JARVIS

by Becca Fanning

  Cinda pursed her lips. “I’m sure you’d make great parents.”

  Leah’s head bobbed with enthusiasm. “We could teach the baby so much.”

  Sadness unfurled through Cinda. “There’s more to teach a baby than survival, Leah.”

  “What do you mean?” The girl sat up a little, pressed her hands under her ass, then sat on her fingers. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Survival is something you and Harry are doing now because you’re too young. You should be in a home with a family that loves you around you, especially at a time like this. Instead, you have to watch out for shelter and need to be on the lookout for the next meal. That’s your world, but it’s not the world.”

  Leah frowned. “We sleep here most nights.”

  “Together?” Cinda asked doubtfully, then nodded when Leah shook her head. “So, you don’t stay here every night because, let’s face it, every couple needs alone time, right?” Leah blushed. Cinda ignored it and carried on, “But what your mom said is true. No parent is ever ready. And most parents have a roof over their head and food in the fridge. They have access to all the stuff babies need. I mean, they need cribs and bottles and diapers.” She blew out a long breath. “I don’t know if I’d be able to manage and I’d have all that stuff at hand. You want to do it on the street? I have to say, Leah, I commend you. You’re obviously a very brave woman.”

  Confusion cascaded over the young girl’s face like she’d suddenly popped on a mask. Whatever she’d been thinking had been romanticized. Cinda had known that from the start. Hell, it was a long time ago but she’d been young once. She knew how it felt to be in love with someone, to want the world with them.

  Of course, she’d never been pregnant but she could empathize.

  What she’d have with Jarvis would, ultimately, lead to cubs. Cubs she’d want because they were a part of the pair of them. That mattered. That really counted, and there was no reason why it would be any different with a sixteen year old girl.

  “I-I guess I never thought about that,” Leah whispered softly as she stared down at her scuffed sneakers.

  “Why would you? You’re busy thinking about food and all the other stuff you have on your to do list to keep going. To keep running.”

  Leah peered up at her, then, after gnawing at her lip for a few seconds, murmured, “Harry wants me to have an abortion, and he wants Doctor Toni to encourage me. I won’t have an abortion though. I don’t want that.”

  “There are other options.” Cinda sat back again, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible, and murmured, “Lots of couples want babies, Leah. Not every partnership is as lucky as you and Harry. Some people love each other very much and never get pregnant. You could help them.”

  “I never really thought about adoption. I don’t like it. I know a lot of kids in the foster system. They’re out on the streets with me and Harry.”

  “I know, but you’re not talking about putting your baby in the system. You’re talking about adoption.” Cinda shrugged. “Jarvis would help. Me too. There are lots of private centers who deal with this, Leah, who’d be willing to help. Your baby could have a proper home, and all those things you want for him or her, like a nice cozy bed and a crib and all the stuff babies need, their family could provide.”

  “But we’re their family,” Leah whispered sadly.

  “And that will never change. You’ll always be that baby’s momma, Leah. But…” Cinda paused, then with a laugh, shook her head. “You know, mommas are always so full of advice. You’ve got your titbits from yours and I’ve got titbits from mine. My momma once said to me that being a parent is a sacrifice. She used to tell me that when I was getting her really mad because I was refusing to finish gym class of all things.” She grimaced at the memory. “Me and track never went well together. Anyway, she told me that one day I’d know the true meaning of sacrifice when I had a baby of my own, but that if I wanted to go to college—which I did, not that my daddy approved—then I’d have to make a sacrifice.”

  Leah’s eyes rounded. “Holy crap, that’s intense.”

  “Yeah. I know,” Cinda admitted sheepishly. “That was my mom for you. She was a little overdramatic.”

  “What sacrifice did you have to make?”

  “I had to waste so much time running with my brother. We built up my stamina, made it so I could get through track and get a passing grade.” Cinda’s grin was rueful. “I kind of got off topic there, but what I wanted to say is that moms know sacrifice. They give up so much just for the good of their baby because it’s ingrained in them. So, my question is, Leah, don’t you want more for that little person in your belly? Would you wish your life on them?”

