Page 3 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story, Little Creek, Virginia

Carter “Boomer” Finley eased his truck through the main gate of the base, the weight in his chest heavier than the ruck he carried.

He’d meant to get to Lisbon. To take Taylor up on that half-teasing text. Come see me. I’ll show you the real city, not the tourist shit.

He never even made it past searching flight prices. The next morning, he was yanked into a black op and dropped off the map for a full month without an opportunity to let her know.

To her, it probably looked like he’d ghosted her.

And technically…yeah. He had.

He’d met Detective Taylor Hoffman in Colombia, first when they were part of a joint force to take down Angel Alzate, and the second time when they had gone back after their teammate Archer “Hazard” Booth and his then fiancé, Leigh Waterford who had been kidnapped by Alzate’s wife, Lucia, the daughter of the notorious Ignacio “Nacho” Siachoque as leverage for the release of her husband.

She had carried on the leadership of the cartel in secret.

Now she and her father were dead, Alzate still imprisoned.

He remembered Taylor with clarity: red hair, shoulder-length, and bangs in a severe blunt cut, framing a face made of angles and intent.

She had the kind of presence that quieted a room without trying, a stillness that pulled attention.

Tall and toned, she moved like every step was already measured and earned.

There was nothing ornamental about her. She was built for precision.

For control. But her Nordic blue eyes, deep and watchful, held weight.

Like water that ran so clear and so deep you didn’t realize you were already drowning.

Regret settled in his gut like cold lead. One more woman he’d let down.

He still remembered that flicker of something stupid and rare when her text came through—hope, maybe. That dopamine punch, fast and bright, before duty yanked it away. Whatever chance he’d had with her was gone now.

Maybe it was for the best. Guys like him were easy to replace, and women like her didn’t wait around for shadows.

He pulled into the gravel lot outside SEAL Team headquarters, where the cages held their gear and the command center never slept. Familiar buildings, steel doors, a smell of oil and old canvas in the air, comforting in a way he hated.

He needed to get to his cage. Check weapons. Restock his med pouch. Run his hands over every piece of gear like a litany. He always wanted to be prepared. Never left behind because he fucked up.

He needed to stay sharp. Organized. Efficient.

But moving out of the vehicle didn’t lessen the weight in his chest.

He squeezed the frame of the open door, fingers flexing. A scent on the wind, salt, rubber, diesel, hit him like a memory. Just a whiff of the past, drawing him in.

Funny how one missed connection could pull loose the thread of all the rest. Anger rose hot and futile, with nowhere to go.

He was pissed that he’d missed the opportunity to see her, missed a chance that could have changed his life.

But now his hope was crushed, and it was bitter and hard to swallow.

Taylor had only ever asked for a sliver of his time, triggering him, making him remember that Lila had given him years.

He’d squandered them both.

He’d been different back then, at least he liked to think so. Younger. Still high on the sense of purpose, of invincibility.

Then came the blast. Mike’s death. The unraveling.

GQ had set him straight two years ago, and he’d sustained his sobriety because of the guys and their support. Some days he thought he could leave all the pain behind, push away that awful darkness…that left him scrambling for escape on rare occasions when Mike’s ghost took hold.

Lila had loved him like a lighthouse. Steady. Patient. A beacon in the fog he kept pretending wasn’t there.

But he’d shut her out. One bad deployment turned into five. Then came the drinking, the pills, when the nightmares got too sharp. He never raised a hand to her. He made sure of that, but silence was its own kind of violence, and absence cut just as deep.

He hadn’t realized how far away he’d drifted until it was too late. Lila needed laughter, presence, partnership. Instead, she got a ghost in combat boots and a ring that meant nothing anymore. Eventually, she found someone else, someone easier. Someone not built for war.

Looking back, he saw it clearly. He’d demanded her patience without ever offering his truth. Demanded comfort while hiding everything that hurt. Pride kept him from bleeding in front of her. Shame kept him from stopping his self-destruction.

It crept up on him sometimes, that old ache, sharp around the edges, dulled by time but never fully gone.

