The Outback Bridal Rescue (14 page)

He steered her to the table where they were to sign the marriage certificate. Once that was done, everyone came up to congratulate them, wishing them a long and happy life together.

It amazed Megan how genuinely given these sentiments were, as though no doubts about the success of this marriage were being harboured. They knew she was pregnant. Neither she nor Johnny had tried to keep that a secret. Yet it seemed irrelevant to them. It was as though they had al decided that this match had been made in heaven and it met with their heartfelt approval.

Whether Ric or Mitch had raised any questions with Johnny, she didn’t know. They gave no sign of it. Her sisters had thought it marvel ous that Johnny wanted to marry her.

Not one hint of criticism from them. Apparently they were perfectly confident that a workable future could be achieved between the two of them, probably on the principle that love conquers al .

conquers al .

Except the only
love
Megan was sure of was Johnny’s love for their unborn child.

A huge barbecue dinner had been organised. Fairy lights had been strung around the pepper trees, just as they always were for Christmas, and the mood was just as merry. Speeches were made. Johnny played his guitar and sang a song he’d composed especial y for her. He cal ed it

‘Coming Home’ and everyone was moved by it, including Megan, who fiercely wished that the lyrics were a true expression of how he felt, not merely a string of effective sentiments that stirred emotions.

It prompted Lara to ask if he’d sing at a charity concert which was being organised in Sydney, al the proceeds to be used for drought relief, wherever it was most needed.

‘Your name would pul in more people, Johnny,’ she pressed. ‘The concert won’t be for a couple of more months. We have to fix a date for al the artists we want to be available. The idea is for them to donate their talent for the cause.’

‘I’m taking time out from that scene, Lara,’ he excused apologetical y.

Because of me,
Megan instantly thought. ‘It’s okay, Johnny,’ she leapt in. ‘I won’t mind if you do it.’

He frowned at her, puzzled by her apparent eagerness for him to move back into the limelight.

‘It wil help people who are in desperate need of help,’

she rushed out, needing him to see she could be fair.

‘Lara said the concert wil be held in a couple of months, Megan,’ he reminded her, stil frowning over her impulsive urging. ‘I won’t want to leave you at home alone at that point in time, being so pregnant, possibly needing my help.’

Was he worried about the baby? She’d only be six or seven months along, dependent on the date of the concert.

Her pregnancy would definitely be showing by then, but Johnny had said he had no intention of
hiding
her.

‘I could go with you,’ she argued, determined not to appear selfish. Besides, this performance was to be staged in Australia, not overseas, and should only take up a week or two with rehearsals. ‘It wil give me the chance to buy baby things in Sydney,’ she added eagerly.

‘And I can guide you to the best shops,’ Lara offered with her lovely smile. ‘We’l have great fun shopping, Megan.’

‘I’l come with you,’ Kathryn chimed in, smiling at Mitch who was proudly carrying around their new baby son. ‘Josh wil be needing bigger clothes by then.’

‘The mothers’ club,’ Johnny commented with an indulgent shake of his head.

‘Yes. And I can just see you and Mitch and Ric forming the fathers’ club in the not too distant future,’ Kathryn retorted laughingly.

‘You could be right,’ he acknowledged.

If he real y did base himself in Australia from now on, Megan thought hopeful y.

‘About the concert, Lara,’ he went on. ‘Send me the paperwork on it and I’l let you know.’

No promise.

Megan was disappointed that she hadn’t won his approval. She silently resolved to find out what his reservations were about committing himself. There was stil so much about Johnny she didn’t know, despite having known him for most of her life.

But he was, without a doubt, the most handsome man in the world to her, breathtakingly so in his formal black dinner suit. And now, for better or for worse, he was her husband.

Megan told herself to stop worrying about the future and just concentrate on tonight, being with him in every sense.

Tomorrow they were flying to Broome for a week’s honeymoon—a week of making love and sharing intimate thoughts, she hoped. Tonight she wanted to convince Johnny that it wasn’t
just sex
for her, banishing any thought that she’d only been
using
him to make herself feel better on the night of her father’s wake.

