Applewild

by Heather Lin

  “Bullshit, Alton. I don’t even care. We both know what this is. All I ask is that you don’t waste my goddamn time. Come to me because you want me. Not because you want something.”

  “You’re right. But you have to understand where I’m coming from—”

  “You’re coming from a world of greedy, shallow women who would probably scoop your sperm out of the condom if it gave them half a chance at getting a piece of your action.”

  “That’s the gist of it.”

  “Well, I am not one of them. I had a hysterectomy when I was fifteen. There is no way in hell I’m getting pregnant. Ever. This is supposed to be the one situation where that horrible fucking physical trauma comes in handy.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “You’re right. I should have just slipped it in during foreplay.”

  Alton was at a loss for words. She seemed perfectly fine on the outside. Fucking fit on the outside. But what kind of hell had she been through to have all these problems? Was it a car accident? Cancer?

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

  Monroe’s frown deepened and pain he hadn’t expected her to show replaced the fire in her eyes.

  “I don’t like talking about it.”

  Alton let out a frustrated groan and kicked the stairs. He wasn’t supposed to care. He wasn’t supposed to want to solve her mystery. But he did. And at times like these, when his curiosity was most piqued, he could barely remember who Sophie was. There was only Monroe, even without a physical connection. What the hell was he supposed to do with that? He should have known better than to try and get over Sophie by using another woman. He’d somehow expected them to cancel each other out so he could start over with a clean slate, an unbroken heart. Instead, he was hurting from one and becoming invested in another.

  “What do I have to do to know you?”

  “I don’t know. No one’s gotten that far yet.”

  Alton shook his head, angry, tired, frustrated, and sexually unsatisfied. He needed something. Anything. A bone from Monroe or a shot of whiskey or a dozen more cigarettes.

  “But,” Monroe continued, “I probably won’t be spilling my guts to some guy who thinks I’m trying to sleep with him so I can get pregnant and paid.”

  Alton looked at her. She had him there, and she knew it.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she said, already backing away from him, up toward the hayloft and her apartment. “While I’m gone, you should probably go, too.”

  Monroe took the rest of the stairs quickly and disappeared from view.

  “Monroe, I’m sorry!” he called after her.

  If she heard him, she didn’t acknowledge it.

  VIII

  Monroe was trapped in the same dream that tore her from sleep every night. She heard her mother’s terrified scream and step-father’s desperate yell as if they were more than just a subconscious creation. In truth, they were. They were memories—the worst memories of her life. She could know she was dreaming it, and after ten years she usually did, but the knowledge didn’t keep her heart from racing when she heard the heavy, blood-laced footsteps thumping louder and louder outside her door.

  But this time, for the very first time, her dream took an unexpected turn. Instead of her knife-wielding father looming over her bed, it was Alton, naked, his brown eyes dark with passion as he brought his lips down on hers. She could feel his razor-stubble brush her cheek, smell his masculine scent, feel his strong hands. She held onto him, relishing in his touch, the sweet caress of his lips on her neck, breasts, stomach, and thighs. She wasn’t ready to show him all of her in the real world, but this was a dream and she knew it was a dream, so she let his ministrations continue until he raised himself over her, thrust into her, and brought her over the edge.

  The intensity of Monroe’s orgasm brought her out of the dream, surreal pleasure mixing with consciousness. Her breath escaped in a surprised rush. Then it was over. The awakening still resulted in a fast-beating heart and an early start to the morning, but her usual terror was absent. She sat up and ran a hand through her hair.

  She was sexually frustrated and still angry about Alton’s one-eighty the day before. She’d only gotten a taste of what she wanted, and even now she was left feeling empty and unsatisfied. A dream could only provide so much. Alton had started this. He’d wanted to get away from Sophie and his life as a celebrity. That was why he’d come to Applewild. That was why he used Monroe as a distraction. Yet he still insisted on bringing his celebrity baggage bullshit with him.

  Monroe changed out of her pajamas and into jeans and a halter top. She put her messy, air-dried hair in a ponytail and tugged on boots and riding gloves. She wasn’t going to work yet. It was too early and her mind was too muddled. Going for a ride always helped her sort things out.

  She locked the door and went downstairs. The aisle was illuminated by low lights, just bright enough for her to find a bridle and her horse. Werther whickered softly, and she patted his neck. She kept the horses pristinely groomed. Her fingers ran easily through the gelding’s black and white mane. Already, the animal’s breath and heartbeat calmed her, just as they had when she was younger, when the nightmares had more of an effect on her.

  She left the stall door open and used a wooden plank in the wall to boost herself onto the animal’s back. She shifted her weight until the position was comfortable for both of them, and with a gentle nudge she took him out into the starry night. She rode at a trot, Werther’s strong muscles rippling beneath her thighs. They knew each other so well they were almost one.

  A few strands of hair escaped her ponytail. She felt that freedom, the exhilaration of flying, of leaving the world behind, and she pushed Werther into a gallop, keeping to the hard-packed trail that ran around the edge of the farm. She drove him behind the back pasture, up to the front gate, and finally slowed him down near the house, where a rough, wooded path was their only choice.

