The Outback Bridal Rescue (12 page)

Her only problems with him would be personal, and it was impossible to know how to handle them until she was with him again. She checked her watch as she headed towards the homestead kitchen for morning tea. Only a few more hours and he’d be flying in. Once he arrived…Megan told herself she had to remain calm, wait and see how he behaved towards her, keep reassessing the situation as she gathered more information.

She found Evelyn alone in the kitchen, vigorously grating carrot for Johnny’s favourite cake. No doubt the housekeeper’s two helpers, Brenda and Gail, were polishing up his guest suite, ensuring everything was in perfect readiness for his welcome home. Megan brushed off Evelyn’s offer to make tea, munching some dry biscuits to settle her stomach while she brewed the tea herself. As soon as she sat down at the table with a steaming mugful, the grating stopped and Evelyn faced her with a determined air of confrontation.

‘Are you going to tel him?’

Megan shrugged her bewilderment. ‘Tel …whom…

what?’

Evelyn wiped her hands on a cloth, the dark brown eyes of her aboriginal heritage measuring some goal she had in mind before speaking again. ‘Don’t think you can be fooling me, Miss Megan. I’ve seen the signs too many times.’

The nausea she’d been fighting every morning for weeks rol ed around her stomach.

‘Reckon I knew Miss Lara was pregnant even before she did,’ Evelyn went on, leaving no doubt about the subject she was bent on tackling.

Megan realised it was useless to deny it. ‘Have you told anyone?’ she asked anxiously, alarmed at the thought that everyone on the station was aware of her condition and holding to a conspiracy of silence until she was ready to admit it.

‘No. But I’l tel Mr Johnny if you don’t,’ came the chal enging reply.

‘You mustn’t do that, Evelyn,’ Megan instantly cried, panic wel ing up at the thought of any premature disclosure which might undermine her plans for the future.

‘No good comes from keeping secrets that shouldn’t be kept,’ Evelyn bored in with absolute conviction. ‘Especial y from the man who fathered the child.’

‘What makes you think Johnny’s the father?’ Megan shot back at her, desperate to raise enough doubt to give herself more time.

Evelyn clucked her contempt for any other possibility.

‘No-one else it could be. Think I didn’t know what you were up to…day of Mr Patrick’s funeral…wanting to turn Mr Johnny’s head? Al these years…watching how you are with him? One way or another—nice or nasty—you’ve been set on making him take notice of you.’

Humiliation burned through her. Had her feelings been so horribly transparent to everyone? No, they couldn’t have been, she frantical y argued to herself. Johnny had believed she disliked him. Her sisters had been worried about her reaction to their father’s wil . They had simply been anxious that she not be hostile to Johnny and the help he could give.

Mitch and Ric had taken that stance, too. Only Evelyn…

Evelyn who cared about anything relating to Johnny…

‘It’s not his fault I’m pregnant,’ Megan blurted out. ‘It’s not fair to load it on him.’

‘Takes two to make a child,’ came the firm rebuttal.

‘Accepting the blame for it makes no difference, Miss Megan. The child belongs to him, as wel as you.’

‘I let him believe I was protected,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m the one who’s responsible for this pregnancy. He would have ensured it didn’t happen.’

Evelyn shook her head, disappointment and disapproval stamped on her expression. ‘If you wove a web of lies to get Mr Johnny into your bed, you’l only make the situation worse with more lies. Time you faced up to yourself and to him.’

‘I don’t want him to feel trapped. That’s not fair, Evelyn,’

she repeated emphatical y, gathering strength to fight any interference with whatever she decided to do.

‘You think he’d want
his
child to be as fatherless as he was? No way, Miss Megan. No way. You just pile injustice on top of injustice if you keep this from him.’ Her eyes narrowed in grim judgement. ‘You’re thinking of yourself.

What you want. Always been that way. But I won’t let you cut Mr Johnny out of what is rightful y his. You tel him or I wil .’

‘It’s not your business!’ It was a desperate cry of protest.

This was between her and Johnny and she needed time to work out how best to approach the future…what arrangement to make with him.

Evelyn seemed to puff herself up with even more determination. ‘Your dear mother’s gone. Your father whom I admired and respected more than any other man on earth is gone.’ She lifted a hand and shook a finger at Megan.

