The Outback Bridal Rescue (18 page)

‘Hel !’ Ric breathed. ‘That’s powerful stuff, Johnny.’

To Megan every scene that fol owed was powerful; each gang member being hunted, confronted, punished with raging violence, then kil ed, until there was only one left, the leader who’d worn the neckerchief. No longer having the support of the others, he panicked and rode away. During the chase, the cowboy was shot and badly wounded, though he managed to keep riding and reach another ranch house where he col apsed at the front door.

When he swam back to consciousness, two smal children came into view, clearly stirring anguished memories, then the woman who’d taken him in and was tending his wound, a widow who was struggling to survive on the ranch.

She let him know he was an unwelcome intrusion, an extra burden she resented, but he gradual y thawed her hostile attitude with how kindly and caringly he treated her children who lapped up his attention. Sexual tension grew as the cowboy recovered and on the night before he was to leave, the widow decided to have him, wel aware that the probability was he’d never come back.

It was an extraordinary scene—the cowboy’s sense that it wasn’t right to take what she was offering, the torment on his face, the widow goading him into succumbing to the desire they both felt, a kind of desperate passion in the lovemaking. It gave Megan goose bumps, reminding her of her own feelings on the night Jenny had been conceived.

The next morning the children fol owed the cowboy to his horse, pleading for him to come back soon, but the widow simply stood in the doorway, watching him go with a bleak look of resignation on her face.

He hunted down the gang leader, but there was no explosion of violence, no fury, more a grim execution. The cowboy dropped the polka dot square of cloth over his dead face with an air of sick finality. His expression clearly telegraphed—done, but what to do with his life now? He rode back to the graves of his family. More poignant grief and a sense of saying goodbye as the crosses of the graves were silhouetted by a beautiful sunset.

The final shot was of the widow’s children, spotting a cowboy riding towards their ranch, cal ing out to their mother, running to meet him and the widow coming to the doorway, a frown gradual y lifting to an expression of wonderment as the cowboy dismounted, took the children’s hands, and walked towards her.

Megan was stil mopping up tears when Ric turned the television off. Her sisters and Lara and Kathryn were, too.

Even Mitch had to clear his throat before speaking.

‘No hype, Johnny. You made me live that with you.’

‘Yeah,’ Ric agreed, shaking his head in bemusement.

‘There’s nothing new about the story-line—probably been done a thousand times—yet you made it so personal. It’s your movie, Johnny. You carried it al the way and made it a great movie. A
tour de force.
No wonder you’re getting rave reviews!’

‘Probably surprise more than anything,’ Johnny mocked.

‘How do
you
feel about it?’ Lara inserted quietly.

He grimaced. ‘Makes me feel I’ve been caught naked, to tel you the truth. I shouldn’t have done it.’ He pushed up from the sofa, drawing Megan to her feet, as wel . ‘If you don’t mind, you guys, I’m taking my wife off to bed. Jenny stil wakes up at night.’

My wife…and Jenny, his child…

Megan was acutely conscious of the silence they left behind them, even more conscious of Johnny’s rejection of his acting which had been so good it could very wel lead him to be a megastar on the screen.

He was closing himself off from it because of her and their child. Megan had passively accepted his decision to retire from the entertainment field, but now she felt very strongly that it wasn’t right for him to turn his back on so much talent. It was too big a sacrifice…a terrible waste.

She had to talk to him about it.

Had to open the doors.

She remembered him quoting Shakespeare the morning after her father’s wake—

‘And one man in his time plays many parts.’

If anyone should, that person was Johnny El is.

MEGAN
sat on their bed, watching her husband strip off his clothes, remembering the scene he’d played with the widow in the movie—the raw conflict and the caring.

‘Why are you embarrassed?’ she asked.

He shot her a wary look, eyes guarded, watchful, assessing.

Anticipating trouble with her?

‘Mitch was right,’ she asserted warmly. ‘You made us live it with you. I don’t think many actors can grab people by the throat like that. You deserve the accolades, Johnny.’

A wry little smile twitched at his mouth. ‘I wasn’t real y acting, Megan. I just channel ed what I felt about…other things…into the role.’

