Fury and helplessness crashed together making him jerk the dump lever sharply. How could he fight a faceless entity? He had no idea how the Ridge would survive this setback. They were down to their last few dollars and the credit card was scarlet. They’d have to slaughter a sheep if they wanted meat, and Amy’s vegetable garden wasn’t big enough to provide for the whole family.
He exhaled, moving the loader to scoop sand and bury the animals. Brandon leaned against the ute, staring off into the distance, waiting for him to finish. They needed no words. The fury on Brandon’s face mirrored his own.
Finally he finished and drove back to the farmyard, leaving Brandon to close all the gates behind him. One final task before he returned the vehicle—to clear more land for the campgrounds. Amy had given him a mud map this morning, showing him the area to clear. He had to hand it to her, she was savvy, keeping the sites grouped around the utilities but without making them feel on top of each other.
The next step would be creating the donkey showers, which they’d do when they had some free time. He almost laughed. That was a misnomer.
Then they had to install power to the sites, but they didn’t have the funds to upgrade the generator or to buy more solar panels, let alone run the cabling. The windmill also needed fixing, and on further investigation looked as if it had been pulled down.
He waved to Jay, one of their long-term camp guests, as he came out of his caravan with a frown on his perpetually red face. His wife, Cheryl was right behind him. Amy had told the guests there would be noise around the middle of the day. She was always thinking of the little things which didn’t occur to him.
It took little time to clear the area. As he drove towards the main road to return the front-end loader to his neighbour’s, he spotted a ute down by the dry riverbed in the distance. Amy was filling the tray with rocks which would mark out each of the new camping bays. He appreciated that she wasn’t afraid of hard work.
By the time he’d done another dozen things around the station and had finished for the day, sweat plastered his shirt to his chest and despair weighed on him. He trudged into the kitchen, hanging his hat on the hook by the door.
“Hey, Dad!”
He forced himself to smile, but when Lara ran over to hug him, his smile became genuine. He squeezed her tightly, and when she protested, he tickled her, her giggles shifting some of the darkness from his mood. “How was school?”
“OK. Natasha was being mean, but Mischa and I ignored her. She’s stupid.”
“Good idea.” Natasha was the quintessential mean girl, and he hated that his daughter had to deal with her, but there was only one class of year fives at the school. “Got any homework?”
“I already did it when I got home, after I helped Amy with the rocks.”
“Did you get all the bays set out?”
“Yep. Amy and I are going to paint the site number signs tonight.”
He glanced at Amy. “When will you advertise them?”
She dished up a large slab of lasagne and handed him the plate. “Already done. Two are booked from people on our wait list. They’ll arrive Wednesday and have paid a deposit.”
Every cent counted at this stage. “You’re the best, Ames.”
She smiled. “Just doing my job.”
A job they still couldn’t afford to pay her for. “Thanks for being here for Lara. There was too much to do today with the sheep.”
His mother had always been home when Lara arrived on the school bus, which meant Darcy could keep working until sunset. But since his parents’ death, he’d been there, not wanting Lara to arrive home to an empty house.
“Any time.”
After dinner he read Lara another chapter of the fantasy novel. Then, with her tucked into bed, he headed into his father’s office. No, Brandon’s office. He owned the Ridge according to their father’s will, and they still needed to sit down and discuss what that meant.
His father had always said he would leave the Ridge to the oldest child, which left Darcy with nothing to leave Lara. Yet dividing up the property seemed like sacrilege.
Then there was the matter of his mother’s will, which left all her possessions equally to the four children. Georgie and Ed had taken a couple of items of sentimental value, and Georgie had split their mother’s jewellery between them, but Darcy had no money to pay them for any of the household furniture.
Not that either of them had asked for it, but it didn’t seem fair for them to get nothing.
He closed his eyes. A problem for another day. He slumped in the office chair and turned on the laptop Ed had sent up. Ed owned a collection of old, working machines, but he’d upgraded to the latest shiny new thing. With money so tight, Darcy wasn’t complaining if it took five minutes to boot.
Over the past two weeks they’d digitised much of the Ridge’s information, particularly his father’s meticulous spreadsheets. He scrolled through the emails looking for bills. A bunch of ads for hay and equipment, a fishing newsletter and an email address which made him freeze.
Tan Lewis, Stonefish Enterprises.
His hand shook as he clicked on the email. Son of a bitch. The rage built at the words. A new offer for the property, less than before, but the last sentence made Darcy shove his chair away from the desk. His hands clenched, wanting to grab the laptop and throw it across the room.
