Authors: Kallypso Masters
Tags: #bondage, #Rescue Me, #Sex, #Romance, #Erotic, #Adult, #BDSM
Nobody's Dream
(Sixth in the
Rescue Me Saga
)
One broken heart.
One battered soul.
No one said life would be fair or easy. Quiet, Peruvian-born artist Cassie Lopez learned this the hard way. Betrayed by the man she planned to marry, she shut herself off as far away from all but her closest friend from college…
Until the night Luke Denton came crashing into her Colorado mountain sanctuary with a vengeance. Confused by her heart’s response to this kind and gentle man, Cassie pushes herself to help the cowboy recover quickly so she can send him on his way. But Luke’s patience and understanding threaten to break down the very defenses she needs to survive in this world after he’s gone.
Search-and-Rescue worker Luke, who lost his wife and unborn child in a tragic accident, also knows firsthand of the unfairness of life. He keeps his own nightmares at bay by focusing on his rescue activities, most recently adopting and working with abused and neglected horses.
Can two wounded people find trust and love together? Do nightmares end where dreams come true?
(Sixth in the Rescue Me Saga)
Kallypso Masters
Copyright © 2015 Kallypso Masters LLC
Nobody’s Dream
Sixth in the Rescue Me Saga
Kallypso Masters
Copyright © 2015, Kallypso Masters LLC
Kindle Edition
eBook ISBN: 978-1941060117
Published March 31, 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Edited by Rebecca Cartee, Meredith Bowery, Fiona Campbell, Jacy Mackin, Ekatarina Sayanova, and Jeri Smith
Professionally Proofread by Rebecca Cartee
Cover design by Linda Lynn
Formatted by
BB eBooks
Exclusive rights to cover photos granted by Ann Killeen and Candace Sword
Cover background image licensed through DepositPhotos;
(Images graphically altered by Linda Lynn)
This book contains content that is NOT suitable for readers 17 and under.
Thank you for downloading this e-book. Please be aware that this e-book is licensed for
your
personal enjoyment only. It may not be reproduced, uploaded to share on Web sites, e-mailed, or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author, Kallypso Masters, at
[email protected]
or PO Box 1183, Richmond, KY 40476-1183, or within the sharing guidelines at a legitimate library or bookseller’s lending programs.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction, sharing, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (See
http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/
for more information about intellectual property rights.)
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons—living or dead—or fictionalized places, events, or locales is purely accidental. The characters are reproductions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
To discover more about the books in this series, see the
Rescue Me Saga
section at the
end of this book
. For more about Kallypso Masters, please go to the
About the Author
section.
Reading Order
The first four books in this series are not stand-alone novels. Please read in order.
However,
Nobody’s Lost
can be read as a new entry point to the series.
(In a saga, of course, characters recur to continue working on real-life problems in later books.)
The first six Rescue Me Saga titles are available in e-book and print formats:
Masters at Arms & Nobody’s Angel (Combined Volume)
The “Next Expected Title in the Series” will be determined by which characters scream the loudest in the author’s head, but this is a series that will continue to have books in it as long as Kallypso Masters can write them down!
Also available in Spanish editions:
Sargentos Marines
(
Masters at Arms
in English)
El Ángel de Nadie
(
Nobody’s Angel
in English)
El Héroe de Nadie
(
Nobody’s Hero
in English)
Additional titles are being translated into Spanish as quickly as feasible, but it takes time to do a good translation!
Playlist for the Rescue Me Saga
To my husband, affectionately known by my fans as Mr. Ray or Hubby. You’ve put up with me all these years and are truly
my
Luke. Patient, consistent, honest, and loving. I’m looking forward to many more years with you and promise not to hide out in my office so much (well, unless I’m on deadline). Love to you from the depths of my soul. And now enjoy Cassie’s story. I know she’s been your favorite character in the Saga so far and hope my telling of her story exceeds your expectations!
To Toymaker, who has been a long-time source for me on my BDSM scenes, please continue to improve and listen to your brat!
