The Outback Bridal Rescue (15 page)

And while their marriage might have seemed reasonably safe and solid while living together at Gundamurra, maybe she’d been living in a fool’s paradise and deep unbridgeable gaps could open up at any moment.

Ric and Lara were indulgently amused by her desire to watch Johnny’s spot on each television show that featured him, to listen to the talk-back radio programs he participated in, to read every interview printed in the newspapers. They thought she was besotted with her new husband. The truth was her secret insecurities compel ed her to know precisely how Johnny performed, whether
she
was mentioned and what Johnny said about her and their marriage.

For the most part he diverted any questions about his private life, speaking with surprising passion about the plight of farmers and pastoralists, many of whom had worked the land for generations, benefiting al Australians.

He reminded people of al the traditional poetry and songs that epitomised the hardships of country life, the culture of survival that was at the core of our patriotism.

‘You’ve got to hand it to Johnny. He hits straight at the heart,’ Ric commented appreciatively, while they were watching him perform on one current affairs program.

Yes, right at the heart of the anchorwoman who was interviewing him, Megan thought, watching the body language that shouted how very attractive she found him in every sense. And he was…charming, sincere, his voice an incredibly seductive tool, and al of him emanating so much sexual magnetism, the woman was turning into a melting sexual magnetism, the woman was turning into a melting marshmal ow instead of living up to her reputation for being sharp and tough.

It left Megan with the certainty that he could have married anyone, but didn’t have to. They’d fal at his feet, anyway. It was only because she was having his child that he’d decided to marry her. Al his love-making, caring… If she hadn’t been pregnant, would he have given so much? Any of it?

On that one fateful night of sex, he would have used protection.

Now he was protecting
her condition.

Protecting his fatherhood.

Megan’s emotions were in a total mess by the time the night of the concert arrived. Lara, who was on the charity committee, had obtained tickets for what she considered the prime position in the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

They were in the front row of the central tier of seats facing the stage.

‘Above the floor level,’ she explained, ‘with a barrier between us and any madness that might break out.’

‘Madness?’ Megan queried.

‘You’ve never been to a pop concert, Megan?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘The area closest to the stage is usual y cal ed the mosh pit. Fans can total y spin out, especial y when the music gets them going. We’l be safe where our seats are situated.’

Safe
…that word grated on Megan’s jangling nerves. Yet when they did take their seats in the huge auditorium which was jam-packed with thousands of people al buzzing with excited anticipation, she appreciated the choice Lara had made. Even more so when the first pop band onstage swung into action and the sound assault of their music was increased by almost incessant screaming from fans jumping up and down and carrying on like lunatics.

It was certainly an education to Megan about Johnny’s life. She knew he’d done many concert tours throughout his career, more in the U.S.A. than here in Australia. He was a megastar on the country and western music scene, though his popularity was not limited to only those fans. His songs had universal appeal, which was why he was bil ed as the star act tonight, the last one onstage, bringing the concert to an end, leaving everyone happy and uplifted.

Clearly the performers got a huge kick out of the wildly enthusiastic response from their audience. Their energy level was amazing and there was certainly a sexual buzz in their strutting. Was al this adulation addictive? Would someone who was used to it find life boringly flat without regular doses of it?

As the evening’s entertainment progressed, security guards had to stop some fans from climbing onto the stage.

Others had to be carried away for medical attention, having fainted from the crush or their own hyperexcitement.

Just before Johnny was to make his appearance, a girl with long blonde hair and a tight scarlet mini-dress was actual y tossed by her companions onto the stage and she thrust a note into the retiring singer’s hand before leaping off to escape the guards.

‘Groupie,’ Lara drily remarked. ‘No doubt she’l want to be picked out from the crowd backstage once the show is over.’

Megan was relieved the girl hadn’t targeted Johnny.

Not that he’d be swayed by it. His view of groupies had convinced her that he would never take that kind of sexual advantage from his celebrity. She simply didn’t need any more evidence of how desirable he was to other women.

