If I Can't Have You

by Patti Berg

  Janet sighed deeply, closing her eyes. “Trevor didn’t love me, not the way Charlie does. Trevor loved me and left me. He liked other women too much.” She opened her eyes, and Adriana could see a red tinge of sorrow. “I knew he could never be happy with just one woman. Not even me.”

  She shouldn’t pry further, Adriana realized, but she had questions to ask, things she needed to know. In spite of the tear sliding down Janet’s face, she kept the conversation going.

  “I’m sure Trevor loved you, Janet. You knew him better than anyone.”

  “He was my best friend.” For a moment Janet seemed lost in her memories, and then she looked about her and whispered, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear. “He was my lover. We kept that a secret though. We didn’t want the public to know.”

  What an odd comment, Adriana thought. They were two very public people. Surely a touch of scandal—if it could be considered that—wouldn’t have hurt them.

  “Why didn’t you want the fans to know you were lovers?” Adriana asked, pushing Janet’s mind back to the past.

  Janet frowned. “I don’t remember if that was Trevor’s idea or mine. The studio usually told us what to do.” Her gaze seemed far away as she bit into another piece of candy. “I remember now. They wanted Trevor to love Carole, not me. If Jack Warner had found out, he’d be upset with us, and no one wanted Jack to get upset—about anything.”

  “Was there anything else about Trevor that the public didn’t know? Did he have any birthmarks? Any scars?”

  Janet shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  She was fading. She was beginning to take deep breaths, frowning as if her head had started to hurt.

  Adriana had to hurry.

  “Janet?” she said, regaining the old lady’s attention. “May I ask something that might bring back bad memories?”

  Janet looked away. She pulled off her gloves and stared at her trembling fingers. “I’m very old now. The doctors tried to make me forget the bad things because they make my head hurt, but I still remember some things.”

  “What do you remember about Carole Sinclair?”

  “She was my friend.” Janet clenched her fists, and her eyes widened when she looked at Adriana.

  “She was murdered. They said Trevor killed her.”

  “Do you believe those stories?”

  Janet smiled wistfully. ‘Trevor made love to women. He drank a lot and took them to bed, but he never argued with anyone, he just did what was expected.”

  Adriana knew all that. She wanted to know more. “But could he have killed Carole?”

  “Carole was my friend.”

  “Yes, Janet,” Adriana said softly, wanting to learn more but knowing she was losing Janet’s attention. “I realize Carole was your friend, but was she afraid of Trevor? Had he ever tried to hurt her, or you?”

  Janet pressed her hands to her temples. “Trevor loved women. He would never hurt one, not even if she provoked him. I wanted Trevor to be tough—like Cagney—but that wasn’t his style.”

  Slowly she lowered her hands and smiled directly at Adriana. “One time I wanted him to play rough. I did everything I could to make him mad. I even scratched his back until it bled. But he wouldn’t play my game. He just left me.”

  Janet stared for a few moments at her fingers. She slipped on her gloves, studying her hands. Slowly, she looked at Adriana, and frowned. “Are you a new nurse here?” she asked, and Adriana was saddened to realize that their conversation had come to an end.

  “Have you met Charlie?” Janet smiled. “He comes every day.”

  Adriana didn’t know anything new—not really. There was book after book about Trevor’s amorous escapades. Many a woman had offered to tell all after Trevor disappeared. Most stories seemed contrived. Most were nothing more than fiction.

  But Janet Julian’s story was probably true—most of it anyway. There was documented evidence that she and Trevor had spent time together. Press clippings, gossip columns, photographs of the two out and about. Party after party after party.

  Trevor always had a woman on his arm and a drink in his hand, and he went through the ladies just as fast as he went through the booze.

  Adriana smoothed a hand over Janet’s cheek and kissed the old lady’s brow. Janet was staring off across the garden again with those cloudy gray eyes, her memories buried deep inside. There’d be no more revelations today.

  Leaving the verandah, Adriana stopped in the gardens to say good-bye to Charlie, who was gathering a huge bouquet of flowers for his lady, then went to her car and drove away from the beauty and sadness of Magnolia Acres.

  Did she really want to learn the truth? Did she want to find out that the man in her home was a fraud?

  She drove mechanically, the road stretching out before her nothing but a blur as she remembered the stranger’s smile, the rose he’d brought to her on the breakfast tray that morning, and the little-boy-lost look in his eyes.

  She shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts.

  The man was an impostor. There was no other explanation. Instead of smiles and roses she should be remembering the way he’d bruised her wrists, the way he’d forced his kisses on her.

  It didn’t matter how nice that kiss had been at first, or how her body had tingled when her cold, wet breasts had been crushed against his chest, or his tenderness when he’d gently pushed dripping hair from her face.

  She slammed on her brakes when she suddenly noticed that traffic had come to a dead stop on the freeway.

  She had to get her emotions under control. She had to get her life back to normal.

  She’d never allowed a man to get under her skin before, but this one was burrowing in deep, and that wasn’t a good sign. Somehow she had to fight this insane attraction before he intruded on her dream.

