Evergreen: The Complete Series: Including exclusive bonus scene! (Evergreen Series) Read online

  Evergreen

  The Complete Series

  Cassia Leo

  Gloss Publishing LLC

  EVERGREEN

  The Complete Series

  by Cassia Leo

  cassialeo.com

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Cassia Leo.

  First Edition. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Cassia Leo.

  Tree picture by Mel B.

  * * *

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the author; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Note to Reader

  INCLUDED IN THIS E-BOOK:

  * * *

  Click the title(s) to be taken directly to the beginning of each book.

  * * *

  Dirt (Book One)

  Seed (Book Two)

  Bloom (Book Three)

  * * *

  BONUS CONTENT!

  * * *

  Click the title(s) below to be taken directly to the bonus content.

  * * *

  Bloom - Bonus Scene

  The Way We Fall - Bonus Novel

  To the one I lost.

  Contents

  Dirt

  Dirt Playlist

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 2

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part 3

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Seed

  Part 1

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part 2

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part 3

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Bloom

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 3

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Bloom Bonus Scene

  The Way We Fall

  Prologue

  Also by Cassia Leo

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  DIRT

  Evergreen Series #1

  Dirt Playlist

  Listen to the playlist on Spotify.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  “On the Nature of Daylight”

  Max Richter

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  “Hurts Like Hell”

  Fleurie

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  “Silhouette”

  Aquilo

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  “Dark (Martin Hviid Remix)”

  Siv Jacobsen

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  “Until We Go Down”

  Ruelle

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  “I’ll Be Good”

  Jaymes Young

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  “Deep End”

  Ruelle

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  “Rescue My Heart”

  Liz Longley

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  “All We Do”

  Oh Wonder

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  “Runaway”

  AURORA

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  “Don’t Forget About Me”

  CLOVES

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  “The Line That Ties Me”

  Julia Stone

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  “Soldier”

  Fleurie

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  “Poison”

  Vaults

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  “Oceans”

  Seafret

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  “The Courage or the Fall”

  Civil Twilight

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  “You There”

  Aquilo

  * * *

  Chapter 18

  “Black (Unplugged)”

  Pearl Jam

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  “This Light”

  Rose Cousins

  * * *

  Chapter 20

  “No One’s Gonna Love You (Live)”

  Band of Horses

  * * *

  Chapter 21

  “Melatonin (Unplugged)”

  Phoria

  * * *

  Chapter 22

  “Rooster”

  Alice In Chains

  * * *

  Chapter 23

  “White Blood”

  Oh Wonder

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  “Bitter and Sick”

  One Two

  * * *

  Chapter 25

  “Sirens”

  Fleurie

  * * *

  Chapter 26

  “Forest Fires”

  Axel Flovent

  * * *

  Chapter 27

  “Heart-Shaped Box”

  Nirvana

  * * *

  Chapter 28

  “Draw Your Swords”

  Angus & Julia Stone

  * * *

  Chapter 29

  “Up In Flames”

  Ruelle

  Part 1

  BURIED ALIVE

  “Every flower must grow through dirt.”

  Chapter 1

  LAUREL

  I hugged Jack Jr. tightly against my breast, and he molded his soft, warm body to mine. His eyes remained closed as his tiny fingers curled around the fabric of my blouse, his rosy lips puckering as he geared up for more food.

  “You sucked me dry, little fella,” I whispered, leaning in to press my nose against the downy-soft, golden hair on the top of his head. I inhaled his scent and my muscles unspooled. “But I’ll be back to feed you soon. I promise.”

  Why do b
abies smell so damn good?

  Before I got pregnant with Junior, my favorite smell was orange blossoms. As a teenager, I often got scolded by my mom for picking the flowers off the orange tree in our backyard in Portland. I’d rub the creamy petals between my fingers, bruise them with my fingernails, then sniff my hand for hours until the scent wore off.

  When I was pregnant with Junior, my favorite scent became the rich aroma of the forbidden coffee I could no longer drink.

  After Junior was born, and my decaf days came to a glorious end, I realized how wrong I’d been. There was absolutely no scent as sweet and soul-quieting as the smell of the top of a baby’s head. Bonus points if the baby was lying peacefully on your chest sound asleep.

  “Are you ever going to put him down?”

  I flicked my head sideways, startled by Jack’s clear, baritone voice.

  He stood in the doorway of Junior’s nursery, the silhouette of his six-foot-three athletic body framed by the warm light in the hallway. His head was tilted to the side. He’d probably been standing there admiring us for a while. After six years together, I knew Jack’s body language and facial expressions better than I knew my own face.

  I stood from the rocking chair and stole one more sniff of Junior’s head before I placed him gently on his back in the center of the crib. I adjusted the left sleeve of his pajamas, pulling it down to make sure it covered his entire chubby arm. I didn’t want to imagine him waking up cold and alone in here.

  Jack appeared at my side as I switched on the video baby monitor. “He’s going to be fine,” he murmured, reaching down to stroke the soft patch of hair on Junior’s head. “In fact, he’ll probably enjoy some time alone. After all, he is just like his daddy; sometimes, we need a break from the constant attention from the ladies.”