Bringing this book to you—the biggest book I will ever write—has been a monumental effort. I have so many people to thank for helping me publish the best book I can. Helping me bring you this latest installment in the Rescue Me Saga were:
My editorial team for this book includes Meredith Bowery, Fiona Campbell, Rebecca Cartee, Jacy Mackin, Ekatarina Sayanova, and Jeri Smith. We began the editing process in June 2014, but my bout with cancer and needing to have major surgery in the fall derailed plans to release it. Most of them came back this year as I put the finishing touches on the story. They put up with my promising them a 170,000-word book (that is now at just under 230,000 words), with my missing deadlines and having meltdowns—and always have my back. Rebecca is the newest member of the team. She came on at the last minute to proofread and did such an amazing job of editing, I plan to make her a member of the team moving forward. Saya helped me make sure my lifestyle references are impeccable not to mention my grammar! Meredith knows the characters in this saga like members of her family and when I am off on someone’s motivations or actions, she let’s me know about it. Fiona provides her expertise on medical matters and, along with Rebecca, tries to get me to embrace the semi-colon. Well, I did accept a few of them! Jeri was my first paid editor way back with
Masters at Arms
. She is a strong developmental/content editor who makes me think about the actions and consequences of the actions my characters take, thus helping me to make the story so much more realistic. And Jacy, well, not only is she my comma Nazi, but she catches my inconsistencies and foibles—even when they are eight chapters apart—and let’s me know in no uncertain terms when I can do better. I love them all!
My awesome beta readers (some working last fall, some this year, and most both sessions) are Margie Dees, Cori DB, Iliana GK, Melanie Grossi, Kristin Harris, Kathy Holtsclaw, Kellie Hunter, Kelly Mueller, Jennifer P., Ruth Reid, Gilda Mary Sacca, and Lisa Simo-Kinzer—all of whom have read through the entire book (sometimes more than once!) and helped me fix both major and minor (but important!) problems. Sometimes they ask “what happened to” questions or indicate they just aren’t clear on something and I go off on a tangent to find a photo or something and it leads me to add a new element to the story. (I love these layers! I call them the “magic” of the story!)
I also had six amazing proofreaders who found typos and errors galore (usually not the same ones): Barb Jack, Alison K., Angelique Luzader, Eva Meyers, Christine Sullivan Mulcair, and Lynde Shaw.
Of course, I’m always changing something
after
my editorial team and subject experts sign off on a book and that invariably leads to new errors. This is why I delay the print version a couple of months in order to find them. So, as always, all typos and errors are solely
my
responsibility (and if you find any, please report them to Charlotte Oliver at
[email protected]
) by April 20, 2015, so we can correct the e-book version and include the corrections in the print version.
I also have a number of subject experts who help expand my knowledge base so that you can immerse yourself in the book and not be pulled out because a crucial detail was wrong. For this book, my thanks to:
Kim Bollinger, a labor-and-delivery nurse, who helped deliver Adam and Karla’s babies in a realistic way (after I am sure she guffawed at my fantasy version!).
Mr. Sayanova (Saya’s Sir) for reading over a crucial chapter and confirming that our “Baby Dom” is nothing short of a Dom. With permission, Saya also consults with him whenever she wants to make sure the Dom’s or male’s perspective is spot-on.
Author K.B. Gardener for tracking down some last-minute information about a photo with a rope design I wanted to replicate in one of the last scenes I wrote in the book.
Top Griz for his expertise on weapons, military, and Marine Corps references—and, as always provides a new Adam-ism for me. In this book, it’s “Who’s turn in the barrel?” when he’s looking for volunteers.
Ruth Reid, Ekatarina Sayanova, and Fiona Campbell for their feedback on the psychological aspects of PTSD and surviving a gang rape.
To the members of the Rescue Me Saga Discussion Group on Facebook who kept me writing by answering questions about past books that might have sent me researching for an hour or more. Usually, they had my answers within half an hour. They also are my sounding board for some ideas or even phrases (like, “Have you heard of “quaking aspens?”) I want to use but have discovered aren’t as common as I think. (That’s what the glossary is for! With betas and proofreaders on four continents, I think I have identified a lot of phrases and words that are a stumbling block!)
To Charlotte Oliver, my amazing personal assistant, whose help compiling multiple files from betas, editors, and proofreaders into a single document was so much more efficient for me! And for the day in and day out calming presence she is in my life!
The Kallypso’s Street Brats who always entertain me with their pimping exploits. And to my Masters Brats (fans) around the world. Without
all
of you telling your family and friends about my books, I never would have reached so many readers with these incredibly healing stories.
Leagh Christensen and Lisa Simo-Kinzer for taking care of my online groups and presence, and sometimes just reminding me to breathe.
For those of you who want to read a book focused on only one couple, well, my apologies. While I could have separated this into two books and pulled the many chapters about Adam and Karla into a short novel, I couldn’t segregate them away from Cassie and Luke. They are a family. The story does flow seamlessly, though, because the babies just happened to come at a time when Luke and Cassie needed some time to sort out where they would be going in their journey.
