Free ROMANCE: SPORTS ROMANCE: The Playmaker (Bad Boy College Football Romance) (New Adult College Alpha Male Sports Romance) by Carly White

worried about her or what happened after he got off. That was why she was there, but she was hoping there was more to it. That he cared about her like she did him. But in that moment, she realized how wrong she was.
    “You’re right. We will both be free, that is a good thing.”
    Grant didn’t hear the tone of her voice or the way she looked down when she said it. He was too worried about court and getting ready for it. She knew that it was silly of her to have ever thought that it could have been more. She was just a means to an end, but for a moment, she had thought that she was more.
    She waited for the trial to end. It wasn’t hard to find out, the media blaring the acquittal before the defendant was even out of the court house. Mara knew it was time to leave and since it was all over, there was no need to say goodbye to him. She didn’t think she could stomach it anyways. Instead she took off back to her old house, waiting for her father to come home.
    It was strange to be back in her old room. Everything looked different and Mara knew then that it would never be enough again. Her life there in Hartford was done and it was time for her to make her way in the world. She didn’t know what she was going to do, paint, write, but she was going to do something great. Mara just knew it. In losing her heart, she had found herself.

Chapter 6
    After visiting with her Gran to bounce ideas off of her, Mara decided that she wanted to go traveling like she had suggested. When she had been with Grant, even for that short time, her horizon was opened and she didn’t want it to shrink back to Hartford size again. She knew that she had to go out and find her way. Her optimism was infectious and soon she had talked her friend into going with her as well. Kaila had a job at the diner and neither one of them really had much to leave behind.
    The trip was what she needed. They went south for a time until they hit the Gulf of Mexico and the two girls stayed on the beach for almost a month. Mara’s dad kept asking her to come home, sure she was having some kind of crisis from trauma, but Grant had not traumatized her. It was the way she was living and Mara wasn’t ready to go back.
    Mara had no intention of going home for a while. She knew that Kaila was getting homesick, but it was only when she herself started to feel rotten that Mara even considered going back home. They had rented a vacation home in Myrtle Beach as the weather had warmed up down south, but now Mara was ready to go home. She didn’t know if it was all the travel or the convenience food on the way, but her stomach was always having issues and she was always tired.
    Kaila agreed, ready to go home herself, not quite aware of how much she missed the familiar routine. Kaila offered to drive most of the way home when they finally decided that it was time to go back. Mara was home a couple of days before her dad urged her to go to the doctor, so much that it became impossible to deny his reasoning.
    She went and then heard the two words that she wasn’t expecting to hear for a long time. It wasn’t a bug or a flu, but that she was pregnant. Her mind instantly went to the father that she hadn’t heard from in several months. It made sense though. She always seemed hungry, yet spent half the day wanting to be sick. There was a tenderness in her breasts and when she looked again, they were getting bigger. Mara was referred to an Obstetrician and waited for the date with her nerves rankled.
    She made it, waiting for the doctor and her first appointment concluded that the test at the emergency room were right, she was pregnant. At almost four month along, her morning sickness was gone, but she still hadn’t added much to her middle. A small bump was easy to hide with clothing and Mara still hadn’t told her dad about it. It wouldn’t take his mind long to deduce where she was when she conceived and then he would know her secret. Not that she had been taking advantage