup. It made him grin.

"Guys, this is Louisa. Cabe, you remember Louisa came into the office."

He smiled at Louisa. "Yeah, I remember."

"Good to see you again," Louisa said, her voice falling flat. "And pleased to meet you, Mac."

"Lou has problems," Six said, more to Mac than Cabe. "She needs our help." The guys needed to know helping Lou was a priority. He couldn't explain why, even to himself. He just knew it was more than friendly concern.

"Yeah?" Mac said. "What's going on?"

"Someone broke into her house on Saturday night and tried to abduct her. I shot one of the assholes."

"You were there?" Cabe asked.

"Yeah," he said, knowing exactly what Cabe was getting at. "Saw a van, side door open, twitchy driver, engine running as I pulled up. And a window was wide open on the side of Lou's house. And then I heard  …  Well, Lou needed help."

"So you brought her here?" Mac asked.

"No, he didn't, not immediately at any rate" Louisa said. Six listened as she objectively and dispassionately explained what had happened the previous day and what had gone on in the lab in the time leading up to her problems. The way she explained it, it sounded like a lab report. Clinical, dispassionate. Not at all like the woman who'd shaken in his arms when it had happened or who had snuck into his bed to feel safe. When she was finished, she took a large gulp of coffee.

"Louisa, can I ask why you're so passionate about Huntington's? Like, why that disease?" Cabe asked.

"Huntington's is one hundred percent genetic. If one of your parents is a carrier, there is a one in two chance that you are going to contract it. My father died from it ten years ago. I never met my paternal grandmother because of it."

How did he not know that it was genetic? Six reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer to the arm of his chair. 

"Shit," Mac said. "That's rough, Louisa."

"Do you know if you have it?" Six asked, his voice rough as his concern for her grew.

"I don't know. There is a test for it. Genetic screening."

"And you haven't been tested?" he asked, pulling her closer.

"No, I don't see the point. I don't want to know."

"Why not? And please, tell us to shut up if this is personal," Cabe said.

"What's the point? If I don't find out but know it's a possibility, I live every day as if it was my last and do the things I am most passionate about. Like finding a treatment for it. Not knowing keeps the urgency going. Makes me want to do as much as I can now in case I do have it."

Silence settled around the table.

"I get that logic," Six said quietly. "We've done a job for years that we knew we might not come back from. But you have to go out and assume you'll come back, otherwise you die before you set foot in theater, sorry, out in the field. It's kind of reverse logic, but I get it."

"So now you understand why it's critical that I get all that research back. Sure, we went too far on the last trial, but it was closer than I'd ever gotten. The drug we were working on was to help with the shaking, the chorea. Most medications to manage it have the risk of triggering psychiatric conditions. Paranoia, anxiety, suicidal thoughts. I'm trying to fix that."