If I Can't Have You (14 page)

She walked away from his touch and sat down at the table. Lifting her fork, she picked at the now wilted salad on her plate. “I was standing at the pool,” she said, trying to remember that moment. “I’d closed my eyes and seen a vision of you lying facedown on the water. It wasn’t the first time. It seemed to happen every year on the Fourth of July, and always when I was standing beside the pool.”

Adriana looked up at him. She feared she’d see a grin on his face, but instead, he had the softest of smiles. “I remembered the movie where you threw a rose on your lover’s casket.”

“Desperate Hours,”
he added, supplying the name of the film that most people rarely remembered when they thought about Trevor Montgomery’s roles. It was too obscure, but it was one of her favorites, a movie that showed the depth of his emotions, the strength of his talent.

He sat across from her, rested his elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “What happened then?”

“I kissed the rose.” Again she looked at her plate, knowing he’d laugh when she told him what she’d said. “I didn’t say much. Just...” She sighed deeply. “Come back to me. Please. Come to me.”

All she saw was a trace of a smile on Trevor’s face when she raised her eyes. He wasn’t laughing, not in the least.

“Why did you want me to come back?”

She couldn’t tell him the truth. He’d laugh for sure if she told him she’d been in love with him—with Trevor Montgomery—since she was six years old.

‘It doesn’t matter...”

‘It does to me,” Trevor interrupted softly.

Adriana shook her head. “The important thing right now is to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“You mean figure out how to send me back to 1938?”

Send him away? That was something she hadn’t even considered. But he’d been pulled away from friends and family. Maybe he wanted to go home. “Do you want me to try to send you back?”

He shrugged, and his brow furrowed into a frown. “I don’t belong here,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know anything about your time. I want to l
ive the life I was supposed to l
ive. But I’ve read those books of yours. They don’t paint a very pretty picture of me. If I could go back and change things, then yes, I’d want to go back. Unfortunately, the only things waiting for me in my own decade are prison bars and the scorn of old friends. I don’t know if that’s what I want. Then again, what if... what if I wake up tomorrow and I’m old and wrinkled and looking like I’m ninety-four years old? What kind of life is that?”

“I don’t know.”

She left the table, but Trevor grasped her fingers before she could walk out of the room.

“Don’t leave me, Adriana,” he said, not only his
words but his dark brown eyes imploring her to stay.

She tried pulling her hand away, but he held on tight.

“I need to be alone for a while,” she told him, wanting to get away to digest this craziness about a man traveling through time, about Trevor Montgomery being in her home, in her life. “I need to think.”

“About what?”

‘Things.”

“Like whether or not I’m a murderer?”

“Are you?”

His eyes flashed briefly with anger, then he looked away. He pushed up from the table and crossed the kitchen, staring out the window. His deep sigh filled the room. “I don’t know.”

Adriana gripped the edge of the door. Those weren’t the words she wanted to hear. Why hadn’t he said
no?

“I’m going for a walk,” she said, expecting him to turn around, expecting him to want to go with her. But he remained silent, staring into the dark.

A light, cool mist had rolled in from the Pacific, but when she crossed the lawn she could feel the heat of his eyes watching her from the kitchen. Even as she walked down the stairs and along the beach she could sense him thinking of her, just as she was thinking of him, as if there was some odd connection between them, something that had drawn them together.

Trevor Montgomery was a womanizer. Trevor Montgomery was a drunk. Trevor Montgomery might have brutally murdered a woman, stabbing and slashing her again and again.

Trevor Montgomery was in her home.

Trevor Montgomery could easily murder her, too.

She slumped down to the sand, drew her knees to
her chest, and wrapped her arms around them as she watched the fog-shrouded sun sink into the ocean.

She thought about Captain Caribe romancing his lady love, wrapping her in pearls and rubies and chains of gold that he’d pulled from a long-buried chest. She thought of the riverboat gambler who’d lost thousands of dollars but laughed in the face of defeat. She thought of the sheik riding across the blazing sands on a midnight stallion while kissing the woman he held in his arms.

Those were the things she remembered when she thought of Trevor Montgomery. His laughter, his smile. His smoldering eyes when he looked at his woman.

Too many other people thought of those horrid photos of Carole Sinclair’s body and the way Trevor Montgomery, a suspected murderer, had disappeared. Too many other people had forgotten the happiness he’d brought to millions in his swashbucklers, his romantic comedies, his emotion-packed dramas. They wanted to remember the bad. They’d sensationalized his name, his life. The good was long-forgotten.

But she remembered his laughter, his passion, and his tenderness when he kissed his lover.

Lightly she touched her mouth, remembering the heat of his kiss, remembering how wonderful his lips had felt.

His caress wasn’t the touch of a killer.

She wanted to believe.

She needed to believe.

oOo

Trevor lay in bed with his arms folded under his head and stared into the dark, wondering when Adriana would return. He hadn’t heard her come up from the beach. He hadn’t heard her drive away, but several hours before, he noticed that her car was
gone. He wondered if she planned to stay away the rest of the night, or come back and erase the loneliness he felt in her absence.

