“I want a warm shower, but I need coffee,” she whined under her breath as she wiggled the kinks from her neck.

“Run!” Cody muttered in his sleep and began to flail around. “To the cave,” he said as his legs twitched even more. “Go! Don’t look back!”

She leaned over to get a better look at him in time to see him reach out and grab Dolly. He cradled the cat tightly against his chest and said, “I’ll carry you. Everything will be all right. Hang on, Dineo. It’ll be over soon, and we’ll patch you up.” Then he sat up, and his eyes popped wide open. Tears rolled down his unshaven cheeks when he looked down at the wiggling cat in his arms. “I’m so sorry, son. I’m so sorry.”

Stevie slung her legs over the side of the sofa bed and touched him gently on the shoulder. “Wake up, Cody. You’re dreaming.”

He blinked several times, and his frown deepened the beginnings of crow’s-feet around his eyes. Then he freed the cat and wiped his wet cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Are you all right?” Stevie asked.

“Just a nightmare,” he said.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Nope,” he answered as he got to his feet and headed to the bathroom.

She hadn’t been around anyone with PTSD, but she’d heard it was common among soldiers. Evidently, from the way Cody was behaving, he had a bit of it, and a young friend of his somewhere named Dineo had died. From the nightmares, he wasn’t over the death of his friend, and Stevie wondered how old the boy had been.

While he was in the bathroom, she went to the refrigerator and brought out a package of hamburger. Hash wouldn’t be a traditional breakfast, but it would keep them from starving. Her mouth watered when she thought about a big stack of pancakes covered with melted butter and maple syrup. That could very well be her first big meal when she and Cody were rescued. She tossed the burger in the skillet and set it on the stove, then made Dixie a bottle of alpaca formula and fed it to her. The cria left a little that time around, so Stevie poured it into the one bowl they had and set it down for the kittens, who fought over it—as usual.

Stevie thought of what Cody had said about siblings having arguments. She didn’t care if siblings fought. If she ever got to have a family, she fully intended to have a houseful of kids.

Cody finally came out of the bathroom and sniffed the air. “That doesn’t smell like bacon and eggs or sausage gravy.”

He wouldn’t make a very good poker player, not when he couldn’t hide anything on his face. His expression told Stevie that the nightmare had brought on painful memories.