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But he was rooted to the spot.
Chapter Sixteen
They'd brought the refreshments back to the picnic table. Dale sat down next to Regina on her side of the bench so they could both watch Marius's progress. They'd seen him wander through the junk yard, then approach the dog kennels, circle and pause at the cat building several times. Regina's brow creased as he at last moved toward the door as if he was being pulled there by rope. Then he disappeared inside.
Dale was already rising. Regina put out a hand. "Let me go see what's happening first."
Dale nodded, but continued to collect his crutches. "You'll get there faster, but I'll be right behind."
"He won't hurt them."
"You don't know that. Neither do I. I should have told him it was off-limits unless I was with him, but I didn't think he'd go in there, after his wariness of the dogs. Go."
She strode away at a fast pace, then broke into a jog. It didn't help that Tempest met her half-way and spun to lead her back, a worried look on her heavily jowled face. Marius, please don't have done anything. If he had, she'd seriously misjudged him, and would have to re-evaluate everything.
No, she hadn't misjudged him, she knew that. Yet Dale had warned her. They'd had a significant breakthrough, and there'd be fallout. She knew as well as Dale did that PTSD could play tricks with a man's mind, changing the reality around him as decisively as a hallucinogen.
As she entered the cat building, she saw there was a second screen door to access the cats. There was a kitten clinging to the mesh, mewling at her, but Marius had made sure the screen door caught securely, so there was no chance the creature could get out. She turned the latch and slipped inside, detaching the tiny claws from the screen and lowering the kitten back to the floor. "Marius?"
The adult cats were bathing, eating, or playing on carpeted towers in their separate enclosures, about three or four cats per area. They didn't seem agitated, which reassured her. She noted a giant brown tabby tom cat with torn ears and a baleful yellow gaze eying her from the top of one of the enclosures, rather than from inside. He had a carpeted platform up there and was settled on his perch with his legs folded beneath him. He reminded her of a Chinese emperor with his arms threaded into his robes, staring down at his supplicants with terrifying inscrutability.
She wrinkled her nose at him. "You don't scare me," she told him. Never mind that he looked like he might pounce on her head and gouge out her eyes. He lifted his back leg and started to bathe his privates, which she assumed was the feline equivalent of arrogant indifference.
Her gaze slid around the area. Had Marius gone out the back door? Where... And then she found him.
Toward the rear of the building, there was a smaller enclosure, probably intended for the corralling of the kittens when Dale was cleaning or letting the adults out to exercise in the communal area. The door stood open and a handful of loose kittens seemed to be darting in and out of that space.
As she moved toward it, Marius came into view. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, against the back wall. She paused in the doorway.
A black kitten with a couple sparse white markings on feet and chest was sitting in his two cupped hands, bathing itself. Another one, a yellow tabby, was on his knee, kneading his jeans. Two others played with a yarn toy beside his hip.
His muscles were bunched, as if he were holding something much heavier than a kitten, and he was quivering. His eyes were closed, head bowed. As the kitten unconcernedly curled up, his fingers curved inward, making the nest more secure. She realized then his ey
es weren't closed, just lowered, watching the animal. As she moved to stand before him and dropped to her heels, her breath caught in her throat.
The night he'd told her what his father had done, she'd heard the raw pain inside him, unable to be unleashed. It was too awful, too terrible. Tears were for things that could be healed, washed away. There was nothing to heal or wash away those memories, not in the re-telling.
But now, as she touched his chin, she saw silent tears running down his face. That was why his muscles were so tight. He was breaking apart from the inside, only his frame holding him together. He met her gaze, his gray eyes swimming.
"She came to me," he said brokenly. "Climbed on me like it was okay. She's so little, so easy to hurt, but she doesn't know it. She doesn't ever have to experience that fear. Not ever."
"No. She doesn't. She's in good hands." She touched his.
He swallowed. She moved her fingertips to his face, her thumb tracing the tear tracks. "Marius," she said softly.
His face got even tighter, more tears tumbling. "People who don't...who haven't been there...they don't know. They don't know how helpless... We're all like a kitten, no matter how tough and big we think we are."
His gaze snapped up to her. "They don't know what it's like to be pulled into something you can't stop, where you're paralyzed, you can't move."
"Duncan," she said gently, covering his hands with hers, drawing his attention down. "Ease up. You're trying to clench your fists."
He loosened his grip so abruptly he would have dropped the kitten if she wasn't holding both his hands in hers, a nest within a nest. He hadn't affected the kitten's repose, but she wanted to make sure he didn't do anything to disrupt what his mind was working through.
"If you really know," he said, gazing down at the kitten, "you don't talk about it, not to anyone, because there's a part of you afraid that you'll make it happen all over again. And plus, when you feel too much, you go back there in your head. Over and over. Less you feel, less helpless you feel."
"I know." She cupped the side of his neck, stroked him with a firm touch. "But if you're in good hands, just like that kitten is now, you can be truly helpless and find something good."
The words might or might not be penetrating. His gaze was haunted. "I never wanted a place to live, or to adopt a cat or dog. Not until you. Roots mean you stay still. I didn't want to stay still. Things catch up to you when you stay still. I don't deserve anyone's trust, especially not a Mistress's."
