The Outback Bridal Rescue (8 page)

Her childhood had been very happy. Her teens had been mostly a fun time, though she’d missed Gundamurra while she was at boarding school. It was only her fixation on Johnny that had blighted her later years.

Not his fault.

She’d acted like a spoiled bitch because he hadn’t come to her party, hadn’t fulfil ed the role she’d cast for him.

So she’d cast him in another role that didn’t fit him, either.

Wel , her perception of him had certainly been changed today. The problem was…it made him even more attractive to her.

‘I haven’t said I’m sorry…for
your
loss.’ She squeezed his hand to impress her sincerity on him. ‘I am, Johnny.’

His gaze swung back to her and it seemed to hold the dark intensity of eternal night—no stars. ‘Wil you stand with me tomorrow? At the graveside? Patrick put us together, Megan. I want us to be together.’

Her own desire for togetherness with him—far beyond what he was asking—zinged through her entire body, twisting her insides, heating her blood. She hoped he couldn’t see the rush of heat to her face. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her throat almost too tight to speak.

‘Thank you.’

For a moment the air seemed charged with a sense of closeness that wildly fired up al Megan’s hopes and dreams. Johnny rose to his feet, pul ing her up with him. Her heart started gal oping. He dropped her hand and she thought he meant to draw her into an embrace. The yearning for it inside her swamped any cautious thought she might have had.

She heard his sharply indrawn breath, saw his broad chest lift, expand, and looked up to find his head bent towards hers. His hands clamped around her upper arms.

His gaze fastened on her mouth. Her own pent-up breath parted her lips. Anticipation kicked through her mind, scattering al her wits. He was going to kiss her. Johnny El is was going to kiss her.

But he spoke instead.

‘I always used to think of you as my little sister, Megan.’

No-o-o-o… The silent scream reverberated around her head.

‘If you could think of me…as your big brother…standing by you…’

No…no…no!

‘…I think your father would like that.’

Rebel ion cried this had nothing to do with her father.

Nothing!

‘You should go to bed and try to rest now,’ he said, his smile a twist of brotherly caring. And he dropped a kiss on
her forehead.
‘Goodnight, Megan.’

He released her arms, backed off, turned, and headed across the lawn to the guest wing which housed his room.

She clenched her hands, the urge to fight, to hurl herself after him and beat out every shred of brotherly feeling, was barely containable. Pride forced her to hold stil . Common sense directed her to go to her own room, shut the door and wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow she would show him she was a woman, not a little girl. Her femininity would not be
neutered
by men’s clothes. As for her hair…

She would
show
him.

No way was she going to let him pigeonhole her as
his
little sister!

JOHNNY
was total y stunned by Megan’s appearance the next morning. Not only was she wearing a curve-hugging black suit with a flirty little fril at the bottom of her skirt—drawing attention to the feminine shapeliness of her calves, fine ankles, and feet shod in sexy black high heels—but her hair was…positively mesmerising.

Al throughout breakfast he could not stop looking at it.

Usual y she wore it in pigtails or scaped into a knot, tightly confined, with a hat crammed over it more often than not.

He could not remember ever seeing it like this—lustrous red-gold waves springing softly from her head, cascading into curls that bounced al uringly around her shoulders. It looked so vivid against the paleness of her skin, and formed an amazingly rich, sensual contrast to her sombre attire.

Her face seemed different, too. Maybe it was the startling beauty of her hair framing it, or the subtle touches of make-up—brows pencil ed a shade darker, a smoky shadow applied to her eyelids, enhancing the shape and size of her eyes, lending a more feminine mystique to their sharp directness, and the red-brown lipstick certainly added an enticing lushness to her mouth. He had imagined she could look quite striking if she tried. He simply wasn’t prepared for…stunning!

She wore a double strand of pearls around her throat.

They looked like the pearls he’d chosen for her twenty-first birthday. A grown-up necklace he’d thought at the time, something real y good to commemorate her coming of age, Patrick’s youngest daughter. He’d bought them in Broome, Picard pearls, the best in the world. He’d meant to present them himself at Megan’s birthday party, but Liesel—leaving her had been impossible just then.

