She started to tremble again, her cheeks stark white and shading to gray. She was looking right at him. Jesus, she knew who he was, she knew where she was, and she was still terrified. Her father had been right to try to keep him away. It wasn’t her memories that had frightened her. It was him.

Nausea roiled in his stomach, and he had to swallow saliva back to keep from throwing up.

He rolled up onto his knees before her. “Please,” he whispered, his voice as gentle as he knew how to make it. “Please be okay. I need you to be okay.”

Her little gasps were getting weaker. Even if he called her dad right now, Bill could never get here in time. Could a panic attack actually kill you? Why the hell hadn’t he researched that when he had all the time in the world? Back when she was still breathing.

Why didn’t she scream? Throw something at him? Shit, he wanted to scream. Anything but this terrible, breath-held howl of silence.

LJ grabbed her by both arms. “Hit me.”

Not a blink. Not even a flinch this time.

On the stove, the garlic water boiled over with a hiss of steam. He shook Andra, his knuckles smacking into the cabinet behind her. “Hit me, damn it!” he shouted.

She moved. Finally, finally she moved, her hand twitching against his chest as she pushed at him.

“Come on, you can do better than that.” He crowded right up into her face. “Come on, punch me. Hurt me. Make me leave you the fuck alone.”

She turned her face away and shoved, the strength coming back into her arms.

“Harder!” he shouted.

This time he got a fist. As he was drawing in a breath to yell at her again, another hit landed, and then she was screaming, coming at him with both hands at once. The punches slammed into his chest, his arms, battered into the thin skin over his ribs, each impact like an exhalation of relief. He’d never felt anything so glorious.

And then they stopped. She blinked at him, her gaze focusing on his, with her fist still upraised.

“Andra?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and it took everything he had left not to reach for her. Instead, he scooted back, giving her the space she’d fought for, that she so obviously needed. His touch only made everything worse.

A sob caught in her throat, and she moved, so much faster now that she was in his lap before he realized what she intended to do. Her arms clutched tight around his back.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “LJ, I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t have a prayer of resisting this time. He was holding her before he could debate leaving versus staying or even taking the pot off the stove.