‘They put me here. They trusted me to get things right. And neither of them would ever have planned to cheat a good man.’

Cheat
…that was a total y unacceptable word. Megan recoiled from it. She’d been carrying a wretched load of guilt for weeks. That was nothing new. Yet mixed in with the guilt was an insidious streak of exhilarating pleasure in having Johnny El is’s child—a part of him he couldn’t take away from her. But
cheating
him…that didn’t sit at al wel .

Evelyn planted her hands on her ample hips. Her big bosom heaved. Her chin was thrust out in bel igerent pride.

‘I’ve lived at Gundamurra al my life. Over fifty years now.

Served your parents best I could. Always fol owed their example. You can sack me if you want, Miss Megan. Your father gave you the right to do that…’

Gundamurra without Evelyn?

Shocking thought…even more shocking than cheating.

‘…but as long as I’m here, I won’t stand by and let you pul the wool over Mr Johnny’s eyes, not on something as important as this wil be to him. His child…’

Mine, too, Megan thought, fiercely possessive.

‘You can’t expect me to hit him with it the moment he steps off his plane,’ she swiftly argued.

‘You should have told him already,’ came the damning retort. ‘Every minute you leave it makes it worse. More underhand. More
unfair,
’ she hammered home.

A relentless drive for truth was looking Megan straight in the face—impossible to ignore—impossible to even bend.

Evelyn would serve Johnny with it along with her carrot cake if she was not satisfied with immediate action on this issue.

Strong loyalties had been stirred.

To Evelyn’s mind, Patrick’s daughter had not been acting as Patrick’s daughter should, letting down the tradition of justice at Gundamurra, lying to a man who had learnt trust here, trusting her father, trusting himself. And perhaps the very longevity of her service did give her the right to feel she had to be the keeper of that trust, regardless of whether it served Megan’s interests or not.

‘I’m sorry you feel…so let down by me, Evelyn.’

She heaved a troubled sigh. ‘It’s your parents I’m thinking of, Miss Megan. They’d be tel ing you the same as I am. Lay it out in the open and deal with it.’

No other choice now.

‘Tonight. I’l tel him tonight,’ Megan promised.

Evelyn weighed that answer and final y conceded to it.

‘I’l know tomorrow morning if you haven’t done it,’ she warned. ‘Hard enough to look Mr Johnny in the face today, holding back what he should know.’

A brief reprieve.

At least she’d have a little time to gauge Johnny’s attitude towards her, find out how long he intended to stay at Gundamurra this time, what career commitments he might have made while working on the movie, how much of his future was tied up elsewhere.

She’d wanted to feel prepared for every contingency before laying out the fact that would inevitably have a far ranging effect on the rest of their lives, wanted to have answers ready for whatever was Johnny’s reaction to it.

However, Evelyn’s words had stung her conscience.

There was no denying the truth of them. Johnny would not want his child to be fatherless, as he himself had been.

Which meant she had to share. No cheating him out of the role he’d want to play—a role he’d insist on playing.

Roles…exits and entrances…

What had she done in her own selfish desire to have her needs answered?

One careless act.

A reckless lie.

Though even acknowledging she hadn’t been fair to Johnny, she couldn’t regret doing it.

She
wanted
this child.

SOMETHING
was wrong.

Even Evelyn’s superb carrot cake with the cream cheese icing did not settle the churning in Johnny’s stomach. Fair enough that Megan was tense about his homecoming, but never before had Evelyn been uncomfortable in his presence. Both women’s responses to him seemed strained and they avoided eye contact with each other, focussing on him with a kind of forced eagerness to make him feel welcome, rushing to fil any brief silence with a host of questions about the movie, his trip, whether or not he’d stopped over in Sydney to see Ric and Mitch.

Something big was hidden in the silence they rushed to cover.

Trouble at Gundamurra?

Johnny had to force himself to eat the cake, drink the tea, al the time waiting for the axe to fal , whatever it was.

Weird how quickly everything could change. His heart had been dancing with pleasure when he landed. Megan had been standing by the Land Rover, waiting to drive him up to the homestead from the airstrip. Although a hat was jammed on her head, her glorious hair was loose, tumbling around her shoulders, surely a sign that she wanted to please him…as a woman.

