Chapter 28

A month later…

AS USUAL, his clerk handed Mitch a sheaf of messages once court had been adjourned for the day. The top one simply read 'Call Johnny' and gave the telephone number—a local number. The afternoon's legal arguments were instantly banished from Mitch's mind. Johnny Ellis was back in town.

He started smiling and the smile grew into a happy grin by the time he was out of the courthouse and calling the number on his mobile telephone. Johnny had been in the U.S. for the past five months, recording an album and doing a tour, and no doubt he was on his way home to Gundamurra, just stopping off to catch up with Mitch and Ric as he always did when he could.

Johnny…the entertainer. And no doubt his nickname in the music industry—Johnny Charm—was well earned. Back when they were boys at Gundamurra, it was he who had invariably lightened any dark moments with his unquenchable good humour. Not to mention the songs he could make up about anything. Even then he'd been brilliant on the guitar Patrick had given him.

A hotel receptionist answered his call and connected him to the man himself. 'Hey, Mitch!' The big voice boomed over the line. 'Do you happen to be free tonight?'

'Where and when?'

'Thought we'd join up at the Italian restaurant under Ric's apartment at Woolloomooloo. Otto's. Seven o'clock suit you?'

'Fine! Have you been in touch with Ric yet?'

'Tried at his company office. His chief assistant told me he'd gone out to a lunch appointment and hadn't come back. I'll give his home number a buzz at five o'clock, see if he's there.'

'Do that. See you soon, Johnny.'

Mitch's pleasurable anticipation in the get-together dimmed somewhat as Ric's current situation played through his mind. Gary Chappel was dead, Lara and Ric were both back in Sydney, but she was shying clear of him, using the excuse of the funeral and the publicity around her husband's death in her request for him to stay away from her—a request that had been delivered through Mitch.

And Ric was hurting from it. Badly. He was desperate for face-to-face contact with her. No doubt his heart was still very much engaged there.

Almost obsessively so. Kathryn had commented that he wasn't on top of his work at all, his mind very much elsewhere. A whole month had gone by and still no direct word from Lara.

Mitch wondered if he should word Johnny up so he didn't touch on painful areas tonight. Ric had borrowed his plane for the getaway. But if that was brought up it could be quickly skated over and Ric wouldn't like it if Johnny treated him with any special sensitivity. He still had that chip on his shoulder from the old days—a dark wounded pride that drove him beyond where most men would go.

And Mitch was certain now that Lara was at the core of it.

Beautiful, damaged Lara, who was currently taking the steps to put the past behind her, and the hell of it was, Ric had probably become too much a part of that past.

Deep emotional baggage.

Mitch shook his head over it as his clerk waved him to the taxi waiting at the kerb, ready to take them both back to his chambers. As he settled into the car for the short trip, he was wondering how much emotional baggage Kathryn was still carrying from her relationship with Haynes.

Since that first night together, she hadn't once referred back to it, not in all the time they'd spent in each other's company. And he certainly hadn't wanted to remind her. The revelation that Haynes's ambition had no moral boundaries had clearly been a big shock, undermining her confidence in her ability to judge people. His subsequent bullish attempt to claim her back had rattled it even further, causing a complete loss of faith in herself.

At least Mitch had managed to restore a good chunk of that. And won her trust.

But shame was an insidious thing.

Had she managed to bury it or did it still haunt her?

Was she throwing herself into this affair with him because she wanted him…or because she needed him to exorcise the ghosts Haynes had left her with?

Mitch grimaced over his abandoned plan for an old-fashioned courtship. A slow build-up to intimacy would have assured him that what they shared had nothing to do with a rebound effect. As it was…well, it had been totally impossible to reject Kathryn's need that night, especially when he'd been so pumped up from getting rid of Haynes and wanting her himself.

Having taken that step, it was equally impossible to retreat from it. Every time he was with her, whatever they'd decide to do—the opera, a concert, a film, lunch, dinner—it was only a preliminary to satisfying the desire that leapt between them the moment they met and kept simmering to the moment they ended up in bed. Not even making it to a bed sometimes.

Sex was insidious, too. It was such a dominant force—the constant seduction of intense pleasure. Did Kathryn look beyond it when she was with him? How much did she care for the person he was—apart from being the lover who made her feel good?

Time, he assured himself, would eventually answer that question. It had only been a month.

A month of hell for Ric, which was patently obvious when he joined Mitch and Johnny at Otto's for their night out together. He wore the grim look of a man who'd been taken to the brink of total devastation and he was only just hanging onto his determination to survive. Dead man walking, Mitch thought.

Though he did warm up as the evening progressed. Johnny exuded a bonhomie that was irresistible, regaling them with tales from his country and western music world, and Mitch kept the wine flowing. There was a lull in the conversation when Johnny took off to the men's room and Ric's whole demeanour drooped, making it very clear that the effort to maintain a cheerful countenance was draining him.

