Free Nobody's Dream by Kallypso Masters Page A

loss.
    *     *     *
    Luke ached from head to calves when he sat up in the tiny bed and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. How long had he slept this time? He had no concept of time in his windowless prison room. Last he remembered, he was spilling his guts to Cassie about Maggie. What had prompted that much revelation? He rarely talked about that day to anyone.
    Sitting up was a chore, harder than training a horse to saddle and rider. Hell, much as he hated calling that process breaking a horse, he felt like the one who had been broken this time. A shiver made him aware he was half-naked. He’d been the one to strip off his clothes after that nightmare. He had finally warmed up, but being out from under the covers reminded him that he was at twelve thousand feet, near a mountain pass, in a cold-ass cabin.
    Damn, but Cassie kept this place glacial, despite the space heater she’d left running for him in here. No wonder she wore so many layers of clothes. He needed to work on that fireplace blower today. He hoped it wouldn’t require any parts he couldn’t fashion himself out of whatever she had laying around.
    What day was it? His internal clock had been broken, too. Noticing a floor lamp for the first time, Luke flipped the switch, but didn’t see a clock in the room. He glanced around the seriously utilitarian bedroom. He thought his house was bare of ornamentation, but at least his mom had put some of her soft touches here and there—chenille bedspread, fake flowers in pots in the kitchen, even the bowl of seashells in his bathroom that he’d collected at Galveston Beach on a rare vacation when he was nine. Momma was sentimental about things like that and had kept them all those years.
    Cassie’s bedroom was small and dark and had no mementos whatsoever to hint at her past. Kind of reminded him of how a monk or nun lived in the olden days. Hell, even they probably had more personal touches in their rooms than he saw in this one. The only splashes of color came from the Indian blankets on her bed. The geometric patterns in vibrant greens and reds on one blanket counterbalanced the somber blacks and whites of another. He wondered if she’d made them herself. No, probably not. They looked like heirlooms. And at daVinci’s bar, she’d said fiber art was new to her.
    Then again, she might have used a loom back in her home country—Bolivia? No, Peru. Many people made a distinction between creating functional items like blankets as opposed to artwork only to be displayed on a wall but never used. He didn’t agree with that thinking. He preferred creating pieces of art that would be useful items as well, like the furniture he made for his and other people’s homes, or even play equipment for the Masters at Arms kink club. Somehow, he could see Cassie feeling the same way about functional art—even if she only enjoyed the art herself at home.
    But she had done that gallery exhibition of her paintings months ago, so clearly she wanted to share her art. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen many decorations on her walls anywhere in the cabin, so maybe her art was only created to be shared with or sold to others. Not for her to enjoy.
    In this room, the cabin’s chinking and logs provided the only wall adornment. Hell, who slept in a room without a window? Did she enjoy living in a cave? More like a tomb. How could someone living on a gorgeous mountain peak want to be so closed off from all that beauty? If he’d built this place, he’d not only have a window, but a skylight above the bed so he could watch the stars come out at night and make their trek across the sky.
    He shook his head to clear it of his fanciful notions. How Cassie chose to live was none of his business.
    Luke grabbed his shirt from the ladder-back chair beside the bed, again showing she had an appreciation for functional art. Next, he pushed his feet and legs into his jeans. With a grunt, he rose and waited for the expected