Nobody's Dream (52 page)

“It has been a long couple of days. Listen, Kitty, I am fine. Really. Let me call you tomorrow to talk more, but trust me. Everything is okay here.”

“Did…Did the alpacas make it out?”

“Oh, yes! We are all down here with Lucas. Luke.” Funny, but calling him Lucas after all they had been through seemed rather stilted. Yet she had grown used to calling him that. Using his nickname now might cause him to misinterpret her reasons.

“I love you, Cassie. And you can trust Luke. He’s a good man.”

Her chin shook, and her throat closed. “I know,” she whispered. Why did that scare her even more?

Because he posed a threat of a different kind. She had spent most of her adult life keeping men away from her, wanting to have nothing to do with them. The memory of Lucas’s arms around her caused her to shaking even more. Before she completely lost it, she said goodnight to Kitty and set the phone aside.

Goddess, she had not even found out how the babies were, but surely Kitty would have told her if there had been any problems.

Cassie curled onto her side, pulling the covers up to her chin and her knees up to her chest. She hugged herself but did not find the comfort from her own arms that she had found in Lucas’s hug.

Cassie fought the desire to go to him and ask him to hold her, to make her feel safe again. But no one had that power. No one except the Goddess, but even she seemed to have abandoned her lately.

Her shivering lessened and she soon found herself drifting off to sleep.

“Why don’t we go play pool? We can leave after I finish the beer I just ordered.”

“No, Cassie! Don’t go back there!”

Despite the warnings screaming in her ears, Cassie followed Luis to the back room, Pedro behind her. At least he was here and would protect her. She hoped they would leave soon, though. Tonight had not been fun at all. Nothing like when she and Kitty went out to the clubs to dance.

A body pressed against her back, hands pawing at her breasts. Certain it was Diego, Pedro shocked her when he whispered in her ears. “We’ll give you the advantage, Casandra.” He ordered the other men to remove their shirts.

“Take your hands off me.” Cassie pushed them away and turned to glare at him as Pedro took a long draw from the beer bottle. His gaze never left her face.

Luis reached out and pinched her nipple. “She’s turned on, Pedro.”

She smacked his hand away, too, and glared at him. “Do. Not. Touch. Me. Again.”

“The uppity chica has forgotten her place while off studying in America.” Diego had joined them.

She spat at Diego, who backhanded her across her mouth, sending her flying into Pedro’s arms. There had been a time when she would have expected to find safety here, but no longer. He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and wrapped his arm around her waist like a vise.

“Fine. If you wish to forget about the game, we will move on to collecting our prize.”

Cassie kicked behind her at his shins and elbowed him, but the other two soon overpowered her and the back of her head smashed into the beer-soaked felt on the pool table. Hands pulled at her skirt and blouse. The sound of a knife cutting through the material made her stop fighting for fear she would be cut as well.

“Don’t stop fighting,
puta
,” Diego ground out. “We like it better when our girls give us a challenge.”

“I am not one of your girls. Let me go now or my brother will make you regret the day you were born.”

Pedro laughed nervously, but the other two did not seem to know her brother or what a formidable foe he could be.

He soon recovered his bravado. “I have waited the longest for this bitch. I go first.”

Hearing Pedro claim her body as if she was some trophy he deserved made her even sicker than the putrid smell of the table and the two other men holding her down. She tried to kick him, but he was already between her legs loosening his belt.

A scream tore from her body as she tried to alert someone from the cantina to come to her rescue, but a filthy rag was stuffed into her mouth, robbing her of the ability to make much noise. She tasted something salty, musky on the cloth and gagged as she realized what it had been used for.

“
Please do not let them do this to me,
Papá Dios
.” Prayer was her only hope now. Father God would send her an angel.

*     *     *

Luke thought he heard a noise from the bedroom, but when there was no further sound, he went back to making some popcorn to take out to the studio. He wasn’t hungry for a full meal, and neither was Cassie apparently. But he’d be hungry later on. He retrieved a bowl from the cabinet when a howl of anguish intruded on the quiet of the night.

