The Ground Beneath by Stephanie Vercier

Two tragedies, years apart.
Closing in on thirty, Hunter Lawrence knows he’s only got a few good years left quarterbacking for the Seattle Seahawks. The money, women and fame that come along with his job are his entire life, keeping his focus away from his painfully tragic past. When a training injury takes him out for the season, he has to face his life without the shield of his career. But when he meets Allison Briggs, his sports agent’s young and beautiful new assistant, life suddenly doesn’t seem so bleak. In fact, Allison makes Hunter want to be a different man, the kind of man he could once only hope to become.
Allison Briggs is nineteen and the daughter of an Episcopal priest. She’s tired of the supposed innocence that comes along with her age and parentage and no longer wants to be the fragile, pure girl people see her as, a moniker she blames for the heartbreaking tragedy that enveloped her a year ago. With college plans and the dream of becoming a journalist evaporated, she leaves her small town to start anew in Seattle, a relationship being the last thing on her mind. But as it becomes clear that Hunter Lawrence, NFL’s hottest star athlete, is interested in her, she finds him and a second chance at happiness impossible to resist.
As love begins to bloom, Hunter and Allison bond over their devastating pasts, neither of them able to imagine just how horrifyingly interconnected their tragedies truly are.