The Outback Bridal Rescue (7 page)

‘Is Megan okay with you, Johnny?’ Ric asked.

‘She has accepted my financial help,’ he answered.

‘I told Ric the rescue package is in place,’ Mitch put in.

‘That’s not what he’s asking, Johnny.’

He heaved a rueful sigh. ‘She’s moved from hostile to passive neutral. I’m working on it, Ric. Given time…’

‘You don’t have much time,’ came the quiet reminder.

‘It’s hard for Megan to see past my…other interests. But I think we broke some barriers today.’

‘I’m worried about her,’ Mitch said. ‘She looked and sounded…defeated.’

Johnny frowned over the description, not liking it.

‘Megan is Patrick’s daughter. She’l fight her way up again.’

‘Be good if you could make it to friends before you leave, Johnny,’ Ric observed.

‘I’m working on it,’ he repeated.

‘Problem is…she’s so young,’ Mitch commented.

‘Not young for what she does here. She can handle it. I have no doubts on that score,’ Johnny said with certainty.

‘I meant…young…for understanding about you. You’re a bit of a cowboy, Johnny. I hope you didn’t ride too roughshod over her this morning.’

‘Roughshod! Let me tel you, if I’m a cowboy, she’s one hel of a prickly cactus.’

Ric laughed. ‘Got under your skin, did she?’

More than Johnny was prepared to admit. ‘I told you…

I’m working on it.’

‘Smooth it over,’ Mitch advised. ‘You’re good at that.’

Except his
charm
didn’t work with Megan.

Ric had the final word. ‘Make friends with her.’

Friends…

Johnny was having severe problems with that concept.

Easy enough to say it as a pacifier—
friends with a
common purpose.
It had been the safest thing to say to Megan in the circumstances. And he had to give her credit for trying to proceed on that basis. She’d stopped her snide attacks on him, been amenable to the financial arrangements he and Mitch had set up—absolutely no argument there—and after lunch, she’d wil ingly laid out to him the most urgent problems to be dealt with at Gundamurra.

Yet there was a sick distance in her eyes, a dul flatness to her voice, and while Johnny could respect the consummate knowledge and experience she’d displayed where the running of the sheep station was concerned, he’d been constantly distracted by the urge to cosset and comfort her. Not as a child, either.

He’d found himself becoming more and more conscious of her as a woman, studying her mouth, her ears, the few little curly tendrils of hair that hadn’t made it into the tight confinement of the clip at the back of her neck, the shape of her hands, the nervous mannerism she had of running her thumb over her fingerpads, making him want to wrap his own hand around hers and smooth away the fretting.

Al the talk about sexual experience this morning had its influence, as wel , stirring a host of tantalising thoughts, and urges that weren’t so high-minded. Had she ever known real pleasure with a man, or had the guy—guys?—she’d known at col ege been the crass sort who cared only about their own satisfaction? He suspected she’d been tightly buttoned up for years and that wasn’t right. He wanted to free her from those bad memories, make her stop wasting herself.

Or did he simply
want
her?

Certainly her fiery pride had stirred a caveman streak in him that itched to carry her off to bed, strip her of the clothes she wore to deny her sexuality, and force her to acknowledge she was a woman with needs that could be answered if she’d submit to letting it happen with him.

But she was dead against him as a man.

Much less a husband…

And there was no denying he had to get back to Arizona to finish the movie, leaving her in charge of Gundamurra.

This was not the time to make any move on Megan. His top priority was to establish and reinforce a working relationship that benefited the drought-stricken sheep station. When he returned—and that was months away—

she might look more kindly on him. It would be good to see warmth in her eyes. Oddly enough, he’d preferred the sparks of scorn to bleak grey.

The bunkhouse was empty—no jackaroos in residence.

Gundamurra was operating with only permanent staff who lived in cottages on the property.

The three of them automatical y headed for the bunks they had once occupied, flopping onto them, stretching out, remembering the fears and griefs and dreams they had shared in the darkness of long-ago nights.

They talked about Patrick, as only they could.

For Johnny, it reinforced al he felt about Gundamurra.

