She hated the spike of tears in the corner of her eyes. Damn it, for once she was going to be strong. Cole had helped her leap last night, showed her the strength--and adventurousness--she hadn't seen in herself every time he made love to her. And no matter how much it was going to hurt when their marriage ended and they went their separate ways, she'd always be grateful to him for that gift.

Tonight she was going to have to take what she'd learned and trust that she knew how to fly on her own.

"You were Anna, honey, right from the start, right from the first time I held you in my arms. I'm sorry you didn't feel that you belonged. But you always did. Your differences have always been special. Precious to me and your father and your sisters."

Anna had needed to hear that for so long, she could barely take it in. And yet, at the same time, she couldn't just back down. Not this time.

"You're right, Mom. I am different. And this is how I want to live my life. Cole is my husband. I'm his wife. I'm sorry you didn't meet him before now, but he's here tonight."

The pain in her mother's eyes had her on the verge of an apology. And then her mother said, "Well, one thing's for certain. He's very good-looking," and Anna knew that her mother was trying to mend the hole in their relationship any way she could. This was her way of saying she'd accept Cole, if that was what her daughter wanted.

* * *

Cole stood in the doorway and watched Anna laugh with her mother. Tension rode him from what he'd seen, what he'd heard. Her mother was right. Anyone could see that Anna was different from the rest of her family. Not just the first letter of her name, not just her looks, but her spirit.

So full of sweetness it took his breath away.

She turned and saw him, then, pleasure lighting her eyes as she held out her arm for him.

And as he walked toward his wife and took her in his arms, he wanted her with an intensity he hadn't known he could feel.

But most intense of all, far more intense than his desire for her, was pride at the magnificent woman he held in his arms.

Anna was brave. Compassionate. Sexy as hell.

And all his.

* * *

Two hours later, they were back in his car. Anna hadn't said much through dinner and every minute that he'd been answering questions about his career, about the Outlaws' Super Bowl prospects this season, he'd been watching over her, keeping her hand safely in his whenever he could. She hadn't pulled away, but hadn't held on too tight, either. Still, he'd known that small connection helped. "You okay?" He reached over, stroked his thumb across the sensitive skin inside her wrist.

"I think so." The moonlight was just bright enough for him to see her small smile. "You were great, Cole. Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me for anything, Anna." Hell, he was the one who should be down on his knees thanking her. "And your family is great. Really great."

She made a soft sound of agreement, her eyes closing at the stop light. Cole sat at the empty intersection long after the light turned green.

They hadn't done enough sleeping the night before for him to get an opportunity to watch her like this. Her pretty face relaxed, her eyelashes long and curved across her cheekbones. The pulse moving evenly at the side of her neck.

His chest clenched at how beautiful she was. Desire was there--he already knew it would never be far from the surface between them--but it was another emotion entirely that had him unable to take his eyes off her. More than appreciation, stronger than respect.

He wanted to cherish her, wanted to devote himself to making her happy, to seeing her smile.

A car honked behind him and Cole stomped his foot down on the gas pedal, shooting them away from the light like it was a high-speed roller coaster ride. Anna stirred, but didn't wake up.

Twenty-four hours. He'd known her twenty-four hours.

It made sense that he'd like her. That he'd lust for her.

But all this cherishing and devotion crap? Hell, that didn't make a lick of sense.

Thirty minutes later, when Cole pulled into his garage, he had his head back on straight.

No question about it, he'd lucked out by picking Anna as his temporary wife. But that's all their relationship was. Just a brief union that was never meant to be anything more. Sure, Anna had said she didn't want anything from him, that she would play her part solely for his grandmother's sake, but Cole was going to find a way to pay her back. In a big enough way to make sure they could both move on with their lives as they'd been before Vegas. No regrets for either of them.

He lifted her, soft and warm, out of the car, and even though she was still asleep, her arms went around his neck and she laid her cheek against his chest. Completely trusting, just as she'd been the previous night in his bed.

