If I Can't Have You by Patti Berg

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