Page 41 of Boomer

Taylor blinked. The word sat heavy and bright in the air.

“I haven’t told anyone yet. But I can’t wait to start a family. Oliver’s already picking out names.”

Taylor’s voice came quiet. “Dodger.”

Anna laughed once, low and wry. “Yeah. My Artful Dodger. Fast Lane had no idea what they signed up for.”

Taylor’s breath caught in her throat, half a laugh, half awe. “You’re going to be incredible.”

Anna smiled, and this time, it reached her eyes. “So will you. When the time’s right.”

She touched Taylor’s arm, quick, sincere, then started to turn away.

“Let’s convene a briefing in twenty. I want everyone updated. We move on this before it disappears again.”

Taylor paused in the doorway, gave a single nod. “You got it.”

Then she was gone, her silhouette vanishing down the corridor with the quiet grace of a woman who had just dismantled a man and was learning his network in under an hour and was about to go build a life.

Taylor lingered there, one hand on the cold steel of the doorframe, the other tightening around the file she still held. The hallway smelled of dust and institutional cleaner. Familiar. Lifeless.

A breath escaped her, slower than she intended.

Pregnant.

The word felt foreign in this place. Too tender for cement walls and high-security locks.

A flicker of something sharp and elusive twisted through her chest,regret, maybe. Or something worse. Something older.

Watching Anna walk away, strong and sure, with that kind of quiet joy lighting her from the inside, struck something deeper than she was prepared for. A family. A life. She had never let herself want those things. Not really.

She turned and headed for the main hall, heels echoing with clipped precision, but the thoughts kept following her like a shadow she hadn’t meant to cast.

Boomer. The name came unbidden. Not as a callsign, not as an asset or operator.

Carter.

She could still feel the phantom memory of his body beneath her hands, the heat of him, the control, the way he steadied her even when the world was slipping sideways. He had carved out space in her without even trying. Now, maddeningly, irrevocably, he lived there.

What if he stayed?

What if that deep, steady presence was hers for more than an op? More than adrenaline and need and fleeting hours between missions?

A child. The image came like a spark, too fast, too bright. A boy with Boomer’s eyes. A girl with her steel and his wild heart.

Taylor clenched her jaw.Dammit.

She wasn’t supposed to think like that.

Career had been drummed into her since she was old enough to spell ambition. Love was a pipe dream. Passion burned out, and what was left was duty, efficiency, and perhaps, if she was lucky, a man like her father, supportive, steady, emotionally present in theory.

But no backbone. No fire. NoBoomer.

She imagined it, coming home to someone like that. No arguments, no late-night desire, no deep gravity pulling her in with one look. Just mild approval, tidy compromise, and a quiet decay of self over years.

Howemptythat sounded.

Worse…howemptyit felt.