Chapter 46.1

Regretful of her lack of generosity towards him in the past and far more aware of his childhood background, she'd bought him many gifts for Christmas; a new Akubra hat, a leather belt with the letter G for Gundamurra worked into the buckle, a coffee mug with Daddy printed on it, a big enough possum harness for him to wear if he wanted to carry the baby with him as he walked around the station, a box of chocolates to feed his sweet tooth. She had another, more important gift for him, waiting for when they could be alone together.

Johnny gave her a beautiful pearl ring which he'd bought secretly while they were on their honeymoon in Broome.

Megan loved it. Somehow it made the gift of the pearl necklace for her twenty-first birthday far more personal and special.

After the usual massive feast on Christmas day, when everyone else was tottering off to have a siesta through the heat of the afternoon, she drew Johnny along the verandah to the office. Although she felt nervous that he might feel pressured to be what she wanted him to be, the gift still felt right to her.

She handed him the prepared envelope.

In it lay the deed to two percent of Gundamurra from her share, giving him the controlling hand.

He stared at it, frowned, and panic instantly played havoc with Megan's taut nerves. He turned an un- comprehending look to her. 'Why?'

'Without you, Gundamurra would not have survived. And you're my husband, Johnny. It's…it's more fitting that you be the boss.'

He shook his head. 'Patrick's will…'

'My father chose you to play the role of knight to the rescue and you did it very generously. But it's moved beyond that now, Johnny. We're married. I think Dad would give his blessing to this gift.' Her argument faltered into uncertainty. 'Do you… Do you mind?'

He threw out his hands. 'How could I mind?' Yet he still frowned, searching her eyes. 'Are you sure you want to give this, Megan? I know how much inheriting Gundamurra meant to you.'

A painful flush scorched her cheeks. She'd been so hateful to him over the will, scornful of all he'd stood for in her eyes, fiercely rejecting any encroachment by him on what she saw as her territory.

'I was wrong, Johnny. Wrong about so many things…' Her apologetic smile was tinged with irony. 'You've shown me how wrong I was and I want to make up for it.' Her eyes begged him to let her.

'Megan…' He sighed, then moved to curl his hands around her shoulders, his eyes warmly reassuring. 'You're Patrick's daughter. You didn't need to do this. I don't feel less of a man because you own more of Gundamurra than I do. This gift is too big for me to accept. I can't feel right about it.'

'But I feel right to give it,' she pleaded. Or was she subconsciously tying him to her? Loading him with a responsibility to stop him from ever walking away? Trying to balance out her own secret insecurities?

He hesitated, assessing her need, weighing it against what he felt. Finally he said. 'Then let it be one percent. Equal partners.' He grinned. 'I can live very happily with that.'

Relief poured through her. 'Partners. Yes,' she eagerly agreed, winding her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to draw him into a kiss which would seal their partnership—a kiss that very quickly led to Johnny sweeping her off to bed.

They gave Mitch the job of fixing the percentage for them.

Their baby was born three weeks after Christmas—an adorable little girl whom they named Jennifer, instantly shortened to Jenny by her doting father.

The drought had not broken. Johnny's helicopter wasn't needed to transport Megan to and from the maternity ward in Bourke hospital. However, they were no sooner back on Gundamurra when the rain did come, and it was a Big Wet, raining on and off for the next two months. The parched country, that had seemed so lifeless for so long, started to bloom again.

'It's like a miracle, isn't it?' Johnny remarked with awe as they stood on the front verandah one morning, looking out on grassed land that reached to the horizon.

'Rebirth,' she murmured, loving how it always happened—what looked like dead ground coming to life again. 'Two miracles,' Johnny crooned down at their daughter who was cradled in his arms. 'You came into the world and brought the rain with you, Jenny. Now we'll be able to build up a whole army of sheep. Lots of lambs for you to play with.'

She gurgled back at him, perfectly happy with her father's plan. And Megan, too, was perfectly happy. No doubts at all that Johnny was happy to make his life on Gundamurra with her and their child.

No doubts…until she watched Johnny's movie on the night before Good Friday.

The weather had turned fine enough for the family to fly in for Easter, an invitation pressed by Johnny so he could show off his daughter. Ric brought the surprise with him—a video copy of The Last Cowboy Standing, which had already been released in the U.S. and according to Ric, was grossing huge box office profits.

