at him and chewed her bottom lip.
“Yeah, that’s me.” He growled out. “Oddly comforting.”
Then without further hesitation, P.J. picked Juliet up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her into the bathroom. There he proceeded to slice through Juliet’s clothing.
The room was so full of steam, Juliet could barely see P.J. However, she heard him loud and clear when he said, “There’s shampoo and a fresh bar of soap on the tile ledge. I’ll give you a couple of minutes, then I’m coming in.”
“What?” Juliet squeaked out in horror.
“Walk in shower, two heads, and I lost the feeling in both nuts about an hour and a half ago, so give the whole Pollyanna thing a rest.” P.J. ordered her. Then he handed Juliet a fresh washcloth and shoved her into the thick steam.
Once under that hot spray, Juliet sighed with relief and didn’t think about anything else but the way the steam enveloped her cramped, stiff freezing limbs in warmth.
P.J. stood on his side of the shower, feeling the most uncomfortable he had ever been in his life. His mind was telling him that standing in the shower inches away from a very naked Juliet was necessary.
“Really? You couldn’t have waited?” Jiminy Cricket tapped him on the shoulder.
“Great.” P.J. snarled back at his conscience. “Now you show up? Where the hell have you been for the past twenty years?”
Truly, his moral compass could rest at ease. Because the reassurance that P.J. had given to Juliet had not been bullshit. He really had had no ulterior motives when he stepped into that shower with her. Using all his strength to save Juliet and battling the raging storm had been exhausting. P.J. was chilled to the core.
However, P.J. was also a red blooded, fully grown man. It’d been a while since he’d had a woman, and this proximity to a buck naked Juliet was seriously putting P.J. over the edge. But he knew with abject certainty that now wasn’t the time, and even if it was, Juliet had never given him a sign that she was the least bit interested. Making a move on her now would be nothing short of rape, and P.J. had no intentions of ever being that guy. When he had been holding the Saints gavel, P.J. had once ordered that guy to be beaten almost to death for his crime. So, after P.J. had washed away the mud from his body, he gave himself an extra few seconds to warm up under the hot water. Then he took his clean body and dirty thoughts and got his ass out of there.
When P.J. got out of the shower, he put on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long sleeved tee shirt. He turned up the heat and built a roaring fire in the fireplace. After that, P.J grabbed two of his own shirts one thermal and one flannel and a pair of wool socks. He hoped that between the heat, the fire, the warm clothes, and a hot meal Juliet would be okay. P.J. put two bowls of hot soup and a half dozen ham and cheese sandwiches on the table. He could hear the water in the shower still running, and even though the cabin had a huge hot water tank, that steam wouldn’t last forever. When Juliet didn’t answer his knock, P.J. went into the bathroom. He found her sitting on the shower floor with her hands wrapped around her legs, and her head buried in the top of her knees. Juliet’s emotional dam had burst. She was rocking and shaking with the force of her sobs.
“Jesus, Juliet.”
P.J. grabbed the bath sheet from the edge of the sink, shut off the steady stream of water, bent down, and wrapped Juliet into the towel. Then he carried Juliet into the living room where he sat her down on the couch and piled thick blankets on top of her. P.J. decided to wait on the soup and instead poured a cup full of blackberry brandy, honey and lemon into a pan and let it simmer until it was thick and warm. He brought out a huge box of tissues, sat down next to Juliet and wrapped his arms around her heaving shoulders. Then he fed her small sifts of brandy in between her hiccupping sobs.
P.J. had never seen so many tears in his life. They just kept coming. They spilt over from Juliet’s eyes and flowed down her cheeks like the notes of a sad song.