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tel about me because there is nothing,’ he stated tersely. ‘Both Ric and Mitch have a family history. I don’t.’
    ‘But you must have a history,’ Megan persisted, determined to know. ‘Even an orphan has a history.’
    ‘None that I remember.’ He shot her a glittery look. ‘I was told my mother was a prostitute who died of a heroine overdose when I was two years old. No-one claimed me and I was placed in foster care. Whoever my biological father was—’ he shook his head ‘—no way of knowing.’
    A two-year-old. Megan wondered how long it was before someone had found him after his mother had overdosed.
    Probably best that he didn’t remember.
    ‘Your father was a father to me, Megan.’
    Yes, she understood that. Yet… ‘What of your foster parents, Johnny?’
    Again he shook his head. ‘There are people who should never be put in charge of children. I dropped out of the system when I was twelve. Went on the streets.’
    Megan was shocked. He had spoken about abuse this morning, but how much abuse? What kind? She sensed he wasn’t about to tel her. He was brushing over the bare facts as it was. She moved on to what he might answer.
    ‘What about your education?’
    ‘The best education I got was from your father. It has served me far better than any academic learning could.’
    Her father again. She hadn’t realised how very much he’d meant to a boy whose life had been empty of caring.
    Worse…a life that had surely been coloured by total mistrust of anyone—a smile to ward off evils.
    ‘Where did you learn music?’ she asked.
    ‘The technical stuff from musicians. Guys in bands. But I made music in my head from very early on. It blocked out other things.’
    And she had mocked his music as clever commercialism!
    From what he’d said, even his songs were linked to what her father had taught him. Probably everything Johnny was now could be linked back to her father.
    ‘Dad gave you a guitar,’ she remembered.
    ‘Yes, he did. I stil have it. It’s the one I play for our Christmas carols.’
    What he’d been given here meant so much to him. So much. And her father had known it.
    Why choose Johnny El is?
    Because Johnny had been more his adopted son than the others?
    Was she more his daughter than Jessie and Emily?
    She liked to think so, yet she had no doubt he’d loved them al , each for her own different and very individual qualities. She hadn’t ever real y appreciated how lucky she and her sisters had been—brought up in an environment where caring for them was taken for granted, parents who loved them, listened to them, did their best to provide whatever was needed so they could pursue their interests.
    Her childhood had been very happy. Her teens had been mostly a fun time, though she’d missed Gundamurra while she was at boarding school. It was only her fixation on Johnny that had blighted her later years.
    Not his fault.
    She’d acted like a spoiled bitch because he hadn’t come to her party, hadn’t fulfil ed the role she’d cast for him.
    So she’d cast him in another role that didn’t fit him, either.
    Wel , her perception of him had certainly been changed today. The problem was…it made him even more attractive to her.
    ‘I haven’t said I’m sorry…for your loss.’ She squeezed his hand to impress her sincerity on him. ‘I am, Johnny.’
    His gaze swung back to her and it seemed to hold the dark intensity of eternal night—no stars. ‘Wil you stand with me tomorrow? At the graveside? Patrick put us together, Megan. I want us to be together.’
    Her own desire for togetherness with him—far beyond what he was asking—zinged through her entire body, twisting her insides, heating her blood. She hoped he couldn’t see the rush of heat to her face. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her throat almost too tight to speak.
    ‘Thank you.’
    For a moment the air seemed charged with a sense of closeness that wildly fired up al Megan’s hopes and dreams. Johnny rose to