If I Can't Have You (8 page)

It didn’t really matter anymore what happened to him. He was gone. Let him be someone else’s problem. Adriana didn’t want to be tortured by her nagging thoughts about him any longer.

She went to her bedroom and climbed back into bed, but the stranger didn’t leave her thoughts. She leaned into the pillows, and looked at the videotapes on the shelf next to her TV.
The Scarlet Coast
and
Treasure By Night,
two of the pirate movies that had made Trevor Montgomery a star, the dashing, daring hero who stole the hearts of millions. The man outside couldn’t possibly be the man she’d watched so many times.

Scanning other titles, she stopped at
One More Tomorrow,
the movie Trevor had won an Oscar for, the film glorified by the critics, and shunned by moviegoers because they didn’t like the image portrayed by their favorite star.

Adriana climbed from bed, removed
Captain Caribe
from the VC
R and replaced it with
One More Tomorrow.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she fast-forwarded to the scene where an alcoholic Trevor begged forgiveness from the woman he loved. His eyes were bloodshot following a week-long binge, his hair disheveled, his clothing rumpled. His face
was darkened with a stubble of beard and swollen circles surrounded his reddened eyes.

She froze the frame on her screen and studied the man who’d been glamorous in every other film.

There was nothing glamorous at all about a drunken Trevor. He looked totally different. He looked like a man in pain, in distress. He looked like a man who needed help.

He looked like the intruder.

She didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t. But in spite of her fears, something about the man made her feel compassion.

Stopping the tape, Adriana stepped into a pair of shorts and tennis shoes, and pulled a baggy sweater over her head. She didn’t believe the man outside was Trevor Montgomery. She didn’t know what she believed, but she knew if she ignored him, she’d always wonder about the truth.

The man could be a liar. He could be a fake, a look-alike wanting to capitalize on the mystery surrounding Trevor Montgomery.

At the moment, she’d rather believe either of those things than to believe that Trevor Montgomery might have traveled through time.

Adriana stood at the top of the twisting wooden stairs, searching the beach below for the man who’d invaded her home and her thoughts. She tried to push aside the fact that he’d hurt her; instead, she remembered how incredibly lonesome he’d looked when he’d walked out the door. He’d looked lost. He’d looked like a man who had no reason to live. He’d even told her he wanted to die. She’d never felt compelled to take in strays or interfere in other people’s lives, but if his body washed up on the shore the next morning, she’d feel guilty for not attempting to help.

When the moon peeked out from behind a cloud, she saw him standing where the waves gently lapped on the shore. His arms were hanging limp at his sides, one hand still gripping the decanter. He frightened her, but she couldn’t let him stay down there alone. Maybe she could get him to a hospital, to a psychiatrist, to someone who could help.

She also wanted another opportunity to look at his face, to see his smile. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, there were some startling similarities between this man and Trevor Montgomery. The ebony color of his hair; the lock that fell over his brow.
There was that distinctive cleft in his chin. And that smile. Trevor Montgomery’s smile had warmed many of her lonely nights; the intruder’s smile—she hated to think it—could easily do the same.

If he hadn’t smiled at her, if she hadn’t seen his eyes or heard his voice, he might be locked up now, and she’d be safe in bed.

Instead, she was thinking of doing the craziest thing she’d ever done in her life—helping a madman.

A cool breeze teased her hair as she climbed down the steps leading from the edge of her lawn to the beach below. With each step she asked herself why she was letting herself get involved. She liked her solitude; she didn’t like getting mixed up in other people’s business; she despised drunks.

The man walking into the water was different, though—she didn’t know how or why, but he seemed to need her. He obviously didn’t have anyone else.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the man who now stood knee-deep in water. She looked at the whiskey decanter in his hand, at his disheveled clothes. He was a drunk; possibly a vagrant or someone poor and down on his luck.

He was everything her father had told her to hate.

But this man needed her, and she wanted to be needed.

Stars twinkled overhead and the bright moon cast a glow across the sea. Adriana walked to where the tide left a trail of foam on the beach and rubbed her arms for warmth while she watched the stranger.

He tilted the bottle to his mouth and drank. When he was done, his arm dropped lifelessly to his side, and the crystal container slipped from his fingers into the water. It bobbed up and down a time or two, then drifted off with an outgoing wave.

He was a picture of desolation with his shoulders
sagging, his head bent. She knew he was suffering; knew he was confused.

He stepped farther into the sea, and the water lapped at his thighs. Adriana froze in place. She should go to him; stop him from trying to end his life—if that’s what he planned.

A wave splashed over her feet, trying to pull her with it as it rolled back out to the sea, urging her toward the stranger.

He walked farther into the ocean. Water splashed against his hips and his coat floated on the surface, twisting about him as each wave rolled in and out.

Slowly his face turned heavenward.

Was he praying for help?

She had to go to him. She had to.

She took a step into the water, then another and another, but the surf fought every one of her movements. Her tennis shoes were being sucked up by the murky sand. Cold water bit at her skin, slapped at her shorts.

