Page 17 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

That brought him up short. “How’d you know?”

“You said once your Oma used to bake with cardamom, and you smiled when you said it.” She lifted a hand, then hesitated. “I needed something familiar too.”

Boomer stepped inside the kitchen, bare feet against the cool tile. “You cook when you can’t sleep?”

“I interrogate first. Then I cook.”

He held up his hands. “I swear. I’m innocent.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Not a day in your life were you innocent.”

He chuckled with a wicked edge, and his body heated with the way she glanced at him, like she was trying to breathe in the midst of fire.

“That’s what I thought.” A shadow crossed her features, then passed. “They didn’t talk. Not a word.”

He nodded slowly, but his eyes were on her hands, the way she pinched the top of the crust closed. She moved like someone who had done this a thousand times, not to impress, but to breathe.

“What about you?” she asked, voice softer now. “What do you do when the mission leaves you spinning?”

He thought about sugar-coating it, but decided that being honest was the best way to go into this thing with her. “Used to drink. Break things. Sleep with women I didn’t care about.”

Taylor didn’t flinch. Her hands paused, resting lightly on the counter as she glanced over at him, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes. “We all have our escapes,” she said softly.

“I like this better—showering, running drills, and…following good smells down hallways.” He breathed deep of the tantalizing scents. “How about you, besides cooking?”

She looked down at the spoon she’d been using, then back up at him.

“Mine was about schedules. Precision. Everything neat, efficient, manageable. No mess. No chaos. Certainly, no men who could make me feel anything.” Then a small smile curved her lips, almost self-aware.

“Now I burn off stress by interrogating narco suspects…and apparently feeding American special operators in the middle of the night.” She exhaled.

“So maybe we’re both still finding better ways. ”

“You seem to be making an exception about men…”

That earned him a smile. Small. Real, and it drove him a little bit mad.

She slid the tray into the oven and dusted her hands. “You’re not what I expected.”

“Yeah? What did you expect?”

“Loud. Cocky. Explosive, in every sense.” She moved past him to grab plates. “But you’re more…layers. Like streusel.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Sweet. Spiced. Irresistible. Crumbles just right if you know how to handle it.” She passed him the plates, then silverware with a flick of her wrist. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

He chuckled, quiet and low. Her words were going more to the head he wasn’t thinking with, and to a place in his chest that ached. “I’ve never been compared to baked goods before.”

“Well. There’s a first time for everything.”

Their fingers brushed. She didn’t pull away.

The oven clicked. The scent deepened. His stomach growled. Or maybe it was something lower, warmer, more dangerous.

She met his eyes. Steady.

“While that’s baking, help me make K?sesp?tzle .”

Boomer blinked. The words were simple, but the invitation behind them wasn’t. Not just help me cook . Not just stay here with me . It was something quieter. Braver. Let me share this with you.

He stepped toward the counter, every movement slow and deliberate, because something about the air had changed. Not tense…no, not like the field but fragile. As if moving too fast would crack whatever strange, beautiful truce had formed between them.

“What do I do?”

Taylor passed him a bowl of pale, doughy batter. “Hold that while I start the water. Then we’ll press it through.” She nudged a battered sp?tzle maker toward him, cheap, functional, missing one of the rubber feet.

He looked down at it. “Grew up on this and never once learned how to make it.”

She raised a brow. “Guess we’re fixing that.”

Steam rose from the pot as the water began to boil. She adjusted the flame with one hand and reached for the cheese with the other. Her movements were economical, confident, without flourish, and yet, there was something…tender about it. Like ritual. Like memory.

“You don’t do this for everyone,” he said, not quite asking.

Her mouth twitched. “Not even close.”

Boomer held the bowl steady as she loaded the press and began to push the batter through. It dropped in soft strands, thick and curling, hitting the water with quiet splashes.

“Smells like her kitchen,” he murmured. “Oma. She had this checked apron. Red and white, hair always in a bun. She never measured anything, just tasted, nodded, kept going.”

Taylor glanced at him. “So, it’s not just comfort food. It’s… connection.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Exactly that.” Her accent was subtle now, smoothed by years of international work, but Boomer still heard it. The way she hit her T’s, the clipped certainty of her vowels. She could bark orders in five languages and make a man sit up straighter in all of them.