And he wondered if she thought of him, just as he thought constantly about her.

She didn’t like to eat. She rarely laughed, and she definitely didn’t like to be touched, but she’d responded to his kiss when they’d been in the water. She’d kept that sweet mouth of hers closed, but he’d sensed her wanting to open up and let him taste her completely. He’d never forced a woman. Most women came to him easily, begging for more and more. Only a fool would have said no.

And he hadn’t been a fool.

Until now.

Did Adriana have any idea what she was doing to him? Did she know that her warm blue eyes were melting his frozen heart? Did she know that her innocence scared the hell out of him? He hadn’t been around sweetness since he was a child. Hell, he doubted he’d been around it then. His childhood was a memory he tried to forget, and when he couldn’t, he’d drown it with liquor; his recent past—Carole’s death—was something he’d like to forget, too. And while he was at it, he’d like to forget what life would be like if he was whisked back through time. His past was over.

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to think of the future.

He wanted to think of Adriana. About the blond hair that fell soft and sleek over her cheeks, hiding too much of the slenderness and beauty of her face. About the fullness of her pale pink lips that didn’t smile often enough. About her long, slim body and the fact that he wanted to strip off her clothes, taste those nearly nonexistent breasts and caress the nicest bottom he’d ever seen. He wanted to know why she backed away from his touch, why she hated his
drinking, why she lived in his home, and why she’d called him across sixty years of time.

He’d never shared his secrets with anyone. He didn’t plan to do it now, but he felt that the sheer power of her innocence could erase all his nightmares.

Closing his eyes, he willed himself to dream of Adriana’s kiss, her eyes, the sweetness of her voice.

He still wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he thanked some higher power for sending him to Adriana, for giving him some reason to change his life.

Adriana stood in the doorway of Trevor’s bedroom, watching in horror as he thrashed around in the bed, unconsciously rubbing the sheets as if he were trying, in vain, to wipe something from his hands.

Was it Carole’s blood he was trying to rid himself of?
Had
he murdered her? Oh, how she wished she knew the truth. She wondered if Trevor knew what had happened, or if not remembering was just an act, another role he played so well.

Hesitantly she neared the bed, her desire to run away hampered by her desire to help. He looked tormented and frightened. Damp strands of hair clung to his feverish face, and without thought for what was right or wrong, she stroked her cool hand over his brow.

“Carole!”

He seized her wrist and she attempted to struggle, but he held her tight.

“Carole!”

“Let go,” she begged, trying to wrench free of his tightening grasp. “Please, Trevor. Let go. It’s Adriana. Not Carole.”

He jerked up in bed. Panic filled his eyes as he stared at his hand around her wrist.

Releasing his hold, he plowed his fingers into his hair and lowered his head as if he were trying to suppress a terrible ache. “I’ve hurt you again, haven’t I?” he whispered.

“You didn’t mean to,” she said through trembling lips. She lightly touched her already-bruised wrists, hoping there was truth in her statement. “You thought I was Carole.”

“You’re nothing at all like Carole,” he said, raising his head to gaze into her eyes. “You’re not like any of the women I’ve known.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“I want to,” he said softly, his mesmerizing voice almost enough to make her give him anything he wanted.

But she was too afraid to let him know her completely. She was afraid to have him in her house, afraid of his nightmares, afraid of his drinking. And she was afraid of his passion, his smoldering eyes, and his charming smile.

She backed toward the door, needing to get away from him, but Trevor might as well still be holding on to her wrists for all the power in his eyes.

“Stay with me,” he pleaded. “Please.”

‘I can’t.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t know that for sure.”

“I’m not a killer.”

“You were calling out Carole’s name. You were trying to wipe something—like blood—from your hands. I want to believe you’re innocent, but...”

“I
am
innocent!”

Trevor tore off the covers and climbed from the bed, dressed only in a white undershirt and boxers. He crossed the room in just a few short strides, and when he reached out to touch her cheek, she backed into the hall.

He stood in the doorway, staring at her in the
dark. “I need you to believe that I didn’t kill anyone. I couldn’t have.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I know you don’t want to see a doctor, but I think you should. You need help.”

“What I need is you.”

“I can’t help you. I thought I could, but I’ve been wrong.”

“I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life, too,” he said, again pressing his fingers to his temples.

“God, I need a drink. Where did you hide the whiskey?”

“You don’t need it.”

“I’m not in the mood for any more lectures.”

He brushed past her and stalked down the hallway toward the living room. She ran after him, watching him throw open cupboards.

“Where did you hide it?” he asked again.

Adriana refused to answer, and he glared at her, finally stalking from the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen.

Adriana followed, standing in the kitchen door as he searched for the liquor.

“Drinking won’t solve your problems,” she said calmly, even though her heart and mind were pounding with fear. He was acting like a madman, tearing open cabinet doors.

“Nothing’s going to solve my problems, but at least I might be able to forget.”