‘What other things?’ she probed, her pulse skipping into a faster beat at the implication that parts of the movie had paral el ed his own life experience.

Caught naked…

He shook his head. ‘None of it relates to our life now.’

Putting in the block again.

Megan gritted her teeth, determined to fight it this time. ‘I want to know al of you, Johnny, not just the part you think is suitable for me.’

He flashed her a hard look. ‘No, you don’t, Megan.

You’ve spel ed out many times that Gundamurra is your world and you don’t want to be a part of any other.’

Damned by her own words!

‘I’m sorry that the movie has disturbed you,’ he went on.

‘Just remember it was made
before
we were married.’

Her own thoughts before she saw it!

Her heart sank as she realised Johnny had taken on board al the parameters she had drawn and because he wanted their marriage to work, he was doing what he had to do to keep it within them. In a burst of shattering insight, she understood it was the mind-set of a survivor. Cut away anything that might put their life together at risk. Keep everything steady and on course. Don’t invite trouble. Be charming. Smile.

The abused child in Johnny El is was stil there—buried deep but stil inside him, doing what had to be done to survive and prosper in a hostile world!

Having shed his clothes, he landed on the bed, pul ed her down beside him, and
smiled
to set her at ease as he started unbuttoning her shirt. ‘You must be tired…’

‘Stop!’ she cried.

He frowned at the sharpness of her protest.

‘Stop patronising me, Johnny.’ Her eyes begged his understanding as she rushed to explain. ‘I did see your career as a threat to anything we could have together, but I have grown up this past year and I know to put someone like you in a cage is terribly wrong.’

The frown returned. ‘I’m not caged at Gundamurra, Megan. There’s plenty of space here. Different chal enges.

More than enough to happily occupy me.’

She reached up and stroked his cheek, wanting desperately to get under his skin, the self-protective layers he’d grown over too many years. ‘I love you, Johnny. I want you to share your life with me. Al of it, not just the part you think is acceptable to me. I promise you, I won’t turn away from any of it, just because it’s unfamiliar to me. So please…put down the barriers and let me into your mind.’

His eyes studied hers quizzical y. ‘You’ve never said that before.’

‘I’ve been a frightened fool, holding back because I didn’t believe I could ever have al of you, but if you’l truly share with me, Johnny, I swear I’l always be there for you, wherever you want to go and whatever you want to do. I’l never take your family from you, nor…’

He placed gentle fingers on her lips, halting her speech.

‘You love me?’ he repeated gruffly, as though that was al he’d heard.

Appal ed that he had gone al this time with her in the intimacy of their marriage and not felt loved, Megan spil ed out the truth of her long fixation on him, from when she was a little girl—her hero-worship, her teenage crush, the self-protective rejection that had taken the form of scorn, the wild intensity of her need to have him
once,
the guilt of
trapping
him into marriage, the fear of not ever being enough for him. She laid her heart absolutely bare, desperately hoping he would open up, too—good or bad.

She had to know.

Only with knowing could she feel truly married to him.

No secrets.

No forbidden areas.

Honesty.

She saw her revelations strike chords of recognition in his eyes, saw them provoke expressions of bemusement, tenderness, regret, irony, and her nerves were screwed into a complete mess by the time she’d laid it al out to him, but she didn’t care. It was the truth.

For several heart-churning moments he made no reply, simply stroking the wild mop of her hair away from her face, seemingly entranced by the curly tendrils. Or the colour. Her crowning glory.

‘We always had that gap between us, Megan,’ he remarked rueful y. ‘You captured my heart when you were a little girl. In my mind, I adopted you as my little sister, just as I adopted Patrick as my father. Crossing that line was unthinkable. Though I certainly thought about it in recent years.’

‘You did?’ she queried incredulously.

He nodded.

‘You never showed it.’

‘Inappropriate. Firstly, you were Patrick’s daughter.

Secondly, you wouldn’t have a bar of me, anyway.’

She sighed. ‘I thought you were out of my reach, Johnny.’

‘I realise that now. But once you agreed to our making love on the night of Patrick’s wake, I was hel -bent on bridging that gap.’

That startled her into saying, ‘It wasn’t…just sex?’

A whimsical little smile. ‘Did it feel like
just sex
to you?’