'You're slaying them, Johnny,' he said with huge pride in his old friend. 'I've just been in L.A. on business, and believe me, even the diehard critics are hailing you as an actor who should be up for an Academy Award for this performance.'

'That's just hype,' Johnny demurred.

'Well, let's see,' Mitch drawled, grinning from ear to ear as he added, 'Can't wait to watch John Wayne riding again.'

Everyone stood up, eager to go to the TV room. They'd finished dinner. The children were in bed asleep. There was no reasonable excuse not to watch the movie and it would be like another rejection of Johnny if she didn't, yet Megan could not quell the fear that Ric's report had stirred. If Johnny's acting was so good…she didn't want to see, didn't want to know.

He'd put aside his singing career. She could accept that because he had already achieved his ambitions in that arena, but this might be another career pinnacle he'd want to climb. They'd been so happy together these past few months. She didn't want anything to threaten what they now shared, but wasn't that being mean again, thinking only of what she wanted instead of considering Johnny's needs?

If she had to, she'd go with him anywhere.

He caught her hand as they were heading out of the dining room, pausing her while the others moved on, squeezing it hard as he murmured, 'Are you okay with this, Megan?'

She looked up into eyes that were sharp with concern, caring about what she felt, caring which was undoubtedly fed by the bad memories she'd given him.

'Of course,' she replied, smiling to show they would not be in conflict over this movie or anything arising out of it.

Still he hesitated, apparently reluctant to see himself in the movie, anyway.

'Have you got a problem with it?' she asked, wondering if he'd been intent on blocking out everything he'd done before their marriage.

He grimaced. 'I've never watched myself perform.' Embarrassment that he might not live up to the hype? 'You're brilliant onstage, Johnny,' she assured him, squeezing his hand to inject her support and confidence. 'You have a talent for emoting that I'm sure will come across on film, too.'

'Emoting…' He looked quizzically at her for a moment, then shrugged. 'Well, might as well see what the director did with all the scenes he shot. Just remember it's only a movie, Megan. Okay?'

'Okay,' she repeated firmly.

There had to be a woman in it, Megan thought, as they followed the others to the TV room. The tension emanating from Johnny probably meant there were love scenes. But she was not going to be jealous. The movie had been made before they were married. Johnny's commitment to her since then had been rock-solid. She fervently wished she hadn't doubted it over the blonde at the concert. So many wrongs…still to be righted.

One of the sofas had been left vacant for them. As soon as they were settled on it, Ric started the video rolling. The credits zigzagged over a long shot of a cowboy riding towards a ranch. Ric and Mitch tossed a few teasing remarks at Johnny which he took good-humouredly.

However, everyone was stunned into silence when the cowboy finally reached home and entered the ranch house.

Silence from the movie, too. No music track. No speech.

Just the stark images of a wife who had been beaten, raped, and killed, and two small children lying broken and dead on the floor, blood on the wall showing where their head injuries had happened. The shock and grief of the cowboy were heart-gripping and everyone watching could see—feel—the surge of savage need to find the perpetrators, grim purpose mixed with a terrible tenderness as he removed a red and white polka dot neckerchief from his wife's dead grasp.

He crushed it in his own hand and that image was instantly transferred to the cowboy standing at three graves, slowly turning away and walking to his horse. Then the music started—music that seemed to reinforce the relentless beat of the horse's hooves, riding out on an unshakeable mission.

'Hell!' Ric breathed. 'That's powerful stuff, Johnny.'

To Megan every scene that followed was powerful; each gang member being hunted, confronted, punished with raging violence, then killed, 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 collapsed at the front door.

When he swam back to consciousness, two small 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 gradually 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, well 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 followed 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, calling out to their mother, running to meet him and the widow coming to the doorway, a frown gradually lifting to an expression of wonderment as the cowboy dismounted, took the children's hands, and walked towards her.

Megan was still 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 all 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 tell you the truth. I shouldn't have done it.' He pushed up from the sofa, drawing Megan to her feet, as well. 'If you don't mind, you guys, I'm taking my wife off to bed. Jenny still 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 well 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 Ellis.