He made up his mind to take time out from his career once the movie was finished, come back and stay, find out if it held enough to keep him happy here. His life had moved a long way since he was sixteen. It had been quite a journey with many satisfying milestones, yet the tug of home had never been diminished.

And now Patrick had cal ed him home.

His last wil and testament.

Share Gundamurra with Megan.

Or should he give it up to her? Save it from bankruptcy, ensure it could continue running without any insurmountable disaster laying it completely to waste, then leave it to his daughter—a gift in return for the gift of life Patrick had held out to him.

What had been in Patrick’s mind when he’d written that wil ?

Johnny felt honour-bound to get it right.

But what was right?

His mind was torn in many directions and he couldn’t bring himself to talk them through with Ric and Mitch. The feelings he had about Megan were too private. And very possibly it would be wrong to act on them.

Eventual y they left the bunkhouse, said goodnight to each other. Johnny felt a stab of envy as his old friends went off to bed where the women who loved them would be waiting—women who knew and understood al about them and loved who they were. He walked alone around the verandah that skirted the inner quadrangle of the four-winged homestead, stopped at the door to his bedroom, felt too restless to go inside.

He moved over to the verandah railing, leaning on it as he gazed out at the one square of lawn on Gundamurra that was stil alive, watered by an underground bore, piped in especial y to keep this grass green. Patrick’s wife had insisted on it. She was happy to live in the outback, as long as she had one square of green to look at. Pepper trees had been planted at each corner of the quadrangle to provide shade for the bench seats placed under them.

This was where everyone on the station gathered on Christmas Eve, singing carols, making merry. Johnny usual y led them in the singing, playing his guitar, sitting on that bench…

He jolted upright.

Someone was sitting there now.

Megan.

He knew it instinctively.

Megan alone…as he was.

He didn’t stop to think she might want to be left to herself. His feet moved straight into action. The compulsion to close the distance between them pounded through Johnny’s heart. She didn’t have to be alone. He didn’t want her to feel alone. Patrick had wil ed him to be here for her.

Megan’s pulse rocketed into overdrive.

Johnny had seen her.

He was coming.

She’d meant to speak to him, had sat out here in the hope of catching him before he went to bed, yet courage had failed her when the opportunity had come. He’d been with Ric and Mitch, revisiting the bunkhouse, and she’d suddenly felt hopelessly young, having understood nothing of their backgrounds—how bad it had been for them—

because she’d only been six years old when they’d first come to Gundamurra.

Maybe the age gap was too big for her ever to cross.

Stupid dreams…

Why couldn’t she let them go?

‘Mind if I join you, Megan?’ His voice was soft and deep, seeming to carry the dark loneliness of the night.

She looked up. A big man. As big as her father. Broad shoulders. Ready and wil ing to carry the weight of Gundamurra on them. For her father. For her.

But
with
her? For the rest of their lives?

Her chest tightened up. She took a deep breath, fiercely told herself she had to be fair, and said, ‘I’d like you to, Johnny.’

He settled on the seat beside her, leaning forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, hands linked between his knees. ‘I miss him, too, Megan,’ he said softly, ‘though I guess your sense of loss encompasses much more, having been with your father every day, working with him…’

‘Don’t!’ She swal owed hard to press back the swift wel ing of grief. ‘I need to talk to you about…about something else,’ she rushed out.

‘Whatever you want,’ he gruffly offered.

Want…
He didn’t have a clue what she
wanted
of him.

Was it so hopeless? He hadn’t married. Hadn’t met anyone he felt right about bringing here. If she showed him she understood something of what he felt…though she didn’t real y. His pop-star life kept getting in the way.

He turned towards her, reached across and took her hand from her lap, wrapping his around it, holding it stil .

‘You’l wear your fingerprints out doing that,’ he gently chided. ‘Come on, Megan. Spit it out. You had no hesitation in letting me have it straight between the eyes this morning.’

‘But my aim was wrong, Johnny. I wanted to shoot you down in flames and…and I had it so screwed up…’

‘It’s okay,’ he soothed.

‘It’s not okay!’ she flared, not wanting to be
indulged.

