Margaret Daley - Poisoned Secrets

“Ma’am, are you all right?” His freckled face scrunched up into a worried look.

Maggie continued to peer at the boy. Her smile faltered while her heartbeat began to hammer against her rib cage. She’d told herself this would happen and thought she’d prepared herself for it.

The child shifted, alarm flittering across his features. “Lady?”

With her pulse thundering in her ears, she finally replied, “I want to rent the vacant apartment. Do you know when the manager will be back?” Amazingly her voice didn’t quaver although her hands did. She clutched her purse straps to keep the trembling under control.

Besides his eyes, his hair’s the same shade of brown as mine. And I used to have freckles the way he does. She swallowed the lump in her throat. I should leave. Let it go. She rubbed her damp palms together, fighting the urge to scrap her plan.

“She’ll probably be gone for another hour or so.” The child moved forward. “Uncle Kane’s here, though.”

“Uncle?” Maggie pushed herself away from the door and moved several paces toward the eleven-year-old boy. Her legs quaked.

“Well, he’s not really my uncle, but I call him that. He owns the building. He can help you.”

“Where is he?”

He jerked his thumb toward a door down the hall at the back of the building. “In his shop downstairs.” Gesturing with his hand, he spun around on his heel. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

“I’m Maggie Ridgeway. What’s your name?” she asked although she was ninety-nine percent sure she already knew it.

“Kenny Pennington.”

Even though she’d expected him to say that, the name brought an added joy to her. That feeling tangled with the others—uncertainty, even anger—firming in her mind told her she had to continue with her plan. She’d dreamed about this moment for too long to turn back now.

The sound of sandpaper sliding over wood filled the workroom. The scent of sawdust and linseed oil peppered the air. Repeatedly Kane McDowell ran the block along the groove in the piece of furniture, smoothing the rough texture.

The rhythmic motion of the sanding—back and forth—relaxed Kane, his thoughts wandering as his hands automatically repeated the action. The tension slipped from his shoulders and neck while he proceeded from one chair leg to the next. As the tautness eased completely from his body, his awareness of his surroundings faded, too. The movement of his arm was hypnotic, the gritty sound almost soothing.

The memory came unexpectedly as it so often did. His thoughts were at peace one second, and the next, he flinched, stopped his sanding and closed his eyes as though that could shut it out. It never did…

“I can’t do it. I thought I could. I don’t want to marry you anymore. I’m moving to Dallas, Kane.” Ruth indicated the luggage at the door.

He stood in his parents’ living room, having been at their home for the past month to continue his convalescence after his injury in Iraq. Last week his fiancée had come to help nurse him back to full health. Now she was leaving him.

At the door she paused and looked back at him. “I need a whole man. I tried. I really did. You aren’t the same person you were when you went to war.” Her gaze swept down his length, his body propped up by crutches, his left leg gone from just below the knee dangling uselessly next to his good one…

Kane shook his head as if he could physically drive the memory from his thoughts. The sanding block fell from his hand, thumping to the concrete, its sound reverberating through his mind. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them.

A knock jarred the silence.

“Not now,” he muttered, swiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He needed to escape; he didn’t want to see anyone.

Another knock echoed through his workshop.

Trapped.

Maggie raised her hand one final time to rap on the door when it suddenly opened. She stared into the face of a man who didn’t look too happy to see her. His dark expression didn’t soften as she cleared her throat and said, “I came about renting your apartment.”

The man’s hard gaze bore into her. The taut set of his body, his grip on the door handle, conveyed tension. Then his attention fixed on Kenny, and the owner’s stiff stance melted, the frown wiped away to be replaced with an expression just short of a smile.

Kenny looked at Maggie. “Miss Edwina’s at church so I brought her down here to see you.”

The man who owned the apartment building finally smiled—a fully fledged one that lit his whole face and dimpled his cheeks. “I’ll take it from here, Kenny. Thanks.”

The boy spun around and raced up the stairs. The second he disappeared the strain returned to the owner’s face, his gaze directed at her.

Suddenly the small hallway in the basement closed in on Maggie. She glanced around, noting three other doors, one of them leading outside. A bank of windows on each side of it afforded a view of the back of the building and a glimpse of the lake beyond.

“Dale Franklin told me there was an apartment in your building for rent. He was supposed to call you about me coming to see the place.”

The man, over six feet tall, eased his grip on the door and relaxed against it. “Edwina Bacon, my manager, must have talked with Dale. I don’t usually handle anything having to do with the apartment building.”

“Then should I wait for her to return?”

“Suit yourself, but frankly I’m surprised you’d want to rent it. I haven’t even put an advertisement in the paper yet. Not sure I am for a while. Are you aware of what happened in it a few weeks back? The police just released it a couple of days ago.”

Yes, she’d known that and had barely been able to wait the few days before coming to see about the apartment. The headlines that had occupied the newspaper for a week flashed into her thoughts, bringing forth a momentary surge of anxiety until she remembered the reason she wanted to live here.

“Yes, but I’m living in a dorm connected with the hospital right now. I need a more permanent place to live, and there are few available in Seven Oaks at this time of year with the university in full swing.”

“Hospital? Are you a nurse?”

“No, a speech therapist, Mr.—”

“Kane McDowell.”

Before her courage totally failed her, she said, “I didn’t want anyone else to get the apartment, so I took some time off from work to come here. I really need a place to live. My privacy means a lot to me, and I have none where I’m living right now.” His eyes lit with understanding. “May I look at the apartment?”

“Give me a moment, and I’ll show it to you.”

He left her standing by the door while he sauntered to the sink. His chest, covered by a white T-shirt, revealed his wide expanse of muscles. His faded jeans hugged slim hips and the long legs of a runner.

He splashed water on his face, then reached for a towel. His damp black hair curled at his nape in ringlets as he dried it. When he retrieved his blue short-sleeve polo shirt from an unfinished chair and shrugged into it, his sheer male power transfixed her. He was in top physical condition.

As he faced her, she hastily pretended an interest in the far wall with a myriad of tools hanging on it, fighting the heat of a blush that suffused her cheeks. “You’re a carpenter?”

“Some of the time.”

“And the other times?” Finally she looked into his slate-gray eyes and wished she hadn’t. They were startling against the darkness of his features, their color like polished pewter.

“I’m the admissions director at the university.” He walked past her into the hallway. “I’ll show you the apartment now.”

As she followed him, she got the distinct impression that was all the chitchat she would get out of the man.