She shook her head, pulling her knees up to match his so she wouldn’t feel so limp. “They just happen, LJ.”

“I scared you. Both times.” His eyes flicked away, and when they came back, there was a light in them that was almost pleading. “But I thought if you knew of other things that caused them, too, or if we could nail down a pattern, maybe we could shake you loose of it.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What, like I’m one of your colts and you just need to blow an air horn a couple of dozen times until I’m used to it?”

His shoulders hunched and he dropped his knees, sitting cross-legged instead. “I don’t know. There’s got to be something we can do, right? They’re not . . . permanent.”

“I’m not a stupid animal, LJ.” Her hands fisted around the tissue, and she gritted her teeth. She shouldn’t be yelling at him after what she had put him through, but seriously? “I can think through my own fear. I do it a thousand times every freaking day, okay? But this?” She threw an arm out. “My brain, my body, my everything locks down. I can’t control it, and it’s like I woke up in that room all over again and everything I took for granted about life was gone.” She shut her mouth. Fast, hard, because he didn’t need to share that moment with her. No one did.

She shoved to her feet.

The kitchen was a wreck. Of course it was. She had been totally butchering dinner, but she’d been in too good of a mood to care if her experiment failed. She grabbed the pot with the shreds of garlic floating in it and dumped the contents into the sink. A cloud of steam billowed up from the water and fogged the window above it, blurring the sunset light in the meadow grass out front.

“You want me to go?” His voice was quiet, and he was still on the floor.

She dropped the pot in the sink and gripped the edge of the counter, letting her head fall. “No. I’m sorry, LJ. None of this is your fault, and I’m sorry you keep ending up in the middle of it.”

“The hell it isn’t.” He shook his head. “I’m the trigger. That’s what you don’t want to say.” He jerked to his feet and headed for the door.

“Even just the sound of metal creaking will do it,” she said, and he stopped. “Smells, dozens of them. I don’t even know what they all are. One specific brand of laundry detergent, spilled beer.” She swallowed. “It’s not being scared so much as being startled that triggers it. When I don’t know it’s coming.”