Rumours Read online

  ‘So, Alden, you’re into what the LA Weekly personal columns would call “alternate escapades”?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said, shifting so he could pull a set of cuffs from his back pocket.

  ‘Why, Alden,’ I said in mock surprise. ‘You’re a firefighter, not a cop.’

  ‘You have a thing for cops? Tell me if you do. I have friends on the force.’

  ‘No. I just have a thing for guys who take charge.’

  There it was – I’d hinted at my secret fantasy. Whether Alden would act on it was another matter.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Alison Tyler

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Book One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Book Two

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Book Three

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Book

  When Charlene Mitchell waves goodbye to the glitter of LA and moves to a small Californian beachside town, she is charmed by its close-knit community – until she makes out with a local firefighter and becomes the subject of gossip. Soon, it seems that everyone in the town knows about Charlene’s scandalous sex life.

  Unable to squash the rumours, Charlene takes matters into her own hands. If the residents of Raysville thought a passionate firestation kiss was hot news, they will be blown away by what she has in mind . . .

  About the Author

  Alison Tyler is the pseudonym of an outstanding American author of twenty works of erotic fiction, and the author of the best-selling manual, Bondage on a Budget. She is a regular editor of short story anthologies and a contributor to numerous adult magazines.

  Also by Alison Tyler:

  Tiffany Twisted

  With or Without You

  Sweet Things

  Sticky Fingers

  Melt with You

  RUMOURS

  Alison Tyler

  For SAM.

  Always

  ‘The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,

  Each author adding to the former lies.’

  Jonathan Swift

  Prologue

  The first time happened by accident.

  West put his arms around my waist and kissed me. I lay back on the tiny twin bed in his box-cluttered dorm room and let him. His lips were warm and soft and, as they met mine, he brought one hand up and cradled my chin. I kept my eyes closed during the kiss – I thought that’s what you were supposed to do – but I pictured in my mind what he looked like.

  I had noticed him the very first day of freshman orientation. All the girls noticed him. He was tall and well built, with sandy-coloured hair that he constantly tossed out of his eyes with an impatient flick of his head. He had a surfer’s build, lean but muscular with a rock-hard chest and unbelievably muscular arms. I could easily imagine him slicing on a long board through the turquoise waves out at Zuma Beach. But, although I’d paid careful attention to every last detail of his appearance, from the cornflower-blue sweatshirt that matched his eyes to the chequer-printed slip-on Vans he always wore, I couldn’t believe that he’d noticed me back. When we parted, I told him so.

  He kissed me hard a second time, his tongue teasing mine. Then he pulled away and grinned at me, running his hand through my long red hair before kissing his way along the line of my neck.

  ‘How could I not notice you?’ he asked, moving lower on the bed, sliding me so that I was in the exact position he wanted. ‘Your hair is a beacon. I was mesmerised.’

  He started to undo my white blouse, and I watched each motion as I was gradually revealed, button by button. When my shirt was split open, he ran his fingertips over my simple white bra, caressing me lazily through the satiny fabric.

  We spent the afternoon in his dorm room, kissing and touching, and I was pleased with myself for having found a boyfriend not only in the first quarter at school, but in the very first weekend. Yet, when the word of our erotic encounter spread to the rest of the girls on the floor, I was pegged as easy. So it turned out that I’d won not an instant boyfriend, but an instant reputation.

  Over a late-night discussion with my new best friends Joelle and Mia we hatched that first plan. Joelle said that people would keep talking about me until they had something else to talk about, something juicier. Something dirty.

  Mia said, ‘Well, let’s give them something to talk about.’

  And that’s how it all started.

  Book One

  ‘People can travel faster than sound, yes,

  But not nearly so fast as rumour.’

  Anonymous

  Chapter One

  Population 350.

  The sign with white lettering on a hunter-green background caught my eye as I drove along Route 1. How could a town have a population smaller than my high-school graduating class? There had been 425 of us in my senior year, out of a total student population of more than 1,600. My high school hadn’t seemed large to me at the time, just another average-sized school in an average-sized city.

  And this town, this hamlet – God, I couldn’t even think of a word to describe something so small – this neighbourhood contained only 350 people. Yet they had a sign, proudly displaying this fact for all to see.

  I’d done my undergraduate work at UCLA, population 40,000, had been raised in a city of 55,000, a location I’d always considered far too small to have any decent activity. I couldn’t even comprehend what sort of nightlife one might find in a place with a population of 350. Did they get together for ice-cream socials? Did they play Pick-Up Sticks?

  After a two-minute drive along the main road – and a quick stop at the local bakery to buy postcards featuring the population sign – the town simply ended. I found myself out in lush greenery again, tall trees surrounding marshlands filled with cattails and a variety of native calling birds. There had been no town hall, no office buildings, nothing, as they say, to write home about on any of the quaint little postcards that were now tucked into my purse.

