Page 36 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

The man moved to his chair at the far end of the table, opposite his wife, like it had always been his seat. But he didn’t carry the air of someone trying to hold a kingdom, just one who lived there, and kept it standing.

He sat back down, taking in the meal. Taylor’s mother had outdone herself.

Roast duck, glazed with citrus and honey, carved so perfectly it looked sculpted.

Braised cabbage with juniper. Creamy Kartoffelgratin .

A spring salad with shaved fennel and blood orange.

Boomer didn’t even like fennel, but this…

this was a different experience entirely.

He’d held his tongue through most of the small talk, letting Taylor field her mother’s cool dissection of international policy and local wine vintages. But then he took the first bite.

He stilled. Chewed slowly. Swallowed, then he spoke, voice low and reverent. “Ma’am,” he said with exaggerated care, “I gotta tell you something.”

Gretchen arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Taylor’s head tilted just slightly. Alarmed curiosity already on her face.

Boomer set down his fork carefully, the explosion of flavors on his tongue make his heart clench, and his throat tight. He’d been chewing slowly, not because he was trying to be polite, but because something about the Kartoffelgratin had hit him sideways. Like memory warmed and baked golden. Oma .

He cleared his throat. “Ma’am, if you’ll let me say…this dish right here?” He gestured to the gratin. “It took me back.”

Gretchen glanced up, guarded. Taylor stilled across the table.

Boomer nodded once, grounding himself. “My Oma used to make something like this. Same potatoes, thin, not mushy. Cream slow-cooked till it thickened, not separated. Garlic just barely there, like a whisper.”

He leaned in slightly, eyes on the dish, not her, like he was letting the food speak first. Gretchen blinked. Taylor’s mouth parted. He didn’t stop. His voice had gone softer now, almost intimate.

“But yours?” He looked up now. “The leek. That’s your signature. Subtle, but brighter. Less rustic. That hint of nutmeg? Elegant.” He gave a small smile. “Oma’s was heavier. Richer, sure. But yours has more restraint. More intention.” He picked up his fork again, ready for more.

“They’re different,” he said softly. “But both were made with care. With memory. One tasted like childhood. The other tastes like craft. ” Gretchen stared at him.

For the first time since he’d walked through the door, she looked…

unmoored. “There’s a reason people say food is art,” he continued, shifting his gaze to Gretchen with honor .

“At a certain point, it’s not just about feeding the body anymore.

It’s about feeding the soul. This?” He gestured toward his plate.

“This is the kind of cooking that does both.”

Gretchen took a soft breath. “I mean, just look at the care in the glaze, the balance of texture, the way the flavors carry through each course without ever competing.” He leaned back slightly, folding his hands loosely in his lap.

“You and your daughter… you both have that. That ability to create something meaningful with your hands, made with love. Love doesn’t always taste the same but you know it when it hits the tongue. ”

Gretchen’s lips parted, then closed again. Her cheeks pinked. A slow, unmistakable flush crept up her neck and settled just beneath her high cheekbones.

She looked down at her plate. Silence fell like silk over the room. Even Ansel stopped moving. Gretchen blinked once. Her fingers tensed around her water glass. She looked down. Then she murmured, not looking at anyone, “My mother used to grate the nutmeg fresh.”

Boomer smiled. “I tasted that, too.”

Taylor stared at Boomer like he’d just pulled a dove from his sleeve and handed it to her mother on a silver platter. Her fork had paused halfway to her mouth. Her eyes were wide, the lines around them soft with disbelief.

Her breath caught.

He didn’t look at her, not yet. He picked up his fork again, casual as hell, and took another bite of duck like he hadn’t just rearranged the emotional furniture in the entire room.

Gretchen finally spoke, her voice oddly hushed.

“Thank you,” she said, and the words landed like they’d scraped on the way up. “That’s…very kind.”

Boomer just gave her a slow nod. “Just honest, ma’am.”

Alaric set his wineglass down with the careful precision of a man who didn’t waste movement. He’d been watching Boomer the way a professor studies a promising but dangerous thesis, thoughtful, reserved, quietly intrigued.

“Boomer,” he said at last, the name rolling off his tongue with faint curiosity. “Such an interesting name.”