‘Johnny, I was so caught up in my own feelings…and I’d baited you, tricked you…’

‘I was where I wanted to be, Megan. And nothing was going to stop me from coming back and winning more from you.’

‘Like…in the movie?’ she asked, wanting to know if he’d transferred his feelings for her to the scene with the widow.

He grimaced. ‘I didn’t think of you ever seeing that movie. When I went back to Arizona, I had them rewrite the part with the widow. I could see she should be thinking the cowboy had too big a commitment to his previous life, that he’d go and never come back. You were in my head al the time, Megan.’

‘The cowboy was torn by the situation, too, Johnny—

between her and what he’d set out to do,’ she reminded him. ‘I don’t want you to feel torn.’

‘It was something he had to finish before he could move on. And he did finish it. I feel the same way. There’s no conflict in me about what I want.’ He smiled, a beautiful, happy smile. ‘You’ve just given it to me.’

Her love…

Such a powerful thing if it wasn’t hemmed in by constrictions.

‘It’s free, Johnny,’ she promised him. ‘You don’t have to perform for me. No matter what you choose to do, or have done in the past, I love you.’

‘What stil bothers you about my past, Megan?’

‘The children…what you felt in the movie. You said you channel ed it…from what?’

Sadness clouded his eyes. ‘When you’re a little kid, you can’t stop what adults do,’ he said quietly. ‘I remember Ric tel ing Mitch and me—back when we were sixteen—how his mother was regularly beaten up and eventual y kil ed by his father, how he’d tried to get in the way, only to get hurled aside and beaten himself. I knew how that was. I learnt very young that you can’t win against adults. They’re too strong.

And they have answers for everything—for the bruises and the broken bones and the bed-wetting…’

‘What was the worst for you?’

He hesitated, not wanting to pul it out.

‘You told me about Ric, Johnny,’ she quickly pressed.

‘Please…tel me about you.’

It came reluctantly, almost as though he was ashamed of it. ‘Being hit wasn’t so bad. I hated being locked in a cupboard. Alone. In the dark. No escape. Days, nights…I never knew how long it would last. Or if they’d forget I was there. I had to stay quiet or I’d get pul ed out, beaten, and put back even longer.’

‘My God, Johnny! No wonder you ran away when you could.’

‘It’s a long way behind me now,’ he said dismissively.

‘But playing that initial scene in the movie—the terrible waste of lives that promised so much—it wasn’t hard for me to cal up grief, nor a savage desire to balance the ledger. Though, in the end, as Ric says, it’s best to let those feelings go and move on. You just don’t ever forget…how it was.’

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t imagine you would. Thank you for tel ing me. It helps me to bridge the gap…knowing why you think and feel as you do. And I don’t want you to ever feel alone again, Johnny.’

He smiled as she wound her arms around his neck, the desire for more unifying action simmering into his eyes as he hopeful y asked, ‘Have I said enough?’

‘No.’

‘What more?’ His patience was being tested.

‘I want to hear you say you love me.’

He laughed, and to Megan’s ears, it was the heady laugh of freedom. His eyes sparkled wild pleasure as he bent to brush his lips over hers and whisper, ‘I love you, Megan Maguire. I love having you as my partner in al things. I love sharing your life—’

‘You’ve got to let me share yours, too,’ she cut in breathlessly.

‘Everything. I love everything about you.’

Then he proceeded to show her how very much he did, and she loved him right back…openly, wholeheartedly, blissful y secure in the certain knowledge that she was every bit as special to him as he was to her…and always would be.

JOHNNY
was completely at peace with his world the next morning, looking benevolently on everyone, not the least bit perturbed when Mitch and Ric wanted a private meeting with him in the office. As the three of them strol ed along the verandah which skirted the inner quadrangle of the homestead, he inquired about his old friends’ contentment with their lives.

‘I’m a happy man,’ Ric declared.

‘Couldn’t have it better,’ Mitch said decisively.

‘Sorry if I did wrong, bringing that video, Johnny,’ Ric slung at him with an edge of concern. ‘Didn’t mean to upset things.’

‘You didn’t,’ Johnny assured him. ‘It cut a bit close to the bone in places, but that’s al right.’