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She rolled to her feet. “Well, you got some. Let’s get you inside and warm. We’ll talk when you’re ready.”
~oOo~
Kelsey got Dex into the house. He quietly, even meekly, went where she told him. She sat him in the middle of his sofa, pulled a fluffy throw from the arm and wrapped it around him. As soon as she stepped back, the dogs jumped up and got back to work warming him up.
His only real independent reaction was to lift an arm and set it over Ripper’s shoulders.
Kelsey turned his thermostat up to eighty degrees, got a fire going in his fireplace, and went to the kitchen to get something hot for him to drink. He had coffee, but an old-fashioned coffee pot she didn’t understand. There was tea, plain Lipton bags, and considering the hour that was probably better anyway, but he didn’t have a kettle. Microwave it was, then.
He took his coffee black, so she made a guess that he’d like his tea that way as well. She made them both cups of tea and carried them back to the living room. Dex was exactly as she’d left him, her coat over his legs, the throw over his shoulders, his arms over Charlie and Ripper, the other dogs nestled on and around his legs. Lizzie sat smugly on his lap, as if the excitement were in her honor.
Dex stared at her tiny fire, which was just beginning to look like it would turn into something. He was still shivering, and his color had a bluish-grey tinge she didn’t like at all.
“Can you drink this?”
He looked up at her as if she’d spoken in tongues. “Huh?”
She lifted a mug. “Tea. Hot, but I hope not too hot. To help you warm up.”
“Oh.” He took the mug from her. His nailbeds were markedly blue.
With his pack all around him there was no room for Kelsey on the sofa. She took the chair by the fireplace and sipped her tea.
“Let me know when you feel like you can talk.”
He stared at the mug in his hands. “Why are you here?”
The feeling that hit Kelsey first was rejection, but she recognized it for what it was and refused to let it hurt. Then she wondered if she should tell him that Gunner had sent her, but discarded that as too complicated. So she said, “You didn’t return my texts. I knew you were on a job, so I was worried.”
The mention of the job made his shoulders twitch. “Yeah. Sorry.”
After those two words he fell into quiet again. Kelsey let him be quiet while she considered what to do next. She had questions, but more than that, she wanted to know he was okay, that she was giving him what he needed. So she watched him, saw his color moving into healthy territory, saw his muscles relaxing. Saw his dogs relaxing. That last was probably the best indication that he’d be okay.
Physically, at least.
Finally, he took a long, deep breath, and she thought he was growing at least physically comfortable.
“Are you feeling better?”
He looked at her. He was frowning, but that was typical. Was it a confused frown? Irritated? Weary? Something harder?
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Better. Thanks.”
All his answers were going to be single-word sentences, apparently. That was pretty typical, too.
She tried again. “Is that what you meant when you told me you ‘lose time’?”
He nodded.
That seemed like a pretty significant mental health issue. “Where are you, when you’re so far away?”
His shoulders flexed in a reluctant shrug. “It’s complicated.” He drained his mug and leaned forward, careful not to jostle the dogs, to set the mug on his coffee table.
“Dex, talk to me. Please.”
“It’s PTSD. Sometimes, when it gets triggered, I—like I said, I get lost in my head.”
