“Good.” Her spirit soared. “Tell me more about the landmarks.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll just send you everything I have. What’s your email?”
She gave him the information. A moment later, her phone chimed with the incoming message. “This will be fun,” she said, mostly to the baby. Her phone chimed again and she did a double take, checking the alert on the screen. The first message wasn’t from Jarvis at all. In fact, it looked like an email from her ex-husband. “What the hell?”
Jarvis was beside her in an instant. “More trouble?”
“I—I don’t know yet,” she admitted. She wouldn’t deal with anything negative while nursing her son. The first part of protecting Silas was putting his needs first. “It’s from my ex. He hasn’t contacted me since the divorce was finalized.”
“Not even when Silas was born?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“But you said he’s the father.”
“He is.” She deliberately kept her tone bright to remind Jarvis this wasn’t the time for a stressful conversation.
He held up a hand and backed away. “I get it. All of that can wait.”
She shot him a grateful smile. “He’ll be out soon. We might even get through a second night in a row.”
Jarvis sat down on the bunk across from her, an odd expression on his face. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was going through his head. He didn’t avoid looking at her as she fed her son, but he didn’t ogle her or stare in an awkward way.
At last her baby’s bottomless pit of a stomach was content and quiet. Once he was tucked into the car seat that currently served double duty as his bed, she picked up her phone and headed to the table. The email from Roderick was as succinct as it was jarring. Her knees went weak and she wobbled into the first available support, which happened to be Jarvis.
His arms came around her and he eased her into a
chair at the table. Her fingers trembled as she read through the full message again. “I can’t believe this.”
Thankfully, Jarvis took the phone and read the message himself. “He’s asking for a custody hearing?”
She pressed a hand to her stomach, wishing now she’d skipped the milkshake. “He relinquished his rights before I delivered. The divorce settlement covered everything.” She swallowed a panicked sob. This couldn’t be happening. “He got everything he wanted. So did I.”
“Meaning?”
“Roderick wanted complete and total freedom. Forever. No visitation, no obligation to be a father. He agreed to set up a fund for Silas’s college expenses and he had to pay me half of the value for our house. The alimony payments were calculated and once we agreed on a number, he paid me in full so he didn’t have to think about me ever again.”
Jarvis touched her gently, his hand warm at the nape of her neck, his fingers circling gently over the knotted muscles. “I don’t want to be a dad, but I can’t imagine walking away from my wife if we got pregnant. I didn’t know my parents for long, but I remember how in love they were. Committed to each other and us as a family, through thick and thin.”
“My husband was furious when I told him I was pregnant.”
Jarvis’s hands stilled. “Why would he demand a custody hearing now?”
“Because the universe is laughing at me? Maybe his mom decided she was ready to be a grandmother after all.” She curled over, resting her head on her hands on the tabletop. Jarvis just kept kneading her neck. The man was a saint. “Mia Graves, so sure she could be mother of the year all by herself.”
Behind her, Jarvis snickered.
“Don’t laugh at me. There’s a mug and everything.”
“Sweetheart, you’re the best mom I’ve seen in ages.”
She opened her mouth to argue and a low moan came out instead. Jarvis cleared his throat and she knew she should move out of his reach. But it felt so damned good to be touched this way. He was only being a friend—a caregiver, really, but she wasn’t strong enough to resist this.
“Your hands are miraculous.” It had been so long since anyone had touched her like a woman; medical professionals didn’t count.
“This says you have to appear tomorrow. Your husband has serious clout to get a hearing in family court so fast,” he said.
“Ex-husband,” she corrected.