Read The Outback Bridal Rescue for Free Online

between them. The words tumbled out, seeking the answer that might make sense of Megan Maguire’s attitude towards him.
    ‘What happened to the girl who used to like me?’

    I grew up.
    Megan wasn’t about to give that answer, nor explain the milestones that had marked her passage to where she was now. She looked at Johnny El is, knowing he was thirty-eight, yet the years sat so easily on him, she could stil see the sixteen-year-old boy who’d made up songs for her when she was just a little kid—songs that had generated dreams that were never going to come true for her.
    The monumental crush she’d had on him in her teens had final y bitten the dust when he hadn’t come home for her twenty-first birthday. She’d planned for him to see her as a woman, but her coming of age had obviously meant nothing to him. He’d stayed in the U.S., busy with his career, and no doubt involved with the kind of woman who shared his limelight. She was just Patrick Maguire’s youngest daughter, someone he was nice to when it suited him to visit Gundamurra.
    Facile charm.
    Meaningless.
    It was her father who’d drawn him back to Gundamurra…her father who had given him almost half of it in his wil , trapping her into this ridiculous and frustrating partnership with a man whose life was aimed at adding more stars to his celebrity status.
    ‘Do you need everyone to like you, Johnny?’ she lightly taunted, hoping he’d hightail it back to Hol ywood where everybody probably fawned on him.
    He shrugged, his eyes holding hers in chal enge.
    ‘Usual y I know why not. Where you’re concerned, I’m at a total loss, Megan. What have I done to you to warrant your dislike? Best spit it out now before we get into business together.’
    ‘What reason could I have for disliking you, Johnny?’ she countered. ‘You’ve always been charming to me.’ Which was absolutely true. ‘As for doing business together,’ she quickly ran on, ‘I don’t imagine you’l want to take an active part in running Gundamurra. You do have a movie to finish and probably many more in your pipeline.’
    ‘No. Just the one. Which I’m committed to by contract,’
    he stated drily. ‘Undoubtedly, people wil wait to see how wel I perform on screen before other offers come in.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure with your star quality—’
    ‘Let’s not speculate on a hypothetical future, Megan,’ he cut in. ‘We’re here to discuss the far more immediate future of Gundamurra, are we not?’ He cocked a chal enging eyebrow at her. ‘Can we be honest about that?’
    She felt herself burning again. She’d thought a bit of flattery—pandering to the ego that stars of his magnitude had to have—would set the scene she wanted to play through with him. But his eyes were seeing straight through that ploy, mocking her attempt to manipulate what she saw as his push to be loved by more and more fans through the movies he could make.
    ‘You need not be concerned about the running of Gundamurra, Johnny. I’l be doing that,’ she stated with grim determination.
    ‘I don’t doubt you’re capable of it, Megan, given enough resources to ride through the drought. That’s where I come in.’
    The lack of resources…there was no denying that, though there’d been no mismanagement. Her father had taken out the first big loan from the bank to finance Emily’s helicopter business, before the drought started biting deep.
    Then to keep the sheep alive, keep paying wages, more loans…and wool prices had dropped. The mortgage now was so big, Megan didn’t know how she could service it with no relief from the drought in sight. Even if it rained tomorrow, she’d need recovery time.
    A rescue package had to be accepted from Johnny El is if she was to keep Gundamurra. Except it wasn’t entirely hers to keep. It was his, too. And she stil didn’t know how he wanted to work their partnership. He’d just denied her any sense of security about him going away and staying away.
    ‘We