Bloom

by Cassia Leo

  Bloom

  Evergreen Series Book Three

  Cassia Leo

  Gloss Publishing LLC

  BLOOM

  Evergreen Series Book Three

  by Cassia Leo

  cassialeo.com

  Copyright © 2018 by Cassia Leo.

  First Edition. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Cassia Leo.

  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.

  Contents

  Part 1: Planting the Seed

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2: Where Flowers Bloom

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 3: Love Grows

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  The Way We Fall

  Excerpt

  Also by Cassia Leo

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Laurel

  Twenty-four years ago

  The sun made all the flowers in Mommy’s garden look like they were glowing. I sat down on the grass and dug my fingers into the warm dirt at the bottom of the rose bush. Mommy loves roses. I should pick some for her.

  Daddy said Mommy would be coming home today. She’s been gone forever! It feels like she’s been gone for years. Daddy said she’s only been gone a few weeks. But when I asked him how many weeks is a few, he said it was more than I could count and I would learn that later. I can’t wait to start first grade so I can know how many weeks Mommy was gone.

  Daddy said she was visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Iowa, but we couldn’t go with her because she’s too busy. She’s taking care of Grandpa. He’s sick.

  Mommy takes care of me when I’m sick, too. She makes me chicken soup and gives me yucky medicine and takes my temperature.

  I miss my mommy.

  But when I reach for the rose to pick one for Mommy, something bites my hand. I scream loudly and start to cry when I see a giant monster tooth stuck in my thumb. Daddy calls my name as he runs outside and picks me up.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He grabbed my hand and I tried to pull it away, so he just grabbed my arm. “Oh, no. Let me take it out.”

  “No! It hurts!”

  Daddy put me down on the grass and kissed my hand as he pushed my hair out of my eyes. “I know, pumpkin. That’s why I have to take it out. Can you hold still? I promise I’ll do it really fast. Okay?”

  BETH

  As the taxi pulled up in front of the house, my stomach went rigid at the sight of my coral-pink roses in full bloom behind the garden fence. I trimmed the blooms shortly before I left Portland. In a moment of desperation, I asked Mark if he could trim the roses after the next re-bloom. He was still so angry, he couldn’t even acknowledge I’d asked a question.

  I expected to come home to dead roses, which would be a depressing parallel to the state of my marriage. Yet somehow, while I was at a friend’s house, serving my sentence for betraying Mark, he had found it in his heart to care for my garden the way I knew he would take care of Laurel in my absence. I didn’t know if this made me feel more relieved or ashamed.

  I reached into my maroon leather handbag and handed the taxi driver a couple of twenty-dollar bills. “I don’t need any change. Thank you.”

  He took the money and quickly shifted the car into PARK. “Oh, thank you very much. Let me get your bags.”

  As the driver and I exited the car, Mark seemed to pop up out of the garden as if he’d been hiding behind the fence. Our eyes met for a split second, before he bent over and scooped up Laurel. The delicate skin on her cheeks and eyelids were flushed pink, as if she’d been crying, and just the sight of it brought tears to my eyes. Mark whispered something in her ear and she spun her head around, her blonde hair whipping his face.

  “Mommy!”

  Mark set her down gently and opened the garden gate so she could run to me. I dropped my handbag on the sidewalk and fell to my knees as I pulled my baby girl into my arms.

  “Oh, sweetie. I missed you so much. Did you miss me?”

  “Mommy, you’re squeezing me too tight,” she complained in that silvery voice that reminded me of wind chimes.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said, loosening my hold on her so I could reach up and brush a glistening tear track from her pink cheek. “Mommy is just really happy to see you. Were you crying?”

  She held up her hand, sticking her thumb out to show me a prick of blood. “The roses bit me.”

  I chuckled softly, keeping my gaze focused on her hand as Mark stepped past me to grab the suitcases the taxi driver had left on the curb. “Roses don’t bite, Laurel. Roses don’t have teeth. They have thorns. You were pricked by a thorn. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded her head. “Why did it hurt me?”

  My heart raced as Mark stopped just inside the gate, presumably awaiting my answer. “Because, sweetie, roses have thorns to make it harder for other animals and people to hurt them. It’s a defense mechanism.”

  She scrunched her wispy blonde eyebrows together. “The rose hurts me so I can’t hurt the rose?”

  Mark let out a deep sigh and continued carrying the suitcases up the path toward the front porch.

  I laid a soft kiss on the pad of Laurel’s tender thumb. “Exactly.”

  Present Day

  As I recalled the months my mother spent in “Iowa” with my father’s parents, when I was five years old, Jack’s words echoed in my consciousness.

  Beth put the baby boy up for adoption… She stayed with a friend during the last few months of her pregnancy… The baby was born on June 16th, and Beth declined to have a sample of his blood drawn for a paternity test… Brandon was adopted by Byron and Dottie Huxley, who moved to Boise shortly after his birth… Brandon had behavioral problems, which were only made worse when Dottie was murdered.