Once he’d emerged from the plane, his legs had eaten up the distance between them, every fast stride pumping with anticipation. But she’d thrust out a stiff, formal hand, and he’d felt constrained to hold back the pounding urge to hug her tight and keep holding her until the warm imprint of her body had assuaged the need to feel her flesh and blood reality again.

Her smile had been stiff, too.

Okay, let her get used to having me here again,
he’d told himself.
Give her time to relax in my company.

Now she was babbling on, trying to sound bright and natural while Evelyn was plying him with afternoon tea, her dark eyes empty of their normal sparkle at seeing him. He could feel the worry in their minds. It was like an invisible monster, growing bigger every minute, claws out ready to grab him, like the monsters of his childhood lurking in the cupboard his foster parents had used for punishing bad boys. He’d made up music in his head to drive them away, but no music was going to drive this away.

Final y he could stand it no longer.

Just as with Ric, holding the news of Patrick’s death from him, Johnny could not wait for what he knew to be something bad. ‘Tel me what’s wrong!’ he burst out in urgent demand.

It jolted them both into a silence that was clearly fraught with hidden concerns. No denial from either of them. The monster grew bigger in Johnny’s mind.

Evelyn looked at Megan.

Megan had frozen into shocked stil ness. Her hat was off now and even her vibrant hair was motionless, her grey eyes suddenly like opaque glass, nothing shining through.

‘Evelyn…’ he appealed.

The motherly housekeeper, who usual y enjoyed indulging his every wish, shook her head, not even the hint of an appeasing smile on her face. ‘It’s not for me to say, Mr Johnny.’ Grave, decisive words, accompanied by another anxious glance at Patrick’s daughter, her employer.

There had always been a free and easy mood in Evelyn’s kitchen. The heart of a home, Johnny had thought.

What had Megan done to change that?

Patrick wouldn’t like it.

This wasn’t how Gundamurra should feel.

Johnny instantly determined to change it back to what it should be. Whatever was going on had to be stopped, turned around.

Megan stirred out of her stunned state. His eyes bored into hers, demanding enlightenment. No way was he going to let her evade giving it. She might own fifty-one percent of Gundamurra but he had rights here, too.

‘Let’s go—’ heat whooshed into her cheeks, vitality returning in an embarrassed rush ‘—to the office, Johnny.’

The office.

It was business then.

‘Okay.’ He could handle that.

He stood up.

Evelyn instantly busied herself at the sink, not looking at him, washing her hands, which Johnny couldn’t help thinking was somehow symbolic.

Megan led off, leaving him to fol ow. Even when they reached the verandah that skirted the inner quadrangle of the homestead, she didn’t pause to let him fal into step with her, marching on in a driven fashion, back straight, head high, not glancing at him when he caught up with her. He noted that her cheeks were stil scorched with heat. And her hands were clenched. Whatever the problem was, she found it painful, being forced to impart it to him.

Pride badly hurt, he decided. Some huge mistake in managing Gundamurra. She’d hate to fail or be found wanting with anything to do with the sheep station.

Whatever the crisis was, Johnny was determined to get around it, one way or another. Surely there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

She didn’t wait for him to lean past her and open the door to the office. She barged straight in, assuming he would fol ow and close the door behind them, which, of course, he did. It surprised him that she didn’t go directly to her father’s desk, take his chair, protect herself with some sense of authority. She veered off to stand over the chess table, hugging herself tightly as she stared down at the black and white battleground.

It was a stance that bristled with spiky tension, insisting on space around her. Johnny trod softly, moving over to the desk, propping himself against the front of it, trying to establish a relaxed, non-critical air. He hadn’t come home to beat her over the head with anything. He wanted her trust. If she’d just place some confidence in him…but there was none forthcoming at the moment.

‘It’s okay,’ he soothed. ‘I’m not going to bite, Megan. Just tel me…’

Her head tilted back. She swung around to face him. Her expression seemed torn between intense inner conflict and a need to rise above it.

‘I lied to you, Johnny.’

The bare statement held both guilt and defiance.