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‘Do you think so?’
‘Oh, I am sure he will.’ A wry smile curved her mouth as Ben leapt to his feet, his happiness restored—while hers was in danger of being destroyed with the arrival of Jed into her nice, well-ordered life.
‘Okay, can I have the speedboat in the bath?’ he asked—just as the doorbell rang.
Oh, hell! She swore under her breath, but Ben was already out of the sitting room and running to the front door.
Phoebe followed and opened the door. Jed was standing on the doorstep, a broad smile on his face for Ben, who had pushed past her.
‘You came back. Mummy said you would.’
‘Your mummy knows me well. And I have got a child seat fitted, so if she agrees we can take that ride now.’
‘You are late,’ Phoebe snapped, angry because to her horror her heart had leapt at the sight of him and she realised she found Jed as incredibly attractive as ever. ‘Ben’s bedtime is seven-thirty.’
But she wasn’t surprised Jed had managed to get a car seat. The man could find a lake in a desert if he wanted too. What did surprise her was that he had got a state-ofthe-art child and booster seat combined, fitted in the front passenger seat. She wasn’t sure it was allowed by law for a child to travel in the fron
t seat, but when she tried to remonstrate with Jed he dismissed her concern, informing her the shop that had sold him the seat had assured him it was okay.
‘Well, it had better be a quick trip,’ she finally conceded.
Fifteen minutes later she was sitting stiffly in the back seat of the car, silently simmering with resentment. Jed had demonstrated as soon as they got in the car how the roof rolled back, much to Ben’s delight. She supposed she should be grateful he had closed the damn thing. But all she felt was a growing sense of dread. There was no escaping the fact that Ben was happy and completely at ease with his new-found friend, and she wondered what evil trick of fate had landed her in this mess.
She could hear the excitement in Ben’s voice as Jed gave him what sounded like instructions on how to drive over the roar of the engine. She wanted to yell at him that her son was only four, and tell him to slow down while she was at it. But she knew it would be futile. She had forgotten Jed’s penchant for driving like a bat out of hell.
Glancing out of the window, she saw they were actually at Bowesmartin. It usually took her thirty minutes to get to the town, but Jed had covered the distance in half the time. She hoped he got a speeding ticket, and wished she had not told him to make the ride quick as Ben had to go to bed soon.
Hoist by her own petard, she thought wryly.
More than she could ever have imagined possible, she realised a minute later, when the car ground to a halt as the traffic lights outside Bowesmartin Cottage Hospital changed to red and she heard Ben chattering happily to Jed.
‘That’s where I went when I broke my arm, and the man said I was very brave when he mended it,’ she heard Ben bragging cheerfully. ‘Mum had me there, and I am a miracle baby—because I had a twin, but it died before I was born.’
Phoebe closed her eyes, the colour draining from her face. Why, oh, why had she taken the advice in the baby books so literally and told her son the truth? She must have been crazy—because now it had come back to bite her with a vengeance.
‘That is very interesting, Ben,’ she heard Jed respond.
She opened her eyes and saw he was watching her in the driving mirror.
‘Out of the mouths of babes, Phoebe?’ he mocked, and the gleam of bitter triumph in his eyes chilled her to the bone.
‘I am not a baby. I am nearly five and a big boy now,’ Ben stated, saving her from responding. Thankfully Jed’s attention was diverted from her back to Ben.
Phoebe stared blindly out of the window as the lights changed and Jed drove on. Ben was a miracle baby, and her mind drifted back to the past as the familiar landscape sped by.
She had been back living with Aunt Jemma for nearly two months when she had finally told her aunt about her disastrous love affair and the miscarriage she had suffered. The reason being that a week earlier she had visited her local GP because she had still been suffering from slight nausea and a bloated feeling, and she had been worried something was wrong. She had told her GP she had suffered a miscarriage seven weeks earlier, but she couldn’t recall the name of the London hospital, only Dr Norman. She’d seen no point in mentioning Jed or Dr Marcus, though privately she had been worried she had been too hasty leaving London without having the D&C procedure.
Phoebe could still remember the sense of awe and wonderment after her GP had asked a few pertinent questions and then examined her and sounded her stomach as well as her chest. She had told her she was about sixteen weeks pregnant, and the baby was fine. He’d arranged for her to have an ultrasound scan at the local hospital and told her she had nothing to worry about. It was a rare occurrence, but originally she must have been carrying twins—not identical—and had lost only one.
Chapter Five
PHOEBE considered herself lucky that five years ago she had failed to keep her appointment with Dr Marcus for the D&C procedure after all…But she didn’t feel lucky now as she walked out of Ben’s bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. He was fast asleep, her beloved innocent child, but she knew she would get no sleep tonight, with Jed’s threat still ringing in her ears.
When they had arrived back at the cottage earlier Ben had thanked Jed for the ride in his car, then added, ‘It is a super car, but I like the colour of Uncle Julian’s better. His is bright red.’
Phoebe had had to smile at the look of masculine pique on Jed’s handsome face.
‘So, Ben, you like red and Uncle Julian, hmm?’
