Page 71 of Boomer
Boomer continued, still watching the statue. “It’s the only thing we make thatisn’tabout survival. It’s about meaning. About feeling. About holding onto something when everything else breaks loose. Art…it’s proof that we were here, and that we saw the world as more than just a fight to win or a task to finish.” He glanced down at the boy. “You make something, draw, sculpt, paint, and you’re telling the worldthis mattered.Even if no one else understands it.”
Ansel didn’t answer right away. Just reached out and ran a small hand over the thick page.
Boomer swallowed.
He wasn’t trying to be profound. He just knew what it meant to need somethingbeautifulto hold on to when everything inside you had gone dark.
He’d lived in a world where the only art was the sharp geometry of ruined buildings, the flare of tracer rounds, the still-life of a teammate’s boots pointing the wrong direction in the dust.
But this? This moment, this kid, this book? It reminded him why people like Taylor, people like Emil, fought so hard to protect the quiet places. Sometimes art was the only way to say something that couldn't survive any other kind of language.
Boomer sat there, heart pounding slow and deep in his chest, and knew with absolute clarity. Every potshot from Gretchen. Every hour Taylor had spent rebuilding her heart. Every scar he still carried from Mike, from Lila, from the roads in between had been worth it.
All of it.
He was sitting on a sun porch in Lisbon, holding the beginnings of something he’d never thought he’d deserve. The chance at life…
Boomer didn’t hear her footsteps. Didn’t sense her approach. He only felt a shift in the room, like warmth rolling in through a cracked window, like the air remembered how to breathe.
He looked up.
Taylor stood just inside the archway, framed in soft light, her hands loose at her sides, eyes locked on him like she couldn’t quite move. Her lips parted, barely. That sharp, stunning blue dragged across his face, then down to where he sat cross-legged on the floor beside Ansel. Something in her gaze faltered, melted, and what replaced it made his throat tighten. She was looking at him like hemattered.Like she saweverythingand still wanted more.
Behind her, Gretchen appeared, still in command, still severe but not untouched. Her gaze flicked to Ansel, sitting close to Boomer, relaxed, focused, unworried. Then her eyes shifted back to Boomer. Narrowed. Her mouth tightened. Something coiled there, a warning, a softening quickly shored up maybe.
So…not completely cold after all. Some part of what she’d just seen had penetrated that ice shield. A man who hadn’t barked orders or cajoled or demanded. Justsat. Listened. Met the boy where he was. That was what turned her pause into something just long enough to notice.
Then Taylor spoke, her voice soft and intimate. “Lunch is ready.” But her eyes said something entirely different. They said,I see you. I need you. I want you.
His chest burned. Not with desire, though every inch of him ached for her, but with that quiet, gut-deep thing that came when a man realized he’d been chosen. Forwho he wasin a moment that didn’t demand anything but presence.
He nodded, rising slowly, careful not to jostle the book or the boy still tracing the statue’s lines. “Thanks for sharing your book with me,” he said, voice thick. “It helped more than you know.”
Ansel gave a small smile. “Most people don’t listen that long.”
Boomer ruffled the kid’s curls gently. “Guess I’m not most people.”
Taylor’s breath hitched just enough for him to hear it. He turned toward her, and their eyes met again. The hunger was there. Yes. But so was everything else. Hope. Trust. A reckless kind of awe.
His body cried out for her, desperately, but it wasthat lookhe held onto. In her eyes, he saw something he hadn’t dared believe for a long time. That maybe this,them,wasn’t just a firestorm waiting to burn out. Maybe it was the beginning of something worth surviving for.
The dining room was drenched in late-afternoon sun, the kind that turned linen pale gold and made even the stemware look like it was lit from within. The table was elegant but not showy, white porcelain, deep green glassware, silver so polished it glinted like a dare. Everything was in its place.
He was sure this was just like Gretchen Hoffman liked it.
Boomer sat near the end, across from Taylor, close enough to feel her presence like a gravitational pull, but far enough to mind his manners. Ansel was perched beside him, napkin square in his lap, his fork aligned perfectly next to the plate.
Boomer heard the footfalls before he saw him, soft, even, deliberate. The kind of walk that didn’t rush, didn’t demand. Justwas.
Taylor’s father stepped into the room like someone who'd long since learned how to read a space before speaking into it. He was tall, lean, with a quiet frame that looked more like a professor than a patriarch. His sweater was charcoal, sleeves pushed neatly to the elbows, and he wore soft brown houseshoes, not loafers or boots, like he wasn’t trying to impress anybody and never had.
His silver hair was combed back neatly, not perfectly, and he wore a watch that looked older than Boomer’s Navy career. He didn’t say much at first. Just paused in the doorway, observing the table, the guests, and then his daughter,his girl, with a small, unreadable smile.
“Sorry for my absence, but I was on a call in the study.”
Boomer stood, instinctively. Not out of formality, but because something about the man’s presence felt…grounded. The kind of quiet a storm respected. He offered a hand.
“Carter Finley. Boomer, to most.”