A shadow of a love he once had and wrecked, back when he was still Carter Finley, husband to a woman too good for the scars he carried.

Lila had tried. God, she had tried. But he wasn’t a man who knew how to be held together when everything inside him was falling apart.

The battlefield had marked him, sure. Burned things into his blood that wouldn’t ever come clean. But the war wasn’t what broke him.

Michael Brandon wasn’t just his best friend.

He was Boomer’s anchor in the storm, the one person who didn’t ask him to earn anything.

Not affection. Not approval. Not love. They’d grown up together, small-town boys with scraped knees and busted dreams, but Mike always made space for him.

Chose him. Saw past the charm and the jokes and the perfect performance and stayed. No one else ever had.

Then came the blast.

Boomer had been half a foot to the left. Just half a foot. The fire should have taken him, but Mike moved first. Always did. That’s who he was.

Boomer still remembered the heat, the punch of concussive force, the scream that never made it past his throat. But the worst part wasn’t the noise. It was the silence after. The part where Mike didn’t get up. Where the one man who made him feel like he was worth saving was gone.

And just like that, his past came roaring back. That same sick knowing that had followed him since the day he broke his arm at twelve and waited twenty minutes for help. That belief no one ever said aloud but branded deep anyway. Don’t cry. Don’t need. Handle it. If you fall, no one’s coming.

Mike’s death didn’t just hurt. It confirmed what Boomer had always feared that the people who see you, the ones who stay, they go anyway. You’re never worth enough to keep.

After that, the world slipped sideways. His marriage cracked.

He pulled away from the team. Not because he didn’t love them.

He did. Too much. BUD/S had taught him a different story about never leaving a man behind, so he took himself out of the equation.

He was the liability, and he couldn’t face that.

Boomer had told himself he was done with closeness, that he’d learned the hard way what happened when you let people in. He thought transferring out had been the smart move, distance from Mike, from that blast, from the pain that chewed through his insides every time he closed his eyes.

Iceman’s team had proven that no good deed goes unpunished. Boomer hadn’t just landed in a new unit—he’d been dragged straight into a brotherhood that refused to let him fall. They didn’t just carry him. They lifted him.

And somehow, in the middle of all the noise and pushback and stubborn pride, he’d found the kind of support he didn’t even know he needed.

He closed the door and went into the building, down the hall, and keyed in his code into the door pad. Inside, he walked to his cage, unable to stop the fullness in his throat.

He couldn’t leave now. They needed him. They needed a breacher who got them in clean and got them out alive.

His chest swelled with something he didn’t have a name for, and when Kelly “Breakneck” Gatlin wandered into the cages all bright-eyed and grinning, Boomer had to turn away, jaw clenched tight against the burn in his throat.

“Hey, Boom Boom. What you doin’?” the kid asked, voice all warmth. He heard him unlock his cage.

Boomer growled back, “Trying to find some peace and quiet.” Before he could stop himself, realize that taking out his anger and frustration on Breakneck was petty and unfair, the words came out of his mouth. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Breakneck paused, the silence stretching just long enough to sting.

“Need to clean my gear. CO pulled me away to commend me for that last op,” he said, quieter now.

Boomer heard the door open, couldn’t make himself look, not at that kid who reminded him too much of himself. “I’ll do it later. See you around.”

The second the door shut, regret landed hard in his gut.

Boomer yanked his gear out and started scrubbing, metal, canvas, ceramic, anything to scrape the guilt from his bones.

He thought of Lisbon. Of Taylor. Of the way everything good always seemed one step out of reach.

He couldn’t have her. He’d fantasized walking that Happily Ever After Mile with her.

The way she’d look up at him, the way Rose looked at Ice.

That little smile she’d give him in private, when the rest of the world faded out.

He’d imagined kissing her like they had time. Like he’d earned time.

But the mission came. And he went. Second chance? Gone. Traded for duty.

He clenched his fists, jaw tight, heart burning. He was tired of watching everything good slip through his fingers. Ti red of doing the right thing and still ending up alone.