Seven years since Megan had turned twenty-one.

He’d sent the pearls and forgotten about them.

There had been Liesel’s death…and al the promise of her talent lost.

Now Patrick’s death.

He should be thinking of the man, not his daughter.

Johnny tried to keep his mind focussed on paying his last respects to Patrick Maguire. Yet even at the funeral service his attention was split. Megan sat beside him and every time she bent her head he was distracted by the rippling flow of her hair, the scent of it reminding him of fresh lemons, slightly tart but light and refreshing, completely unlike the erotic muskiness of other women’s perfume.

And she stood beside him as Patrick was buried in the designated plot beside his beloved wife. With the extra elevation of high heels, the top of her head came up to his chin. Not as little as he had thought her. She held herself with very straight and tal dignity. Patrick would have been proud of her.

Afterwards, when they returned to the homestead, Johnny could not stop his gaze from fol owing her every move—greeting the guests who’d flown in to attend the wake, graciously listening to what they wanted to say, serving them with drinks or food. Many people
he
didn’t know had come, but
she
knew them al and their connections to her father. It brought home to Johnny that this was her life and he had only ever been a visitor to Gundamurra, not an integral part of it.

The people who lived on the station knew him, welcomed his company, chatted to him. Somehow it wasn’t enough. He wanted to be at Megan’s side, sharing the responsibilities of outback hospitality, familiar with everything that was familiar to her. The sense of being an outsider—
the pop-star
—grated on him, especial y when Megan’s attention was courted by young men attached to other pastoral properties.

Men who were smitten by the way she looked today.

Men who won kind smiles from her.

Men who might be eager to offer themselves as partners, given some sign of encouragement.

Johnny’s charm started to wear thin.

A previously unknown possessive streak hit him, driving him to insert himself into the private little
tête-à-têtes
these men sought with Megan, making his presence at her side felt and forcibly acknowledged. Though that didn’t work too wel . He found himself viewed as a curiosity, not a threat to their interests.

He managed to hold himself back from crassly declaring that
he
now owned forty-nine percent of Gundamurra, which he’d saved from the brink of bankruptcy, so Patrick’s daughter was not quite the attractive prospect they might imagine her to be. Futile move anyway, he argued to himself. How she looked today was drawcard enough.

Perhaps he was less than subtle in cutting out one guy who was definitely coming on to her. Megan threw him a look of exasperation and grittily declared, ‘I do not need a big brother standing over me, Johnny.’

He’d never felt less like a big brother.

‘Seems like you’re not sour on al men after al ,’ he shot back at her.

Her eyes widened.

Johnny realised he sounded jealous. He
was
jealous. He wished he’d given in to the temptation to kiss her last night, kiss her so hard she wouldn’t be thinking of giving any other guy the time of day. He wanted to grab her arm and haul her away from everyone else right now, have her to himself, convince her that he was the man for her.

But was he?

And what damage might he do to the working partnership they had to have, if he made the move and it was wrong for her?

‘I’m just trying to be as good a hostess as my mother,’

she said, her chin lifting in defiance of his criticism.

‘Right! Wel , I’l leave you to it.’

He backed off, sternly reminding himself of the company they were in—people here for Patrick. However, he spent the rest of the wake simmering with frustration, though he took considerable satisfaction in the number of glances Megan threw his way. She’d wel and truly disturbed him.

Let her be disturbed, too!

He was glad when al the guests were gone and he could busy himself helping with the cleaning up, chatting with Evelyn in the kitchen, feeling
at home
again. There was no formal dinner tonight. The family picked at leftovers, flaking out in the sitting room once the homestead was back to normal. The consensus of opinion was that the wake had been al it should have been for a man of Patrick Maguire’s standing—a man who would be sadly missed by many.

Emotional and physical fatigue gradual y took its tol , people trailing off to bed until there was only Johnny and Megan left in the room. He was sprawled in an armchair.

She was on a sofa, one elbow propped on its armrol , legs up, her stockinged feet bare of the shoes she had kicked off. It was a pose that seductively outlined the very female curve of waist, hip and thigh, and Johnny found it difficult not to let his gaze linger on it.

