Commitment

Part 8

His language had her blinking. Swearing in front of her was new. "Pardon?" That had her sobering fast. All traces of humour vanished. She could see that he was just about holding onto his temper and was back to treating her like a lightweight, shallow, silly woman.

Tact vanished. Gray all but yelled, "You heard. You think this is a bloody game."

"No, I don't..." She attempted to stalling his rant.

"You. Playing farmer in designer gear!"

"That is not fair."

He ignored her statement, and continued with his argument, "You pretend to be a farmer, and I do all the work. This is just a fucking game, where you expect things to happen without you doing anything." He accused coldly and curtly. His eyes were flinty with anger. "I'm not wasting my time here if you aren't going to get your act together." Ok, looked like she was finally taking him seriously.

"What?" She kept her voice cool, and tried to keep her eyes from showing that she too was getting angry. She clenched her hands and kept her frustration and anger at bay, and said quietly, repeated his statement, "I am playing farmer in designer gear?" She looked at him. And scowled. "Really?" It was all well and good for him to keep running up bills, she was the one having to find ways to settle them. Yes, she understood he was doing it for her and the farm, but did he seriously think she just minted money? What was wrong with the man, can't he see that she was drowning here? Why are their conversations always about money? Spending. Everything was a chore at the moment because she was tired. Really tired. Of course he enjoyed working on the farm, he loves it. But to assume that she is a cash machine is wrong.

"You heard." He snapped. He thought he should start to look for a new job because her attitude is getting to him.

"Yes. I did. I had hoped it was a hearing problem." She mumbled to herself. Suddenly once again she felt alone. As if all the worlds problems were heaped on her sloping shoulders. She wished she had someone to talk to, to work through the finances, to just off load some of the questions, think about the options, what to discard, and what to do. Just someone. Someone to even just stand beside her, so that when she made her decisions, there would be someone beside her. Someone who said she was doing ok. Instead she had an irate man, no, worse than that, he was more than irate. He was livid. She could sense it, in the waves coming off him. He was furious with her. He would hardly be open to listening to what she had to say. Swamped. She felt swamped with despair and loneliness. She felt out of her depth trying to find ways to stretch one salary to cover living arrangements for four adults and another person's salary. She felt scared, knowing that she was just about treading water, keeping her head above the water line as she kept this little enterprise afloat. She thought she was doing the best for all. Including him. Surely she warrants praise, not criticism.

Gray was sure he was close to exploding. "You pay me to manage this place. Just me." He reminded her with open hostility, "I'm managing it without access to a budget. With just my family to help me, because you have no ideas or skills." The fact that she didn't trust him to see the farm budget let alone the farm books, rankled. What did she think he would do? Steal? He had to ask for every single thing. There was no access to funds without her ok. Every single thing that he purchased went through her. Even something as simple as a box of nails! He'd never had to account for things, before ordering, in such minutiae. She kept hold of the farm's purse and she only opened it when it suited her. Trust. No trust. If she didn't trust him with the farm's book keeping, pretty soon, she would need to find some other mug to run this place. But in the meantime he needed her to start making provision for the shearers. " I need you to sanction preparing the old shearer's bunkhouse. I'll need to buy...."

So that's what this is really about? "Money?" She mumbled to herself. Her whole life in recent months seemed to revolve around her shortage of money. Why was it that life was dishing out so many hard knocks? She was barely managing on the wage she brought home, how was she going to manage to prepare a building for it to be habitable for imminent shearers?

Gray was tempted to yell, he was so frustrated by her attitude. "If you want this place up and running, like a real farm not a toy farm or a whim of a stupid, rich woman." He snapped at her and saw that his words and tone had her eyes flashing fire. Angry, followed by lonely, abandoned, sad and desolate, though he was hard pushed to figure out why she felt any of those emotions. She had everything. She lived a comfortable life. Drove a decent car, albeit old. Wore expensive designer label clothing. Had a good job. A farm with good potential. Yet she'd allowed this farm to rot. 

She braced, expecting more vitriolic. For a second she consider if she could tell him about her financial situation. Tell him about the debts. Tell him everything. But reality kept her thoughts to herself, he would not believe her, and it would affect her pride and the fact she had done well, her achievements with the farm were amazing given it was still standing when Gray arrived. 

He rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to give himself a chance to calm down. Then he accused with acrimony, "You've taken it down. Ruined a good farm!"

Regan shook her head and lifted her chin in defiance. "I did not." She laughed at the very thought. It was either laugh or hit the man or cry. She'd spent practically all she had on keeping the place together. It might not be posh, a bit dated, but so far she'd managed to keep the place relatively intact.