She wanted
him.

Only him.

She tried to transmit this while Ric was posing them for the photograph he’d envisaged being the definitive one of their wedding. It was late in the evening—time for the party to break up—and everyone had fol owed Ric out to the setting he had chosen, away from al the buildings. He stood Megan and Johnny facing each other, holding hands.

Behind them was a dark empty landscape, seemingly flat to the horizon, above it the bril iant stars of the outback sky.

They had to wait for him to get the lighting just right.

Johnny joked about the exacting eye of an artist but he seemed happy to co-operate with his old friend’s concept.

‘That sure beats a cathedral,’ Mitch murmured, almost reverently, looking up at the canopy of stars. ‘Now I know why you won al those photography prizes, Ric.’

‘To me, nature always beats anything man-made,’ Ric answered. ‘And this shot is meant to be total y primal, the imprint of greatest human faith in each other against the stark might of the outback.’

A convulsive little shiver ran through Megan at the al too perceptive truth of those words.

Johnny squeezed her hands, instantly imparting warmth and strength. She looked up into eyes that blazed their searing message into her heart…
believe in me.
She didn’t hear the camera click that captured her own surge of emotion, the huge wel ing of need and desire to believe their marriage would survive anything life threw at them.

Survive and thrive here at Gundamurra, because this was where she belonged, where she wanted Johnny to feel he belonged, with her and the children they would have.

Home…

And that overwhelming wave of feeling was stil sweeping through her when they were final y alone together in the room where their baby had been conceived. She was no longer nervous, nor apprehensive, nor worried about convincing Johnny of anything. A blissful sense of union with him permeated every kiss, every touch, building a deep passion for al the intense pleasure they could give to each other.

They were married.

On this—their wedding night—al other realities were left to be met when they had to be met.

THE
honeymoon was pure sensual bliss—a week of hot days and balmy nights in Broome—time out from the drought problems at Gundamurra—nothing to do but enjoy themselves in any way impulse took them.

Megan found that sexual pleasure with Johnny was extremely addictive. He was a marvel ous lover and there was certainly no doubting his desire for her. It seemed to constantly simmer in his eyes, flaring into passion when she dared to provoke it, and twinkling with wicked satisfaction when she lay contentedly in his arms afterwards.

Though occasional y she felt a stab of jealousy at the look of entranced love on his face when he felt the baby move. Not once did he speak of loving her, and Megan could not bring herself to admit to the feelings she’d always had about him. She was the mother of his child. That was what their marriage was based on. And Johnny certainly did his best to be a husband she could be happy with.

And she
was
happy for the most part. When they returned to Gundamurra, Johnny threw himself into working with the sheep, going out with the men to do whatever chores were scheduled, coming home to her each evening with the air of a man wel satisfied with jobs done. She couldn’t fault his commitment to their partnership. The only problem that arose between them centred on the charity concert Lara had mentioned on their wedding day.

The paperwork had been sent for Johnny to peruse.

Megan fretted over his reluctance to make a positive decision, acutely conscious that her negative reaction to his career might be at the root of his aversion to the idea.

Wanting to make amends for her previous attitude, she kept pressing him, reasoning that drought relief was the best possible cause for donating his talent, and very appropriate since he was now personal y connected to the land.

She did not foresee that the agreement she final y won from him would almost immediately throw them into conflict.

A request for a publicity interview at Gundamurra came in and Johnny was strongly opposed to granting it.

‘You said you weren’t going to hide me,’ Megan argued.

‘It’s not hiding you. It’s protecting you,’ Johnny argued back. ‘You’ve had no experience of dealing with the media.

Anything you say can be skewed to fit into the story an interviewer wants to do.’

‘But I’m a first-hand authority on the drought.’

‘They won’t be after a story on the drought.’

She didn’t believe him.

