Chapter 24
NASH
Fatigue set in and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Raven patted me on the chest. “You need to rest. Take a nap while I work on my painting. I’ll wake you in an hour or so to make sure you’re okay. I’ve heard that’s important with concussions.”
I couldn’t argue. My head was hurting again and as tempting as it was to keep kissing her, I really just wanted to sleep.
“If you insist,” I mumbled, closing my eyes.
A soft kiss on my cheek followed by sweet memories of kissing her sent me off into a deep and dreamless sleep.
An hour later, I woke up coughing. The cabin was filled with smoke. I bolted upright in bed. “Is the cabin on fire? Raven? What’s going on?”
The door was open, and she was attempting to fan the smoke out. “I thought it would be nice to sit by the fire tonight, so I found some dry wood out in the shed. I got it started, but then the cabin filled with smoke.”
“Did you open the flue?”
“Of course. I’m not completely incompetent.”
“The chimney must be clogged. We’ll have to let the fire go out, then I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to clear it.”
The words were just out of my mouth when a dark form leaped out of the fireplace, bounced off Raven’s chest, and scurried around the room.
Raven screamed then scanned the room for her assailant. “What was that?”
“Looks like you just found the chimney clog. A squirrel’s nest.”
Munch had been sleeping in the corner, but after hearing her scream, began sniffing the room following the squirrel’s erratic trail.
I turned on my phone’s flashlight and didn’t see it. It must have gone into one of the other rooms. “Go stand in the far corner over there. I’ll find it and try to shoo it out the door.”
Raven made it to the corner before I’d finished speaking.
I felt like a cop trying to clear a building of bad guys as I slowly moved from room to room, flinging open doors and standing back against the wall in case the squirrel decided to take a shot at me. Munch remained glued to me like a faithful sidekick, sniffing the ground all the way. The last room was the one filled with boxes. My flashlight lit upon two beady eyes staring at me from the top of the stack. I stepped into the room, and it leapt from the box to cling to the bare studs of the wall, jumping from wall to wall before lunging at me and racing down the hall. Munch barked and chased it out the door.
My heart was racing, and a bass drum pounded in my skull, but at least the rodent was gone.
Raven ran over and wrapped her arms around my neck. “My hero. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”
“You’d have done the same thing I did. You just wouldn’t have been happy about it. Besides, I think Munch deserves most of the credit.”
“If I’d been alone, that squirrel would have heard words not suitable for young ears, much less furry ones. But, honestly, I’d have probably gone out and slept in my car. The squirrel would have had a party and invited all its friends. They’d have been swinging from the rafters, eating all my food. Totally whooping it up that they defeated the stupid human and claimed the dwelling as their own.”
I chuckled and held her close until both of our heartbeats and breathing settled down.
I stepped back and surveyed the fireplace. “Okay. We have two choices. We can forget about the fire and pretend none of this ever happened, spending the night in blissful denial. Or I can try to remove that nest. What do you vote for?”
“As the queen of denial, what would be wrong with leaving it alone? We don’t really need a fire.”
“Well, there could be more in the nest. Who knows when they’ll decide to come out?”
“You mean they could come down the chimney and into the cabin while we’re sleeping?” She squealed and stepped away from the fireplace, looking at it with fear and disgust.
I nodded. “And the squirrel we just evacuated could go right back up there and return to the nest.”
Raven shook her head and waggled her hand at the fireplace. “Get it out of here, Nash. I won’t be able to close my eyes, imagining squirrels attacking me in my sleep.”
“Alright.” The fire had gone out, so I nudged the partially burned logs out of the way. “Can you get the broom from the kitchen?” I leaned in and peered up the chimney with my flashlight but couldn’t see anything.
Raven handed me the broom. “What’s your plan?”
“Give me a second. I have an idea, but I’m not sure it will work.”
She clung to the back of my shirt like a dryer sheet, and peeked around me at the chimney. “I’m sure it’s better than anything I could come up with. What do you need?”
“A box with a lid that we can quickly slide over the box to close.”
“The plastic bin I have my art stuff in has a lid.” Raven pointed to her supplies in the corner. “Would that work?”
“That’s perfect.”
Raven peeled herself off my back, rushed over and dumped the supplies onto the floor, then handed the empty bin to me. She immediately reattached herself to my shirt and peered out at the chimney, careful not to get too close. “Uh, Nash. Do you really think there are more up there?”
“Nah. If there were, we’d have heard them making noises.” That seemed to reassure her, and I hoped it was true. The last thing I wanted to do was chase a family of squirrels around the cabin in the dark. I took the bin and gave her the lid. “Okay. I’m going to hold the box inside the fireplace while I use the broom handle to poke up the chimney to see if I can dislodge the nest. Hopefully, the nest will fall into the box. When it does, you slide the lid on it. Then I’ll take it outside and empty it.” I looked over at her. “Think it’ll work.”
“I sure hope so.”
Pushing the broom up as high as I could, I finally hit some resistance. I poked around the edges of it. Bits of leaves fell into the box. I wedged the broomstick up the side of the nest and angled it to pull down whatever was up there.
It fell into the box with a thud. Raven quickly covered the bin with the lid. I shone my flashlight up the chimney one more time, and this time saw only bits of leaves sticking to the sides. The chimney was clear.
Raven cracked open the lid and peeked inside. She gasped. “There are babies in there.” She lifted the lid for me to see. Sure enough, two baby squirrels were curled up inside the nest. “I feel bad we wrecked their home. Poor things.” She looked up at me with her big sad eyes, and I knew I had to find a way to save those squirrels.
“I think if I bring them outside and set their nest by a tree, the mom will be looking for them and will build them a new home. They’ll be okay.” I prayed that was true, because I couldn’t bear to have Raven look at me like I was a murderer.
“She’ll come back for them?”
“I’m sure she will. Don’t worry. They’ll be okay. Things like this happen all the time when nests fall out of trees in storms. This was better because the babies weren’t hurt from the fall.”
I put the lid on the bin and carried it out the door.
“Don’t take them too far away,” Raven said. “We want the mama to find them easily.”
I nodded and carried the box to the nearest tree. It was a large tree and had many spots that would be perfect for building a new home. I just hoped the mama squirrel took the hint.
As soon as I walked back inside the cabin, Raven flung herself into my arms. I held her, enjoying the moment and breathing her in.
She stepped back and looked at the fireplace. “What if she comes back and tries to build a new nest in the chimney again?”
“If we build a fire, like you initially intended. She won’t be able to. And if it stops raining, tomorrow I’ll go up on the roof and fix the top of the chimney to keep them out.”
She seemed satisfied with this plan and helped me get the fire going again. This time the smoke went out the chimney like it was supposed to. Thankfully.
We spread a blanket on the floor in front of the fireplace and cuddled up together, talking the rest of the evening. Even with everything that had happened during our stay at this cabin, I felt a sense of peace I’d never experienced before. I could stay like this forever and never want for anything else.
Maybe we didn’t need to be rescued.