  “Laurel, are you okay?”

  Jack’s voice sounded distant as I stared at the rustic iron chandelier hanging above the dining table. The sparkling lights ricocheted off the crystal pendants, twinkling in my vision, lulling me into a trance as images of destruction and horror flared in my mind. All the physical and emotional wreckage I’d been running from; all the visceral, paralyzing agony that had rendered me incapable of performing even the most basic tasks; all the destructive coping mechanisms that led to the sickening moment I betrayed Jack; it all stemmed from one repulsive act of evil committed by my own flesh and blood.

  I needed to get those morning-after pills. I couldn’t bring a child into a world where that kind of cruelty existed.

  Earlier today, as I drove my Tesla SUV back to our home in Hood River from my mother’s house in Southeast Portland, I had thought of taking any of the dozens of freeway exits to stop at a drugstore. But Jack was so worried about my hangover, he drove right behind me the whole way home. He’d taken the time to buy me a couple bottles of water and watched me swallow an anti-emetic tablet for the nausea before we left.

  I wiped tears from my face as I stood from the dining chair, trying to ignore the weakness in my limbs brought on by the hangover and only exacerbated by the Dramamine and the news Jack had just delivered. There was no time to sit down and digest this new information properly, not while there was even the slimmest possibility that I could be pregnant with Isaac’s child.

  “Laurel, are you okay?” Jack asked again as he fol
lowed me toward the laundry room. “Where are you going?”

  “I just need to go to Walgreen’s for some tampons. I forgot them in Portland.”

  He grabbed my hand to stop me from entering the laundry room. “You’re not on your period. And you’re not even feeling well. If you need some, I’m sure there’s still some left in the bathroom. It’s not like I cleared the place out while you were gone.”

  I stood at the threshold, my hand gripping the cold steel door handle. “But I’m…” I couldn’t think of a single believable lie. I was either too dehydrated or emotionally overwhelmed for my synapses to fire properly. Or maybe I was just a terrible liar. Probably all of the above. “I’m tired,” I replied, looking up at Jack, my stomach clenching at the skepticism in his narrowed eyes. “And thirsty. I think I’m a little delirious. I should lie down.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  As Jack’s eyes softened and he took my hand in his to lead me toward the bedroom, I felt the small reserve of stamina at the core of my being spill out and drain from my limbs. I didn’t have the energy to lie. How could I muster the strength to tell the truth?

  I could barely hold my eyelids open as Jack turned down the covers and the sheets for me to climb in bed. As he helped me out of my Burberry rain boots, leaving my wool socks in place, I reached for his face. His scruff scraped the pads of my fingers, a familiar sensation that sent a chill over my skin. I took his face in my hands, closing my eyes to savor the warmth of his skin against my palms.

  Then a terrible thought flashed in my mind: What happened with Isaac would never have happened if Jack had set aside the hunt for Brandon and come back to me sooner.

  I crossed my arms over my belly and curled inward on myself as I tried not to let the idea take root. It was a poisonous thought, which would only lead to more resentment and more anger and more fighting. All those things were the old way. The old way didn’t work. That much we had established.

  Jack cupped my face in his hands and tilted it up to look in my eyes. “Baby, are you okay? You’re scaring the fuck out of me. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  Maybe that was the answer. Maybe I could tell Jack I needed to go to the emergency room. Then I could tell the ER staff that I was severely hungover and possibly dehydrated. And as soon as Jack left my side to use the restroom or get a coffee, I would ask someone for emergency contraceptives. They were required to keep that information confidential, weren’t they?

  Oh, God. I didn’t know.

  I had to accept that I had two options and two options only. I had to tell the truth or wait. In a few days, I’d be able to take an at-home pregnancy test. Until then, I’d just have to live with this secret and know that I deserved to let it slowly eat away at my insides.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered. “I’m just so tired of all the bad news.”

  “But it’s good news that they got him,” he replied.

  Part of me wanted to argue with him. How could learning that my biological brother murdered my son and my mother — then killed himself — be good news? But to Jack, it was good news because justice had been served. For Jack, it was always about justice. Justice came before everything. Even me.

  I forced a smile to stop the seeds of doubt from growing tendrils. “I’m a little nauseous. I just need to sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” he replied, laying a tender kiss on my temple.

  I lay back as he pulled the covers over me. “Thank you.”

  He brushed my hair away from my face as I curled up on my side. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Do you need anything?”

  I shook my head and pulled the covers tightly under my chin. But as he walked away toward the master bathroom, a nearly slapped myself when I was hit with a sudden idea. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I could call Drea and ask her to bring me the emergency contraceptives.

  As soon as I heard the sound of the shower turning on, I quietly slipped out of bed and retrieved my phone from where I’d left it on the dining room table. I called Drea and sighed with relief when she answered after just one ring.