She stroked the water away with her hands and arms and pushed herself deeper into the ocean. She was waist-deep. She was chilled to the bone. But she had to get to him.

Water splashed about her as she neared him. She heard nothing but the sound of the waves and her heart beating hard and fast.

She gripped his arm and his head jerked around. Dark brown eyes pierced hers. Swollen, bloodshot eyes—just like Trevor Montgomery’s in
One More Tomorrow.

She pushed her thoughts away, telling herself she’d help the man simply because he needed her; she wasn’t doing it because he bore such a strong resemblance to the man she’d idolized most of her life. No, she wasn’t that superficial. Or was she?

Wind and water slapped at her face, and an unexpected wave knocked her off-balance. She slid below
the surface as the undertow pulled at her feet and legs. She struggled against the current, but it was too strong. She choked on a mouthful of salt water; her sweater weighted her down.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t get back to the surface. Oh, God. Was she going to die in her attempt to help a stranger?

Fear pulsed through her veins until she felt strong hands around her waist. The same strong hands she’d felt hurting her wrists. Was he going to help her? Or hold her down?

Suddenly she felt air against her cheeks. She was able to breathe, and she spit out water and gasped for oxygen as he pulled her against him. Once more their chests met, their eyes. Once more she struggled to free herself, but he held on tight.

Salt water streaked his face; it slicked back his hair. His dark eyes bore into hers with more intensity than she’d ever seen in a man. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.

She knew those eyes. They’d stared at her from a movie screen, from her television, from books. They were Trevor Montgomery’s eyes.

And those lips. She’d seen close-ups of them just before Trevor had kissed his leading lady.

Trevor Montgomery’s lips and eyes had made millions of women swoon, and right now they were making it difficult for her to breathe.

She wanted to look into those eyes forever. She wanted to be kissed by those lips.

No! She wanted to be kissed by Trevor—not this stranger.

She struggled again, but he wrapped one arm about her waist and pulled her even closer. His free hand smoothed wet strands of hair from her cheeks, and he kissed her. Softly, oh so softly.

She didn’t want to like it—but she did, even though he tasted of salt water and whiskey. She
liked the way his body pressed against hers, the hardness of his chest, the strength of his arms, the touch of his fingers on her neck. She liked....

My God! What was she doing? This kiss was wrong. Her thoughts were wrong. The man was unbalanced, mad.

Suddenly the softness of his kiss turned to passion. His lips were hard against hers, his whiskers scratched at her face. He was holding her tight, tighter.

She wanted to get away.

This was wrong. So very wrong.

She pressed her hands against his chest, trying to push him away, but the kiss intensified. This had to stop. It had to.

Without another thought, she slapped the side of his head.

He jerked back. His breathing was short and raspy. His eyes were redder than before, full of fear, sadness.

He didn’t look at all like Trevor Montgomery.

She had to get away. She’d made a big mistake coming out here, thinking, she could help. How could she forget that he was mad, that he’d tried to hurt her?

Her father had been right about men. Why did she continually forget?

Pushing away, she struggled for shore, her heavy, water-laden sweater dragging against her as the waves battered her back and forth.

It seemed an eternity before she reached the beach. She’d lost one shoe in the surf, the other slogged as she ran toward the stairs. Had she escaped? Was she free of the man she never should have gone to?

She screamed when a hand clutched her arm and spun her around. Dark brown eyes pierced hers.

He was gasping for breath, his brow was furrowed
with pain and too many other emotions she didn’t want to see.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his chest rising and falling heavily as he spoke. “I don’t know what came over me.

Adriana pulled out of his grasp and stepped back a few feet. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Why did you come out here?”

Adriana looked away. She couldn’t bear looking into his tortured eyes. She took a few steadying breaths, trying to remember why she’d wanted to help when it was such an insane idea. “Maybe I’m just as crazy as you are,” she muttered, more to herself than in answer to his question.

“I’m not crazy,” he whispered, “but everything around me is.” He stepped into her line of vision and looked
at her once more with eyes that
yearned for understanding. “My life, even the world as I knew it, is gone.”

Maybe he’d been hurt. Maybe he had amnesia. There had to be some logical explanation for his actions. She tried to stay calm, tried to think and talk rationally. “Were you in an accident? You could have a concussion,” she stated, looking for any signs of injury.

Slowly he shook his head. “When I woke up yesterday it was 1938. Suddenly it’s 1998 and I haven’t aged a day. Ask me any questions you want about the twenties and thirties and I can answer them. Ask me something about the forties, even this decade, and I can’t tell you a thing.” He turned away from Adriana and looked toward the ocean. “I’m not mixed up. I’ve just somehow skipped the last sixty years of my life.”

Adriana moved to his side. She started to put a comforting hand on his arm, then drew away. “I know a good psychiatrist...”

“No doctor in his right mind would believe what I have to say. How could they, when
you
don’t even believe me.”

“Why should
I
believe your story? You broke into my house—”

“You drove me here from Sparta,” he interrupted. “I was in the backseat of the Duesenberg.”