Commitment

Part 49

The following week Gray was waiting for her in the kitchen. "We need to talk."

That sounded ominous. And his body language suggested that he was not happy.

"What about? Regan dropped into a chair. Exhaustion vied with hunger. She'd missed lunch today, and dinner had been a bar of chocolate. She wondered how much longer she could keep up this pace. But she needed to work to generate the income this place seemed to be guzzling.

His option to contain his fury was to either yelling at her or folding his arms. "This place." He folded his arms.

"This place?" She poured milk into her mug, then recapped the bottle. She left her chair and returned the bottle to the fridge.

"Yes." He leaned against the counter. His eyes tracked her movements. He could see she looked tired. But he figured what needed to be said, needed saying right now. "You need to put money into the farm, not spend it on you!" He'd been storing up his anger for some time now. It was the sheer waste, the sheer lack of interest in what she had. The way she threw money into trivial things and avoided investing in her farm. From his position, she looked like a miser. And the fact she had deliberately dodged him over the last week, well, actually since the day she got her bruises.

She turned in surprise and said, "I beg your pardon?"

"This farm was falling apart."

"It was a bit run down. I agree." She sighed sadly.

"You said you'd find me help, to replace Loretta. Remember that?" He reminded her pointedly. He'd been working his fingers to the bone, because she had yet to recruit someone to help him.

"I have tried to find help." But no-one was interested in what she could pay: What she could afford to pay. She couldn't stop being a GP and start farming, until she had some financial security behind her. "I've looked into that. But..."

"This farm was in chaos. You don't seem to care about that fact."

"That is not true." She sighed.

"I have worked damn hard to get it to being even half way decent." He remembered he told Caro that two days ago. Which is why Caro had told her extended family about him and his work ethic.

Regan nodded. He'd taken what was once entirely dilapidated and in a short time had turned it into a working farm. "You have been great..."

He grumbled, "Yes, and you have been anything but!" Getting it to the stage of a going concern, making enough money to stay afloat for the foreseeable future, it just needs the owner to invest: interest, time and money. Things she was avoiding.

"Just a minute...."

He pinned her with his eyes, "No, you bloody wait a minute." He glowered at her. " You aren't here most of the time."

"I work, remember!" She pouted, and repeated, "I work as a doctor!"

He had enough. His fury took hold of his equanimity. "If you don't want this place, sell it!" She blinked. " Because I'm out of here unless we see some changes in how the place is run." He grated and jammed his hands into his trousers' pockets.

"What?" Exhaustion fled as anger took its place. "I inherited this place. And....." And she worked all the hours God sent to pick up extra hours to earn more to put into this place. She'd given up her job in Dunedin to live here. She wanted to tell him that she was in debt, just keeping it afloat at present.

"Yeah, I know. But you sure as hell don't deserve it."

She reared in shock. Blinked at him.

He moved closer, "What is it? Some kind of trophy, like having a boutique vineyard or something while you pretend to be a farmer with a boutique farm while you continue as a doctor?"