  Five more minutes of driving brought me through idyllic countryside. I slowly followed Route 1 across a red metal bridge, decorated at one end with a sturdy-looking white roadside cross. Then suddenly I was back in civilisation again, having reached a sign indicating another ‘town’: Dogtown, with a population of – get this! – 31. I stopped the car to have a look at the sign, wanting to make sure this wasn’t some sort of practical joke to trick the tourists. The official sign read ‘30’, but someone had taped over the zero and added a handmade numeral ‘1’. When I entered the poorly lit pub next to the town sign, I found a pretty blonde waitress who was more than happy to explain the situation as she fetched me a cup of coffee.

  ‘Yolanda’s daughter Tina had a baby with Max last spring,’ she said in a rush. ‘At least, we think the daddy’s Max. You never know with Tina. Could have been Sam or Alex or Noah.’ She gazed at me for a moment, her brown eyes big and bright. ‘But listen to me babbling. You don’t know these people.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Anyway, we figured it would be forever before the census got around to us. We’re pretty much at the end of the road out here.
So we upped the number on the sign ourselves.’

  Thirty-one people. I rolled that thought around in my stunned mind. There were hundreds more in my apartment building back in LA. Thousands more in the Century City office complex where I worked. I could think of no location that I was connected to with a number this small. Not my gym. Not my yoga classes. Even parties at my house boasted guest lists twice this number, as my roommate Mia tended to invite the world when we threw a bash. Her idea was not only ‘the more the merrier’ but also ‘the more men, the more potential for romantic success’. If you put both of our exes together, we’d probably come up with a higher count. When had I last been in a group of people fewer than thirty? I couldn’t remember.

  ‘I guess you know everyone,’ I said rather dumbly.

  ‘I grew up out here, so I know them all. But we get ourselves quite a few visitors. With the National Seashore, and the Lighthouse, there are probably two million tourists passing through every year.’

  Knowing everyone. What an interesting concept. Knowing immediately, on sight, whether someone was a neighbour or a stranger, friend or foe. Knowing people’s names and histories. Knowing their secrets.

  ‘Where are you from, hon?’ the waitress asked, setting my hot coffee down in front of me.

  ‘Los Angeles.’

  She made a face, and then laughed quickly, as if she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Santa Monica, really,’ I continued automatically, understanding that most people from Northern California visualise Los Angeles as some steaming open pit, like the pools of tar out by LA County Museum, while the thought of Santa Monica conjures up visions of clear blue skies, hot sandy beaches and beautiful bottle-blonde babes in vibrant Popsicle-coloured bikinis.

  ‘That’s not so bad then,’ she said with a nod, but her grimace remained. ‘Couldn’t stand the smog or the noise, I think.’

  I looked out the plate-glass window at the one restaurant across the street tucked next to a row of three sweet-looking bed-and-breakfasts. There were no sidewalks and no stoplights. As if on cue, a deer wandered out from between two bushes and began to nibble on the tender green grass by the roadside. Disney couldn’t have created a more bucolic scene.

  ‘You like it all right?’ she continued. ‘I guess you must, if you live there.’

  ‘I like the variety,’ I told her, which was my standard response when queried about my chosen home. ‘I like being able to eat at a different restaurant every night if I want to.’ Was that the truth? I’d moved to Los Angeles for excitement, and I’d definitely found it, including the excitement of dating a handsome man with an ever-wandering eye. Now, I was accustomed to the noise and the smells, to the throngs of people, to the lines and the endless traffic. I was comfortable amidst the chaos, although I never really did eat at a different restaurant every night. But does anyone?

  ‘We’re not that far from San Francisco,’ she reminded me with a half-grin. ‘It’s not as if we’re total hicks or anything. We do know what foreign cuisine is.’

  ‘When was the last time you went to the city, Betty?’ a voice from down the end of the bar called out.

  The blonde sighed and stared off into the distance, as if trying to recall. ‘I don’t remember now, but that’s not the point, is it, Cody? I could go if I wanted to.’

  ‘An hour and a half in, if there’s no traffic, and the same thing back out again. Not worth it,’ the deep voice said. ‘And for what? Aside from a good Chinese food restaurant, we’ve got everything we need right here.’

  I peered into the dimness and saw this statement was spoken by the bar’s one other patron, a cowboy in the corner, complete with faded blues and a pair of well-worn brown leather boots. He had a tanned face and a tall hard body, and he was relaxed against the back wall of the bar. When he saw me watching him, he tipped his hat to me in a gracious manner, and I could suddenly see his face more clearly: mesmerising blue eyes, dangerous lips, a strong, solid jaw. I felt him returning my appraisal as I looked him over. He smiled as he took in my expensive black cigarette slacks and long-sleeved black silk shirt emblazoned with tattoo art designs, scarlet dragons on the sleeves, a golden Japanese koi on the back. I was overdressed for these parts, and I knew it.

  ‘She’d never make it, though,’ the waitress said, voicing my own inner thoughts. The woman smiled kindly at me to show that she meant no harm in her comment. ‘Would you, hon? The thought of living out here is as awful to you as the thought of living in LA is to me.’