He carried her inside, up the stairs to his bedroom, kicked the covers open on his bed with one leg, then gently laid her on a pillow. She immediately curled up on her side and he had to smile as he looked down at her. The first time a woman entered his bedroom, she didn't usually just go to sleep.

Her mother was right--Anna was definitely different from every other woman Cole had ever known.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, he slipped off her shoes and pulled the covers over her. Ten minutes later, he slid under the covers naked. Reaching for his wife, he tucked her small body into his and fell asleep.

That damn smile still on his lips.

Chapter Eleven

"You need anything, sweetheart, let Veronica know, okay?"

Anna nodded at the woman, and forced a smile. "I'll be fine, Cole."

He was giving her one of those looks she was starting to recognize, the one that said he knew she was anything but fine. But the truth was, she was less freaked out by being in the family VIP box before Cole's game than she'd been earlier that morning when she'd woken up in his bed, fully clothed, after dreaming of being held in his strong arms all night long. He could have easily woken her up by undressing her for bed. And if he had, well, there was no doubt in her mind that they would have made love again.

Instead, he'd made sure not to wake her, had simply climbed into his big bed and held her.

He'd acted like a man who cared.

Her chest still felt tight whenever she looked at him. Not wanting to make a complete fool of herself in front of a bunch of strangers, she brightened her smile. "Have a great game!"

She leaned over to give him a quick peck and he said in a low voice against her lips,

"We're newlyweds, remember," then slid his hands into her hair and kissed her.

Any embarrassment she might have felt at his very public display of affection was quickly lost in the pent-up desire from the previous afternoon in his kitchen. Without realizing it, her hands went around his neck, her pelvis pushed against his, and she whimpered softly into his mouth.

Finally, he pulled back enough to gaze down at her. She tried to catch her breath, but she was a long way from being able to control her response to his kisses. After he'd pressed one more sweet kiss against her lips, she gratefully sank into the chair behind her and stared out at the football field.

* * *

"Honestly, I didn't expect this from you, Cole." Out in the hall, Cole nearly walked into his agent, Melissa, who was holding her phone up and shaking it in his face.

"Not only married, but your phone is clearly broken too, huh?"

Okay, so he'd ignored the half-dozen messages she'd left him since the news broke yesterday. Sue him. He'd been busy.

With his sweet wife.

"You were on my list."

"Sure I was." She rolled her eyes. "You should have given me a heads-up on this, Cole."

"How is my marriage any of my agent's business?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Last I saw you, I thought we were friends, too. I would have liked to meet the woman you're planning on spending the rest of your life with for that reason alone. I would have liked to have a chance to congratulate you rather than ream you for keeping secrets." Her expression hardened. "But if you just want to talk business, fine. As your agent, we both know that everything you do is my business."

As if on cue, Julie appeared in the corridor. Unlike Melissa, she hugged him.

"Congratulations, stud." A bemused grin on her lips, she added, "Got quite a situation with the press going on outside there. All over little ol' you." She pulled a handful of clippings from her shoulder bag, a dozen different pictures of him and Anna. "She'd different from your previous girlfriends. Really cute." She raised an eyebrow, still smiling. "How'd you two meet, anyway?"

Cole looked over the two women's heads for their husbands, Dominic and Ty, but the hall was empty except for the three of them.

Fuck.

"I've got to get down to the field."

Melissa's eyes narrowed as Julie said, "Just be sure to come right back here after the game, Cole, so that we can work out our PR plan on this."

He stared at his team's PR rep--and one-time friend--with a look that would have had most people running. "She's my wife. I'm her husband. Our relationship is private. We don't need a plan."

Instead of looking scared, Julie simply shot one of her sassy little looks at Melissa, who suddenly looked less pissed off and more intrigued.

"Have a great game," they said in unison as they walked away, their heads tucked together as they conferred with one another.

Well, he'd fu**ed that one up royally. He wanted to follow them back into the VIP box and protect Anna. He wanted to make sure they didn't completely freak her out. But he was pushing it with his team as it was, should have been down on the field thirty minutes ago.

Dread drove every footstep he took away from his new wife.

