Megan tried not to feel too critical of this indulgence as she opened the kitchen door…and came to an embarrassed halt, finding the highly dependable housekeeper weeping on Johnny Ellis’s big, broad shoulder, his cheek rubbing the top of her head, one brawny arm holding her while the other was engaged in delivering soothing pats on her back.
It was instantly clear that the grief Evelyn had held in the past few days had suddenly overflowed and Johnny was comforting her. Megan stood rooted to the spot, realising that she and her sisters, wrapped in their own loss, had taken Evelyn’s services to them for granted, not really considering that she, too, might feel devastated by their father’s sudden death. It was Johnny who was giving her what she needed, sympathetic understanding and a shoulder to cry on.
What I need, too.
A painful loneliness stabbed through Megan’s heart. Jessie and Emily had their husbands. Ric and Mitch had their wives. With her father gone, she had no-one to hold her, soothe her pain. And the sight of Johnny Ellis embracing Evelyn made it worse.
It wasn’t fair that he looked like a strong, steady rock to lean on. His life was all about image, Megan fiercely told herself. Her gaze fixed scornfully on his riding boots—still playing the cowboy role—then noted how the denim of his jeans was tightly stretched around his powerful thighs, showing off how solidly built he was.
No doubt his female fans swooned over his macho sexiness, imagining his private parts were the ultimate in virility. Megan wondered just how many women didn’t have to imagine, having known him intimately. Did he have a different one every night? Two or three a day?
It would have to be so easy for him, a mere crook of the finger. His star status would assure him of groupies everywhere. Though strictly on a male appeal level, he had the lot anyway; impressive physique, a very masculine face accentuated by a squarish jawline, a strong, almost triangular nose with its flaring nostrils, wickedly twinkling greenish eyes which were quite strikingly complemented by tanned skin and toffee-coloured hair, and, of course, the wide mouthful of white teeth that flashed winning smiles everywhere, not to mention the million-dollar voice.
Which suddenly crooned, ‘I think this is the time for me to make you a cup of tea, Evelyn.’
The weeping had stopped.
With a choked little laugh, Evelyn lifted her head. ‘No…no…’ she said chidingly, reaching up to pat his cheek as he gently released her from his embrace. ‘Thank you for letting me unburden my sorrows, but don’t be taking away my pleasures now. You sit yourself down and let me get busy.’
Megan hadn’t gathered wits enough to effect a swift retreat before the two of them moved apart and Johnny’s swinging gaze caught her in the open doorway. Her stomach lurched as their eyes locked and she felt the sympathy he’d given to Evelyn being transmitted to her. She didn’t want it from him. Didn’t need anything from him. And be damned if she’d cry on his shoulder!
‘Megan…come on in,’ he invited, his hand beckoning her forward, taking charge, assuming control!
Not of me! Never! Megan silently and savagely vowed.
‘Evelyn was just telling me about your father…how he’d been clutching your mother’s photograph from the bedside table in his hand when you found him,’ he went on softly, sadly. ‘I guess—’
‘Yes.’ She cut him off, feeling tears welling up again. ‘I hope he’s with my mother now. He missed her very much.’ Fighting her way out of a storm of emotion, she waspishly added, ‘I wonder if you’ll ever know that kind of love, Johnny?’
His face tightened as though she had slapped him.
Evelyn gave a shocked gasp.
Acutely aware that the personal remark had slipped out of her previous thoughts and was totally inexcusable, Megan almost bit her tongue in chagrin. She had to deal with this man. That was best done by keeping as much impersonal distance from him as possible.
‘I think finding that kind of love is rather rare in today’s world,’ Johnny answered in a measured tone.
‘Especially yours,’ flew out of her mouth before she could stop it.
‘Miss Megan…’
Evelyn’s reproof faded into a heavy sigh.
Megan gritted her teeth, refusing to take back what she believed. She glared defiance at the man who’d probably slept with thousands of women without giving any one of them any serious commitment. Her words had clearly struck a nerve and she took fierce satisfaction in the way his eyes glittered at her. No sympathy now.
‘Rare in your world, too, Megan,’ he countered, using his voice like a silky whip. ‘Unless you’ve met the man of your dreams since Christmas.’
‘Too busy,’ she loftily retorted.
‘Which reminds me…’
‘We need to talk,’ she leapt in before he could take charge of their business meeting. ‘When you’ve finished your breakfast, perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming to the office.’
‘Whatever suits you,’ he returned obligingly.
‘That will be most appropriate. You’ll find me there.’
She quickly closed the door and strode outside, marching off a mountain of turbulent energy as she headed for the front entrance of the homestead and the steps leading up to the verandah which skirted the huge house—a verandah that welcomed people out of the sun that could too often be pitiless in the Australian Outback.
She hadn’t welcomed Johnny Ellis.
Couldn’t welcome him.
Having reached the top of the steps she turned, her gaze skating around all the outbuildings that made Gundamurra look like a small township from the air; the big maintenance and shearing sheds, the prize rams’ enclosure attached to the lab, the cottages for the long-term staff, the bunkhouse for jackaroos, the cook’s quarters, the supplies store, the schoolhouse.
She was twenty-eight years old and this was her life—the life she’d chosen—the life she loved.
She didn’t need a man.
Certainly not a man who peddled charm.
What she needed was this whole area to be an oasis of green again. Even the foliage on the pepper trees looked brown, coated with dust. All the land to the horizon was brown, and above it the sky was a blaze of blue, no clouds, no chance of rain.
If only the Big Wet had come this year, breaking the drought, her father might not have decided to write that will, making Johnny Ellis a permanent fixture in her life. The pressing question now was…how was she going to pry him out of it? Or at least, minimise his presence to next to nothing.
He didn’t belong here.
With this thought firmly entrenched in her mind, Megan went inside, passing through the great hall that bisected this section of the homestead, moving onto the verandah that skirted the inner quadrangle, heading straight for her father’s office.
Once there, she found herself drawn to the chess table by the window, remembering what Mitch had said, that her father thought through his strategies very carefully. The black and white pieces were set up ready to play, which had to mean his last game with Mitch—played by e-mail—had been completed.
Game over, she thought, and on a deep wave of sadness, laid the black king down. She stared at the white knight, fretting further over why her father had thought Johnny Ellis was the right man to ride in to the rescue, then gave up on trying to figure it out and moved on to sit in the large leather chair behind the desk.
It was a big chair made for a big man. Physically she didn’t fit it, never would, but at least her father had granted her the right to sit here in his place, and no way in the world was she going to let Johnny Ellis occupy it while they talked.
He was ten years her senior but that didn’t give him any authority over her