“Yeah, well, while you are giggling and waxing romantic about P.J. and I getting stuck in the storm together, think about the fact that I now have no car, and a freezer full of pints of Rainforest Crunch and Chunky Monkey that might be melting away as we speak.” Juliet lamented to her friend.
“Well. That’s bad. But I suppose there are worse things.” Layla responded with uncharacteristic practicality.
And Juliet could not have agreed more.
It was hours later that P.J. made his way back to the house. If he never saw another damn drop of rain, he’d die a happy man. He was so tired of being cold, wet, and pissed off. Reggie and he had worked non-stop to help the town out with storm debris. Not to mention that Juliet’s car had been a bitch to move out. In the end, they had had to call in a wrecking crew company. The owner was Rudy Daltry. He was Reggie’s second cousin by marriage, and part of the Thirsty Thursday card playing crew. When he got the call, he did P.J. a solid by putting Juliet’s car at the top of his list. Even with a sizeable discount, P.J. had paid Rudy a hefty sum to get Juliet’s car out of the mud and into the junkyard. Juliet and the insurance adjuster could take it from there.
Juliet.
If shame were an emotion that P.J. was capable of feeling, he would be feeling it now. No matter how much the damn woman riled him up, he should never had lost his temper like that. The knuckles on his right hand were all bruised, swollen, and stiff, but that was nothing compared to the damage he had just done to their relationship. P.J. was pretty much convinced that Juliet had been abused by her man. Now P.J. had done everything he could to make sure that she would think of him in the same way…as a man capable of totally scaring the crap right out of her. He had never felt like a bigger asshole in his life.
P.J. knew that Reggie had called Layla to let her know that Juliet was okay and at P.J.’s house. He figured that once the roads had been pretty well cleared, Layla would have arranged to pick Juliet up and bring her home. As such, P.J. really had no desire to go back to an empty house. Although Juliet had only been there one night, P.J. felt as if she had made her mark on the place. The sheets would still carry her scent when he went to bed alone that night, and the logs in the fire would remind him of her lying safe and cozy in his arms. It was a small thing, but he had especially liked having coffee with her in the morning. The thought that she wouldn’t be there when he woke up tomorrow, or maybe ever again, set P.J.’s teeth on edge.
“Hey,” She smiled nervously at him. “I hope you don’t mind. I rummaged through your refrigerator and found some vegetables and stuff. I made stew.”
P.J. stood in the middle of his living room looking at the table set for dinner. He looked from the lit candles to Juliet and then back again. A million questions ran through his mind, the biggest one being… what the hell was Juliet still doing here in his house when P.J. had given her every reason to run for her life?
Juliet had tidied up the living room, and P.J. could see through the open door in the bathroom that the bathroom had been scrubbed clean of the grit and mud from the night before. Dinner smelled amazing. But mostly, that hole in the wall glared at him in reproach. P.J. scrubbed a hard hand over his jaw and thought What the hell? Every encounter he had ever had with this woman bordered on the bizarre, and the last twenty-four hours had been no exception. First, he had found Juliet stuck deep in the mud looking like something right out of a monster movie. Then, in his bed? Juliet unleashed was seriously the best sex that P.J. had ever had in his life and considering how much sex he had had up to this point, that was saying a lot. And now after an argument that had ended with him throwing a punch through a wall, Juliet was not only still there, but she was also serving up homemade in his kitchen.
“It smells good,” he muttered. Then P.J. shook his head in question. “But…”
“But what, P.J.?” She interrupted gently.
“What in the hell are we doing here, Juliet?”
“First off, you owe me an apology.” She frowned at him. “You yelling at me like that was totally undeserved.”
P.J. looked at Juliet with a mixture of surprise and chagrin. The surprise was that she had the balls to call him out on his bad behavior, and the chagrin was for the behavior itself. “Yeah, well, I ‘m sorry for that.”
“And for the wall.” She looked with meaning towards the hole.
“Especially for the wall.” P.J. said it and he meant it. “I’m not a violent man, Juliet. I’ve done violent things, but I am not a violent man. I shouldn’t have yelled at you; I shouldn’t have thrown that punch. And I want you to know I would never hurt you.”
“I know. I know that you would never purposefully hurt me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean that you not letting the past go, that will hurt me.” Then she paused and added. “That will hurt us.”
“Us?” P.J. arched his brow in
