Whispered Secrets by Elizabeth Lennox
Chapter 5
Maggie picked herself up, smacking her hands together to knock the gravel off.
“Are you okay, Maggie?” Louise called out.
Maggie turned around, ignoring the blue pickup as it pulled into a parking space.
“I’m fine,” she called back, waving to show her that she was uninjured.
“Good! Now stop Davie!”
Maggie swung around and, sure enough, the little boy wobbling down the parking lot was just about to ride out into the busy street.
“Davie, pump the breaks!” she yelled, sprinting down the asphalt parking lot in pursuit of the eight year old who was just learning to ride his bike.
“I can’t!” Davie yelled. She heard the panic in his voice and made her legs go faster. “I don’t know how!”
Darn it! Davie had asked if she could teach him how to ride and he’d tumbled about ten times over the past hour. This was the furthest he’d managed to go without falling over and…good grief, he was about to turn into road pizza!
Suddenly, someone grabbed the boy off the bike, pulling him into his arms. A moment later, the bike hit the ground.
Maggie skidded to a stop, her hand coming to her throat as she looked up into the eyes of Oliver, who carried Davie back to the safety of the sidewalk.
“I’m sorry!” Maggie gasped. “Are you okay?”
Davie was grinning from ear to ear, thrilled with his progress. “I did it!” he yelled excitedly. “Did you see how far I went, Maggie? Did you see me?”
Maggie nodded, trying to calm her racing heart. “Yeah. I saw! You did a great job!” She reached up to ruffle his hair affectionately, pretending that she wasn’t a little faint after such a scare.
“Let’s do it again!” he announced, wiggling out of Oliver’s arms as he raced back to retrieve his bike. Thankfully, he turned it around so that he was heading towards the other side of the parking lot in front of the apartment buildings. At the other end was a hedge made up of benign boxwood hedges, so if he ran into them, he’d only get scraped up.
“Maybe we should practice using the brakes before you get back on, Davie,” she suggested delicately.
He grinned and his white teeth sparkled in the early dusk light. “I’ll figure it out. I’m an expert now.”
Maggie laughed, but she wasn’t overly amused. It was more a laugh of relief than humor.
“He’s going to kill himself, isn’t he?” Oliver commented, standing next to Maggie with his hands on his hips as they both watched the boy wobble off. But he made it all the way to the hedge. And thankfully for her plants, he did figure out the brakes.
Molly nodded somberly. “Yeah, probably. But he’s going to have fun doing it.”
“Why are you teaching him how to ride his bike? Where are his parents?”
“Well, his mother works nights as a receptionist at the health clinic down the street. So, she can’t be here in the evenings. She’ll work until about nine o’clock, but then has to clean up. Louise watches him in the afternoon, along with several of the other neighborhood kids down at the Center in the after school program. They get their homework done during that time period, then there are organized games and such. The parents pick up the kids after that.”
She knew that she was rambling, but the way he was looking at her made her nervous.
That was a stupid thought. Anything he did made her nervous. So, his gaze only intensified her anxiety.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” he replied softly.
She glanced up at him, but kept her gaze on Davie.
“His mother doesn’t know how to ride a bike,” she admitted.
“And his father?”
She shrugged. “He’s gone.”
“That’s pretty tragic,” he replied.
Another dismissive shrug. “It happens.”
Oliver looked at her again, this time, his gaze was assessing. “Your father disappeared as well?”
There was a long pause, but she eventually nodded. “Right after I was born,” she admitted. “I’m from Texas, originally,” she explained, unable to hide the pride in her voice. “Texas is a beautiful state, but we’re still a bit old fashioned and believe that a mother and father should be married when a child is brought into the world.” She took several slow, deep breaths, releasing the pain that came every time she talked about her family. “In my case, neither my mother nor my father decided to stick around.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She knew that she should have kept her mouth shut. But because she was nervous around this man with his wide, strong shoulders, and that chest that just begged for a woman to lay her cheek against, Maggie admitted that she was weak. Weak and pathetic when he spoke to her. She did silly things, like admit her tragic past.
“My father skedaddled right after my birth. Then my mother…well, apparently, I was a tough baby to bring into this world and my mother was a delicate little thing. She died shortly after my birth.” Maggie swallowed, forcing her lips into a smile. “But I had my grandmother. She was always there for me.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed and Maggie knew that she’d revealed too much. “What’s in the bag?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
Oliver glanced down, having forgotten the bag entirely. “Oh…just something for my apartment,” he said, not mentioning that this was the new grout for the bathroom. The tiles should have set by now. The grout would give a whole new air to the place. He’d start on the floors next.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I mean, I know that the renovation teams are hard at work in the other apartments so as soon as they are ready, you can move into one. And if there’s something that isn’t working, just let me know. If I can’t fix it, I know that Mick or Eddie, or one of the others, can. No need to suffer with broken things. I know that the décor leaves a lot to be desired, but when I checked that apartment, everything seemed to work properly.”
He smiled and that look stunned her enough that she finally stopped talking.
“Everything is working perfectly,” he assured her.
She snorted and he chuckled. “Okay, I’ll admit that the cabinets need some work. So, I just took them down and stored stuff on shelves.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I did when I moved in as well. The manager’s office was pretty bad before. The previous manager was disgusting!”
“Why haven’t you moved into one of the renovated places?”
Oliver watched the emotions flit over her features. There was another mystery, he realized.
She waved her hand in the air. “Oh, there are others who need a decent place to live more than I do. There are so many families that just need a little help.”
“You don’t think that you need a break?” he asked softly.
She laughed. “Oh, I had a pretty good childhood. It’s my turn to sacrifice for a while.” She turned and watched as Davie maneuvered around the empty parking spaces. “You’re doing a great job, Davie!” she called encouragingly.
“He learned pretty fast.”
“Davie is a good kid. His mother is studying to become a nurse practitioner.”
“Why not a doctor?” he asked.
Another snort. “Because medical school is expensive. Barbara is only able to take one class per semester. With her two jobs, plus Davie, plus that one class, she’s pretty tied up.”
“I didn’t realize,” he said, feeling like a jerk for being so insensitive. The people he knew who went to medical school had their parents pay for the whole thing. They were smart people, but they didn’t have to worry about financial issues.
“Where are you from?” she asked, squinting up at him.
He laughed. “I grew up right here in Virginia. My family still lives in Richmond. I went to the University of Virginia for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees.” He paused, realizing that he might have made a mistake in admitting that much. If Maggie thought he wasn’t a worthy candidate for the apartment, would she kick him out? He didn’t want to leave until he understood Maggie better. She was a mystery. A fascinating, beautiful mystery. Once he understood her better, he’d get out of the apartment and make room for someone who actually needed it. Until he understood why she did the things she did, he wanted to stick around.
“Maggie!” Louise called from the sidewalk.
“What’s up?” Maggie called, glancing over at Davie to make sure he was still upright.
“Jimmy needs ya!”
Maggie turned to look up at Oliver. “Will you keep an eye on Davie for me?”
Oliver nodded and waved her off. “Sure. Go.”
Oliver stood there, the grout still in the bag in his arms as Davie rolled slowly over, stopping next to him.
“Man, you’ve got it bad,” the boy teased, shaking his head as he rode off, still wobbly but better than before.
Oliver sighed and put the grout back in the bed of his pickup, then, pushing the sleeves up on his shirt, he followed after Davie to give him a few more tips.
