If I Can't Have You (48 page)
Read If I Can't Have You Online
Authors: Patti Berg
“Please, Trevor,” she urged, hoping he could hear her across sixty years in time. “Please, come to me.”
The water gurgled and sputtered. A whirlpool swirled around her, building momentum as it sucked at her legs and pulled her under the water. She fought the torrent, fought her fear of drowning. She gasped for breath and swallowed the chlorinated water. It burned her throat, her eyes, her sinuses, and she struggled, trying to reach the surface.
I’m going to die,
she thought, then wondered if this was all part of the plan. Was she going to join Trevor in limbo? Oh, what did it matter, as long as she was with him?
Suddenly, the whirlpool spit her out of its grasp. All around her, the water waved and crashed, then it exploded, shooting high into the air like a geyser.
She pushed hair and water from her face and her eyes. A vision appeared before her. Ebony hair. A white jacket, a black tie, and she prayed the man who’d just burst forth from the water was Trevor, and not another hallucination.
Her lips trembled as she reached out to touch the face she thought she’d only dreamed. She felt the roughness of a cheek that hadn’t been shaved since early morning. Felt a dimple at the right side of his mouth, the deep cleft in his chin.
He was real. So very, very real.
Tears flowed from her eyes and mixed with the pool water cascading over her face.
And then she saw the slightest hint of the movie-idol smile she loved.
He held out his arms, and she floated into them.
There were tears in his eyes. Tears that she’d never seen before, not even in the movies.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Oh, God, how I love you.”
The mouth she remembered so well covered hers, not gently, but passionately, full of need and want and desire. He kissed away her fears, and kissed back all her memories of the days they’d spent together.
Her fingers tightened around his back as his hands swept down her sides, over her hips.
“You are real, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re not a dream?”
“I’m just as real as you are.” Her lips trembled as she hugged him tight.
“Don’t leave me again, Trevor. Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You don’t have to hold me tightly to know that I’ll always be by your side.”
“I lost you once.”
He shook his head. “You never lost me. I was in your heart, just as you were in mine. We’ll always be together, Adriana—wherever we are.”
She rested her head on his chest, listening once more to the familiar beat of his heart.
She felt his fingers slip beneath her knees, his hand slide around her back, as he lifted her into his arms and walked from the pool.
“It’s been a long year, Adriana.”
“It’s been just a day for me, but it seems an eternity.”
“We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said, and she could feel the warmth of his lips against her brow.
“There’s so much I need to tell you,” she said. “About Carole. About Charlie and Janet getting married.
You need to know about the movie I’m making, and how you changed history—”
“Not now, Adriana.” He kissed away her words as he entered the mansion and headed up a long marble-tiled hallway. “We’ll talk about all those things tomorrow.”
“But you said we have a lot to catch up on.”
“It’s not current events I’m interested in.” A wicked smile tilted his lips, and she could see fireworks—so much brighter than those on the Fourth of July—sparkling in his eyes. “What I
am
interested in is you, and making up for all the days and nights we’ve been apart.”
She fought back the tears of happiness swelling behind
her eyes, and held on tight as
he raced up the sweeping staircase and shouldered through the tall, heavy doors leading into the suite that had once been Harrison’s, but now indelibly belonged to them. Just like the hero in so many movies—but so much better—he carried her across the ancient carpets, giving little thought to the water dripping from their hair and clothes, concentrating only on her lips, her eyes, the tip of her nose.
Pressing one foot against the door at the far end of the room, he shoved it open and took her to the bed where they’d first made love, and laid her down in its downy softness.
“God, how I missed you.” His words were little more than a whisper, spoken tenderly as he sat at her side and curled a lock of hair behind her ear. “Every night and every day, I prayed that you’d come to me, or that I could somehow find my way back to you. I kissed a lot of roses and made a lot of wishes. I hoped they’d come true—and now they have.”
She smiled softly at the man who’d shown her that life, with all its trials, was better than what she’d seen on a movie screen. “You were a dream to me,
but now you’re real. There’s nothing more I could ever wish for.”
“Nothing at all?”
She cupped his beard-roughened cheek in her palm. “You’re all I need.”
He drew his fingers away from her hair, and reached toward the bedside table. From a tall crystal vase he plucked a long red rose, and held it between them. He lightly brushed the velvety petals across her lips, then kissed it himself, just as she’d done while standing by the Poseidon Pool. Then he set it on the pillow alongside her hair.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he kissed her. “I love you, Adriana. You wished me into your life, and I came to you. Now... there’s just one more wish I want to make.”
He held her near and gazed lovingly into her eyes, just like the closing scene in so many of his movies. But this embrace wasn’t scripted, it wasn’t rehearsed. And
The End
would never flash before them.
“Tell me what you’d wish for, Trevor.”
He smiled, and whispered softly against her lips.
“A million more tomorrows with you.”
—
The End
—
In the Christmas spirit?
Patti Berg’s
(A Merry Nicholas Christmas Story--Book #1)
will warm your heart
and soul.