Boomer nodded once, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Callsign, sir. You know Americans…we’ve got a nickname or an acronym for just about everything.”

Alaric’s mouth curved into the softest hint of a smile.

“Yes. You do, and humor to spare.” His gaze lingered a second too long, like he was measuring something behind Boomer’s eyes.

Approval? Tolerance? Something between. Boomer returned the smile, respectful but grounded.

Then came the question. “Tell me,” Alaric said, voice still mild, measured but Boomer heard the fracture behind it, so faint it barely echoed.

“Since you're here for the good fight, trying to stop these monsters from spreading their poison…what is it like, working with my daughter?”

Boomer caught the slight shift in the man’s tone, too soft at the end, like the words were weightier than he’d intended. Alaric didn’t look at him when he said it. He looked at the table, at the edge of his glass, at nothing at all.

But Boomer felt it.

The mention of monsters wasn’t abstract.

The word poison didn’t land like a headline. It landed like a gravestone.

Alaric wasn’t asking out of politeness. He was a father who’d already buried one child in this war.

Now, the daughter he had left, the one who still fought, was walking into the same shadows.

He was asking what kind of man stood beside her.

Who would protect her? Who would understand what it cost her to keep showing up.

Boomer’s heart thudded once, hard and slow.

When he answered, everything about him changed, his posture, his tone, his drawl. He didn’t speak like a SEAL.

He spoke like a man who knew what it meant to lose something that couldn’t be replaced.

Boomer locked up inside, not that anyone could see, but he felt every word bubbling to be said.

Every breath, every heartbeat, every image of Taylor he'd ever buried and brought back rushed to the surface.

That first briefing in Colombia. The way she never flinched under pressure.

The way she moved, thought, commanded. The steel in her spine.

The fire in her silence. God help him, the softness she'd let him hold.

He swallowed. When he spoke, his accent came thicker than usual, the Georgia grit curling hard against every vowel, like his body was trying to anchor him in the only place that could carry this kind of truth.

“Well, sir,” he started, voice slow, low.

“Workin’ with your daughter ain’t like workin’ with anyone else.

” Taylor glanced up, and he didn’t look at her.

He couldn’t. Not yet. “She’s sharp,” he continued.

“Quick on her feet. Holds her ground in a way that makes the rest of us tighten up and do better. She doesn’t flinch in the hard moments, doesn’t chase the easy way out.

She plans like a commander and moves like an operator. ”

He paused. The silence at the table was complete.

“But it’s more than that,” he added, voice rough now.

He looked directly at Alaric. “She sees people, sir. Not just their role or their job. She sees what’s under the armor.

” Another swallow. His throat felt tight as hell.

“When someone like her sees you…I mean really sees you…” He shook his head faintly.

“It’s hard to come back from that unchanged. ”

Taylor’s breath caught, soft as the wind outside.

Boomer still didn’t look at her. He stared at the linen, then back at her father, steady. “I trust her,” he said. “With my six. With the mission. Hell, with more than that.”

Alaric didn’t smile this time. But his eyes changed. They softened, just a little. A flicker of understanding or maybe recognition. Like he saw something he hadn’t dared to hope for. Something quiet. Something true .

Taylor sat frozen, fork in hand, lips parted but silent.

Boomer reached for his water and drank slowly, steadying his pulse. His drawl hadn’t backed off an inch, and maybe that was the tell. When his voice got thick like that, when he let the edges roughen, it wasn’t just about Taylor’s skill or bravery.

It was about a woman who’d cracked his chest open, walked inside without asking, and made him want her to stay.

“I can tell you that I have her back. Unwavering. Focused. Intent.” He looked at her, and she met his eyes with a kind of heat that had nothing to do with desire.

“She might walk into danger,” he said, voice tightening, holding her gaze.

“But I’ll be there. To pull her out. Or cover her.

” He looked at her father, and he nodded once, a quiet vow etched in steel.

“I promise you both that.” No one spoke.

But Gretchen’s knuckles eased on her fork.

Alaric’s eyes dropped, just for a moment, and Ansel set his small hand on Boomer’s forearm.

That small gesture unraveled him, but Boomer didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. That kind of vow required direct-action eye contact, and damn, if he wasn’t falling in love with this kid.