'Still nothing from Lara?' Mitch asked sympathetically.

A derisive flash from bleak dark eyes. 'As a matter of fact, I met her for lunch today.'

'Not good news?'

His mouth twisted. 'Thank you and goodbye. And nothing I said made a jot of difference.'

'Maybe more time…'

He shook his head. 'Got to put it behind me, Mitch. I'll be off to New York at the end of the week.'

'She did have a hell of a life with Chappel. I can't go into detail…'

'No. It's finished. Let it go.'

The terse finality left Mitch with nothing to say. He knew Ric would hate sympathy yet he keenly felt the death of his friend's eighteen-year dream. He well remembered the nights at Gundamurra when Ric had talked of his Lara, like she was the embodiment of all a guy could ever want in a girl.

It was a sobering reminder to Mitch that a deeply felt attachment did not guarantee a life of togetherness. Timing and circumstances could be big factors in whether or not a happy outcome was reached.

'I hear you've linked up with Kathryn.'

The comment jerked Mitch out of his old memories. 'Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to explain how, when and why.

'She's a good person.' 'Yes, she is.'

Curiosity flickered through the dull flatness of Ric's eyes. 'Did she break her engagement because of meeting you, Mitch?'

'No.' He wished it had been so. 'It was a personal issue between her and her fiancé,' he added, not wanting Ric to think it was some fallout from his business with Lara. His friend already had enough grief to deal with. 'I didn't know she'd broken up with him until the day of Chappel's death.'

'Well, at least that's a clean start for you,' Ric muttered. Mitch didn't disillusion him.

It wouldn't help Ric and it wouldn't help the situation he had with Kathryn.

Johnny returned to the table and the talk moved on to Gundamurra. 'Haven't been home since last Christmas. What about you guys?' Johnny asked.

'I made a flying visit, end of February,' Ric answered casually, no hint that it had been on an extraordinary mission. 'Borrowed your plane, Johnny.'

Johnny grinned. 'Bet you enjoyed flying it, Ric.' He nodded. 'A real pleasure.'

'And you, Mitch?' 'Haven't had the time.'

Johnny wagged a finger at him. 'You make time this coming Christmas, hear? All three of us together. I know your sister had a new baby last year— fair enough—but this year…no excuses! I'm laying down the law.'

'Getting too big for his boots, isn't he, Ric?' Mitch teased, passing off the pressure of decision, not knowing where he'd be with Kathryn and suspecting it would be a long time before Ric would want to return to Gundamurra and memories of Lara.

'It's all his country and western music and being in the U.S. too long,' Ric quickly chimed in. 'Thinks he's a cowboy now, able to ride roughshod over both of us.'

'Watch it, brothers,' Johnny mock-threatened. 'I'm bigger than both of you.'

The old camaraderie carried them through the rest of the evening. Ric caught the elevator up to his apartment, leaving Johnny and Mitch to catch taxis to their separate destinations. Though they ended up walking to Johnny's hotel, while Mitch explained why, as Johnny put it, 'Ric looks like he's been through a wringer and hung out to dry.'

Best that he knew before arriving at Gundamurra tomorrow, Mitch thought. Patrick would want to know how the situation had panned out, too, given his close involvement with it.

'So he took her home and it didn't work,' Johnny commented sadly.

Home…it was how Johnny always referred to Gundamurra. To him, Patrick was the father he'd never had before, caring about him enough to listen to his dreams and help them come true, telling him he was always welcome at the outback sheep station where their future lives had been shaped. Mitch still had family, but Johnny and Ric had no-one. It meant a lot to them that Patrick had offered his home as their home…their safe place in an ever-changing world. They counted on him being there for them, knowing who they were, liking and respecting the men they had become.

Mitch left Johnny at his hotel, wishing him a safe flight to Gundamurra tomorrow, and took a taxi to Woollahra. As he walked into the home he had made for himself, he was thinking he was different to Ric and Johnny. He'd had a mother who'd loved him, a sister who remained very much a good part of his life. Yet Patrick had still been important to him, too— Patrick and what he'd taught them and brought out in them at Gundamurra.

Mitch knew those six months when he was sixteen were an integral part of who he was now. And Kathryn didn't know that part of him—didn't know what he'd shared with Ric and Johnny, didn't know he had, in fact, been convicted of assault. She only knew what he'd chosen to reveal to her, and even if that did win her heart, he knew that in the long run, everything would need to be told, for his own satisfaction that what she felt for him was real…and solid.

Johnny's comment kept running through his mind.

So he took her home and it didn't work.

When Christmas came this year, would Kathryn accompany him to Gundamurra?

And if she did…learning the darker part of his life…would their relationship still work?