Page 62 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

The closet door stuck like always. Breakneck muttered under his breath, set his shoulder against the warped frame, and gave it a shove. The door groaned open.

“Top shelf,” his mother called from the kitchen. “Box labeled Xmas Decor. It’s red.”

He scanned the shelf. Two red boxes. Of course.

He reached for the first one. A stack of old photo albums toppled out from behind it and hit the hardwood with a slap, loose prints fanning like shrapnel.

“Dammit.”

He knelt and started gathering them up. Half were curled at the edges, sun-bleached from attic heat. Holiday shots. Some school portraits.

Then his hand froze. A photo. Mid-sized. Glossy. A teenage boy stood in a backyard, tall, broad-shouldered, shirt half-untucked, a smear of grease on his jaw, like he’d been working on a car. His hair was lighter, face sharper. But the eyes. The eyes were his.

Break’s breath caught. I don’t remember this. The background didn’t make sense. Neither did the clothes. This wasn’t the right decade.

His fingers gripped the edge of the photo tighter. What the hell…?

He stood slowly and carried it into the kitchen, where his mother was wiping down the counter, humming softly like the world was fine.

“Ma.”

She turned. “Hmm?”

He held the photo out. “When was this taken?”

She glanced at it, too quickly. “Oh… I don’t know. That was ages ago. Maybe junior year? You used to help Jerry with the Mustang, remember that?”

“No.” His voice came flat. Cold. “I don’t remember this at all. That’s not Jerry’s Mustang.”

She turned back to the counter. “Well, maybe I’m mistaken.”

The lie was so casual, like every other lie she’d told after his father died. It made his blood ice over.

He stepped forward. “That’s not me… is it?”

Her shoulders stiffened. The sponge in her hand paused.

“What are you talking about?”

He dropped the photo on the table. “That’s not me.” Silence stretched. “Ma.”

Her hand trembled as she set the sponge down. She didn’t look at him when she spoke. “It’s your stepfather.”

Break felt the ground tilt under him. No.

“That photo’s from when he was seventeen.”

He stared at it. At his face on another man’s body. His chest locked. “You cheated on dad…Derrick isn’t my father.” But he knew the truth. It was right there in his stepfather’s bone structure.

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

“You told me?—”

“I told you what you needed to hear,” she whispered.

He stepped back like she’d hit him. “You lied. You always lie.”

“I protected you,” she said, turning now, eyes wet. “After your father died, I needed someone, and we were high school sweethearts.”

Break couldn’t breathe. I look like him. God… I look just like him. His hand came up, like he could wipe it off his face. Scrub away the resemblance. He couldn’t look at her. Not now.

Not when everything he hated about the man who raised him might be his own blood.

His voice was tight, low, dangerous. “He abused you and you let him until I stepped in.”

“I know.”

“Now you tell me this? Now?”

“I didn’t want it to shape you,” she whispered. “You were so good . You didn’t need to know.”

But he did know now, and it cracked something deep and foundational . What if all the worst parts of me came from him? He backed away from the table, photo still burning in his periphery. “I need to go.”

“Kelly, please.”

But he was already heading for the door, pulse roaring in his ears, hands shaking.

He didn’t slam it.

But the silence behind it was loud enough to level the house. Derrick was already coming up the path when Breakneck stepped outside.

He didn’t hesitate. Just walked straight for him, slow and deliberate, rage a silent current beneath his boots. The man stepped back. Everything in him was in utter chaos as he felt the world slip. “My mom looks good.”

Derrick's eyelashes fluttered, and he looked away. “I kept to my promise.”

Breakneck stepped closer. “That’s good because if I hear you’ve touched her with violence again, you’ll never see me coming.”

He bumped the man’s shoulder as he passed. His life was spiraling, anger engulfing him. He drove until he got somewhere remote. He left the car and walked away fast, then started to run, his scream of anguish witnessed by nothing but trees and birds.

Taylor didn’t hear the gate. She was in the garden, dirt on her hands, sleeves pushed up, hair half-tamed in a braid. She couldn’t believe a year had passed already.

Boomer had spent a month with her in Lisbon through her resignation, through their packing and move to his beautiful house, where she’d immediately landscaped a whole garden.

Boomer had insisted that she keep her cottage in Lisbon with everything in it so it would be easy for her to visit her parents.

He told her he had everything handled financially, giving her the space and time she needed to raise her nephew.

Ansel settled into his school so well, thriving as spring approached.

