Always, Evelyn

Always, Evelyn LOVE NOTES BOOK THREE AUTUMN REED Copyright © 2023 by Autumn Reed All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Cover by Everly Yours Designs. For my fellow former church girls. You be you, without apology or shame. Contents Playlist Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Epilogue A Note from Autumn Evelyn’s Playlist About the Author Playlist Listen to the Always, Evelyn playlist on Spotify. 1: From Eden - Hozier 2: Perfect - Ed Sheeran 3: surrender - Christina Perri 4: California Dreamin’ - Freischwimmer 5: Saturday Sun - Vance Joy 6: Broken Shadow - Karen Elson 7: All We Ever Knew - The Head And The Heart 8: California 2005 - Phantom Planet 9: Malibu - Miley Cyrus 10: Believe - Mumford & Sons 11: Maybe - Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors (feat. Natalie Hemby) 12: As It Was - Harry Styles 13: I Hear the Bells - Mike Doughty 14: Romeo And Juliet - Indigo Girls 15: Meet Me in the Woods - Lord Huron 16: I Ain't Worried - OneRepublic 17: Now I'm In It - HAIM 18: I Don't Want to Be - Gavin DeGraw 19: Come Around - Rosi Golan 20: Butterflies - Kacey Musgraves 21: High and Dry - Radiohead 22: Thank You - Dido 23: Brave - Sara Bareilles 24: Bad Liar - Selena Gomez 25: The Wolf - Mumford & Sons 26: Saint Honesty - Girl Named Tom 27: Any Day Now - Trousdale 28: Follow Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves 29: Renegades - X Ambassadors 30: Snow On The Beach - Taylor Swift (feat. Lana Del Rey) 31: It Goes Like This - Thomas Rhett 32: Geronimo - Sheppard 33: Can’t Help Falling in Love - Kacey Musgraves 34: Crystals - Of Monsters and Men 35: The Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel 36: Run (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift (feat. Ed Sheeran) 37: Palms - Allman Brown (feat. Liz Lawrence) 38: Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros 39: Tattoos (Acoustic) - Jack Botts 40: Searching for the Truth - Katie Pruitt 41: More than Words - Music Travel Love 42: Sweet Nothing - Taylor Swift 43: Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons 44: Rising - Julia Lester 45: This Is Me - Keala Settle & The Greatest Showman Ensemble 46: Downtown - Majical Cloudz 47: Honeybee - The Head And The Heart Epilogue: At Last - Etta James Chapter One Rook She had an air of melancholy about her. At least, that was how the songwriter in me wanted to describe her. Not somber or suffering or sorrowful. Not depressed or dejected or downhearted. It had to be melancholy. Because there was nothing off-putting about her demeanor. Quite the opposite, in fact. The beauty of her sadness called to me like a vampire to an open wound. In a room full of smiling people, her down-turned mouth was practically a beacon. Never mind her full bottom lip that seemed to give her a perpetual pout. I fucking loved pouty lips. More specifically, I loved watching them encircling my cock. But imagining wrapping her luxurious dark hair around my fist while she took me in her mouth wasn’t what had me so captivated. It wasn’t even about her, admittedly appealing, features. Beautiful women threw themselves at me everywhere I went. No, this was something different. Something new. I’d been observing her on and off for the past hour, and all number of emotions had crossed her face. Well, the half of her face I could see. Her hair fell over the other half like a curtain of black silk. She’d smiled and laughed and even wiped tears from her eyes. But through every reaction to the people around her, the melancholy never disappeared. It clung to her smooth, tawny skin like a skintight dress. Nothing like the modest, flowy garment she currently wore. Unfortunately. “Striking, isn’t she?” Landon said from beside me. How long had I been staring? Too long, no doubt. “Who?” He laughed, and I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t fooling anybody. “Are you going to ask her to dance?” he prodded. “No.” Dragging my eyes from my mystery woman, I automatically sought out Tyler in the crowd. He stood near the bar, a glass of clear liquid tipped to his grinning mouth as he flirted with a cute blonde. Stiffening, I began to push away from the table, but Landon knocked his knee into mine, stopping me. “Whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t. You’ll only draw attention. Besides, Cal is handling Ty.” I allowed my gaze to stray to Calvin—our band’s manager and Tyler’s babysitter for the evening. He’d taken up position at a table near the bar, and when he saw me looking, he tipped his beer bottle in acknowledgment. Tension drained from my shoulders, but only slightly. I wouldn’t be able to relax until we were on a plane back to California. Not that I wasn’t enjoying King Sanctuary. The horse sanctuary-slash-record-studio owned by Presley Cole and her husbands was my kind of paradise. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t have to worry about rabid fans or paparazzi or the pressures that came with being a celebrity. It was quiet. And—apart from tonight’s