Hidden Cottage by Erica James Page A

get the words out, Jeff was marvellous. He paid the taxi driver, helped her find what she needed for the hospital, insisted she ate something – a slice of toast and a flapjack he found in the cake tin – and then drove them to the hospital. And as he drove, he kept a firm hand on hers and told her everything would be all right.
    Amazingly, everything did prove to be all right. Five days after he was admitted to hospital, Jensen was allowed home, but it was another month before he was back to his normal healthy self. By which time Jeff had not only supported her through the weeks of worry and anxiety but had proved himself to be a changed man, a man who wanted to play an active role in his son’s life. Three months later and he said that he wanted them to be a family, a proper family. But Mia needed to be convinced that he was serious, that this wasn’t just some passing whim on his part. She also needed to work out just what it was she felt for Jeff; she needed to be sure it wasn’t just gratitude for helping her through Jensen’s illness.
    His response was to go to great lengths to prove himself worthy and he agreed to her wishes that he didn’t rush things, that he especially didn’t rush Jensen into calling him Daddy, even though Mia had explained just who he was. Given the close relationship he and Mia had shared since his birth, Jensen was understandably wary of Jeff at first but gradually he became less jealous and possessive and more open to having Jeff in their lives. And as time went by Mia realized she enjoyed having Jeff around; he brought a brightness into her life and regularly made her laugh with his impressions of Mrs Frost, whom he had eating out of the palm of his hand by bringing her flowers or chocolates when he visited. He had winkled out of her all sorts of stuff that Mia had never been able to, such as her having been widowed for more than twenty years and that before that she and her husband had run a B&B together in Cornwall. ‘I’m beginning to feel jealous of you and Mrs Frost,’ Mia said one day. ‘I think you only come here to see her.’
    ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I’m glad you’re jealous; that means you feel something for me.’
    And she did. Just as when she’d first met him, she enjoyed his positive outlook and his rock-solid belief that there wasn’t anything he couldn’t make happen. But only when she was convinced that Jensen was happy with having Jeff in their lives did she agree to marry him.
    Ten months after their marriage, Eliza was born, and then along came Daisy. Born three weeks earlier than her due date, Daisy’s birth took them unawares, so much so Mia knew they wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time and Jeff ended up having to deliver Daisy. It was, he claimed for many years, his proudest achievement.
    Whereas Jensen and Eliza had been very easy-going babies, Daisy was furiously demanding with only two volume settings to her cries – loud or deafening. Throughout the Terrible Twos life was virtually intolerable; Daisy could scream and hold her breath for a terrifying length of time, and afraid she could actually damage herself, that something might burst inside her, Mia would give in. Anything to stop her from crying and screaming. Life went on like that until Daisy was three and a half, when suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked, she changed. ‘See,’ Jeff said, ‘didn’t I tell you it was just a phase?’
    It was as helpful as his comments when Daisy had been just a few weeks old, when he’d as good as said that Mia was to blame for Daisy being such a fractious baby. ‘You’re too tense,’ he’d say, as if he was now the world’s expert on childrearing. ‘She’s picking up on your anxiety; you need to relax more.’
    ‘Relax?’ Mia had snapped. ‘Just how do you expect me to do that?’
    ‘There you go,’ he’d said, ‘flying off the handle at the slightest thing. It’s not good.’
    Regrettably Daisy was the catalyst for changing