“Lila’s going to stay for a week. She wants to make sure I recover all right.” Noelle’s stepmom was a force of nature who’d had everyone in the hospital hopping. “Her dad is taking her brothers back to Louisiana tomorrow. They’re afraid I might be too fragile to be around the boys. They like to destroy things.”
Her brothers were awesome and sweet. Armie LaVigne was on the scary side, but once Noelle had explained how he’d taken that second bullet for her, he’d warmed considerably.
“They seem like lovely people,” Grace said. “And your Noelle is so smart.”
She was smart and kind and so gorgeous it hurt to look at her. He already missed her.
“Hey, did they figure out who the other agent was?” Sean Taggart had been filled in on the entire op.
“MaeBe and Noelle both gave us descriptions and we had a police artist sketch the suspect, but she’s a ghost,” Kyle admitted. “I don’t think we have to worry about her again. She did her job and she’ll move on to the next one.”
“Now that we found the material Madison Wallace hid in Noelle’s locker, there’s no reason for anyone to come after Noelle for anything but to curry favor with the new boss.” It had felt good to be able to make that happen for her. Genedyne would be what it was supposed to be. It would be a place where scientists tried to change the world.
“I can’t believe you just put it out there,” Grace said with a shake of her head. “That was an amazingly generous thing to do. The company could have kept it.”
“Noelle wanted to do it, and she convinced Lawless.” His future wife had a huge heart. “Madison’s research is promising, but it’s in its infancy. Now there will be a race to see who can make it work first. And that means we might cure cancer. There are things no one should put a price tag on.”
Grace looked down at him. “Do you know how proud your mother would be of you?”
His mom. She’d been caught in such a bad place, and sometimes he only remembered her crying and wanting to hide. But there had been times when she’d snuck in late at night and crawled into bed with him and held him when he’d been sick. When she’d told him she loved him.
“I hope so.” He often wondered what would have happened if his mother had lived. She would have loved Noelle.
“I know so,” Grace promised.
And then the door opened and Carys and Luke were back with the drinks they’d gone to get, and MaeBe walked in with a smile, though her face was still healing. Grace had a huge hug for MaeBe, and Kyle seemed to have lost interest in his food because all his attention was focused on her.
It wasn’t a minute before Noelle walked in and brought all of the sunshine in the world with her.
“Hey,” she said, moving to his bedside. “Lila and I bought dishes and all new sheets for the bed. Yours are terrible. I hope you don’t mind.”
He reached for her hand. “I supplied our house. You make it livable.”
It hadn’t been a home without her. She leaned over and kissed him and then they were all talking. MaeBe was describing how she was definitely taking more self-defense classes. Grace was talking about David’s research, and Sean was going on about the new specials at Top.
Hutch sat back and enjoyed the family he had.
Hours later, while Noelle napped in the chair beside him, Hutch relished the quiet.
“Hey, man,” Kyle said softly. “We’re friends again, right?”
He would be friends with any dude who could duct tape his own body and make it up the stairs in time to knife a guy who was trying to kill him. “Yeah.”
Kyle sighed. “I think you know more about me than you’re saying. I think Michael followed me for a couple of days.”
This was one subject they hadn’t broached. “If he did, it’s only because Big Tag was worried.”
“I was calling a man named Drake.” Kyle let the admission sit for a moment. “That night I snuck out of your house, I called Drake. He was my handler when I did work for the Agency.”
“I know him.”
“I don’t work for him anymore,” Kyle said. “But he was there on the worst day of my life. I don’t think I make it through without Drake. There’s a day that I’m trying to piece together, and he’s helping me. It’s got nothing to do with McKay-Taggart, and the woman at the center of it is dead.”
“Julia?”
Kyle groaned. “Damn, Tag’s good. Yeah. She’s gone. She was working for some bad people and tried to drag me into it. Just know that it’s over and I’m not working for anyone but Tag.”
“Okay.” He believed Kyle. He understood what it meant to have a dark past. He hoped Kyle could find the light.