Cassie!

He dropped the bowl on the counter and reached onto the upper shelf of the same cabinet to grab his loaded revolver before running for the bedroom. The door wasn’t locked, so he threw it open wide, sweeping the room with his weapon, ready to defend her against whoever was attacking her.

In Spanish, she screamed, “Do not touch me!”

He quickly realized she was in bed. Alone. Face down, her legs struggled to untangle herself from the bedspread.

“Papá Dios!”

A nightmare.

Setting the handgun on the dresser, he crossed the room in three steps and called out to her. “Cassie, it’s Luke. Turn over.” He didn’t want to add to her night terror by touching her—yet.

“Do not touch me!”

Luke needed for her to wake up so she could escape the nightmare. He reached out and cupped her head gently but firmly. “Wake up, Cassie.”

He could make out some of the words.

“Noooooo! Stop! Why…?” A sob tore from her throat followed by a keening before she darted across the bed and turned around until she faced him. She pulled the chenille bedspread up to her chest like armor plating.

“Cassie, you’re safe. It’s me, Luke. You’re having a bad dream.”

She shook her head. Now she spoke in English. “You lied to me!”

About what? He realized her eyes were glazed. She wasn’t seeing him but still locked in the night terror. “I’d never lie to you, Sweet Pea. And no one is going to hurt you.” Never again, not as long as he had anything to say or do about it.

“Too late.” Tears streaked down her cheeks breaking his heart.

“It’s never too late, darlin’.”

Cassie blinked a few times and searched the corners of the room before meeting his gaze. “You do not understand, Lucas.”

She knew who he was. Thank God.

She whimpered, and he walked around the bed to the other side. When she didn’t crawl away, he sat on the side of the bed.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

She shook her head. No, her entire body shook.

“Then why not let me hold you? Just hold you.”

Her eyes widened and the terror in her gaze tore at his gut. She didn’t trust him. “Have I ever hurt you, Cassie?”

She shook her head again. “But sometimes men change.”

“Who did that, Cassie? Who pretended to be something they weren’t and then hurt you?”

She hugged herself and doubled over. He wished she’d let him comfort her, but wouldn’t going to force her. It sounded as if someone had done that already. At least she was talking.

Cassie sat up again, arms still wrapped around her waist, and stared down at the bedspread. She plucked at one of the tufts in the chenille design. Some sense of resolve seemed to pass over her and she squared her shoulders as she sat on her heels. “It was a long time ago. I was still in college.”

Luke knew not to interrupt her, even if it took her a while to continue. He wanted to brush the tears off her cheeks, to fold her into his arms, but she wanted space right now.

Give her time.

“I was home on summer break. Well, it was winter in Peru.”

Pluck, pluck.

He didn’t care if she stripped Momma’s old bedspread of every tufted thread. Her gaze was focused on the motions of her fingers, while her mind must be trying to decide what she would share with him.

Come on, darlin’.

“My fiancé took me to a cantina in the capital. I had never been to one in my country before. I only knew Pedro, my fiancé.” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “I soon found I did not know him either, even though we had been acquaintances since primary school.”

Keep going.

“He…He would not dance with me. A
marinera
played—a traditional dance in my homeland—and I wanted to dance so badly. Why else would one go to a place like that? But he said he did not know how. A lie. Everyone in Peru knows the
marinera
. Then one of his friends offered to dance with me.”

Pluck, pluck.

“The music consumed me. It did not matter who I danced with. He brought my body to life as the music coursed through me. But…” She shuddered, lost in the memory, and Luke wondered what had happened. “Something about him scared me, and I stopped dancing and went back to my fiancé at the table.”

Luke wondered how long she’d dated this Pedro guy. What kind of relationship did they have? She said she discovered she didn’t know him as well as she thought.