He expected her to leave. She usual y did avoid being alone with him. Any moment now those legs would swing off the sofa, take her away to the privacy of her room, and it was probably better that they did, save him from making a fool of himself. He watched her feet, waiting for them to move. She wriggled her toes. His gaze dropped to the shoes lying beside the sofa, noting the long, narrow shape of them.

‘Cramped feet?’ he asked.

‘They’re not used to wearing fashionable shoes,’ she drily admitted.

‘Want me to massage them?’

‘Is that a big brotherly thing to do?’

The mocking taunt whipped his gaze up to meet the smoking chal enge she was directing straight at him.

Megan could no longer contain the furious frustration that had been wel ing up in her al day. ‘I am not your little sister and I do not need you to watch over me,’ she threw at him in seething protest over how he had acted with her—last night, holding her hand and kissing her forehead as though she were a baby, keeping close to her today, ready to be supportive at any falter on her part, inserting himself at her side whenever he thought she might not be able to handle what he interpreted as possibly unwelcome attention.

He hitched himself forward in his chair, gesturing for understanding, frowning over her reaction. ‘It was just a friendly offer, Megan.’

Friendly!

For him to now sit on the other end of the sofa and nursemaid her to the extent of massaging her toes… It would drive her so crazy she’d probably end up needling his crotch with them! She swung her legs off the sofa and stood up, viewing him with bristling
hauteur.

‘I’m fine. What’s more, I’m al grown up, Johnny, in case you haven’t noticed. Which you should have, since I made the effort not to
neuter
myself today.’

He grimaced. ‘Impossible not to notice.’

‘So what did I get wrong?’

‘Wrong?’

‘You weren’t moved to make any positive comment.’

She lifted her arms and tossed her hair back over her shoulders in angry impatience with it hanging around her face—hair she’d spent over an hour shampooing and blow-drying so it would look fluffy and feminine. ‘Stil not good enough for you!’ she muttered, mocking herself more than him.

‘Not good enough?’ he repeated incredulously, shaking his head as though hopelessly confused by her attitude.

Of course her words made no sense in the context of his
little sister
mind frame. Total y incensed by his insensitivity to this major attempt at changing his view of her, Megan clenched her jaw and headed for the liquor cabinet at the other end of the room, determined on blotting out the stupid futility of trying to change anything where Johnny was concerned.

‘Wel , I’m certainly old enough to get drunk tonight,’ she tossed at him derisively. ‘Entitled to, what’s more. So why don’t you go off to bed, Johnny, and leave me to drown my sorrows?’

He suddenly exploded off his chair, grabbing her arm as she moved past him. ‘What do you mean by…
not good
enough?
’ He bit out the words as though they were kil ing him. His eyes slashed at hers, trying to cut through to her soul.

The intensity coming from him pumped Megan up to defy him further. ‘You didn’t even notice I was wearing the pearls you gave me for my twenty-first birthday,’ she rattled out recklessly. ‘On the other hand, why should you? You probably got some aide to buy a suitable gift and send it to me.’

‘I did notice them,’ he fiercely refuted her. ‘I chose them myself. And I was pleased to see you wearing them.’

‘You didn’t
say
anything!’

‘What do you want me to say? That you look fantastic?

That I could hardly keep my eyes off you? That I wanted to beat every other man away?’

A sense of wild triumph zinged around Megan’s brain.

She had succeeded in getting to him as a man. Johnny El is had actual y been
jealous
of the guys who’d shown her some admiration. He
had
seen her as a woman with the power to attract male interest.

It was a huge step forward, but where did it get her if he wasn’t prepared to act on it? ‘So you think I need your protection now?’ she flung at him.

‘It’s the last thing on my mind.’

The emphatic beat of his voice was like thunder in her ears, thunder in her heart. And she got action aplenty. He stepped closer, scooping her body around to face him. The hand that had seized her arm lifted, its fingers raking through her hair, dragging her head back so that it was tilted up to his. The raw desire flaring from his eyes made her stomach quiver in anticipation.