after Christmas.’
‘Maybe he knew he didn’t have long to live.’
‘Dammit! Why wouldn’t he tell us? We were all at Gundamurra for Christmas.’
‘If Patrick thought it was the last one for him, he wouldn’t have wanted to spoil it.’
‘But…’ Johnny lifted his hands in helpless frustration.
‘Want to know what Mitch thinks?’
He waved a go-ahead, completely beyond imagining what had motivated such an extraordinary step.
‘Patrick elected you to save Gundamurra. It’s highly unlikely that Megan can do it by herself. The way things are going with the drought, she won’t be able to service the mortgage. And it was you who always thought of it as home. Not me. Not Mitch. You.’
Johnny frowned. ‘Mitch had a home with his mother and sister, but I thought you…’ He searched Ric’s eyes.
A very direct gaze accompanied his reply. ‘You needed it more than I did, Johnny. And you can’t deny it touches something in your soul. It comes out in your songs.’
Need…yes. There was so much hype and superficial crap in the career he had chosen, so much touring to make his success stick, it was the thought of Gundamurra that kept him sane, grounded, and going back there always put his world in perspective again—what was real, what wasn’t.
‘It won’t be the same without Patrick.’ Grief squeezed his heart. ‘He was the soul of Gundamurra.’
‘You’re forgetting Megan.’
Megan.
His mind shied away from thinking of her right now. Already he could see those stormy grey eyes hating him for being given half of her place, wishing he’d never set foot on Gundamurra, let alone have any claim on it.
‘Patrick forgot his other daughters, Jessie and Emily,’ he said, tearing his mind off the one daughter who’d become such a nagging thorn in his side.
‘They’ve both made their lives away from Gundamurra and Patrick financed their ambitions,’ Ric reminded him. ‘I think they’ll feel they’ve had their share. Jessie has her medical degree and the women’s clinic she wanted at Alice Springs. Emily has her helicopter business at Cairns. The money to set them up was taken out of Gundamurra, probably contributing to the current debt. They can’t be unaware of that.’
True enough, Johnny silently acknowledged, yet the family home was the family home. Leaving them out and putting him in might very well stir a sense of injustice. He couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about this inheritance on many counts. On the other hand, Patrick had wanted him there and it was impossible to discount a decision which would not have been taken lightly.
‘It’s up to you and Megan to pull Gundamurra through this bad patch and revive it, Johnny,’ Ric gravely assured him. ‘Patrick got it right.’ He sighed and softly added, ‘He always got it right.’
It was some relief that Ric thought so.
Mitch, too, apparently.
But no way was Megan was going to accept it gracefully.
Jessie and Emily might not, either, though Ric was right about their interests lying elsewhere and Patrick had put large investments behind their chosen careers. Besides which, both of them were married to men who shared those interests, Jessie’s husband being a doctor for the Royal Doctor Flying Service, and Emily’s husband a fellow helicopter pilot.
Only Megan was unmarried.
Not surprising with her bristling form of feminism, Johnny thought, wishing she’d stayed in the sweetly amenable little sister mould that he’d always found so engaging. That much younger Megan had never minded him stepping in and helping.
The flight steward came and took their glasses. The plane was about to take off. Johnny leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and tried to relax. Fourteen hours to Sydney. Then the flight to Gundamurra in the far north west of New South Wales…the outback.
He felt the pull of it in his mind…the vast, seemingly empty land, wide-open space, searingly blue sky. It had a rhythm all its own—one that always felt good. The only jarring note was Megan standing in the middle of it, waiting for him, furiously frustrated because she had to share Gundamurra with him.
Had Patrick got it right?
The financial part, yes. Johnny could pour millions into Gundamurra without a pang of personal loss. Mortgage gone with a simple transfer of money. Plus all the investment Megan needed to maintain the sheep station, eventually making it into a thriving concern again. But she certainly wouldn’t welcome him into the life there. Over the past few years, her eyes had been branding him as an unwanted intruder, wanting him out.
But I’m in, Johnny thought on a surge of grim determination to keep what Patrick had granted him, regardless of Megan’s reaction to it. He was co-owner. That gave him the right to be at Gundamurra whenever he wanted to and Megan would just have to stomach having him as her helpmate. Maybe, given time, he could whittle away whatever prejudice she had against him.
The leaden weight of grief eased as a strong sense of purpose grew. The outback was primitive—man against nature—a constant challenge that had to be won, just to survive, let alone prosper.
Above all else, Johnny was a survivor.
He wanted this challenge. Maybe he needed it. So come what might, he was going to hold his ground on Gundamurra. Patrick had entrusted it to him.
CHAPTER TWO
MEGAN finished doing her morning rounds, ensuring her work orders were being followed, checking for any problems, chatting to the families who still lived on the station, subtly assuring them that the status quo was not about to change. They were to carry on as usual.
She should have felt relieved that the sombre mood hanging over everyone for the past few days had lifted this morning, but the reason for it was a major irritant. Johnny had arrived. Never mind that Ric Donato and Mitch Tyler were also here. It was Johnny who put smiles on everyone’s faces. Just the thought of him was enough to do it.
Charm…
It was as natural to him as breathing.
And it always reminded her what a hopelessly naive little fool she’d been to see it as something else when applied to her. There was no differentiation. He ladled it out to one and all—his trademark in the pop world where he was a big star, a master of light entertainment. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Having finally recognised that, she’d tried to bury the hurt of it and move on. It would have helped if he’d gone completely out of her life—out of sight, out of mind—but he kept coming back, making her feel bad about herself because it was stupid, stupid, stupid to still feel attracted to him. His interests lay elsewhere, wrapped up with his glittering successes overseas. Their lives did not mix. Never would.
Why hadn’t her father seen that?
Why?
Had he only thought of the