As it was, her nerves were on edge, waiting for his performance—live—in front of this massive crowd of people.

Definitely my last concert,
Johnny thought grimly, waiting for the guys to vacate the stage. They were stil prancing around, al pumped up from the wild response to their music, eating up the frenetic crowd energy while they could.

The buzz didn’t last. After the adrenaline rush came the let-down because it was al about the music and the event itself, not the person. Johnny knew he didn’t want this anymore. Especial y not the empty hotel room afterwards.

Tomorrow he could go home with Megan. To Gundamurra where he was genuinely liked for the man he was. Put al this artificial
love
behind him and raise a family where the love would be real. Megan would be happy about that. It was just too difficult for her to be faced with everything celebrity involved.

‘Something for you, Johnny.’ A photograph was thrust into his hand by the main vocalist of the band, now bouncing off stage. The guy winked at him. ‘Blonde bomb in a red mini-dress, front row. Great tits.’

Johnny was about to toss it away when the guy added in a mocking drawl, ‘Oh yeah! Said to tel you she was your long-lost sister. Try anything, some chicks.’

Sister!

The idea thumped into Johnny’s heart.

It had never occurred to him that his mother might have had another child. He couldn’t remember one but he didn’t recal anything about that time. And he certainly hadn’t been told he had a sister somewhere. But would he have been informed if the child had been adopted out? Maybe a baby.

Which meant she’d be thirty-six now.

He stared at the photograph. Definitely not a teenager.

Could be in her thirties. Difficult to tel a woman’s age. He saw no likeness to himself but that meant nothing. She would have had a different father.

Long-lost sister…
His stomach started churning. He’d never thought to do a search himself, believing he’d been the only one left abandoned by his mother’s death.

What if he wasn’t?

‘Your turn to wow ’em, Johnny,’ one of the backstage guys prompted him.

He heard the MC doing the introduction.

There was nowhere to stash the photograph except under his shirt. He caught sight of writing on the back as he turned it over to slide it down his V-neckline.

Please let me get to you—your sister, Jodie Ellis.

Please let me get to you—your sister, Jodie Ellis.

Jodie…Johnny…

Had she tried before and been turned away by his minders?

Or was it simply a groupie scam?

No time to think about it now.

He was on.

Blonde in a red mini-dress. Front row.

Megan was total y stunned by Johnny’s performance. The screaming of the fans stopped the moment he began to sing. He just seemed to command the rapt attention of everyone in the auditorium, his strong, beautiful voice carrying waves of emotion that swept out and grabbed people by the throat.

He didn’t need to gyrate around the stage. He didn’t need to whip up excitement. He simply stood and delivered and there were sighs of pleasure as people swayed to his rhythm, happy clapping with the upbeat songs, thunderous applause when he finished each number and flashed the charismatic smile that would have charmed love out of a stone.

Megastar.

Of course, the fact that he was spectacularly male—a man’s man—a woman’s man—added immeasurably to his powerful attraction. Megan couldn’t help noticing the blonde in the scarlet mini-dress doing everything she could to draw Johnny’s attention to her. Apparently she had changed her mind about the main object of her desire tonight. No contest, Megan thought, but she didn’t like it.

She particularly didn’t like the fact that Johnny seemed distracted by the woman, his gaze returning to her again and again throughout his performance. What was she doing that Megan couldn’t see? Why was Johnny zeroing in on her so much?

It stirred up al the insecurities Megan was struggling with, especial y since she couldn’t make eye contact with him herself. Impossible for Johnny to actual y see her so far back from the bril iantly lit stage. The major part of the audience had to be a dark blur to him, simply a presence he heard and felt and responded to.

At least he
knew
she was here, with his old friends and their wives. When he announced his final song, he did look directly to where they were seated and it gave Megan considerable relief to hear him say he’d composed this song for his wife on their wedding day—a very public acknowledgement of their marriage.