‘Mitch told me I didn’t know where you were coming from and I just brushed that aside because I didn’t want to see…

didn’t want to know any good reason for Dad choosing
you.
’

‘I’m sorry it was such a bad shock, on top of everything else.’

His thumb caressed her palm, sending warm tingles right up her arm. It was difficult to keep her mind focussed on what had to be said. Al her defensive instincts were urging her to reject his touch, not let herself feel this treacherous thril of pleasure in it. Yet if she stopped being negative, stopped fighting…

‘I never asked Dad about you…’ she blurted out, determined on at least clearing the air between them. ‘…

about your life before you came here. You were just Johnny to me. Then later on you were Johnny, the star, making a big name for yourself.’

‘Al through your childhood and teen years, I liked the fact I was just Johnny to you, Megan. I would have liked it to stay that way. I had more than enough people only seeing me as a star,’ he said drily.

She was glad he couldn’t see the angst stirred by that statement. ‘I’m sorry I took a…a bad view of you.’

Whether he sensed the angst, she didn’t know, but he instantly injected some humour into his tone, trying to lighten the conversation. ‘Wel , it was certainly a change from the usual reaction I got from women. Brought me down to earth with a thump every time I came back to Gundamurra.’

‘Stop it, Johnny!’ she cried in exasperation. ‘I don’t want your charm. I’d rather know what’s behind it.’

She sought his eyes but he looked away, his gaze lifting to the stars in the sky. His hand started to squeeze hers, then relaxed again, as though he was very conscious of not transmitting tension. Yet she sensed it was coiled inside him, wound tightly around whatever it was he didn’t want to reveal.

‘When the three of you went off to the bunkhouse tonight, I had a talk with Lara and Kathryn,’ she pressed on. ‘I didn’t know what any of you had done to bring you here to Dad in the first place. I learnt a lot about Ric’s background. And Mitch’s. But they couldn’t tel me anything about you, Johnny.’

‘They had nothing to tel about me because there is nothing,’ he stated tersely. ‘Both Ric and Mitch have a family history. I don’t.’

‘But you must have a history,’ Megan persisted, determined to know. ‘Even an orphan has a history.’

‘None that I remember.’ He shot her a glittery look. ‘I was told my mother was a prostitute who died of a heroine overdose when I was two years old. No-one claimed me and I was placed in foster care. Whoever my biological father was—’ he shook his head ‘—no way of knowing.’

A two-year-old. Megan wondered how long it was before someone had found him after his mother had overdosed.

Probably best that he didn’t remember.

‘Your father was a father to me, Megan.’

Yes, she understood that. Yet… ‘What of your foster parents, Johnny?’

Again he shook his head. ‘There are people who should never be put in charge of children. I dropped out of the system when I was twelve. Went on the streets.’

Megan was shocked. He had spoken about abuse this morning, but how much abuse? What kind? She sensed he wasn’t about to tel her. He was brushing over the bare facts as it was. She moved on to what he might answer.

‘What about your education?’

‘The best education I got was from your father. It has served me far better than any academic learning could.’

Her father again. She hadn’t realised how very much he’d meant to a boy whose life had been empty of caring.

Worse…a life that had surely been coloured by total mistrust of anyone—a smile to ward off evils.

‘Where did you learn music?’ she asked.

‘The technical stuff from musicians. Guys in bands. But I made music in my head from very early on. It blocked out other things.’

And she had mocked his music as clever commercialism!

From what he’d said, even his songs were linked to what her father had taught him. Probably everything Johnny was now could be linked back to her father.

‘Dad gave you a guitar,’ she remembered.

‘Yes, he did. I stil have it. It’s the one I play for our Christmas carols.’

What he’d been given here meant so much to him. So much. And her father had known it.

Why choose Johnny El is?

Because Johnny had been more
his adopted son
than the others?

Was she more his daughter than Jessie and Emily?

She liked to think so, yet she had no doubt he’d loved them al , each for her own different and very individual qualities. She hadn’t ever real y appreciated how lucky she and her sisters had been—brought up in an environment where caring for them was taken for granted, parents who loved them, listened to them, did their best to provide whatever was needed so they could pursue their interests.