  She couldn’t help looking up at Alton’s dark window.

  She tried to convince herself he didn’t matter. He was only in her dreams and on her mind because he’d left her hanging in the worst way. Her cheeks grew hot at the memory. She bit down on her lip, trying to keep the image of his dark gaze and strong, sexy jaw at bay. But her lips tingled at the thought of his mouth on hers, and the tingle worked its way through her system until she craved him with every part of her.

  He did matter. She’d never hurt for a date or a lay, but they had always been on her terms. She was surprised by how easily she’d let him have the upper hand in the barn. It was dangerous. If she continued letting him cloud her judgment, she’d forget herself and reveal everything—physically and emotionally—to some guy who would be in her life for all of a week.

  She unconsciously straightened the tieback around her neck. There would be no skirting questions once he saw the state of her body. She’d have to relive a time she only visited in her dreams. And she visited them involuntarily for a reason.

  But the fact he’d somehow infiltrated that horrific world was significant. She’d loved men, had close friends, adored her foster family…and none of them had ever been able to save her from her own mind.

  She lost sight of the house as Werther moseyed, happy and oblivious, back to the barn.

  *

  By 6:00, Monroe was on her second cup of coffee. She sat at her tiny breakfast table and watched a true crime show on TV. When she was younger, her therapist had warned against them. The shows could trigger residual PTSD or simply upset her in a way that was unnecessary. But most of the time, the attackers got what was coming to them, and the victims made her feel less alone.

  She glanced at the clock on her stove. The horses needed to be fed in half an hour. She went to the dresser and shrugged on a flannel shirt over her halter top. She smoothed her ponytail. Then she sat back down to finish her coffee and the show’s conclusion. Normally, she’d be cleaning or grooming or mowing around the barn…something work-related to keep bus
y. And with Jamal gone, that was probably what she should have been doing. Today she just needed these extra thirty minutes to unwind.

  A knock sounded on her door, so loud and sudden she almost spilled her coffee. She looked at the clock again, then at her cell phone. Who the hell besides her was awake at this hour? She turned off the TV as another demanding knock shook her door.

  “I’m coming!” she snapped.

  She didn’t have a window or a peephole, and considering he was half-drunk and sleeping late into the morning most of the time, she was especially surprised to find Alton on the other side. He was infuriated and disheveled. Again. But this time the anger didn’t make him desperate to use her as a distraction; it was aimed at her.

  “Hi,” she greeted.

  “Oh, hey!” his voice dripped with false amiability as he leaned heavily on her doorframe.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No, I’m not fucking drunk. My agent sent me this little gem about an hour ago.”

  He held up his phone, and Monroe’s stomach dropped. On the small screen was a very clear picture of Alton and Monroe asleep in Wayne’s truck, their bodies—clothed, thank God—entangled. It was part of a short article on a website specializing in celebrity gossip. The headline read Alton Daniels no longer broken up about break up!

  The article itself read:

  This country cutie seems to have taken our beloved Alton’s mind off of his breakup with super model Sophie Desmarais. Sources say the two had a second, steamy encounter the very next day. Alton seems determined to make as many headlines as his newly-engaged ex-girlfriend!

  Monroe couldn’t believe it. One of her friends had betrayed her. It was the only explanation. And she’d convinced him to trust them. She was mortified, both by being exposed and by knowing it was her fault he’d been exposed. How the informant could know about the encounter in the barn, she couldn’t say. A lucky guess? It was possible. Their mutual desire was nothing if not obvious.

  He hadn’t been exaggerating about the state of his personal life. It met his professional one in a tangled web that had to make every day nearly impossible to fumble through. And she’d just brushed him off.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Oh, well, let me just write to the editor and tell him you’re sorry. I’m sure he’ll take it down right away.”

  His sarcasm grated on Monroe’s nerves, and anger gave her guilt a run for its money.

  “Look, I’ll text my friends and find out who did this. It won’t happen again.”

  “You’re damn right it won’t happen again.” He stepped back from the door slightly, still seething. He smacked the doorframe hard with the palm of his hand.

  “You started this,” she reminded him.

  “And I’m finishing it. This was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “Oh, this was your biggest mistake? Really? Not, I don’t know, Sophie?”

  He rounded on her. “You don’t talk about her!”

  “And you don’t talk to me like that! I’m sorry this happened, but what the hell do you want from me? I don’t have a time machine.”

  He turned away. She watched his shoulders rise and fall in angry puffs. When he turned back, he was calmer.

  “I want to know if you did this.”

  “What?”

  “Did you do this? For attention?”

  She stared at him. “No. How could you ask that? You don’t even know me.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “Exactly. If I won’t tell you my life story, what makes you think I’d want to share an intimate moment with the entire world?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned closer. “I’m not paying you thousands of dollars to tell me your secrets.”

  Monroe caught a whiff of his breath, and she smelled the whiskey. “Believe it or not, some people value their privacy. And you are drunk.”

