The Outback Bridal Rescue (16 page)

It was her baby, too, but she didn’t think that counted to him. He wanted this child. Regardless of the cost to himself on any other level,
he needed to have this child in his life,
fil ing a hole she could not real y imagine because she’d never been in his situation. Mitch had a sister and a son.

Ric had a son and a daughter. Johnny was stil alone in the world in any biological sense.

‘Wil you come back to the hotel with me tonight?’ he asked her, a hol ow quality in his voice that seemed to expect nothing, just a yes or no.

‘Yes,’ she said, al her nerves knotted with apprehension, yet the need to know what was on his mind was paramount—how their marriage real y was for him, good or bad. He could put al his wil power behind a commitment, but feelings were something else.

He heaved a tired sigh. ‘Ric, Mitch…’ A wry appreciation flitted into a brief curl of his mouth. ‘Good of you to be here for me, but…’ He gestured an apologetic appeal.

‘We’l leave you to it,’ Mitch swiftly interpreted.

‘Don’t let this get you down, Johnny,’ Ric quietly advised.

‘We have to let the past go.’

‘Guess it got up and bit me tonight, Ric.’ He shrugged.

‘Took me off guard. I’l be okay.’

He made a dismissive gesture and his two old friends moved out, taking their wives with them, closing the door to give him privacy with Megan.

Feeling total y il -equipped to deal with emotions Johnny had never revealed to her, and painful y aware that she had not been invited backstage, she couldn’t bring herself to go to him. Hopelessly tongue-tied, she stayed where she was, waiting for some sign that he actual y welcomed her being here. Although he’d asked her to stay, the request had been made in front of others and might only have been some kind of test for loyalty from her, trust in his word.

Johnny seemed to be viewing her from a great distance, perhaps weighing her silence, her stil ness, perhaps seeing a chasm between them that he didn’t have the energy to cross. Was it up to her? Panic seized her mind, inducing a terrible torment of indecisiveness.

Final y he spoke, his mouth taking on an ironic twist. ‘I guess you thought it was something different.’

Megan inwardly writhed over the doubts and suspicions that had driven her backstage to check what was true or not. After what had just unfolded here she couldn’t confess to them. It felt too wrong. As though it might be the end of any possible relationship between them if she did. Yet she had to say something. He had surely noticed her shock on seeing him with the blonde.

With a helpless little gesture of appeal she weakly offered, ‘I’m sorry, Johnny. It looked…’

‘As though I’d lied to you,’ he drily finished for her. ‘I haven’t, Megan. Not about anything.’

He turned and picked up a photograph from the make-up bench behind him. ‘This was passed to me by the singer who came offstage just before I went on. I would have tossed it away, but for what was written on the back.’

He held it out to her, making her feel forced to step forward and take it, forced to read the words that had swayed him into checking out the woman who had claimed to be
his long-lost sister.
She looked just as tarty in the photograph as she had in real life, heavily made up, sexily dressed, provocatively posed.

‘Did you want her to be your sister, Johnny?’ she asked, unable to hide her distaste.

‘You mean she might be a prostitute…like my mother?’

The derisive remark whipped heat into Megan’s cheeks

—shame at having forgotten what was clearly unforgettable to him. She scrambled to excuse the slip. ‘I meant…she doesn’t look anything like you.’

‘How could I know what
a half-sister
would look like, Megan?’

She took a quick breath, feeling she was drowning in waters too deep for her to wade through. His mother probably hadn’t known who
his
father was, let alone…

‘I’m sorry, Johnny,’ she repeated in frantic appeal. ‘I guess…Ric and Mitch are more…more attuned to where you’ve come from. To me you’re just you. And you’re such a big person…’

She stopped, shaking her head at the realisation she was denying his past any importance, precisely when he was feeling it very badly. ‘What can I do to help?’ she cried, horribly conscious of how inadequate that sounded even as the words tripped out of her mouth.

His shoulders squared, his broad chest expanding as he tilted his head back and dragged in a deep breath. ‘Let it go.’ It was a command to himself. He sighed and his gaze came down to meet hers, eyes bitter with self-mockery. ‘Ric has it right. Just let the past go. Stupid of me…in my position…to let myself be sucked in. Sucked back to it.’

