Ella pressed ‘post’ and quit out of Facebook. She’d get notifications if there were comments.
‘We’ll have you home in no time, boy,’ she said to the bird before she picked up her broom.
* * *
‘We’ve got a bit of a problem,’ said Nita Kinworth when Jake Honeychurch answered the cleaner’s call.
‘What’s up, Nita?’ He was already training with the Fire Brigade boys so it wasn’t like there was a fire he didn’t know about, or a flood.
‘Old Irma’s wee bird got out again. I’d mopped the floor but Ollie took him out of the cage and he didn’t know I had the back door open to dry the laundry tiles. He’s a regular Houdini, that bird!’
‘You can’t see him?’
‘No, sorry, love. Ollie ran outside but he said he took off towards town.’
‘Okay, Nita. I’ll have a scout around Nan’s place. I’m pretty sure that’s where he’ll go. I’m nearly finished here anyway. Thanks.’
‘Sorry about that, Jake. Ollie said he won’t do it again.’
‘We’ll find him, Nita, no worries.’
‘Thanks, Jake.’
Jake ended the call and watched as the local fire station volunteers wound hoses back into coils.
‘You got things covered here, Arnie?’ Jake called to the captain, and when the older man nodded, he added, ‘I’m gonna take off then. Nanna’s bird got out again.’
‘Wring its neck be easier,’ Arnie said with a huffed laugh.
‘And have Nanna haunt me from the grave? You wring the bird’s neck.’
Arnie conceded the point, proving Nanna Irma’s reputation was still good for something.
Jake waved to the remaining members of the volunteer brigade and shrugged out of his fire suit shirt and protective pants, getting down to his t-shirt and then pulling on a pair of clean jeans. He had a bottle of water in the Landcruiser; he picked it up and chugged the liquid as he rolled out of the staging area in front of the shed and accelerated, heading east towards Chalk Hill.
Slowing as he reached the town limits, Jake craned his neck to see if Percy might be cruising among the trees. He didn’t spend long looking along the shops lining the highway because he was pretty sure he knew where Percy would go.
When he reached the Chalk Hill Bridge Road he turned right. Another three hundred metres and he pulled up on the grass verge outside his nan’s place, behind a neat blue Mazda hatchback with personalised plates reading Perkins 92/96.
‘Dammit,’ he cursed beneath his breath.
If he’d been any less sure this was the best place to find Nanna’s bird he would have kept driving.
He knew the car. Everyone in Chalk Hill knew the car because it was the only personalised plate in town. The locals didn’t go for personalising much of anything except benches in the War Memorial park.
Ella Davenport.
His real estate agent was the last person Jake wanted to see.
CHAPTER
2
Ella was trying to decide if she really could be bothered cleaning the oven when she heard a car door close on the street and took it as a sign that the oven could wait. Gratefully, she pulled off the pair of yellow dishwashing gloves and left them by the sink with her bucket of cleaning products.
Facebook worked fast. Someone was here for the bird.
Sam wouldn’t be happy.
Irma Honeychurch’s house had a timber-floored hall dividing the bedrooms on the left and right, and as Ella made her way towards the front door from the kitchen, her thongs clacked at her heels. She got the screen door open in time to see a tallish man, about her age, late twenties, maybe a bit older, walk around the front of a late model silver four-wheel-drive, open the front gate and stride up the spider-splattered path.
Something about him reminded Ella of Marshall. This guy had that same ‘I own this place’ swagger that Marshall Wentworth wore like a wetsuit. Ella’s pulse beat that little bit harder, and that annoyed her because her pulse should bloody well behave itself after all this time. Marshall was water under her bridge.
‘That was quick,’ she blurted, shaken by her unwelcome reaction to the stranger. ‘I only just posted the photo.’
The man stopped before he reached the base of the steps, staring up at her with a question in his eyes.
‘I’m Ella,’ she said, wiping her hand against her skirt before stretching it out into thin air.
He took a step, shook her hand once and let go before she could blink.
‘Jake,’ he said, and he paused. ‘Jake Honeychurch.’
Ella forgot all about Perkins III and bird cages. This man owned the house. This was the man she was working for and hadn’t ever officially met. The paperwork had all been done by email, or via her boss, Harvey.
‘It’s nice to finally meet you in person, Mr Honeychurch.’
‘Jake is fine.’
‘Have you come to check out the house? Everything’s all falling into place. I’ve got the professional photographer booked for tomorrow—’
‘Photographer?’
‘All part of the package,’ Ella said, smiling at him. ‘I’ve got the first of the ads going in the paper next week. It’s a half page, about this big.’ She shaped her hands in an approximate brick-size box. ‘I’ve been sweeping and de-cobwebbing and thinking up the marketing words. I’ll do the first Home Open next Saturday. If that’s okay with you? I didn’t think to ask because no one’s living here so I didn’t really think the date mattered …’
Jake shifted his feet. Of course he shifted his feet—he must be hot in jeans and those huge boots standing out there in the sun, and she was babbling.
‘I’m sorry, Jake. Come inside. It’s cooler inside. I imagine you want to look at the place? I’ve cleaned it up a lot.’
His face got a bit grim. ‘You didn’t need to do that.’
‘Oh, it needed a spruce up. I don’t mind,’ she beamed at him. ‘All part of the service with Begg & Robertson Real Estate.’
A smile tried to sneak its way across his face. ‘I doubt that somehow. I don’t think Harvey Begg does much by way of
