Free If I Can't Have You by Patti Berg

for movement in the guest room, any sounds in the hall. For several long minutes she heard nothing. Finally she heard the slight creak of bedsprings and silence again.
    She hoped he’d go to sleep.
    She hoped he’d be gone in the morning.
    She hoped she’d be able to sleep herself, but how could she with that tormented stranger in her house?
    She must be mad to have allowed him to stay.
    Locking her bedroom door, she slipped out of her still-wet shorts and sweater and into a nightgown. The sheets were warm and inviting when she slid into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come when she turned off the light.
    She thought of the stranger. She saw his familiar profile, the cleft in his chin, the strong jaw, and the radiant black hair with a strand that continually fell over his brow.
    Trevor Montgomery’s profile. Trevor’s cleft, and jaw, and hair. How many movies had she seen where Trevor Montgomery brushed a strand of hair from his brow? Every one. It was one of his trademarks.
    But it wasn’t possible. Trevor Montgomery would be much, much older.
    Trevor Montgomery was probably dead.
    She drowsed in and out of sleep, tossing and turning. Dreams came in bits and pieces, and suddenly she was fifteen again and inside the toolshed, hidden so well behind tall rhododendrons. Robbie, the young gardener she’d had a crush on, was with her, brushing grass clippings from his jeans, pulling his T-shirt over his head. He kissed her nose, then pressed her against the wall.
    “Your father won’t find us in here, I promise.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Adriana, especially your father.”
    “You make him sound so horrid. He’s not, Robbie. He just wants me to do what’s right.”
    Robbie smiled as he gently touched her cheeks. “I want you to do what’s right, too.”
    He kissed her. So sweet. So tender. His fingers brushed over her white cotton blouse, nimbly unfastening one button and then another. He touched the warm skin of her stomach, and slowly found his way to her bra.
    The door burst open and slammed against the wall. “What’s going on in here?”
    “Nothing, Daddy.”
    Her father’s long, skinny fingers captured her wrist, and he jerked her away from Robbie. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that boy? ”
    Adriana jolted awake, but the dream was too vivid, her father’s words and her own still filling her mind.
    “It was only a kiss, Daddy.”
    He’d laughed, and even now her memory held the smell of gin on his breath. “Why should I believe you, girl? Why should I trust you? You’ve disobeyed and dishonored me your entire life.”
    “I won’t do it again. I promise.”
    A tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away. She didn’t want to think about that promise that she’d failed to keep. She didn’t want to think about crazy intruders, or nosy photographers, or gossip. All she wanted to do was slide back into her make-believe world, where life was so much sweeter.
    She wanted pleasant dreams of a pirate swinging from a yardarm, or a man in a tux plucking a rose for his love.
    Turning on to her side, she nestled into her pillow and hoped those blissful thoughts would lull her back to sleep.
    oOo
    The coffee was cold, but it was strong and sobering, and with any luck it would keep him awake. He didn’t want to go back to sleep and relive the nightmare. The sight of Carole’s bludgeoned body, the pain of knowing she’d died so violently, was far worse than the horror he was living through now.
    Trevor breathed in the scent of cool ocean breeze whispering through the open kitchen window, and thought instead about the woman in his bed, about the fact that it was 1998 even though his brain screamed out to him that that couldn’t be true.
    He wished he was back in 1938. He wished that he’d done everything differently on the third of July—like spending the evening with Janet Julian instead of going home with Carole Sinclair. If only he could go back. He’d do things