Nobody's Dream (45 page)

He and Cassie worked side-by-side on Picasso’s grooming in silence. He instructed her in how to make the small, circular motions, and she curried the right side of his neck working her way toward his tail. Cassie reached out a few times with a comforting pat to Picasso’s neck if the horse became agitated. She understood animals and had a natural connection with them.

She softly crooned in some language he wasn’t familiar with. He felt left out. “What’s that song you’re singing?”

“
Punulla Waway
.” She avoided making eye contact. “It is something
mi
mamá
used to sing to me. A traditional lullaby from the Peruvian Andes.”

“I like it. Very soothing. I think Pic liked it, too.”

After finishing with Picasso’s tail, Luke grabbed another currycomb and began to work on the horse’s loins, bumping against Cassie’s arm accidentally before she retreated. He didn’t apologize, but tried to keep a little more distance between them so as not to spook her. Working beside her like this was too enjoyable to screw up.

“You came when I called you today.”

Luke’s hand slowed to a standstill. He gave her a puzzled sidelong glance. Something was being sorted out in that beautiful mind of hers. Maybe she’d come to realize not all men were unworthy of her trust. “Nothing could have kept me away. You needed me. I’d been worried sick for days already with all these fires.”

She met his gaze. “I have not been so frightened in…well, a very long time.”

He hated the thought that she’d been through worse at some point, but someone as skittish as Cassie must have been in the bowels of hell at least once.

The lady didn’t talk much about her past. Everyone faced some kind of adversity in their lives. Part of the reason they were here on earth, he supposed, was to learn from those trials. Some spent their lives running from their fears. Others faced them head on. Hell, when he heard what Marc had done while Luke was stranded up at Cassie’s place, he’d been floored. The man was impulsive and a risk-taker, but no way in hell would he have risked his sanity like that for anyone, not even Cassie.

Of course, maybe he shouldn’t say never until he was in a situation where he felt he had no other choice, the way Marc had been. He hadn’t thought about his own safety today when he went after her.

“Thank you for making that call, Sweet Pea.” Asking for help was not something Cassie was comfortable with doing.

After they had worked the dandy brush and body brush through on both sides and Luke had taken care of Pic’s legs and hooves, he cleaned out the brushes with the metal currycomb.

Cassie moved to stand beside Pic’s head and began whispering to the horse. “There you go, Picasso. All done.” Luke walked cautiously around the back of the gelding careful to watch for any sign he might kick him and tried to look busy while surreptitiously watching the two of them. She made eye contact with the horse and began to speak in another language. He tried to decipher what she was saying. Not Spanish. Sounded more like Native American. Then she became silent and seemed to “speak” to the animal through her eyes and the touch of her fingers and palms.

Suddenly, Pic leaned forward and nuzzled Cassie’s cheek. Luke smiled. He didn’t know what communication had passed between the two, but clearly they had made a heartfelt connection.

Luke tamped down an unexplainable sense of jealousy. Where had that come from? He was thrilled Pic was able to connect with Cassie—and Cassie with the horse, as well. Maybe he envied the horse’s ability to break through her defenses so quickly. Luke had barely been able to touch her without sending her into a retreat.

Sack the pity party, Denton.

Maybe Cassie would find peace here like Luke had found when he first started taking in the abused horses. He sensed the same vulnerability in Cassie that he’d seen in his horses. He wished he could heal her wounds, but she wouldn’t let him that close.

As if coming out of a trance, Cassie blinked and shifted her gaze to Luke. He rubbed his hand over Pic’s shiny coat, trying not to appear as though he’d been eavesdropping, as if he could understand anyway.

“Picasso told me how much he loves you.”

Luke furrowed his brow. “Beg your pardon?” Pic communicated with her? “You’re a horse whisperer?” Cassie smiled. He wasn’t sure if she was teasing or dead serious.

She continued. “He said you’re much more caring than his last owner. You give him space when he needs it, but you also provide a sense of security when he wants to venture beyond the safety of his stall.”

His chest practically swelled to hear Pic felt that way. “I thought you said you hadn’t been around horses before.”

Cassie shrugged and returned her attention to Picasso. “I have a telepathic connection with most animals. I am sure Picasso has never heard my Quechua language before, but he understood my words on the heart level.”

Dayum. The girl was full of surprises.

Luke could meet the needs of these animals, keep them safe, help them heal, train them for a new or renewed purpose, but he’d never communicated with them like that. Now he had an opportunity to change his relationship with them, with Cassie’s help.

“Would you tell him something for me?”

Cassie gazed at him and nodded.

“Tell him…” Luke cleared his throat but spoke in an almost reverent whisper. He felt like he was back in church. This was a very spiritual moment for him. “Tell him I won’t let anything bad happen to him ever again, if I can help it. That I’ll protect him and give him shelter for as long as he needs. Just tell him he’ll always be safe with me.”

Cassie closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, making Luke realize she might just have taken the words to heart as if meant for her, as well. He hoped so, because they applied to her, too.

Picasso would be a good surrogate, though. His words would be less personal or intimidating when he spoke to the horse. Cassie would be uncomfortable with declarations like that from Luke to her, but maybe she’d see she shared a bond with the horses and could heal alongside them.