  He pulled away and seemed to lose the bellow to his angry flame for a moment. “I have drunk,” he corrected her.

  Monroe rolled her eyes. “I have to get to work. You’re making an idiot of yourself.”

  “You’re making an idiot of me!”

  “If all you want to do with the rest of your life is drink and have sex with random girls so you don’t actually have to face reality or your feelings or whatever the hell it is you’re trying to hide from, it’s on you.”

  He leaned close again, and she wrinkled her nose. “You weren’t random.”

  She tamped down the butterflies that wanted to rise in her stomach. He was drunk off his ass and anything he said had to be taken with a pound of salt. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.” She shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  There was a pause. Monroe glanced at the clock on the stove. She wasn’t sure what he wanted or what this meant or how much of what this meant he actually meant. How could he tell her their fling was over and imply she meant something to him in the same conversation? She was exasperated and anxious to interrogate her friends who had been at the bonfire. She needed an explanation. He needed to vent.

  “I’m so fucking mad!”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know! This is my life! I want to act. I don’t want to feel like the main attraction of a freak show. Everyone’s interested in my business but never really rooting for me.”

  He looked haggard and dejected all of a sudden, once again playing on Monroe’s sympathy, however unintentional.

  “I’m rooting for you,” she said. “I’m also going to be late feeding the horses.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Do you want to crash here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s a bed. You need sleep. Go sleep.”

  Monroe grabbed her phone and a bottle of water while Alton stood awkwardly in her kitchen. She waved and shut the door, taking a closer look at the article on her own phone. It didn’t mention her name and it didn’t mention Alton’s location. She couldn’t imagine the person who had taken the picture didn’t know who she was. And they obviously had to know where she was. Maybe the publication was trying to drag out the story, or maybe the source was holding out for more money. Whatever the reason, Monroe counted her blessings and hoped she could keep this a one-time occurrence.

  She dialed Shannon’s number and used her shoulder to hold the phone while she turned on the lights and scooped feed for the horses.

  “Hello! You’re alive!” her friend greeted cheerfully.

  “I am. And I’m pissed.”

  “Why? You got drunk, got laid…Don’t think I was too smashed to notice you guys disappeared.”

  “Did you see where we went?”

  “Well, no, but I heard you were both sleeping it off in Wayne’s truck bed. My body was in no condition to go draw on your faces with marker or anything, no matter how much my heart was willing.”

  “Who’d you hear it from?”

  “Rodney. He said one of the girls told him.”

  “Rodney,” she muttered. “I should have known.”

  “What? What’s the big deal?”

  “Somebody posted pictures of us together on the internet.”

  “Oh my God.” For once, her friend’s tone was serious. “Together how?”

  “Not together. Just sleeping. But you could tell that wasn’t all we’d been doing.”

  “I’m so sorry. You must be so embarrassed.”

  “Not as embarrassed as Alton. It used to be that Sophie was the center of attention and everyone was just speculating about what he was doing with all his free time. Now they know exactly what he’s doing. Or they think they know. It looks bad.”

  “But people have to know they don’t have the full story.”

  “That’s the fun part, isn’t it? This can go so many ways. Alton’s actively dating, he’s using sex and alcohol to cope, he was cheating on Sophie before she cheated on him, he’s a sex addict….People who read gossip magazines love f
illing in the blanks. And these so-called fans are the ones who decide his fate in Hollywood. Mel Gibson, Kristen Stewart, Paula Deen…they all had major backlash once their dirty deeds were revealed.”

  “Monroe, you’re overreacting. It wasn’t a ‘dirty deed.’ I’m sure this whole thing will blow over in no time.”

  “It better. I’m calling Rodney and giving him a piece of my mind.”

  “You really think he did it?”

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t know. He just didn’t seem that beat up about your date ending. Do you know he had two girls that night?”

  “Ugh. No. I didn’t need to know.”

  “I’m just saying. You dumping him for Alton was the best thing that ever happened to the guy.”

  “I have to ask him. I know I don’t have proof. But somebody did this. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t him. I’m assuming it wasn’t you, and why would anyone else care?”

  “Because they want to feel important?”

  “I hope our friends aren’t that shallow.”

  “I don’t think they are. And call him if you want. But just don’t go crazy on him without any evidence.”

  Monroe took a deep breath and kicked a stray piece of hay with her booted toe. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

  “So what exactly did happen?”

  “Not a lot,” Monroe admitted, peeking at Xan’s pony. He was still munching away. “Not everything.”

  “Boo.”

  “We were drunk and clumsy and it was a stupid thing to do, anyway.”

  “Uh-huh. So was it good?”

  “It was a sloppy mess.”

  “But was it good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You should at least be able to say it was worth all this trouble.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Unless I can make sure this won’t happen again I won’t be able to rest easy. I know he can’t. I’ll have to become a hermit.”

  “You’ll both become hermits. Together. Sex hermits.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No. But, seriously, it sounds like you care about him.”

  “I don’t. I just feel guilty.”