  Chapter 6

  Trevor sat on the patio and absently rolled his gold doubloon between his thumb and index finger as he stared out the wrought-iron gates he’d had installed for privacy’s sake when he’d first moved into the rancho. He studied the silver van that had been parked across the street most of the day, and the occasional car whizzing past his home while he waited for Adriana to return.

  Where could she be? he wondered, checking his watch for at least the tenth time in the past few hours, forgetting that the solid gold timepiece had quit working after his botched and unsound venture into the Poseidon Pool at Sparta. She’d lied to him. She’d said she’d be back shortly, but she’d left the house at 9:00 A.M. and it was now half past six. The longer she was gone, the more frustrated he became.

  He needed a drink—or at least a cigarette. He hadn’t had either in well over eighteen hours. He’d searched the bar, and found nothing. He’d haphazardly searched some of the kitchen cabinets, even the guest room where she’d told him he could stay.

  The guest room! He wanted to sleep in his own room, in his own bed. He wanted to go there now and look for a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes but hell, it didn’t seem right. That was her room now. Her private place.

  The place where she’d probably hidden the things he needed the most.

  She’d hidden herself away, too, and right now he needed her as much as he needed the whiskey and cigarettes.

  He didn’t want to be alone.

  And he didn’t want to worry about her any longer. Had she been in an automobile accident? Had she been mugged? Was she lying hurt in a ditch?

  Or had she decided to stay away?

  He wouldn’t blame her if she had. He’d thought about running away a time or two himself because too many things in this world he’d been thrown into didn’t make sense.

  But he’d run away once before, and when he’d wanted to go back he found out he was no longer wanted.

  He pressed his fingers against the pulsing nerves in his temple, trying to ward off the headache and the memories he felt coming on. It was no use though. He couldn’t push either away.

  It was too easy to reme
mber that Christmas Eve in 1920. Even now he could feel the tightness he’d had in his throat when he’d tried to talk, the way tears had welled up behind his eyes when he heard his father’s words.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. My wife and I have no son.”

  “How can you say that, Father? I’m your son,” he’d said frantically into the telephone.

  “No. I’m afraid you’re wrong. If we’d been blessed with an obedient child, he’d be following in my footsteps. Surely I would remember such a son,” his father had said in a cool, contemptuous voice.

  “Please, Father. I’ve told you how much being an actor means to me. I don’t want to be a lawyer. Surely you can understand.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m a very busy man.”

  “I know it’s Christmas Eve. That’s why I called.”

  “I don’t give handouts to beggars.”

  ‘I don’t want anything. I just wanted you and Mother to know that I love you.”

  “Then perhaps you should call your own mother and father. As I’ve said before, we don’t have a son. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have company to entertain.”

  He’d never felt as empty and alone as he had the moment their connection had been cut off. He was sixteen years old, and the parents he had loved no longer wanted him. The money he’d spent on that phone call would have been better spent filling his empty stomach. That hadn’t mattered, though. His appetite had disappeared as rapidly as his parents had forgotten his existence.

  In the dim light of the backlots, he’d found his way to his makeshift home, one of the castle interiors Douglas Fairbanks was using in The Three Musketeers. The three-walled set provided little warmth and comfort, but it was the only home he’d had.

  He’d found a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s that one of the film crew must have hidden, curled up in his forlorn pile of rags that he called a bed, and had his first taste of whiskey.

  Then he cried himself to sleep.

  The next morning, when Christmas dawned bright and beautiful, and he realized that a big portion of the world’s population was happily spending the day with family, he promised himself he’d never be lonely again. He’d never allow himself to love again, either. Rejection was too painful.

  Trevor laughed darkly at the memory. History was repeating itself. He’d run from Carole’s body, from his friends, from life itself, and he’d been thrust into a new and different world, one he more than likely couldn’t escape.

  Not only that, he was being rejected again, by a heaven-sent beauty who called herself Adriana.

  And he was lonely.

  God, he was lonely.

  He looked at his watch again. Where could she be?

  Before frustration and worry had sent him outside to watch for her, he’d spent a good part of the morning reading those crazy books about himself and looking at newspapers to learn more about current events. He’d figured out how to work the television and the black instrument that controlled it. He’d watched women romping around beaches dressed in next to nothing; men drinking beer and belching; and children sassing their parents.

  This new world was all rather strange. There was nothing refined or dignified in people’s mannerisms, morals, or style. He might like the beautiful bodies on those women cavorting on the beach, but he didn’t think they should be parading around in public for everyone to see. Naked women belonged in the bedroom—preferably his bedroom.

  He laughed to himself. He didn’t have a bedroom any longer. Not only that, he’d lost sixty years of his life and, for some odd reason, the thought had just crept into his mind that the loss might not be all that bad.

  He’d escaped a possible murder conviction and a life in prison or death in the electric chair.

  Then again, he had no job, no income. He’d found the money he’d stashed away sixty years before—when banks were the last thing he’d trust—but that wasn’t about to last forever, and the only home he had now belonged to someone else.

  Someone who might have disappeared or run away.