He already had the audience completely in his hands, but his rendition of ‘Coming Home’ was incredibly moving, heart-tugging, so much so that there were several moments of poignant silence at the end of it before the crowd erupted into huge prolonged applause, everyone on their feet, clapping, shouting, not wanting to let him leave the stage.

But with a simple hand salute to the crowd, he walked off and did not return. The audience eventual y accepted that the concert was over. People started to move towards the exits, stil buzzing with pleasure despite not having persuaded Johnny into an encore.

Megan would have been happy to leave, too, but she caught sight of a security guard escorting the troublesome blonde with an air of set purpose. The action unsettled her again. Lara, Kathryn, Ric, and Mitch were enthusing over Johnny’s performance as they al moved out to the aisle, ready to make their way out of the massive entertainment centre, but Megan was too distracted to voice any sensible comment herself.

‘Can we go backstage?’ she asked, impel ed to settle the nagging sense of not knowing what was going on with Johnny, needing to be with him.

It wasn’t planned.

But they went.

And were ushered into a dressing-room where the blonde in the scarlet mini-dress had her arms wound around Johnny’s neck and her body plastered to his!

SHOCK
held them al silent.

Except for the blonde.

Megan burned with humiliation as the woman rubbed her body provocatively, invitingly, against Johnny’s and babbled on about how fantastic he was and she’d do anything

—
anything
he wanted—just to be with him.

A blatant groupie.

And Johnny had to have given instructions for her to be brought to him.

Wel , he was certainly caught in a spotlight now!

Yet there was no guilt on his face.

With an air of grim self-containment, he reached up and forcibly pul ed down the arms that held him, stepping back out of body contact as he spoke with biting distaste. ‘You picked the wrong mark.’

‘But you sent for me,’ the blonde protested.

No escape from that truth.

Megan’s heart died.

If she hadn’t come backstage, seen this for herself…

‘Please…just go.’ Johnny nodded to Megan. ‘My wife is here.’

The blonde whipped around to see. Her gaze skated over the group who’d entered, fastened on Megan, raked her from head to foot in angry frustration, pausing at the now obvious bump of her pregnancy. ‘So, you got him with that trap,’ she said nastily.

‘Go!’ Johnny thundered, as though he could barely tolerate the offence, his expression fighting both pain and fury.

Trap
was right, Megan thought miserably.

Having realised there was no choice but to accept defeat, the blonde flounced around them to the open doorway, jeeringly tossing back, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, Johnny.’

A stony pride settled on his face as he muttered, ‘I do. I know exactly what I’m missing.’ But he spoke to empty space. The blonde was gone. And his eyes had emptied of al feeling, too. There was suddenly a sense of dreadful emptiness permeating the whole room.

No-one spoke.

Megan sensed they were al hanging out for an acceptable explanation, possibly embarrassed at being witnesses to a scene none of them liked. Her hand instinctively moved to spread over the hump which held her baby, a fierce protective love wel ing up and choking her.

Wretched thoughts jumbled through her mind. There’d been no need for Johnny to marry her. She hadn’t asked him to. Nor had she wanted him to feel he was missing out on anything. She hated that he did. How could she hold him to their marriage, knowing it got in the way of…
his life?

Johnny visibly regathered himself and flashed a derisive look at Ric and Mitch. ‘She claimed to be my long-lost sister.’

As though
they
would understand.

As though
they
would understand.

Not his wife.

‘I thought…it was possible,’ he added with a grimace that somehow expressed a world of loss.

A sister? Megan’s mind whirled, trying to fit this idea into the train of circumstances she had watched, trying to understand how Johnny could have believed such an unlikely claim…what it might have meant to him.

‘We’re your family, Johnny,’ Mitch said quietly.

‘You’l always have us,’ Ric backed up.

The three men…who’d been boys at Gundamurra…a brotherhood…but not linked by blood.

Johnny nodded, acknowledging the bond between them, yet his eyes were stil bleak as his gaze fastened on the hand Megan had placed over her tummy and she intuitively knew what he was thinking. This baby was the only blood link to him…flesh of his flesh. No sister. But he would have a son or a daughter.