The Outback Bridal Rescue by Emma Darcy Read Free Book Online

chest in some stupid manic excitement until the words that had preceded Johnny’s proposal hit home, firing up a surge of anger that lifted her right out of her father’s chair to hurl a furious rejection at him.
    ‘You think I’d marry you for your money?’
    She didn’t wait for a reply, so total y incensed by the suggestion, she flew straight into attack. ‘How dare you lump me with the kind of women who hang off you for what you can give them?’ Her arms scissored a dismissal of absolute disgust. ‘Which just goes to prove how tainted your thinking is by the life you lead. Buy a woman here. Buy a woman there. Have one in every port of cal .’
    Her mocking hands landed on her hips, planting themselves there in a bel igerent flaunting of her own femininity which wasn’t for sale. ‘Wel , not at Gundamurra.
    Not even if I was reduced to eating dirt would I join that queue for your favours.’
    He had the gal to look amused, his eyes twinkling unholy mischief at her as he observed, ‘So, you see me as some indiscriminate sex machine, churning through women at a rate of knots, probably not even remembering their names.’

    She glared back at him, wishing she hadn’t let her tongue loose on this theme.
    He strol ed towards her, gesturing an open invitation to continue. ‘I’d like to hear what evidence you have that formed this picture of me.’
    ‘Oh, don’t pretend there haven’t been swarms of groupies after you,’ she snapped, folding her arms across her chest to contain herself against the strength of his attraction as he came at her. ‘Anyone in a sweet shop gets tempted to taste,’ she fired to pul him up short.
    It didn’t so much as make him pause. He hitched himself onto the other side of her father’s desk, bringing his eye level down to a very direct line with hers, holding her gaze with a mocking intensity that squeezed her heart, making it thump in painful protest.
    ‘Did you ever make these comments about me to your father, Megan?’
    ‘No. Why would I? I’m sure he understood where you were at, Johnny,’ she returned with acid emphasis.
    ‘Yes, he did. He took the time to understand exactly where I was at when I was sixteen.’
    ‘Sixteen.’ She rol ed her eyes. ‘You weren’t a huge star then.’
    ‘No. I was a street-kid, whose only knowledge of how life worked was firmly planted in being used and using back, perpetuating a system of abuse.’
    She frowned, not relating to this picture at al . ‘I remember you as always being a happy person.’
    He shrugged. ‘I’d learnt that a smile could ward off many evils, as wel as hide what no-one wants to know about.’
    ‘Huh!’ she pounced. ‘I knew the legendary charm was al a pose.’
    The satisfaction in her voice drew a quizzical look from him. ‘It began as a survival tactic. But now I like to make people feel good. Is that so wrong to you?’
    ‘It’s deceptive.’
    ‘Deceptive?’ he repeated critical y, goading her into ignoring a defensive caution.
    ‘It draws people into thinking they’re special to you and they’re not. They don’t real y touch your life at al .’
    ‘Every person is special, Megan.’ His eyes bored into hers, rattling her deep box of resentments as his voice gathered an emotional vehemence. ‘Didn’t your father teach you that? Didn’t your father show, by example, that he believed it? And lived by it?’
    His gaze moved to the chair she had vacated in her anger, and the look on his face—the raw anguish of wanting to see her father there and knowing he never could be again—made her realise how offensive it had been to him to find her sitting in it, assuming a place that was irreplaceable in his mind.
    He nodded to the chair. ‘Patrick taught me to value my own individuality. He explained why I shouldn’t let myself be used, why I shouldn’t accept any more abuse, how al owing it diminished the person I could be, and if I held on to a strong belief in the music I personal y loved