The Outback Bridal Rescue (13 page)

His mind clicked instantly to the e-mailed reports of what she’d done at Gundamurra. Had she baulked at using his money, after al ? He hadn’t checked, believing everything she’d told him. Surely she wouldn’t have carried out such an elaborate deceit. From the air, the vast sheep station had stil looked drought-stricken, but since there’d been no rain, he hadn’t expected to actual y
see
a difference. Tomorrow, he’d thought, she would show him.

‘What did you lie about?’ he asked, doing his utmost to keep calm.

Her lashes fel . Her mouth twitched into a rueful grimace.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to meet his gaze squarely, then laid it out. ‘The night we spent together…I told you I was protected…and I wasn’t.’

It took him several moments to unscramble his mind which had been total y focussed on possible problems at Gundamurra. Then it took several more moments for the implication of her words to sink in. The shock of it robbed him of any ready speech.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she shot at him in case he hadn’t put it together.

Right!
he thought, stil unable to produce a verbal response. He simply stared at her as understanding flooded through his mind. Evelyn knew. No hiding a three-month pregnancy from Evelyn. She’d known about Lara’s pregnancy. Probably remembered his reaction to that piece of news, too, letting Ric know immediately so his old friend understood Lara’s position and could act on it if he wanted to.

Evelyn would have advised Megan that Johnny had to be told. But what did Megan want of him?

That was the big question.

Though instantly overriding it was
what he wanted.

Megan was pregnant with his child.

There was no question about what should be done.

‘We get married,’ he said, pushing off the desk to stand tal and determined against any opposition she threw at him.

‘Married,’ she repeated, as though she couldn’t believe he had made that leap.

‘I think Mitch told me it can’t be done under a month. We can fly to Bourke tomorrow, sign whatever papers have to be signed for legal notice…’

‘Johnny, people don’t get married over a pregnancy anymore,’ she cried, her arms unfolding, hands flapping in agitation. ‘Especial y when…’

‘It was just a night of sex?’ he finished for her, al his doubts about Megan’s motivation for that night crowding into his mind.

He watched her flounder, so many emotions flitting across her face, it was impossible to decipher what she was thinking. Johnny decided it didn’t matter. The only important end to this conversation was to give the child she was carrying—
his child
—the kind of security every child deserved to have.

‘Look!’ she final y pleaded. ‘I did something stupid…

wilful…’

‘We’re al guilty of rash acts from time to time, Megan,’

he said sympathetical y.

‘I’m responsible for the consequences, not you, Johnny,’

she shot back at him.

‘That’s beside the point. Whether planned or not, I’m the father of this child,’ he stated simply.

‘It doesn’t mean you have to marry me.’ Wild pride in her eyes.

‘Do you have a problem with being my wife?’

No answer.

Anguished uncertainty in her eyes.

The sex between them had been good, Johnny argued to himself. She couldn’t deny that. And he was co-owner of Gundamurra. Difficult for her to marry some outsider when she had a child by the man who would continue to share her home.

‘I’m here, Megan,’ he pressed. ‘You can’t send me away.

I’m not going away. Why not accept—’

‘But you
will
go away,’ she broke in vehemently. ‘You always do. Career opportunities wil come up…’

‘I don’t have to take them. I can afford to retire from the whole entertainment circus right now.’

‘You won’t want to. Not in the long run.’

‘You won’t want to. Not in the long run.’

‘Don’t tel me what I want, Megan. More than anything I want to be a good father.’

‘You don’t have to be married to fulfil that role, Johnny.’

‘You’d prefer us to be single parents?’ His mind buzzed around what advantage Megan might see in that situation and zeroed in on the worst possible scenario. Connected to her insistent belief that he would go away… ‘If I have to fight you for custody rights, I wil ,’ he fired at her in grim chal enge. ‘Just because you’re the mother doesn’t make you the arbiter of what’s best for our child.’

She looked appal ed. ‘You wouldn’t drag him—her—

around the world with you.’

‘Why not? Gundamurra might be the centre of your universe, but would a fair judge rule that a child can’t experience anything else? If you don’t want to be my wife and work at being a harmonious couple…’

‘A good father would want a stable life for his child,’ she fiercely argued.