  Leah blinked. “My life isn’t so bad. I ain’t got no one telling me what to do.”

  “True,” Cinda conceded. “I do. I have my boss, and then the government, and then my husband.” She shot a look at the staff room and saw Jarvis was still busy talking to Harry. She turned back to Leah. “You have no boss, so I envy you that.”

  Leah bit her lip. “But you got a home, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “And food in the fridge, and if you want to buy a pretty pair of shoes from the mall, you can.”

  Cinda nodded. “I can. Everything comes at a price, I guess. But hey, Leah, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. To be honest, I might be having a kid soon, and the prospect terrifies me. I’m just thinking out loud, you know?”

  Leah eyed her, curiosity written into the lines of her face. “Jarvis has never mentioned you before.”

  “Nah, he wouldn’t. I’m a pain in his ass.”

  Leah snickered. “Harry says I’m his.”

  Cinda winked. “That means we’re doing something right, huh?”

  “I guess.” The girl giggled and for the first time truly sounded her age. She let out a long sigh. “I really want to be a mom.”

  “I know you do, but you already are a mom, Leah. That’s never going to change now.”

  Leah’s mouth dropped open at that, and slowly, she murmured, “Jeez, I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course. But sometimes, moms have hard decisions to make. Like yours, she had a choice, you know? She could have fought her addiction because she had you to look after. Now, I’m not judging her, but you know what I mean, right?”

  The girl nodded slowly. Then gulping, whispered, “I used to hate her so much for not giving the drugs up. For choosing them over me.”

  “Exactly,” Cinda pointed out kindly. “Choices… we all have them. Sometimes they’re selfish and sometimes they’re selfless. I guess you have to figure out what kind of mom you want to be.”

  Feeling like she was being hard on the girl when she’d never even meant to get into this conversation, she carried on, “Was that chili as good as it looked? I’m starved.”

  Leah ceased staring at her beaten up shoes and glanced at her. “Yeah. It’s really good. The food is always good here. It’s one reason we always come back. Plus, Jarvis, you know, he’s cool. Always wants to help and shit but doesn’t intrude. I like him.”

  Cinda smiled. “I do too.”

  Chapter 5

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you drive around in a snazzy car,” Jarvis murmured as Cinda pulled out of the shelter’s parking lot and headed onto the freeway. “You always were a magpie.”

  She snorted. “Shiny, pretty things weren’t always my main goal.”

  “No? I guess it seemed that way from an outsider.”

  “Jesus, well, that hurts.” She shot him a look. “This isn’t a free for all, you know? We don’t have to make Cinda feel shit all day.”

  He snorted. “It wasn’t my intention to make you feel shit. You have to know you always came across a certain way to me. I’ve known you for years, but I’ve not really known the real you at all, have I?”

  He trained his attention on her rather than the road. He knew this path like the back of his hand so it held no interest to him. Cinda,
on the other hand, did.

  Goddess, nothing else mattered but her. What she represented.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “No guessing about it. Mundo told me about the Pulitzers, you know?”

  Her mouth quirked up to the side. “He did? He always did have a big mouth.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t Mundo, it would have been Annette. You guys never stayed in touch, did you?” Annette, Mars’s First Lady and mate, had been a journalist once upon a time and had worked at the same paper with Cinda.

  It was how Mars had met her.

  Back in the day when Mars had been VP and not Prez, he’d been the whistle-blower when the MC had started helping human traffickers. Mundo and Mars had contacted Cinda who’d put them in touch with Annette.

  That first meeting between Prez and First Lady was going to go down in the record books. Everyone knew how hardcore that had been. Mars and Annette had nearly started fucking at the local diner, had barely made it home to the clubhouse to Claim one another, and then when they’d gone inside and hit Mars’s bedroom, the cartel still giving the MC grief to this day, had sprayed the clubhouse with bullets. Annette had been hit and Mars had had to save her through a blood bond.

  Goddess, those had been some fucked up times.