She suspected he didn’t want to expose her to his career so soon after their marriage. Yet to her mind, it had to be faced, and the sooner it stopped being a hurdle to be avoided, the better. Besides, a story on how the drought was affecting Gundamurra would surely make city people more aware of the problems in the country. How could it possibly hurt her? What was he protecting her from?

‘You can’t control what people write, Megan,’ he stated, impatient with her stubbornness on this issue. ‘The only kind of interview you can control is on live television, and it takes a lot of practice to get that right, believe me.’

Al she could see was he didn’t want to share this part of his life with her. Johnny El is was the star, the crowd-pul er.

She was just his wife in the background.

To close the rift that had opened up between them, Johnny gave way on granting the interview at Gundamurra.

The story was subsequently head-lined—The Outback Bridal Rescue—with a half page photograph of Ric’s special shot of them on their wedding night.

The only comment on the drought was that without Johnny El is’s investment in Gundamurra, even this wel -

established sheep station would not have survived it. The rest of it was about Johnny’s career and speculation about its future now that he was supposedly married to the land.

Or was he simply carrying over the cowboy role he’d played in the movie which was yet to be released, in real life for a while?

Megan hated it—hated the doubts it raised in her mind, hated the way every
important
thing she and Johnny had spoken about had been virtual y ignored.

‘How do you live with this?’ she raged.

‘Megan, you chose to let them invade our privacy here, to let yourself be exploited. Wil you listen to me now?’ he answered quietly.

She listened.

He laid out his plan, explained the reasons for it and Megan ended up feeling she had no choice but to accede to it, given that she was pregnant and Johnny’s schedule would be hectic with rehearsals and handling the media coverage expected of him to get maximum publicity for the concert.

So here she was, being mol ycoddled by Ric and Lara in their lovely home at Balmoral Beach, while Johnny held court from a top-class city hotel with top-class security guarding him from unwanted attention, escorting him to and from wherever he had to be.

She went shopping with Lara and Kathryn, unaccosted by anyone. She had the freedom of the city to enjoy in any way she liked, with good company readily available. Except it wasn’t Johnny’s company. And it was lonely in bed at night.

Johnny cal ed her on his mobile phone frequently. She could hardly complain he was excluding her from his life, yet she did feel excluded. Mostly they talked about what she’d been doing, where she’d been, what she’d bought. It seemed to her he deliberately minimised his activities, perhaps believing they would be of no interest to her. Even when she pressed him on them he was dismissive, not al owing her any sense of sharing.

‘Wil it always be like this?’ she cried in exasperation during one cal . ‘You there, me here?’

It evoked a silence that suddenly crawled with black irony. This was what she had initial y wanted, to have no part of his career, for her and their child to occupy a separate place in his life. But now Megan was desperate to believe that the intimacy they had forged during the past two months together at Gundamurra
could
be transplanted elsewhere. Or didn’t Johnny believe that was possible?

She cursed the narrowness of her previous attitude, worrying that it was stil casting a shadow on Johnny’s thinking, despite her attempts to show him it was different now. Her nerves tightened up as she waited for his reply, wanting him to say something she could get her teeth into and tear apart.

‘No. You won’t always be pregnant, Megan.’ Strained patience in his voice, making her feel like a petulant child.

‘As I’ve already explained to you, I just want to save you unnecessary stress in your condition. It wil only be another week and we’l be home again. Okay?’

Eminently reasonable.

But in Megan’s already stressed mind it translated to Johnny’s judgement that she wouldn’t cope with the demands of his career and he didn’t want the hassle of looking after her, having to mop up her inexperienced errors of judgement which made her more a hindrance than a help, especial y when he should be focussing on putting his best professional foot forward.

I’m being selfish again, she told herself, and let the issue drop, privately vowing to learn how to handle his world better the next time around, listening to him instead of barging forward with her own ideas.

Yet Johnny’s emphasis on her pregnancy kept niggling

—the child who meant so much to him. Megan couldn’t help thinking he wouldn’t choose to be in a hotel room by himself if the baby had been born. He’d want
his family
with him.