Becoming Juliet - Paula Marinaro Page 0,34
fools who drink themselves silly every week at our expense. If P.J. wins, he stays long enough to give the guys a chance to win some back. My sister and he had a brief thing, but it didn’t work out.”
“How brief?” Juliet asked too quickly. And when Layla raised a brow, Juliet added, “I mean, isn’t it weird when you all get together and stuff?”
“Not at all. It was a long time ago when P.J. roared into town on that motorcycle of his.” Layla started to divide the peck of apples into two smaller buckets as she reminisced. “Yeah, as you can imagine P.J. McCabe caused quite the stir. All brooding and bad boy, half of the girls in town were swooning over him. Kendra caught his eye, not that she didn’t put herself in his path at every opportunity. I’ll tell you, if I wasn’t so head over heels in love with that fool of mine, I might have gone after P.J. myself. But then again Kendra was always the pretty one.” Juliet couldn’t imagine anyone more beautiful than Layla Dumont. With her white blonde hair, blueberry eyes, and peaches and cream skin she was the definition of the word natural beauty. Not to even mention legs that went on for eternity and the kind of breasts that made men have a hard-time concentrating.
If Layla Dumont is P.J.’s measure of beauty, I’ll never stand a chance the thought flashed unbidden through Juliet’s mind and made her blush. If Layla noticed, she didn’t say anything.
Layla handed Juliet one of the baskets and they started walking towards the car. “Kendra was always spoiled rotten and used to getting what she wanted.” Layla continued on. “And of course, what she wanted that summer was the resident bad boy. After a couple of weeks of the best sex Kendra had ever had in her life…her words. It just sort of ended. Kendra wouldn’t talk about it, but I think he scared her.”
“You mean…?” Juliet asked in alarm.
“No, no nothing like that. I think P.J. was just too much for Kendra to handle. Of course, she would never have admitted it.” Layla rolled her eyes. “But that was about a zillion boyfriends ago. Now she’s married to Doug the dentist. They have a big house, two ridiculous looking dogs, and a Lexus. They live in Texas now.”
“And what about P.J.?”
“What about him?”
“Did he move on too?”
“Now, that right there is the million dollar question. I’ll say this, he doesn’t dip in the town pond. But a big, strong, gorgeous hunk of a man like that has to have his needs, right?” Layla chewed her lip in concentration, then her eyes went wide as if she had just experienced an epiphany. “Hey, P.J. will be at our annual Harvest Party. It would be a good chance for you to talk to him. He really is a great guy if you can get past all that Raging Bull kind of stuff.”
“I appreciate the sentiment but I’m not looking to be set up, Layla.” Juliet told her gently.
“Honey, even if you were looking for that, I’m no matchmaker.” Layla clicked the button on her key ring and unlocked the car. “And if a little hell cat like my sister, Kendra, hadn’t felt that she could handle P.J.? Well, in my book, that says a whole lot. Besides, no matter how tight you think you are with a guy like P.J. McCabe, there are lines that you just don’t cross and setting him up with a woman is one of them.” Layla put the key in the ignition and started up the jeep. Then she turned to look at Juliet. “Anyway, all I am saying is that he’ll be there, and you’ll be there.” Then Layla smiled wickedly when she added, “it wouldn’t hurt to wear something pretty.”
Every year P.J. helped Reggie set up for the Dumont harvest party. Once everything had been all sorted, organized, and moved a zillion times according to Layla’s direction, P.J. and Reggie would light up expensive cigars and down a couple of shots of Hennessey. P.J. would stay long enough to make Layla happy, then as soon as she was otherwise engaged, he would slip out the back. And sometimes for P.J. even that was too long. But he knew that Layla in party mode was a lot to handle, so P.J. didn’t mind helping out.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know anyone at the party. In truth, he knew just about