His art teacher was blown away by his talent.

Ansel and Boomer? Oh, Gott , their relationship had grown into something so beautiful, she fell in love with him more every day.

It wasn’t perfect, especially with Ansel’s anxiety when Boomer was deployed, but they both waited for him to come back to them every time.

The lavender was starting to bloom, and she was down on her knees, coaxing roots into new earth, when she felt a shift in the air. A presence. She turned.

Boomer stood there, at the edge of the garden, shirtless, fresh from the shower, jeans slung low on his hips, his eyes wrecked , green and burning and locked on her like he hadn’t breathed since he’d been deployed.

She opened her mouth. There was no time to think. Only time to feel. Neither of them said a word. She rose slowly to her feet, garden trowel falling from her hand. He stepped forward once. Twice. Then he broke.

He was on her, mouth on hers, hands everywhere. The kiss was unhinged and hungry, like he had no words left, like the only language left between them was touch. She gasped against his lips and clutched at his back, his skin so hot, his fingers dragging through the dirt-smeared braid at her neck.

“Ansel?”

“He’s on a sleepover with friends.”

“Thank God. I miss that kid…but?—”

He dropped to his knees, hauling her down with him, pinning her to the earth like he needed her anchored. Her back hit the grass, and her hands flew to his belt. She wanted him. Needed him. Right fucking now.

“God, Carter,” she breathed, but he silenced her with another kiss, hot and rough and desperate .

His voice was a rasp. “I need to be in you. Not just with you, inside you . ”

She yanked at his waistband and shoved his jeans down his hips, baring him to the garden air, to the heat rising between them.

Her shorts came off fast, clumsy hands, frantic movements, and his mouth followed the edge of her thigh, the swell of her hip, like he had to bless every inch of her with his tongue.

Their skin collided like fire meeting tinder.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he sank into her with a growl that was more like a prayer.

Her breath left her in a rush. “Yes. Yes—Carter?—”

Boomer pressed his forehead to hers, buried deep inside, both of them trembling. “You feel like home , Red.”

She cupped his face, fingers threading into his hair, nails dragging gently along his scalp. “So do you.”

He drove into her like he meant it.

The garden shifted around them, flowers brushing bare shoulders, soil caking skin. There was no gentleness here, no restraint. Just bodies and breath and the feral sound of love, the kind that had conquered grief, shame, and broken hearts

They moved like people who'd bled for this moment. Like two halves of a soul reunited beneath the sky. When she came, crying out his name, he caught her, arms tight, heart wide open, no defenses left.

He followed with a gasp and a growl, her name the only thing on his lips.

They stayed like that, twined together on the ground, dirt on their skin, the earth cradling them like it understood.

Boomer kissed her temple, and Taylor smiled against his chest. “Is everyone safe?” she whispered.

Boomer nodded, brushing a thumb over the curve of her cheek. “Yes.”

“Let’s get dressed and go get a cup of tea, and you can tell me all about it.”

He smiled. “You just want to hear about my breaching.”

She laughed. “Well, won’t that be part of the story?”

His voice dropped into the kind of range that made her want him all over again. “Yeah, but fuck the tea. Let’s just go to the bedroom, and you show me how you breach a breacher.”

“Mind, body, and soul, Carter, and all the love I have to give. Let’s see how much you can handle before you detonate.”

“As long as you're the fuse, this breacher will become the blast.”

She took his hand and pulled him up. Half-dressed, she pulled him into the house.

The low hum of voices and laughter floated from the kitchen, mixing with the clatter of dishes and the smell of cinnamon and firewood.

Skull’s dry sarcasm pinged off the walls.

Breakneck was arm-wrestling Kodiak with a toothpick in his mouth like it gave him extra leverage.

Preacher stood at the window, a bourbon in hand, watching the way light filtered through the trees like falling gold.

Rose Snow, Luna Carmichael, Celeste Nash, Kaiya Lyta, Leigh Booth, and Walker Sullivan. All the wives had met Taylor a while ago, but they were so helpful to her when it came to Ansel and the deployments of their husbands. They had a standing meet-up every week.

But Boomer didn’t move. This was his birthday present.

He stood in the archway of the living room, one hand resting on the edge of the long wooden table where Ansel’s sculpture now sat.

The whole team had gathered around it when the velvet cover was pulled away. But now, most had drifted off, too moved to say anything more. The space had changed, like the sculpture had done something to the room. Hushed it. Blessed it.

Boomer stared at it, silent.