‘Yes. And also want the child to feel loved by both parents. Not one cutting out the other. Was that what you intended to do with me, Megan? Cut me out?’

‘No!’ She paced around, pumped up with too much turbulent energy to remain stil , though her arms folded across her chest again, projecting a need for self-containment, excluding him by action if not by word.

Johnny kept his distance, watching her deal with the pressure he had mounted for the outcome he wanted.

Anger was stil burning through him. If she had imagined he’d just waltz off about his business and leave her to bring he’d just waltz off about his business and leave her to bring up their child any way she wanted, she could certainly dismiss that idea right now.

She paused, shooting him a measuring look. ‘You said Gundamurra was home to you. I want it to be home to our child, too.’

‘So why not make us a family, Megan? What objection do you have to marrying me?’

‘If I marry you…wil you leave our son or daughter here with me when you take on career commitments overseas?’

Johnny knew that being a hands-on father would always come first with him. However, his career was clearly a big stumbling block to Megan, had been for a long time and stil was, though he’d thought he’d answered the prejudices she’d held about it. The arrangement she wanted to put into place seemed very one-sided to him, and certainly not to his liking.

‘Should I take on work that requires me to be elsewhere, I would want my family to go with me.’

‘No!’ Scarlet pride in her cheeks. ‘I wil not compete with…’ Her mouth clamped shut, but her eyes held a violent storm of feeling.

‘Compete with what?’ he probed.

‘The women in your world,’ she flung at him, hating having to say it yet unable to hold it in.

He shook his head. The absurdity was…
she
was the only woman he wanted. Nevertheless, the realisation final y dawned that Megan was consumed by an intense sense of vulnerability, fighting him to keep herself and their child on the only secure ground she knew.

‘There is no competition,’ he said gently, wanting to erase her fears.

Rank disbelief stared back at him.

It propel ed him forward, his hands spread in an openly inviting gesture. ‘You
can
trust me, Megan. As my wife, you’l have my absolute commitment and loyalty.’

Stil the rigid stance, arms folded in stubborn resistance, but there was a wavering in her eyes, perhaps a wanting to believe that couldn’t quite be suppressed.

He curved his hands over the tense muscles of her shoulders. ‘I promise you Gundamurra wil always be our home, the big constant in our lives. But if I ask you to leave it sometimes, to share something else with me for a while, aren’t you brave enough to try that, Megan?’

‘
This
is my life, Johnny. You can’t expect me to leave it. I don’t want to be a fish out of water. I’d hate it.’

His hands instinctively slid up to cup her face, forcing her gaze to hold his while he pushed for a resolution. ‘This is fear talking, Megan. And what we need here is a leap of faith. The reality is we’re going to have a child. We should live together as a family. And marriage is about giving to each other, not laying down conditions that wil limit—if not wreck—the relationship we should have as husband and wife. I’m not even asking you to meet me halfway. Just give a little. At least…give it a chance.’

He dropped his hands and backed off. ‘Think about it.

My position is not going to change. Either we get married and we both try to make it work as best we can…or I’l fight you for my fair share of fatherhood. I won’t be kept dangling on this, Megan. You have until tomorrow morning to decide.’

Johnny left the ultimatum hanging and walked to the door. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to discuss. Whichever way Megan chose, his own course was clear. His child was going to have the kind of father he would have wanted himself—a father like Patrick—always there for him. Or her. If Megan didn’t ever come to love him, at least their child would. No way was he going to miss out on that!

‘Wait!’

His hand was already on the doorknob when her cal whipped through the tense silence, halting his exit. Johnny gritted his teeth and half-turned, conceding a few more moments but not prepared to enter into further argument.

She’d dropped the folded arm posture and her hands were now fretting at each other, revealing how very nervous she was. Her eyes held a fearful pleading that he found painful. He’d never done anything to hurt her. Never would.

Her throat moved in a convulsive swal ow, as though her thoughts sickened her.

‘Dammit, Megan!’ he muttered fiercely. ‘Can’t you see…?’