“Pedro said some things that hurt me and made me uncomfortable, but I did not heed the warning signs as I should have.”

He couldn’t help but interject, given his own lack of foresight with Maggie. “Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. You trusted him to protect you.” Hell, he was her fiancé!

“But women are supposed to listen to their instincts to keep themselves from harm. I ignored mine.”

“Haven’t you paid enough for whatever happened? Maybe it’s time you forgave yourself for being a mere mortal.”

She met his gaze, scrunching her eyebrows as she considered his words. “I had not really thought about it that way.” Her gaze strayed to his arms, and he trusted his
own
instincts and held them out to her, hoping she’d come to him. Sadly, she remained where she was. He lowered them to his sides again but was encouraged when her gaze followed.

“You
can
trust me, darlin’.”

She continued to stare at his arms and lap alternately as he watched the struggle within her. She needed to be held in the worst way, but fought that need with everything she had.

He had to strain to hear her next words. “I trusted my fiancé. He shattered my trust.”

“He didn’t deserve it then. That’s no fault of yours.”

Cassie met his gaze, studying his face for the longest time. The yearning he saw there told him she was close to reaching out to him. So close.

Don’t blow this, Denton.

Give her time.

New tears flowed. Damn. If she didn’t come over here soon, he’d do something stupid like wrap her in his arms. But that would be a big mistake.

Wait for her.

“They hurt me so much.”

They?
Anger boiled up inside him. How many? “Tell me what they did.”

She shook her head with a vehemence he hadn’t noticed in her before.

“Cassie, don’t give them any more power over you. Until you release it that secret’s going to gnaw at your gut. By talking about it, you take away some of the hold it has on you. You’re going to keep blaming yourself for what it sounds like someone else did, not you.”

Again her gaze strayed to his lap. He patted his thigh and coaxed her again. “Come, let me hold you. Just like I did this morning. You weren’t even dressed then. Did I do anything to hurt you?”

She shook her head and leaned imperceptibly closer to him before catching herself.

“You really look like you could use a hug right now. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. But let me hold you a while.”

“I wish I could…”

“Nothing stopping you but you. Face your fear. Trust me.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then took another.

Come on, Sweet Pea. Trust me.

“I want to, but I cannot.”

Luke took a chance and stood up. He hadn’t planned to leave, only to scoop her up in his arms, but she halted him. “No, wait! Do not go! You are right. I need to talk about this. And I do need…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but scurried off the bed onto her feet and motioned for him to sit again. He did so. Surprising the hell out of him, she crawled onto his lap and sat so rigidly he was afraid she’d break if he touched her. But he couldn’t stop himself.

He placed his hand on her back and stroked her nape in small, circular motions, hoping not to send her running. “I have you. Just let it out. Tell me what happened.”

Silence.

“That’s all in the past, Cassie. Whatever happened, you survived, and you’re safe here with me now.”

She buried her face against his chest and sobbed for ages.

Jesus, tell me they didn’t do what I think they did to her.

Luke wrapped his arms around her, loosely at first. When she didn’t panic, he increased the pressure and held her as she cried. Had those men raped her? God, that would explain why she was so fearful of men. Hell, one had been slated to be her future husband.

Fucking bastard.

No wonder trust was so hard to come by. “Tell me, Cassie. Let it out. We can deal with this together, but it would help if I knew what happened.”

He wanted to say they could fix it together, but he’d learned that some hurts could never be fixed. Not every wound could be bandaged. Yet, even though some never fully healed, a person could learn to live with the wounds just the same. Over time, the flow of blood slowed to a trickle.

“They raped me.”

Fuck.

He had hoped against hope they hadn’t taken it that far, even though he’d expected her to speak those very words. An intense pain seared his chest, infinitesimal compared to the pain she’d suffered.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her and pressed her tear-streaked face against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She didn’t pull away, and he wondered if she could feel his heart pounding.