He snatched the photograph out of Megan’s hand and tore it into smal er and smal er pieces as he stepped over to a wastebin. He dropped the fragments into it and turned to her with a savage look. ‘I wil never do another concert, Megan. Don’t ask it of me again. Not for any reason.’

‘I’m sorry…’ It sounded so dreadful y ineffectual—as meaningless as a parrot’s repetition—but what else could she say?

she say?

‘Let’s get out of here!’

Security guards escorted them to a limousine.

Security guards rode in the car with them, inhibiting any private conversation, not that Johnny’s closed-in demeanor invited any. Megan felt hopelessly inhibited about making any contact at al . She wished he would hold her hand…

anything to link them again…but he didn’t, and the tension emanating from him seemed fil ed with a fierce impatience to get this whole business over and done with.

Security guards accompanied them every step of the way up to Johnny’s hotel room, checking it was empty before they final y withdrew. Even then, Johnny forestal ed any move by Megan to break into his insulated mood, muttering, ‘I need a shower,’ and heading straight for the bathroom. ‘Make yourself at home. Order up some supper if you like. Just cal room service,’ he added carelessly.

She was left standing in a very spacious, very luxurious hotel suite, overwhelmingly conscious of how lonely it could be, despite being surrounded by what great wealth could buy.

Had Johnny felt this kind of loneliness here? Putting up with it to protect her? Did he feel even more alone now because she hadn’t given him her complete trust, had stood back from him when she should have moved forward to offer comfort, assuring him that while he had missed out on much in the past, she could make up for it?

Megan didn’t know if she could or not, but the strong fear of losing any chance of deep intimacy with him compel ed her into trying to reach out to his heart.

With trembling hands, she stripped off her clothes.

Johnny might simply be washing off the sweat from performing under a blast of hot lights, but her imagination saw him washing off the dirty sense of being tricked into facing the murky circumstances of his birth, the horrors of his childhood which he’d never shared with her, drowning out the loneliness that her lack of understanding had undoubtedly made sharper.

She forced her legs to walk into the bathroom, her mind gripping on to a fierce determination not to panic, not to react wimpishly to any suggestion of rejection from Johnny.

He didn’t hear her enter. He stood under the drenching spray of the shower, eyes closed, head bent, and she saw that the packets of soap provided by the hotel lay unopened, the face-cloths stil folded on top of the towels.

Grabbing one of the soap packets, she ripped off its wrapping, opened the door to the shower and stepped into the spacious cubicle—plenty of room for two, even with a big man like Johnny. His head snapped up, eyes jerking open.

‘You must be exhausted,’ Megan rushed out, her own eyes shooting sympathetic appeal as she wildly lathered up her hands. ‘Let me…’

She swiftly transferred the suds to his shoulders, spreading them over the tautly bunched muscles, watching them trail down his chest under the beat of the water because she couldn’t pluck up the courage to look at his face again, frightened of seeing that he was suffering her touch, not wanting it.

He said nothing but made no move to stop her from running the soap over him. His stil ness and his silence drove her into working quickly, down over his chest, his stomach, lower. The rapid pounding of her own heart drummed in her ears. A desperate desire for him to respond positively slowed her hurrying hands, dictating a more sensual slide over his naked flesh.

I have to make him feel loved,
she thought frantical y,
not alone, not missing out…

How could she answer his needs?

Before she could think better of it, a thought slipped out of the anxious jumble in her mind. ‘You used to think of me as your little sister.’

She was instantly mortified, realising it sounded like she was linking herself to the blonde who would have done anything to be with him, and here she was caressing him intimately, and he was becoming aroused…

‘Megan…’ His voice was harsh.

It had been a plea for him to return to caring about her, not…

‘You’re my wife—’ His hands tore hers away from him.

‘My wife!’

‘Then let me be your wife,’ she cried, her eyes pleading against the angry torment in his. ‘I’m sorry I got things wrong. I’m sorry I had no real idea of what the concert involved. I didn’t know how it was for you.’