‘I’l give it a chance.’

‘Give what a chance?’

‘I’l marry you.’

‘WILL
you, Megan Mary Maguire, take this man…’

While the marriage celebrant intoned the traditional vow with al due solemnity, Megan was stil struggling to believe it was real y happening, that she was standing here in ful bridal regalia, about to say the words that would make her Johnny El is’s wife.

This man
…the one she’d always wanted…her wedding to him more a teenage fantasy than an adult reality, yet here they were, standing on the green grass of the inner quadrangle, everyone who worked on the homestead in attendance along with her family and Johnny’s closest friends, bearing witness to the marriage. This was how she’d dreamed of it, although her father should have stil been alive, giving her away.

Perhaps he was in spirit.

Certainly it was his wil that had started the very personal situation between her and Johnny rol ing. If only the baby hadn’t forced this end, if she’d been sure of Johnny’s love for her, Megan knew she might have been a deliriously happy bride. As it was, her stomach was ful of butterflies and al she could do was hope that everything would turn out right. Or right enough to live with this decision.

The celebrant looked expectantly at her.

‘I wil ,’ she said.

A leap of faith.

‘Wil you, Johnny El is, take this woman…’

No doubt about his reply. He’d been the driving force towards this wedding from the moment she’d agreed to marry him. No quick civil ceremony in a register office. A proper celebration of their union in front of those closest to them. At Gundamurra, because it was the most appropriate location—home to both of them—and it would keep the wedding contained and private. Ric would do the photographs, some of which would be released to the media afterwards, making the marriage publicly known.

At first, she had protested the idea of a photo of her—

Johnny El is’s bride—being splashed around the world, becoming part of the publicity machine that surrounded his career. His reply had made any argument impossible—

‘I’m not going to hide you, Megan. And I am not entering you into a competition. To me you are the most beautiful woman in the world and I want other women to know it. To know I’m married to you.’

She’d never thought of herself as beautiful. Not anything like the celebrities he had mixed with social y. Had he said that simply to quel the panic she felt at being compared to
them?
Whatever the truth, Megan had desperately wanted to live up to Johnny’s stated view of her, at least on their wedding day.

She’d asked Ric’s wife, Lara, who’d once been an international model, to help her choose the wedding dress, a fabulous design in ivory silk with lace and seed pearls, making it possible to wear the pearl necklace, and a wonderful long veil attached to a pearl tiara.

Evelyn, with sentimental tears in her eyes, had declared she looked just like a princess, and her dear mother and father would be very proud of her today, but most of al Megan wanted Johnny to be proud of her, proud to have her as his wife.

‘I wil ,’ he said, very firmly.

Then they were exchanging the gold rings he had chosen. She was glad he wanted to wear one, too, the symbol of his commitment to their marriage.

This past month he’d devoted most of his time to catching up on al the work being done at Gundamurra, proving to her that he had a deep interest in it, even making suggestions for improvements that should be considered when the climate was right. But how long would he stay here before his career cal ed him away? And how was she going to cope with his life?

Don’t think about it.

Not today.

‘I now pronounce you husband and wife.’

Johnny was smiling at her.

She could hear the clicking of Ric’s camera.

Her heart was rocketing around her chest in anticipation of the kiss that was to come. It was impossible to move her facial muscles into a responding smile. Her mind was wildly sorting out the expression in Johnny’s eyes. Pleasure in her appearance, yes. Also a flash of triumphant satisfaction, possibly in having carried through what he’d decided was right, even to holding off having any intimate connection with her until their wedding night. But mostly, she saw a with her until their wedding night. But mostly, she saw a simmering desire, revel ing in the promise that she was his, to have and to hold from this day forth.

Sweet relief.

At least he did want sex with her.

He kissed her with a slow, seductive sensuality, his mouth certainly seeming to suggest that passion was just lying in wait for the privacy of their honeymoon. No problems in bed, Megan assured herself. Maybe her pregnancy actual y made her more desirable to him. She hoped so, acutely conscious of the more rounded tummy hidden by the clever design of her wedding gown.