Free Game For Love: Game for You (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Jami Davenport

 
     
    GAME FOR YOU
     
    By Jami Davenport

Summary
    Is there life after football?
     
    One hard hit too many has forced Branson Bullock into early retirement. His future looks bleak, and he's struggling with what's next, since he's never planned for a life off the field.
     
    Sarah Largo escaped an abusive relationship and has reinvented herself with plenty of hard work and an attitude makeover. As Branson's housekeeper, she keeps his home spotless, plans his parties, and cooks his meals, but her bad case of hero-worship for the former football star is Sarah's delicious little secret.
     
    Tired of moping around his house, Branson impulsively invites Sarah to dinner, never expecting the sparks that flare between them. Intrigued, he pursues Sarah with all the strategy and determination he ever put to use on the football field, but hero-worship aside, Sarah is still struggling with confidence issues and worries she isn’t worthy of a good man’s love.
     
    Have their pasts broken them beyond repair, or is a new life—together—just beginning?
     

Acknowledgments
    I’d like to thank Bella Andre for this opportunity to play in her world. I’ve loved her books since the first one was published. She’s been an inspiration as I start my self-publishing career with her invaluable advice she shares willingly with the romance author community.
    Thank you also to Laurie Ryan, Chassily Wakefield, and Delia Brendan who dropped what they were doing to come to my rescue at the last minute when I needed help with the editing, cover, and blurb of Game for You .

    Table of Contents
    Summary
    Acknowledgments
    Chapter 1
    Chapter 2
    Chapter 3
    Chapter 4
    Epilogue
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    COMPLETE BOOKLIST

Chapter 1
    Branson Bullock’s life as he knew it was over. Fucking over. Done. The clock had r un out, and he’d lost the final game. He’d played through various injuries over the years, but he couldn’t play through this. This was his head, and the League took that kind of stuff seriously with all the crap being discovered about head injuries and the legal ramifications.
    He’d gotten t hree separate opinions, and every doctor agreed. Damn them. Too dangerous to risk one more hit. You’ve already taken too many risks and played beyond what was considered safe.
    Well, screw safe. Branson had never once in his life played safe, and now they were forcing him out. His hall-of-fame career couldn’t end after one hard hit in training camp over a week ago. It just couldn’t.
    But it had.
    The San Francisco Outlaws, the team he’d played for all eight years of his professional career approached him late last week with plans for a big retirement party and to honor him at the first home game. He’d flipped them off and stomped out of the practice facility. That afternoon, they cut him. Fine, he didn’t need them. His agent’s phone would ring off the hook.
    It didn’t.
    He entered free agency, and not one team showed interest, not after the reports of his latest concussion. And now his last hope, that third doctor, drove a final nail in his gridiron coffin.
    He was supposed to go out in a bla ze of glory, catching his last football in the end zone during a championship game, not be taken out by a rookie free agent in a training camp scrimmage.
    Stuff like this shouldn’t happen to him. He’d paid his dues, earned his stripes, and done everything the right way.
    But now he was a month short of turning thirty, and he had no future. Only a past. No plans. No career. No aspirations. Nothing. Not a damn thing.
    Sure, he had money and plenty of it. He’d been mighty careful to stockpile his millions and invest wisely. No way would he be one of those players who was broke within a few years of retirement. He hadn’t clawed his way out of poverty to be shoved into that black hole again.
    M oney wasn’t an issue. Life without football was.
    He’d dedicated twenty-nine years of his life to football, foregone a steady girlfriend, a wife, a