Commitment

Part 18

Regan gulped quietly and hoped he didn't see that. "I've been busy." She mumbled. Of course she was busy, but that was not the really reason.

"Yeah." He muttered and ran his fingers through his hair. He waited and rolled his eyes when she did not supply any further details. "I noticed you did not help on the farm. Decided not to help at all?" He asked and his eyebrows quirked with irony.

"I was waiting for you to tell me what to do." She muttered with petulance.

Gray nearly yelled. He was fast reaching the end of his patience with this woman.

"And I forgot." She tacked on lamely hoping that would buy her a get out of jail card.

"What you mean is that you can't be bothered. Obviously you hate hard work. Anything that could affect your manicure. Let alone pay for anything on the farm." He ran a hand through his hair in sheer exasperation. "I bet if I proposed purchasing new clothes for you, that would have been signed off in an instant!"

"That is not true." She countered and her sullenness was replaced by banked fury.

Gray glared at her. Working on this farm was like working with one had tied behind your back. The equipment was dated, old, dilapidated. And she didn't seem to care. She had not shared the farm books with him, so he had no idea what they had that was functional or affordable if it wasn't functional. His list had been his attempt to get at least some of the basics, so that he could get on with the task.

"If you put half the amount of money into this farm that you put into your wardrobe and bed linen, this place would be viable. You have a farm with potential. But you are too stupid to recognise it needs resources to be profitable. You want profit without working for it. You used your money your clothes, your bed linens, basically any stuff but only for you. You are selfish."

Selfish? What money she wanted to ask him. And she banked her hysteria.

Gray continued, with ice in his words.  "As it is, you are bleeding it dry by spending your money on fripperies."

She laughed. It was either that or cry. The only new linen had been the linen he and his family had bought for their rooms. The only new furniture was the furniture in their rooms. They gave Regan the receipts and she had reimbursed them. The only new clothes were probably his, and that had probably been bought from the wage she paid him. She couldn't remember the last time she had shopped for clothes for herself.

His tone went fromice to utter fury. "You have the gall to laugh?" He all but bellowedat her. "I tell you that you are spending your money on you but not on your farm and you laugh?" He glared. "You thinkthis is a joke? What is wrong with you?" He banked his fury.

She stopped laughing. Took a breath and remembered he was doing a good job on her farm. It was important to keep him here, so she kept her retort to herself.

 "You are bleeding your farm dry, by spending your money on this lacy stuff!"

Carrying on with the mundane task meant she did not have to face him, and she hoped it would suggest that this conversation was just the norm. Money. Why was it whenever they spoke nowadays it was about money? Why did she feel like a skinflint? There was only so far you could stretch one income, especially when it was being used to pay another and to feed and house four adults.

Silence followed his vitriolic statement. He did not leave. But with the silence she assumed he had left. She glanced over her shoulder and found him watching her. She quickly returned to her laundry. "How much do you need?" She asked him quietly as she reached for a towel and shook it out before she pegged it on the line.