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Enchant
ed
(A Merry Nicholas Christmas Tale - #1)
A Christmas story for those who believe when love is involved, anything is possible. Mac O'Brien is wealthy and powerful--but since the death of his father, the magic has gone out of his life. So he makes a wish for happiness, and Merry Nicholas, his new housekeeper, breezes into his world. Merry, with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and snow-white hair, reminds Mac of Mrs. Claus, and when she pulls knitting needles from her candy cane-striped carpetbag, she weaves an enchanted spell around Mac, leading him to happiness, and to the woman he's destined to love
Wishes Come True
(A Merry Nicholas Christmas Tale - #2)
Coming Soon!
Guardian angels don't always come with wings or a halo. Merry Nicholas, aka Mrs. Claus, came with rosy cheeks and a feather duster for spreading magic, and the little old lady who delighted readers in my first romance, Enchanted, is back.
Merry's in Bunch Gulch, Montana, this time with sophisticated romance novelist Laurie Langtry, who knows all about fictional love but nothing about the real thing. Running from bad times in New York, Laurie settles in the town she ran away from as a child and soon learns old memories don't fade away. Wishing for a hero to save her from her fears, she gets much more than she asked for--three rambunctious boys pop into her life along with their down-on-his-luck rancher dad, Jake McAllister, who's the spitting image of every Olympian-god hero she's ever created.
With a touch of magic and the power of belief, Jake's able to save Laurie from the nightmare that's haunted her. Being a hero's one thing, loving Laurie is another. Jake's not interested in being the husband she wants--until he needs a wife.
Laurie's found that every tale needs a happy ending, and her own love story is no exception. She's woven the plot so carefully that nothing can go wrong, and when Jake proposes, another one of her wishes comes true. Deep inside, though, she wonders if the end justifies the means, and she hopes Jake never learns what dastardly deed she fabricated to get what she wanted.
Filled with warmth and humor, Wishes Come True is about friends, families, and sticking together when high-tailing it out of town seems like the easiest road to travel. It's about following your dreams, taking chances, and letting your heart believe.
A hundred year old love that refuses to end. A murder. A mystery. A cantankerous ghost who wants revenge. An artist who has found the woman of his dreams. A schemer who’ll stop at nothing. And a woman caught between three very different men. Each wants something from her, but who should she trust?
Trevor Montgomery was more handsome than Tyrone Power or Cary Grant; more dashing and daring than Errol Flynn; he was a man every woman desired and all men envied. He was a movie star who’d enthralled millions in the 1930’s—and then he disappeared.
Adriana Howard is rich beyond imagining, but her life has been cloaked in scandal, and she’d rather love a man on a movie screen—a 1930’s idol and maybe a murderer—than face the real world.
He’s suspected of a brutal murder in his own time, but all he remembers is the blood, the knife, and the smell of death.
He’s a womanizer, a drunk, and she should kick him out of her life—but he’s traveled 60 years through time in answer to one of her wishes, and she can’t resist his charms. Now she’s willing to risk anything to prove his innocence and win his love.
Sometimes the most unusual things wash up on the beach, but nothing stranger or more exciting than the cutlass-wielding pirate Kate Cameron finds on her own treasure island.
He was a mystery man...
"Bloody hell!" Morgan "Black Heart" Farrell can’t believe the hurricane whisked him from the deck of his galleon straight into the twentieth century--and into the arms of a honey-haired siren. What he does believe is that Kate’s tempestuous spirit and emerald eyes could entice him away from a swashbuckling life at sea. But the widow’s charms can’t erase Black Heart’s desperate need to get back to his own time--until he learns he may have brought danger with him from the past. Morgan might be a scoundrel, but he’s not about to leave while Kate needs a man to comfort and protect her.
Who swept her off her feet
It’s been ages since Kate had a man in her life, and she’s pretty much decided she doesn’t want another. But the moment Black Heart is thrust into her world, she finds herself falling for the dangerous, sexy looking stranger. By his own admission he’s pillaged, plundered, and taken one or two lives. But Kate has a knack for looking beneath the surface and soon realizes that maybe, just maybe, Morgan’s heart isn’t as black as the history books claim. In fact, he just might be the hero she’s looking for.
Wife For A Day
(Remington and Wilde Family Escapade #1)
The last thing millionaire rancher Jack Remington wanted was a wife. Hell, he'd just been dumped by his fiancée and was feeling rather relieved to no longer have a noose around his neck. But Jack had one huge problem--he'd flown to ritzy Palm Beach to attend his baby sister's highfalutin' engagement ball and he'd promised her he'd be bringing his wife-to-be. There was no way Jack would let her down on the biggest night of her life.
When a beguiling, flame-haired enchantress breezes into his hotel room with a tux and a seductive smile, Jack's sure all his troubles have come to an end. All he has to do is hire the beautiful tailor to masquerade as his fiancée.
Samantha Jones is sure the sexy cowboy is out of his ever-lovin' mind. She's never been to a ball, never worn a fancy gown, and has no idea how to act like a socialite. She can't possibly pose as his wife-to-be, but...