Page 31 of Boomer

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 makeKäsespätzle.”

Boomer blinked. The words were simple, but the invitation behind them wasn’t. Not justhelp me cook. Not juststay 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 batteredspätzlemaker 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 thespätzleonto his plate. He took a bite and closed his eyes.