They worked in easy rhythm, drain, rinse, layer. She handed him shredded Emmentaler, and he scattered it between folds of warm noodles. The onions followed next, caramelized to a golden tangle.

“Nutmeg?” she asked, holding the small tin between her fingers.

“Let your hands decide,” he said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.

She grinned and pinched, dusting the top with practiced ease. “Oma would be proud.”

They both paused.

He looked at her. Really looked. The flour on her cheek, the faint sheen of heat on her brow, the smudge of onion on her wrist. She was flushed from steam, maybe from him too.

The kind of flushed that made him ache in a different way.

“You have no idea how dangerous you are, do you?” he murmured.

She blinked. “Dangerous?”

Boomer picked up the skillet. “Feeding a man in the middle of the night while he’s wearing nothing but sleep and good intentions?” He smirked faintly. “That’s advanced interrogation.”

She shook her head, but she smiled. Soft. Open.

The kind that undid him more than lace or lipstick ever could.

They sat at the small table again, the low light gilding her face as she scooped some of the sp?tzle onto his plate. He took a bite and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t ready for how much it hit. The taste, the warmth, the presence of her across from him.

His voice came out rough. “This is unbelievable. You need anything done? A door opened, someone warned, someone need killing?”

She laughed softly. “That good?” she said, with a smile. “Stomach is the way to your heart.”

“Not just my stomach, angel.”

The words hung there, unapologetic, vulnerable, true.

She met his gaze. Didn’t flinch, and he felt as if this new reality couldn’t hold true. This woman attracted to him was like a miracle.

He shoveled in more. “I didn’t know you could cook like this,” he murmured.

She glanced at him sidelong, serving him another helping. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

The only light came from the stovetop and the small lamp over the counter, casting everything in amber gold.

He took more bites and groaned. Honest to God groaned.

She blinked. “Was that a noise?”

“You try it,” he said, pointing with his fork. “See if you don’t moan.”

She did. And, okay, maybe he had a point.

“I haven’t had anything this close to my Oma’s since I was nineteen,” he said softly. “She used to make sp?tzle every Sunday. My mom’s German side, real old school. She’d slap your hand if you opened the oven too soon.”

Something shifted. Not in the air but in him.

After a few minutes, he stood. She looked up, startled.

He didn’t say anything. Just rummaged through a supply bin at the back of the kitchen. Pulled out a foil-wrapped bundle, hesitated, then brought it back to the table.

Set it in front of her like it cost him something.

“It’s not much,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Irish soda bread. My sister-in-law mailed it to me last week. Still good. Probably.” She stared. He shrugged, rough and almost boyish. “You cooked for me. I feed you. Seems fair.”

She unwrapped it slowly. The smell hit her first, dense and rich, flour and buttermilk and something darker. Something like home.

She tore off a piece and took a bite.

“I’m keeping the rest,” she said, after a reverent chew. “Don’t argue.”

He laughed softly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Their plates emptied. Time stretched.

She leaned back against her chair, letting herself breathe. Her shoulder brushed his, barely.

“You know,” she said lightly, “Irish coffee is one of my favorite things.”

He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with something playful. “Yeah, right,” he said, nudging her gently. “It’s all about the coffee.”

That broke her.

The laugh came from somewhere deep, belly-warm and unguarded. She covered her mouth too late, eyes crinkling.

He laughed too, low and quiet, like the sound startled him. Like he hadn’t remembered how, and just like that, the edges softened.

For a moment, it wasn’t about fentanyl shipments or British egos or buried regrets.

It was just two people in a warm kitchen, feet brushing under the table, sharing food they didn’t plan to share. Her hand was so close to his, and unable to help herself, she brushed his fingertips. He looked up at her, his eyes pools of shadowed forest.

The timer dinged.

It was the first moment she didn’t feel alone, and he looked at her like he knew it, like he’d felt it too.

She rose, her fingers tingling, her mouth aching. Instead of doing what she wanted to do, she slid the pie out, steam rising in lazy curls. “Give it ten minutes,” she said, voice low. “Then we taste.”

Boomer didn’t move. Just watched her like she was something he’d never let himself want too much of until now.