  I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. “Making jokes only makes leaving him slightly less scary, you know,” I said as we stepped into the hallway of our five-bedroom dream home in Hood River, Oregon. I couldn’t wait to fill up every one of these bedrooms with brothers and sisters for Jack Jr.

  Jack chuckled as he followed closely behind me. “Less scary is an improvement,” he replied, grabbing my hand to stop me in the middle of the corridor. “You promised Junior you’d be back soon. Can you also make me a promise?”

  The hallway lights made his dark hair look glaringly shiny, but I couldn’t help but notice how weary his blue eyes looked tonight. Since Junior arrived three months ago, I’d been so focused on my baby boy’s vulnerability, his scent, his beauty, I hadn’t slowed down enough to appreciate how those were the same qualities that made me fall in love with Jack.

  Suddenly, my worries about leaving Junior with my mother for the evening evaporated. All I wanted to do was kiss Jack, grab hold of that dark hair and make love to him for hours. I wanted to replace the weariness in his eyes with dark hunger, or maybe a glint of mischief.

  I squeezed his hand and smiled at the thought of possibly having sex with him in public tonight. We hadn’t done that in a while.

  “What kind of promise?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope, you’re not allowed to ask. Just promise me you’ll say yes.”

  My stomach vaulted at the sound of those words. They were the same words Jack spoke when he asked me to marry him. I wondered what he would ask this time.

  The phrase “just promise me you’ll say yes” had become like an inside joke, our own private, unspoken promise to each other that we would always do whatever it took to stay together. The last time he had uttered this phrase, he asked me to stop taking my birth control pills. With Junior here, it was easy to trust that whatever Jack asked me for this time would turn out to be exactly what I needed.

  I tilted my head back so I could look up and into his crystal-blue eyes. “Yes, I can make you a promise.”

  His expression became sober. “Promise me you’ll be present tonight.” He fixed me with a piercing gaze as his large hand cupped my face. “It’s just you and me for the next three hours. Promise me.”

  I smiled. “I promise. Just you and me. And I’ll even put my cell phone on vibrate.” As I said the words, a sharp finger of fear prodded my subconscious, telling me it was a bad idea to risk missing a phone call tonight.

  The exhaustion in Jack’s eyes melted away as he smiled. “I can deal with that, but you have to promise me one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  His smile turned almost menacing as he looped his arm around my waist and drew me close. “Promise me you’ll lemme smash that blonde bombshell booty,” he said, landing a light swat on my ass.

  I shook my head as I recalled how we often had sex in public during our first year together, in our senior year at Oregon State University, Cascades. For some reason, once we graduated and moved in together, having sex in public seemed like something we couldn’t get away with so easily. We decided public sex-hibitions — or throw downs, as we more commonly referred to them — would be reserved for special occasions like anniversaries or vacations.

  Truthfully, Jack and I kicked off our relationship by having sex on the first date. He was always a very difficult man to resist. When he showed up at my apartment to pick me up that night, I couldn’t resist his suggestion that we should stay in and make paper masks of ourselves, then put them on and ask each other first date questions as if we were the other person. I had never laughed so much on any date. Ever. But when he asked — while pretending to be me — if I’d ever had sex with someone on the first date, I couldn’t help but respond with, “I’m Jack-fucking-Stratton. I’ve fucked a lot of girls on the first date. But none as gorgeous as you.”

  Jack always knew how to keep things fresh and alarmingly sexy. Six years in and my body still craved him almost every second of every day.

  Today was our three-year wedding anniversary. We’d only had sex twice since I gave birth to Junior three months ago, and both of those times were truly awkward.

  The first time was painful. My C-section incision hadn’t fully healed yet, and even trying to have sex with him behind me was uncomfortable. The second time we tried, Jack was so afraid of hurting me, he stopped midway through. There’d been a lot of oral sex happening in this house since then.

  Luckily, a few weeks had passed since our last attempt, and I had repeatedly assured him I was fully healed up now. I was certain that even if the sex did hurt a little, it would still be worth it. I couldn’t understand couples that didn’t consider sex an important part of a relationship. I never felt more complete, more present, more alive than when my body and mind were entwined with Jack’s.

  I smiled as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I think I know just the place for a proper throw down.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Ooh. Tell me more.”

  As he leaned in to kiss me, my mother’s voice interrupted us.

  “Are you two making out again?” she said, standing at the top of the stairs with her hands on her hips as she gawped at us. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

  Jack laughed and I shook my head as we moved toward her.

  “We’re just trying to keep you entertained while you’re on vacation, Beth,” Jack said.

  My mother cocked an eyebrow. “If I wanted to watch porn, I’d open up your laptop and have a look at your internet history.”

  “Mom, don’t be gross,” I protested, trying not to laugh.

  Jack smiled as he held out his elbow for my mom to grab hold as they descended the stairs in front of me. “I made a special collection of links for you. They’re in a folder labeled Tantric Geriatric. You’ll love it.”