Surely she could see Luke would never hurt her, either.

She opened her eyes again and stroked Picasso’s cheek as she stared into his eye, apparently passing along the message in a mixture of her native tongue and mental telepathy. When a tear trickled down Cassie’s cheek, he figured he’d broken through to her, too.

Maybe there’s hope yet.

Cassie stroked Picasso’s neck, and once again, Luke couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that her gentle hand wasn’t touching him. Before he let himself become too sappy or flat out embarrassed himself, he figured he’d better hightail it inside. “I should be startin’ supper. I’m sure you’re hungry by now.”

“Let me do that. I am sure I can find something, and you still have your other horses to take care of.”

He watched her leave the stall and turned his focus back to his horse. “Well, Pic, I think you’ve made a new friend.” The horse nickered and nodded his head. Luke smiled and patted his rump. “Good thing. She could use a few more friends.”

Chapter Fifteen

C
assie entered Luke’s bedroom again carrying the backpack and poncho she had left in the truck earlier. She scanned the room more slowly this time. The double bed covered in an off-white chenille coverlet dominated the room. The bedspread looked well-worn. Vintage, no doubt. She wondered who it had belonged to before. She marveled again that the bed had been made. What single man made his bed when he could not possibly have been expecting company?

Heavy woven blankets served as room-darkening drapes over the two windows. Opening the drapes to let in the waning sunlight, something about the bed caught her eye. She walked closer and noticed the carvings in the pine post on the footboard.

The hummingbird caught her eye first, flitting at the mouth of the trumpet-shaped flower that reminded her of the angel trumpet vines back home. So lifelike she almost thought she caught the fluttering of the tiny bird’s wings. On the other post she found vined sweet peas being visited by bumble bees. She had never seen detailed carvings like these on a bed before—or possibly anywhere else—and wondered if this was some of Lucas’s work.

But he seemed to work on much more functional pieces, not chiseling whimsical figures on his bed. Artists rarely indulged in creating art for themselves. If he did carve such things, he most likely would have done them for a client.

Turning around, the dresser caught her eye. Drawing closer, she saw it also had been carved with flowers, butterflies, and other insects. Her gaze rose to the top of the dresser, and she stopped breathing for a moment. There in a hand-carved frame was the sketch Cassie had drawn at the hospital following Adam’s attack by the puma. She still did not know where the inspiration had come from, but assumed her spirit guide had led the woman to her in that moment to be able to deliver a message of comfort to Luke from the other side.

Lucas had told her he saw the sketch every morning when he awoke, but she did not realize he had taken such steps to enshrine it. Embedded in the wood were matching wedding rings, no doubt those of Luke and his wife. His
first
wife. She blinked away the sting in her eyes. He must have loved her very much. How sad to have lost her and their unborn child so tragically.

“I can’t thank you enough for sharing that sketch with me.”

Cassie jumped and pivoted to find Luke standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb. The joy she had seen earlier in his gaze had been replaced by profound sadness. Her heart and soul felt a piercing ache, absorbing his grief before she shook it off, not wanting to take on this man’s pain.

He entered the room, and her breath caught. As he drew near, the scent of soap and leather assailed her. Heat rose in her cheeks, probably from the rapid beat of her heart. She did not fear Lucas, so why was her body responding in such a way? Why did he affect her so? He did not scare her exactly, but her body went on high alert whenever he drew near.

Cassie forced herself to take a slow, deep breath. Allowing herself more room, she took a step back and came up against the dresser.

He turned toward Cassie and smiled, but his eyes did not let go of their sadness. “I found peace for the first time with knowing she was okay in heaven or wherever it is we go after we…”

Cassie did not know what to say so she merely nodded. Then she found her voice. “She wanted to convey that message to you very badly.”

“I think she’d been trying to get it through my thick skull a while by that point, but I wasn’t receiving the message. She’d come to me in a couple dreams. Sometimes even helped me out on search-and-rescue missions. She always seemed happy and content, but I just figured it was wishful thinking on my part.”

“Some people are so afraid of death for themselves that they do not realize the only part of us that dies is our physical self. Our souls never die. We can even communicate with those on the other side if we tune into them.”

Luke glanced at his wife’s image for a long moment and, without turning back to Cassie, said, “For me, I think it’s best I leave her to continue her journey over there. It’s enough to know she’s happy and they’re together. I’m finally at peace with their loss.”

Cassie was not sure if that was true but could understand his need to move on. Hanging on to those who were no longer here could make his own life’s journey more difficult and less fulfilling.

Cassie thought about her parents. She had cut herself off from them except by infrequent video chats when Eduardo arranged them. Tears pricked her eyes, blurring Luke’s image before her. She missed them both and knew they would not be alive forever. But she had shamed them and could never face them again.

I miss them.

She supposed this sudden longing to go home to Peru was a product of not knowing if she had a home to return to here in Colorado. Of course, she could never return to the way Peru was when she was a little girl or even as it was during her teen years. Life had been good then, although she supposed the same
machismo
attitudes existed. She just had not been affected by society’s rules and expectations of her gender then.