  “Drea! Oh, my God. I need your help.”

  “Laurel? What—what’s going on? Are you okay, love?” she replied.

  I could hear one of her boys chattering in the background, probably Thom considering the high-pitched tone of his voice. Thom was an adorable four years old and Drea’s eldest, Colin, was eight years old, and growing so fast it made my chest ache just thinking about it.

  “I’m fine. I just—” I cut myself off as Drea shushed Thom. “Actually, I’m not fine. I need you to do me a huge favor.”

  “Anything, darling. What do you need?” she replied.

  “I need you to go to Walgreen’s or CVS and get me a pack of Plan-B morning-after pills.”

  She was silent for a moment before she responded. “Why? Please don’t tell me you slept with Isaac.” When I didn’t reply immediately, her voice became tinged with panic. “Laurel?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, attempting to keep half of my attention on the distant sound of the running shower. “I was drunk after you left last night. I think I might have fallen outside or something because I woke up in my bed thinking that Jack was lying next to me. I initiated sex and… Well, I realized too late that it was Isaac. Then—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You had sex with Isaac? You cheated on Jack?”

  I opened my mouth a few times, but I was unable to speak, having been stunned into silence by the word “cheated.”

  “Laurel, did you cheat on Jack?” she whispered urgently.

  “No! I mean… Oh, God.” I clutched my hair as I wracked my brain for a better explanation for what I’d done, but it didn’t take long for my reaction to flip from panic to anger. “Are you judging me?”

  She let out a soft chuckle. “Are you admitting you cheated on him? Laurel, you can’t possibly be angry at me.”

  I gasped at the physical pain in my chest. “How could you? Of all the people, I thought at least you would understand. I didn’t have sex with Isaac because I wanted to. I did it because I was blitzed out of my fucking mind. I thought it was Jack!” I clapped my hand over my mouth as I realized I could no longer hear the shower running. “Forget it,” I whispered before I ended the call.

  I got myself a glass of water and took my phone and the water back to the bedroom just in time to see Jack coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Thirsty,” I said, holding up my glass before he could comment.

  I set the water and phone down on the nightstand and quickly slid between the sheets, pulling the covers over my head. It seemed I was back to “plan A” — waiting a few days to take a pregnancy test — since I didn’t have any way to get PlanB tonight. Tomorrow being Sunday, I highly doubted I’d be able to sneak away from Jack to get the pills.

  I hated myself.

  “Pixie, are you crying?”

  Jack’s voice snapped me out of my self-flagellation. Surprisingly, I found myself sobbing and clenching my fists so tightly, I had to slowly pry my fingernails out of the palms of my hands. Raising the covers a bit to let in some light, I wasn’t surprised to see six screaming red nail marks, two of them with tiny droplets of blood bubbling up out of the broken skin.

  I quickly threw off the covers and ran to the bathroom as sweat sprouted over my brow and upper lip and my mouth pooled with saliva. I vomited the water I’d drank over the last few hours. Sour liquid gushed from my mouth in hot streams as my eyes bulged with the strain. Jack held back my hair and murmured soothing words as I spewed my guts into the porcelain bowl, imagining each drop of liquid amounting to one sin. Soon, I would be clean.

  When the retching stopped, I resisted the urge to stuff my fingers down my throat to make certain every last drop was squeezed out. Instead, I fell sideways for a split second before Jack caught me to keep my head from hitting the wall.

  He reached
up and laid his hand over my sweaty forehead. “You’re pretty cold, so I don’t think you have a fever. But maybe we should take you to the urgent care.”

  “No,” I breathed, reaching for the toilet paper to wipe my mouth. “I just need to rest and drink some water. Can you help me up?”

  He lifted me up easily, cradling me in his arms, which were still warm and moist from the shower. Setting me down on the bed, he kneeled next to me and brushed my hair from my damp brow.

  “I’ll go get an empty cup and some mouthwash so you can rinse. I’ll get some crackers and some more Dramamine, too.”

  I reached out with both hands and grabbed his neck before he could stand up. “I love you,” I whispered, pulling him toward me. Not to kiss him. Not even to feel him in my arms. I suddenly feared that if he left this room he’d never come back. “I love you so much.”

  He chuckled as he wrapped his arms around me, seizing the opportunity to slide my body toward the center of the bed. “I’ll be right back, baby,” he assured me, as if he could read the fear in my desperate clutch, as if he could read me like an open book. “I promise I’ll be right back.”

  Reluctantly, I released my hold on him and he slowly pulled away, looking down at me with suspicion in his eyes again. But neither of us spoke. And as the seconds ticked by with neither of us turning away, I swore I could see my sins reflected in the glimmer of his eyes. Then, he swallowed hard, the gulping sound echoing in my ears. And I was certain I’d just witnessed the moment when he consciously stifled his suspicions in favor of a peaceful reunion.