* * *

"Congrats, buddy." A hard slap sounded across his shoulders from yet another teammate. Only Ty and Dominic had kept silent, the two newly married guys who just shook their heads as they looked at him.

He'd never been happier to hear the whistle blow. After the past twenty-four hours, he needed these three hours playing a game that was so natural to him. It was as close as he was going to get to decompressing. He wouldn't give up a second he'd spent with Anna, but her family, the press, and all of the crap swirling around them was another matter entirely.

Football. That's all he was going to think about.

But even as he took his spot in the defensive lineup, he found his attention wasn't entirely on the game. He'd never paid much attention to who was up in the VIP box watching him. But today, Anna was there. What was she thinking? Feeling?

And was she okay without him there to protect her?

* * *

"Hi there. Are you Anna?" Anna looked up to see two very pretty women standing in front of her. Getting to her feet, she hoped her legs weren't nearly as shaky from Cole's kiss as they had been a minute ago.

She smiled nervously. "Yes, that's me."

She was surprised when the slim blonde hugged her. "Wonderful. It's so nice to meet you.

And such a surprise, too. Such a good surprise."

Completely off balance from the warm greeting, she was glad when the curvy woman with the curly hair simply held out her hand. "I'm Melissa, Cole's agent. And this is Julie. She does PR for the Outlaws. We're also both good friends of Cole's."

"Or at least we thought we were." Julie smiled as she sat down next to Anna, more put together and polished than Anna could ever dream of being.

Melissa grabbed a seat on her other side, her business suit not nearly stark enough to hide her soft, sexy curves. "And then he goes and gets married to a woman we've never heard word one about."

Feeling neither as put together nor as sexy as either of Cole's female friends, Anna was trying to figure out how to respond when Julie said, "Honestly, getting hitched in Vegas is something I would have expected my husband to do." At Anna's shocked expression, Julie added, "Before we got serious, Ty used to be a bit of a player."

Melissa laughed at that, her initial businesslike demeanor quickly giving way to friendliness. She leaned over to Anna as if she were sharing a secret. "Actually, the truth is that the team had to hire Julie as Ty's personal PR rep."

Julie shrugged. "He's a bad boy. But he's my bad boy. Besides, you should know that Melissa met her husband, Dominic, when he hired her to be his agent." She waggled her eyebrows. "I've never seen an agent that interested in her client."

Anna had to bite her lip so she wouldn't laugh at the way the two women were ribbing each other. At the same time, she'd noticed they both seemed to have a glow about them, especially when they were talking about their husbands. A little pang of envy caught her in the chest, similar to the way she sometimes felt when she watched her sisters with their husbands.

"So." With unsettling abruptness, Julie and Melissa stopped teasing each other and turned their laser focus on Anna. "Tell us about yourself. What do you do for a living? How did you meet Cole? When did you know he was your forever?"

Oh God, what was with people and the word forever?

"I teach first grade." She paused, readying herself to lie to these two nice women. Just one more lie to add to the heaping pile. But she couldn't quite do it, not when they'd been so nice to her. "We met in Las Vegas. One of my sisters was getting married and he was visiting his grandmother."

She would have stopped there, but she already knew neither of these women was going to let her get away with leaving the "forever" question unanswered.

Dropping her voice, she lowered her gaze to her lap. "I knew it was forever the first time he looked at me."

Julie's soft gasp echoed Anna's own private reaction to what she'd just said.

To what she'd just admitted...to herself.

Oh God, had everything she was starting to feel for him already been there in that first glance, when he'd looked into her eyes and told her they were beautiful?

"It's clearly mutual."

Julie's surprising statement was quite possibly the only thing that could have pulled Anna out of her shocked self-examination.

"Cole is usually pretty even-keeled, but he almost bit my head off in the hall before we came in here."

Anna didn't understand. "Why? What happened?"

"I told him I wanted to give the press our version of your story, rather than whatever random misinformation they'll splash onto the Internet and the newspapers. I thought he was going to tackle me when he told me that your relationship is private. And that there wasn't any story."