  I muttered something about the beauty of Dogtown, even though I knew she was right. Her words stuck with me after I paid my tab and returned to my tiny silver Mini Cooper. What did I need? Could I live in a place with only one restaurant and bar, with no department stores, no clothing shops, no GAP, no sushi? A place where the bakery I’d stopped in earlier had posted a sign over the counter that stated: ‘We’re an espresso-free environment.’ That sort of philosophy would get you shot in LA.

  On a whim, I turned the car around and headed back towards Raysville. Population 350 now seemed like a huge-metropolis. It was, after all, fully ten times the size of Dogtown. I cruised the main street, charmingly called ‘Main Street’, looking out the window at the three blocks of town. There was a diner and the coffee shop, a laundromat, an equestrian supplies store and a post office. I spotted one bank – a branch that I’d never heard of before – and a grocery store and drugstore that were not part of any national chain. There was a feedbarn and a car repair, oh, and look at that – behind the feedbarn, a yoga studio. So this wasn’t a total backwater place after all.

  I had a mind for a change.

  A need for a change.

  Maybe Raysville was the place. Maybe I’d be getting out my own roll of duct tape and amending the population sign before the next census came around.

  Population: 351.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  Chapter Two

  ‘You’re moving to where?’

  ‘Look, it’s not as if I’m going to Dogtown, or anything. I’m moving to Raysville. You’ve heard of Raysville. It’s where the famous lighthouse is.’ Mia’s a travel writer, and she was the one who’d helped me plan my vacation in the first place. She was just playing dumb.

  ‘And you care about lighthouses since when, Charlie?’

  ‘I don’t care about lighthouses. I care about getting out of LA. I want to look at a different view for a while.’

  ‘So switch bedrooms with me. You can face the east side and I’ll look out the west.’ As Mia spoke, she brushed her long blonde hair. The angrier she got, the more vigorously she worked the bristles through her glistening platinum tresses. I’ve known her long enough to understand her body language. She was incredibly upset – but her attitude wasn’t going to change my mind.

  ‘You don’t understand. That’s fine. But I’m going.’

  ‘And your job?’

  ‘I gave notice this afternoon. I’ll do freelance for a while. It’s been something I’ve wanted to try for years, and I’m sure several of my clients will go with me.’

  ‘To Dogtown?’ She was incredulous. Her hand stopped in mid-brush.

  ‘No. Raysville. I told you. And they don’t have to physically move with me. I can work over the internet and with Fed-Ex.’

  ‘More like Pony Express,’ she snorted. ‘I bet there’s no FedEx anywhere.’

  ‘The town’s only a ways past San Francisco,’ I lied, recalling what the attractive bartender had said. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘To me it is.’

  That’s what this fight was about. Mia and I had been roommates since college, but I hadn’t been able to get Raysville out of my head since returning from my vacation. The fact that my last relationship had recently ended in a violent burst of erotic flames only increased my need for change.

  ‘Johnny called while you were at yoga,’ Mia said suddenly. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you. But he sounded sad.’

  ‘You weren’t going to tell me?�
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  ‘He called a few times while you were gone, too. I thought you’d get over him faster if you didn’t know.’ She set down her hairbrush and turned to face her laptop, as if unaware of how angry she’d made me. Mia could never understand my relationship with Johnny. She rarely hung around with a man long enough for problems to even start, to say nothing of trying to work through them. A break-up that dragged on indefinitely made no sense to her.

  Livid, I grabbed the cordless phone and stalked to my bedroom.

  Mia yelled after me, ‘Look, he’s probably all wrong for you. But you’ll never find out for sure if you move away, will you?’

  As I dialled Johnny’s number I wondered how many times he’d called and she’d erased the messages. And why hadn’t he tried me on my cell phone?

  ‘I did try to call you,’ he said, when I asked. ‘The calls wouldn’t go through. I didn’t even get voice mail, only a dead line.’

  I realised Raysville probably had limited cell phone access, if any. I’d taken off for two weeks after our last major fight. And his last major blonde.

  ‘And Mia wouldn’t tell me where you were. Were you with another guy?’ I could hear the hurt in his voice.

  ‘Nothing like that,’ I assured him. ‘I needed some space.’

  ‘I want to see you, baby.’

  ‘That’s not a good idea, Johnny.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Of course he didn’t. Here was one of the big reasons we’d broken up. He didn’t care. Not about important things. Not about things that I cared about. But, God help me, sometimes that fact didn’t matter.

  It was wrong to go see him. I knew that even on the ten-minute drive to his place in Brentwood. It was wrong to climb those familiar rickety wooden stairs to his second-storey apartment, to knock on his green-painted door, to fall into his strong arms and bury my face against his black T-shirt, as if we’d been apart for years rather than weeks. I’d thought that we might simply stare at each other across the threshold once we were face to face. Since we both knew things were over, I figured we’d feel awkward and uncomfortable.