Page 21 of SEAL Ever After

He stopped a few feet away, his gaze sliding between the two of them. “Not officially,” he said with a slight accent. “But we’ve talked before. I’m Juan.”

“Sarah,” she said immediately, holding out her hand. He reached out and gripped it, a little bit too tightly, but then he was letting go and shaking Morgan’s hand. “And this is my best friend Morgan. I thought you were in town for a few weeks or something?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment down there,” he said, cocking his head toward a massage place at the end of the strip of shops. “I need to relax while I’m on vacation, right?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed.

“And you’re…engaged?” he asked, glancing down at the ring on her finger and up at the dress boutique. “Ah, congratulations! What a lucky man he must be.”

Morgan shifted from one foot to the other. “So how do you guys know each other?”

“Oh, he was outside my office last week, and we chatted a few minutes,” Sarah said. “I meet lots of people that way since my office is so close to the beach.”

“Right,” Morgan said. “Well, we better head inside and get started. Bye!” She grabbed Sarah’s arm and tugged her into the store.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, looking at her in confusion once they were inside.

“I got a creepy vibe from him,” Morgan said.

“Oh, he’s harmless,” Sarah said. “He hangs out around the beach in the morning, so I’ve seen him on my way into work. He’s just sitting there having his coffee.”

“Then what’s he doing over here now?”

“Getting a massage apparently. Who cares? We’re here to try on dresses, not talk about some random guy from the beach.”

“I don’t know. He had a creepy look in his eyes when he was watching you,” Morgan said. “He seemed a little too eager to see you here.”

“Oh, you worry too much,” Sarah said, smiling as one of the sales associates walked over. “I talk to people by the boardwalk all the time when I’m coming and going from the office. He’s harmless.”

“Hello ladies, I’m Lily,” a redheaded woman said as she walked over. “Could I get you each a glass of champagne? And which one of you is the lucky bride?”

“That’s me,” Sarah said. “Another friend is meeting us here, too. And yes, we’d absolutely love some champagne.”

Chapter 10

Ryan drummed his fingers on his desk, reviewing the last of the SITREPs before he finally headed home. It had been a hell of a long day. After briefings all morning, he’d been reading through reports all afternoon for various incidents unfolding all over the world.

It looked like he’d possibly have to send the Delta team off to the Middle East soon to deal with a new terror cell that was emerging. The Alpha team was still on standby for if and when the other woman in Mexico was located. A new lead had given them some hope, and although they’d just gotten back, he knew they’d be as eager as he was to rescue the other woman. The Secretary of Defense had called him personally at sixteen hundred today to thank the men for their work in retrieving the first kidnapped woman.

Hell.

It was a wonder that women trusted anyone these days with all the damn crazy people out there in the world. Those poor women had met the wrong guy at a club and then vanished.

Would he and Sarah have kids one day?

With the way things were going, if they ever had a daughter, he wouldn’t let her date until she was thirty. At least.

It was crazy that he’d figured he’d spend the rest of his life alone and now he was engaged to the woman he loved and thinking about starting a family with her. Having children. Becoming a father.

Sarah had practically smacked right into him when they’d first met and stolen his heart before he even knew what hit him.

One moment he’d been a lifelong bachelor, and the next? He’d looked forward to seeing her every chance he got, and when they’d finally clicked at Patrick’s barbeque that night? His entire world had been thrown off kilter, and things had never been the same since.

A knock on his door had him looking up from his computer screen.

“Congratulations,” another officer said from the doorway. “I heard you and Sarah got engaged over the weekend. Fantastic news.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said as he logged off from his computer and stood. “I’d been thinking about proposing to her for a while but couldn’t wait any longer.”

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