All at once Juliet was filled with a sudden and unpredictable emotion. She sat straight up as she felt an extreme weight lift off her shoulders. The realization hit her in full force and served to shine a light into all the shadows and dark corners of her mind.
She hadn’t known who he was.
Juliet couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t rationalize or define why, after one suicide attempt and months and months of being treated at a high priced insane asylum, that it was ultimately that picture of Kenny that finally released her.
Juliet had always believed that the man had been trapped inside the monster, but now, Juliet realized that the monster had been trapped inside the man. For the first time ever, Juliet felt sorry for Kenny. And she forgave him. Not for the slaughter of the innocents, those sins were not hers to forgive.
But for the rest of it, she forgave him.
And that forgiveness set her free.
P.J. looked over at Juliet as she slept with her head propped against the car window. His chest puffed out just a little when he thought about their lovemaking the night before. Ha…lovemaking he let out a soft chuckle. It was a good phrase, and one that he had never, ever, thought would apply to what happened between himself and a woman in his bed. P.J. could think of a whole bunch of other names he had used for it, but the word love had never crossed his mind.
What happened between Juliet and P.J was like nothing he had ever experienced before. In truth, P.J. had never known that kind of depth of feeling existed. When he thought about it, like he was doing now, it amazed him. Looking across the seat to her, he really thought that they might have a chance. It almost made him regret sending Juliet’s wallet to Jules.
That night that P.J. had found her wallet in the mud it had almost been game over. He had reached for the wallet, had meant to open it, but then the strangest feeling had come over him. The story of Pandora and her box had been the one thing that he remembered from high school English class.
As P.J. remembered it, the story had been about a god named Prometheus. Prometheus had thought that he was a badass and stole fire from heaven to give to a world of men. What Prometheus had done totally pissed the rest of the gods off. So, as payback, they created the first woman, a beauty named Pandora. The king of the gods, Zeus gave her a gift. It had been a pretty box, but the gift had come with a catch. And the catch was that she couldn’t ever open that box. No matter what. But Pandora, being a badass herself, was having none of it. As soon as Zeus was out of the picture, Pandora took that lid right off. And when she did, out swarmed all the trouble in the world. And the hell of it was, none of it could be put back.
So, taking the myth as a cautionary tale, P.J. had decided not to open that wallet. However, after that whole car in the mud thing, Juliet and P.J.’s relationship had stepped up a couple of notches. And he had decided that he wanted to keep that momentum going. As a matter of fact, P.J. intended to ask Juliet to move in with him. But before he did that, he was going to have to know all there was to know about Juliet, and she still wasn’t talking. Bringing her into his life meant bringing her into his family’s life. Although P.J. was confident that nothing in Juliet’s past could change the way he felt about her, it wasn’t about that. He had the family business…the club to protect.
And so, with that in mind, P.J. had finally decided to send the wallet off to Uncle Jules. Now P.J. McCabe was only hours away from finding out all he needed to know about Juliet Jones. And he hoped that the matter of that other identification that Juliet carried with her could be easily explained. Because, frankly, he had bigger fish to fry.
It had been the Saints president, Jet Matthews who had called last night to alert P.J. that there was a problem with the guns. P.J. had always been willing to take the gamble of storing the illegal weapons in his warehouse, because it had been a calculated risk. The weapons were never stored for long at the shop, and the right palms had been heavily greased to look the other way during drop off, pick up and transport.
But now it was a big election year and Senator Jayworth, who had been on the Saints payroll for years, was losing in the most recent polls. To gain advantage, his opponent had been spending boatloads of money on negative campaign ads targeting Jayworth on everything from taxes to gun control. Which meant that Jayworth had to spend boatloads of money to fight back. Recently, he had been making noise and getting greedy. Dumb bastard. P.J. had never liked the Senator. He was in his seventies now, and his ties to the club went back over thirty years. Because the Uncles knew him better than anyone, Jet had arranged a meet with the family to discuss the matter while P.J. was home. So much for a nice relaxing stay.
But the trip wasn’t all about P.J. either, and he knew that. It was about Juliet and the fair play he felt he owed her. If he was entitled to all he needed to know about her,