He shook his head in anguish and from his throat came an animal groan of pain. Too bewildered and distressed to fight for anything more, Megan was intensely relieved when he released her hands and pul ed her into a fierce embrace, almost crushing the breath out of her. He rubbed his face over her hair. Never mind that it was soaking wet—

they were both soaking wet—the action echoed her own craving for him and sent a flood of warmth to her fear-chil ed heart.

‘You don’t need to know,’ he growled. ‘You’l never need to know. I’m done with it.’

His fingers tangled through her sodden curls and dragged her head back. His eyes blazed into hers. ‘But don’t you ever think again that I’d choose any other woman over you. Do you hear me, Megan?’

‘I’m sorry…’

‘No, dammit! Just say yes…yes…’

‘Yes.’

His mouth swooped on hers as though he had to taste the word as wel as hear it, and Megan poured al her own chaotic emotions into a kiss that pulsated with passionate need—a hot, urgent acceleration of desire that seared away any doubt that Johnny wanted her.

He slammed off the shower faucet, swept her out of the shower cubicle, wrapped a huge bath towel around her, and carried her out to the king-size bed in his hotel suite.

There were no pleasure intensifying preliminaries. He came into her hard and fast and Megan welcomed the instant union with as much savage satisfaction as he took in it, a tumultuous fever of possession gripping both of them, whipping them on to a world-shattering climax.

Afterwards she clasped him to her, stroking his hair as he lay with his head resting just above the val ey of her breasts, his breath warm against her skin, the tension gone from both of them. He shifted slightly, gliding his hand gently over her rounded bel y.

‘I forgot the baby,’ he murmured incredulously.

‘It’s al right,’ she soothed, smiling over the wonderful fact that he had wanted her so absolutely, not thinking of his child until now. ‘I would have told you if it wasn’t.’

And right on cue a ripple of movement under her skin reminded them of the new life that would soon be born.

‘See…he’s kicking me for it,’ Johnny said fatuously, a smile in his voice.

‘Might be a she.’

‘Mmm…’ It was a contented hum.

Contentment was good.

Her whole body was humming with it.

Megan didn’t want to say anything that might spoil the sense of peaceful harmony, of very real togetherness. She believed Johnny didn’t want to be with any other woman, and right now, that was enough.

Whether he real y was
done
with his career, or just the concert part of it, she didn’t know. Time might change that view anyway. She did know she would respect whatever decision he made about it, no argument, no criticism, no complaint. There might be more needs in Johnny that neither she, nor Gundamurra, nor even their child could ever answer.

He fel asleep, stil in her embrace.

She stroked his hair, loving him, determined to be
his
wife
in every sense—partner, lover, best friend and confidante. She didn’t want him to feel alone…ever again.

‘HOME
…’

So much heartfelt satisfaction in Johnny’s voice.

And his grin was pure pleasure.

They were stil in the air, flying over the woolshed, the name of the sheep station—Gundamurra—painted in large letters on its roof.

Coming home
was al Johnny had talked about ever since they’d woken up in the hotel room this morning. No mention of the concert, nor its traumatic aftermath. It was clear to Megan that he was determined on letting it al go, blocking it out. She wasn’t sure if that was right for him, but she wasn’t about to cast shadows on the happy twinkle in his eyes.

She grinned back. ‘You’ve stil got to get this plane down safely.’

He laughed and brought it in on the airstrip, a perfect landing but for the inevitable bumps along the ground.

‘Need to get this strip graded again,’ he remarked as he switched off the engine.

Which meant he’d hire a grader in the coming weeks, cost no object to Johnny. Megan didn’t worry about what he spent on the property anymore. As long as he was happy.

‘Another thing,’ he said as they went about disembarking. ‘I’m going to buy a helicopter. Emily can teach me how to fly it.’

‘Why do you want a helicopter?’

‘It would be more handy for checking out the property than a plane. It can land anywhere. And who knows? The Big Wet might come next year and break the drought. It could be raining in January when the baby is due and I want to be able to get you out in time. If the airstrip turns into a bog, we’l need a helicopter.’

She laughed, pleased that he was looking ahead, making plans. ‘By al means get yourself a helicopter. And I’m sure Emily wil be delighted to give you lessons.’