Tansy Leighton walked into the FUBAR in the middle of Happy Hour. She’d left the designer originals and thousand dollar shoes at home, but even so, she elevated the tone of the place.

It was dark and dingy, and mostly filled with very buff guys in tight T-shirts and cargo pants, plus a few women who clearly weren’t happy to see her. She got interested looks from a lot of the men, and scowls from all of the women. They obviously didn’t welcome the competition.

That was OK. Tansy wasn’t interested in any of the guys they were chatting up. She had her heart set on a certain SEAL, and if he wasn’t here, she was leaving again.

And then she’d knock on every door in Virginia Beach until she found him, if she had to.

But no, that wouldn’t be necessary. She recognized Max first. He wasn’t easy to overlook, with his height and that shock of almost white-blond hair. Next to him, she saw Rusty’s auburn head, and next to him again, a short guy with black hair she thought might be Andy Lee, their computer guru. And then—her heart skipped a beat—there was John. His shoulders stretched the fabric of the plain white T-shirt he was wearing, and his hand was wrapped around a bottle of beer. Even from over here, she could see that his knuckles were bruised from hitting Conrad.

Max saw her first, in the mirror above the bar. He nudged Rusty, who nudged Andy, and all three of them slipped off the bar stools. John turned to them—probably to find out what was going on—and Max said a few words.

Tansy saw his response in the sudden stillness of his body, and for a second her heart stopped.

What if he wasn’t happy to see her? What if he’d just been caught up in the moment when he told her he thought he loved her? When he kissed her like he didn’t want to let her go?

What if he didn’t want her now that she was here?

But then he turned toward the door, and she saw the truth on his face. His eyes were lit up, and he was smiling so widely she could see every tooth. And she wondered how she could have ever thought his smile was anything but perfect.

He caught her halfway across the floor, and swung her around. She almost knocked a tray of glasses out of the hands of a waitress who was squeezing by, and she managed a breathless apology before John kissed her, and took her breath away all over again.

A minute later he was leading her back toward the bar. The applause had ended, and Tansy was flushed and disheveled and couldn’t remember when she’d been happier.

Yes, he wanted her.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked when Tansy had a glass of white wine in front of her and had taken her first sip. It tasted like battery acid—or like she thought battery acid might taste—and even her happiness at the moment couldn’t make her drink any more of it.

She pushed the glass aside. “My dad and Mick both thought it would be a good idea for me to get away from Philadelphia for a while. Conrad’s in prison—the judge set the bail too high for him to get out—but he has friends in the area. I don’t think anyone seriously thinks one of them will come after me—I don’t think anyone liked Conrad enough for that—but it’s a precaution that made sense.”

Especially since she’d wanted an excuse to leave anyway. Her father, understandably, had been concerned about letting her out of his sight.

“I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. So here I am.”

He nodded. And Tansy heart sank. “You don’t seem happy.”

“It’s not that I’m not happy. I’m just trying to figure out what to expect.”

“Expect?”

“Time-wise. And otherwise.”

“I don’t understand,” Tansy said. She’d come here expecting him to be happy to see her. And he had seemed happy. But now...

He took her hand between both of his. They were big and hard and strong-looking. Tansy shivered as he ran his thumb across her knuckles. When she looked up at him, he said, “I’m already half in love with you. If all this is, is a week of slumming with the Navy SEAL, I need to know that up front, so I can prepare myself.”

She didn’t say anything—what was there to say?—and he added, “I’ll still take you up on it. Right now, I want you more than I want my next breath. I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me. But if you’re not offering at least a chance of something beyond the next couple of days, I need to know, so I can be prepared for when you leave again.”

Tansy shook her head. “I’m not leaving. I bought an apartment on the beach. I thought I’d take a little time to get situated—it’s not like I have to work, after all...”

She grimaced apologetically, “and then maybe I could find some volunteer work or start a business or something.”

John just stared at her.

“I’d like to get to know you better,” she told him. “I like you. A lot. I think I might do more than like you. But we’ve only known each other a few days. And I know you worry about the money.”

“I don’t worry about the money,” John said. “I worry about the fact that I don’t have any. And you have a lot.”

“Nobody would think you’d be marrying me for my money,” Tansy said. And backpedaled when she realized what she’d said. “I mean...”

He grinned. “You proposing, princess?”

“Would you say yes if I did?”

He shook his head.

“Like I said, I’d like to spend more time together. I’d like for you to realize that the money isn’t important.”

He looked like he didn’t believe her, and she added, “It’s nice to have. I’m not denying that. But it can be a problem. You know that better than anyone. You’ve had to rescue me from fortune hunters twice. Just think of the favor you’d be doing me if you married me. I wouldn’t have to worry about it ever again.”

“They’d still try their luck,” John said. “I’d have to go away, you know. On deployment. And training missions. You’d be alone some of the time.”

Just as long as he didn’t find himself one of those... what had he called them? Cruise boos?... while he was away.

“I think,” Tansy said, “that once I mentioned my very hot, very dangerous Navy SEAL husband, they’d slink away with their tails between their legs.”

He didn’t say anything, and Tansy added, “Please, John. Just give me a chance. Give us a chance. You told me if I came to Little Creek you’d buy me a drink and tell me how to spot a guy who doesn’t care about my money. And I’m looking at him. Give him a chance.”

John glanced around the room. He rubbed the back of his neck.

Tansy glanced around, too. She guessed she might have to get used to coming to places like this, if she was going to live like normal people.

And really, it wasn’t too bad. The wine was awful, but maybe she could learn how to like beer. And the clientele was first rate. The members of John’s team were over in the back, shooting pool. Or at least two of them were: Rusty and Andy. Max was...

She looked around.

Max was trying to chat up the waitress she’d almost bowled over when John swung her around earlier. And he clearly wasn’t getting anywhere. The girl, a pretty redhead who looked like she was doing everything she could to look as plain as possible, was listening to him, but both her body language and her expression said she wished she was somewhere else. And as Tansy watched, she escaped. She said a couple of words and then hurried off. Max was left staring after her with a frustrated expression on his face.

“All right,” John said.

Tansy turned to him. “Excuse me?”

He grinned at her. “I said ‘all right.’ I’ll marry you.”

“I didn’t ask you to marry me.”

“Sure you did.” He slid off the bar stool and held out a hand to her. “Show me this beach condo you bought. Is there a bed?”

“Fully furnished,” Tansy said, and put her hand in his.

“Then I say we go try it out. I don’t have to be back on base until oh-seven-hundred.”

“Plenty of time.”

“Not for what I have planned,” John said and headed for the door.