  Someone whose kisses tasted finer than the best of wines and the richest desserts. He remembered those kisses more vividly than he remembered wanting to die. He couldn’t think of a sweeter replacement for bitter thoughts.

  But where was she?

  What would he do without her? The angel who’d been sleeping in his bed was the only sane thing in his life. She might be frightened of him, she might not understand him, but for God knows what reason, she’d taken him in and, if he played his cards right, she just might offer more help.

  Adriana Howard, as surprising as it seemed, might be the answer to a lifetime of unanswered prayers.

  He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t hear the gates open. He wouldn’t have known she was home if the sun hadn’t glinted off that flashy green paint on her car.

  Suddenly the darkness of his world began to brighten. Adriana had come back to him, and he was going to shut out his fear, mask it with a well-practiced charm—and give her reason never to leave him again.

  oOo

  He hadn’t disappeared. Part of Adriana sighed with relief, part of her was disappointed that he hadn’t gone.

  He walked toward her, cheeks covered in whiskers, eyes red, still as disheveled as he’d been this morning. What had made her think this unkempt and unbalanced stranger could be her dream come to life?

  Well, she’d bought him clothes, toiletries, all the other things he’d need. Once he was cleaned up, she’d send him packing. She’d be rid of him.

  And she wouldn’t have to face his eyes or his smile ever again.

  She reached for the handle, but the intruder was faster.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, pulling open the door.

  It was none of his business, so she ignored him.

  When she swung her legs from the car, he gripped her fingers and pulled her close. “I’ve been worried half out of my mind wondering if something had happened to you.”

  She twisted out of his grasp, hating the warmth of his hands on hers, despising herself for feeling a shock of desire. “I told you not to touch me.”

  He threw up his hands as if surrendering to her words, and winked as he backed away. “I’m sorry. Somehow it slipped my mind.”

  “That and everything else.” In spite of his wink and his irrepressible smile, she refused to let him lighten her mood. “There’s one thing you need to get firmly embedded in your brain. I’m not in the habit of people keeping tabs on me. I said you could stay here for a day or two, but don’t go thinking you can interfere in my life.”

  She grabbed the bags from the passenger seat and when she turned, several bags firmly gathered in front of her, a twinge of embarrassment rushed through her. He stood, hands tucked casually in the pockets of his shrunken trousers, and quite brazenly, studied her body. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn such a short, form-fitting sundress, but it was scorching in L.A. What did it matter, though? Let him stare. In fact, she’d stare right back.

  She studied the pronounced muscles beneath the tight ribbed undershirt he wore, the rich bronze tone of his skin. Slowly she allowed her gaze to inspect his face. The smile. The dimple.

  An infectious grin.

  That was enough!

  She stormed toward the house, upset with herself for letting him get to her, and mumbled under her breath. “The least you could have done was gotten cleaned up while I was gone. You look like a derelict.”

  “I’ve played that role before,” he stated, marching at her side, hands clasped behind his back. “Would you prefer another look? Riverboat gambler? Playboy?” He took a quick step in front of her and stopped, facing her head on. “Perhaps you’d like a swashbuckler? When you were watching Captain Caribe last night I got the distinct impression you liked watching me swing from the yardarm. I could tie ropes from the trees around here and swing for you.”

  A smile teased her lips when she tried to scowl.

  “What do you thi
nk?” he asked, when she didn’t comment on his suggestion. “Would you like me better with a patch over my eye? How about...”

  “What I’d prefer is someone who doesn’t reek of booze and salt water.”

  The intruder laughed easily. “Your wish is my command, fair lady.” He nearly swept the ground with his hand as he offered her a courtly bow. His gesture couldn’t have been more effective at easing her tension if he’d had a musketeer’s hat with a feather sticking from its brim.

  Still, she rolled her eyes and tried to walk away, but he zigzagged in front of her, thwarting all her efforts to get to the house.

  He plucked one of the bags from her hands and peeked inside. “For me?” he asked, cocking one dark brow.

  “Obviously. I don’t often wear aftershave, although it doesn’t appear you indulge in such things, either.”

  “I take it that you’d prefer I wear what’s in these bags rather than these trousers that smell like seaweed and brine?” he asked, teasing her as he tugged on the bags still in her hands.

  “I have no preference at all in what you wear,” she said, handing him a black bag and a white one with gold letters. The pretty pink bag she kept for herself.

  “If you had no preference, you could have walked into any department store and grabbed the first things you saw.” He peeked inside the bags again. “Looks to me like you went to more trouble than that.”

  “I like nice clothes.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” he said, his gaze raking over her form-fitting dress.

  She drew the pink bag in front of her and whipped around him.

  “Do me a favor,” she said, looking back at the stranger before she rushed through the door. “Take a shower before you get dressed.”

  “You might want to consider washing the sheets and everything else I’ve touched, too. There’s no telling what I’ve contaminated around here.”

  She hadn’t thought of anything but his body—big mistake. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

  “You know, Adriana, if you’ll give me half a chance, you might find I’m not such a bad sort,” he said before she crossed the threshold.