Their Baby Bargain

But Wendy was still concentrating on chimneys. ‘If you stick your nose up the chimney you can’t see daylight,’ Wendy said wisely. ‘I tried it last night. It took me ages to open the damper but when I did it was still black. There must be a bird’s nest blocking the top.’

‘I don’t wish to stick my nose up the chimney,’ Luke snapped, thrown totally off balance. ‘You have your belongings here, lady. I don’t even have a change of clothes.’

‘You’ll be able to buy something in Bay Beach on the way back to Sydney,’ she said kindly. ‘After all, what’s another suit of clothes to a wealthy young futures broker like you?’

‘Oh, right.’ He glared. ‘So I just meander into Bay Beach Menswear, wearing soot up to my armpits!’

‘It was just a suggestion,’ she said hastily. ‘If you’re going to be crabby-’

‘I am not crabby.’

‘Let’s go, Gabbie.’ Wendy pulled Gabbie backwards out the door, her eyes still brimming with laughter. ‘We’ll leave Uncle Luke to his chimney sweeping-without nose-poking. Though how he’s going to do it and stay clean…’

‘So what are you doing?’ he yelled after her, exasperated.

‘Women’s work,’ she yelled back cheerfully. ‘Gabbie and I are going to address the issue of a bag of soiled nappies.’ He heard the laughter in her voice. ‘Want to swap jobs, Mr Grey?’

‘No, thank you,’ he said hastily-and stuck his nose up the chimney, soot and all.

Handyman was hardly a description that fitted Luke well. By the time he’d been old enough to learn any useful skills in that direction, he’d been sent to boarding school. Since then there’d always been a janitor or a maintenance man or a gardener to take care of any crisis.

There wasn’t one on call now, and he needed one badly.

Wendy was right. The view, through the two-inch-wide crack available after wedging open the damper, was of unmitigated blackness.

Sighing deeply, he headed for the garage to see if he could find a ladder.

‘Giving up already?’ Wendy called. Grace was rolling happily on a rug on the cattle-cropped grass below the veranda, and Wendy and Gabbie were plunging things that Luke didn’t want to know about into buckets of water. It was an incredibly domestic scene, and, imperceptibly, his mood changed. His chest expanded a mite and he rolled up his sleeves. These might well be his kids and his woman- and he was doing man’s work.

‘There’s a ladder under the house,’ she told him, and his bubble pricked a bit at her look of concern. ‘If that’s what you’re looking for. But you be careful on the roof.’

‘I have it under control,’ he told her, setting his chin, caveman-like-off to hunt his dinosaur for lunch. ‘You just stick to your business and I’ll stick to mine.’

His chauvinism didn’t last. She was concerned. How about him?

Luke balanced on the ladder-he’d used it to climb onto the roof and had hauled it up after him to balance it against the chimney. Now, with his feet feeling decidedly insecure beneath him, he stared down into the abyss.

There was a bird’s nest in the chimney. How they’d managed to build it there he didn’t know, but it was a vast, untidy conglomeration of sticks, wedged about two feet down.

At least there weren’t any eggs or baby birds in sight, he thought, thanking heaven for small mercies. He didn’t have to make any life or death decisions here. It must be an old nest.

‘What’s the problem?’

Luke looked down-and then wished he hadn’t. Wendy was a long, long way down, standing on the grass by Grace and staring up at him anxiously.

‘There isn’t one.’ Heck, a man had some pride. He took a deep breath and then managed to raise the rake he’d hauled up here over his head. ‘It’s a bird’s nest. I’ll dislodge it.’

He looked upward-much better than downward-at the circle of irate crows fussing over his head. The birds had been squawking from the moment he’d put his foot on the first step of the ladder-defending their territory.

‘I’d guess it’s either us or the crows, so there’s no choice,’ he called to Wendy. ‘A man has to do what a man has to do.’ He positioned his rake.

‘Luke…’

‘If I hook it I’ll be able to pull it up.’

‘I don’t think so-’

No. Suddenly neither did he. The rake caught the edge of the nest and, once one side was dislodged, the entire thing caved in and plummeted down to rest on the damper below.

‘Yuck.’ Wendy was as covered in soot as he was. They were back in the kitchen, hauling bits of nest out from the slit between damper and chimney. It was foul work, and it took for ever. ‘This is disgusting, and any minute now I’m expecting to grab something that moves,’ she said. ‘Are you sure there were no baby birds up there?’

‘Do I look like I’m the sort of man to empty babies from their nests?’ he demanded, affronted. ‘After all the work I’ve done in the interest of babies…’

‘The crows up there looked worried.’

‘I am not worried about worried crows.’ He hauled a stick sideways through the crack, it resisted and then came with a rush of soot. Gabbie squealed as a shower of blackness coated all of them. ‘Good grief.’

‘They’re making such a fuss!’

‘There were not any birds in that chimney,’ Luke confirmed. ‘Just ancient nesting material.’

‘It was the birdies’ home,’ Gabbie said solemnly.

‘They can relocate.’ Luke glowered. ‘Just as long as it isn’t into the front seat of my car. Don’t you dare leave the top down while…’

He didn’t finish the sentence.

There was a terrified squawk from the inside of the chimney, a rush of scrambling wings and claws, and a cloud of soot bigger than all the rest showered over them.

What the…?

The squawking didn’t stop. It grew louder and louder as, inside the chimney, a bird descended as if it was heading into the room.

The bird didn’t come into the kitchen but it wasn’t for want of trying. It couldn’t. The damper stopped it in its tracks, just above the stove.

‘It must be a young one that’s just left the nest.’ Wendy was sitting back on her heels, staring in horror at the feathers and soot fluttering through to the hearth. The noise was deafening and she had to practically shout to make herself heard. The trapped bird squawked as if there was no tomorrow and, above the roof, every crow from a ten-mile radius had come to lend a hand. Or wing. Or whatever.

‘How do you know?’ Luke’s heart was sinking. Of all the stupid things. Now what? Gabbie’s normally pale face was turning ashen. The child was expecting the worst, and Luke was starting to feel the same.

‘If it’s just left the nest then it would have flown back in without realising there was a problem,’ Wendy told him. ‘But instead of a platform of twigs, it’s found thin air. It’s fallen right down.’ She stared at the fireplace as if it could give her some clue. ‘Do you think…? Will it be able to claw its way back up?’

‘No.’ They’d been listening to the creature struggle for five minutes now, and the more it struggled the more hopeless its position became.

‘Can we get the damper out?’ Wendy whispered, and Luke had to bend forward to hear. ‘It seems firmly wedged.’

It was. Luke remembered the arrival of the damper. Twenty-five years ago, fed up with a kitchen full of blow- flies, his grandmother had arranged a man to fix it. It had taken the fix-it man two days to set the damper into place and secure it firmly with concrete.

Luke braved another look now, got a face full of soot for his pains and had his opinion confirmed. ‘It’ll take me hours-if not days-to get rid of the damper and I’d need special tools to do it,’ he said slowly. Heaven knew what tools, but he had to say something. ‘The bird would be dead by the time I got it out.’