  “Annette and I were never all that close even when we worked at the paper,” Cinda was saying, breaking into his memories. “She was a pain in the ass, if I’m being honest.”

  He grunted at that. “Still is one. Just don’t tell her or Mars that.” When she shot him a surprised look, he grinned. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my Prez and First Lady, but they’re both irritating from time to time.”

  “I thought you and Mundo and the rest of the bros all had some kind of wiring fault where you could never speak badly of your leaders. Like Data from Star Trek Next Gen, or some shit like that.”

  He gawked at her. “You watched Star Trek?”

  She pursed her lips, then after she’d pulled onto the main highway, shot him a look. “What? And you didn’t?”

  “I never professed to be too cool for fucking school.”

  “When did I?” she shot back. “Anyway, Riker was cute.”

  “Trust you to like him,” Jarvis scoffed.

  “I was young and dopy at the time,” she teased. “Who was your fave then? Come on.”

  “Picard. Had to be. Kick ass captain. Best of the bunch. No matter how many remakes or new series they try to create, he’ll always be the king.”

  She wriggled her head from side to side for a second, then nodded. “I agree. He was fantastic.”

  “Is, my dear. Is,” he said in his best English accent which had her chuckling and grinning widely at him.

  “Keep your day job, Jarvis.”

  “Acting is a love of mine, I’ll have you know.”

  “Yeah? Since when?”

  “Since… I wanted to wind you up.”

  She snorted. “That sounds about right. Although, out of curiosity, what is your day job?”

  “Don’t have one,” he replied. “Not much of one, anyway. I’m on the Council now. We all have our duties. I guess they’d be considered the day job but I don’t think of them that way. Plus, Mars oversees, but he’s not like a boss. I spend most of my time at the shelter sorting shit out there. Trying to expand, make it bigger better, that kind of thing.”

  “I meant it when I said I wanted to help, you know?”

  “I do.” The smile he shot her was tender. “I appreciate that.”

  “Do you think if we did like a ball or something, you know, where people had to buy a seat at a table…?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “To raise more money,” she explained simply. “I was talking to Leah while you and Toni were with Harry.”

  “Leah’s Harry?” Jarvis asked, astonishment lacing his tone.

  “Yeah. Unless he has two,” she teased.

  “Dear Goddess, she spoke to you?” When Cinda nodded, he demanded, “What did she say? Did she mention the baby?”

  “Yeah. She did. What’s so surprising about her talking to me?”

  “She doesn’t talk to anyone above the age of fucking sixteen. Or at least, that’s how it feels. As soon as an adult approaches, she clams up.”

  Cinda’s shoulder dropped in surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “That’s why Harry had to come and talk to us today. She never would. He wanted Toni to talk to her, to try to make her see sense, but we all knew Leah would just sit there and listen. There’d be no way in hell she’d actually talk back.”

  Cinda frowned. “I wonder why she spoke to me.”

  “I have no idea. Maybe because she saw us together and knew you were technically safe?”

  “She saw you and Toni together, and Toni’s been working at the shelter for a while, I’d assume?”

  “Yeah. Nearly as long as the shelter’s been going.”

  “Well, then, why confide in me and not her?”

  “I don’t know. What did she say?”

  “That she wanted to keep the baby.”

  Jarvis blew out a breath. “Shit.”

  “She might consider adoption,” Cinda started, then sighing, confessed, “I kind of discussed it a lot. Might have overplayed it but she was so excited about the baby and didn’t seem to be taking into consideration just how much work a kid is.” She wriggled her shoulders uneasily. “Maybe that’s why she spoke to me. She trusted me when I basically told her I was shit scared of becoming a mom.”

  Jarvis stilled at that. “You weren’t lying?”

  “I never lie.” Before he could scoff, she quickly stated, “I withhold the truth. I evade. I don’t lie.”

  He huffed out a breath instead. “That’s some comfort to my Bear and I.”

  She grimaced. “I know. It’s just how I work. Getting a story from people can be hard going if you lie. So I tell the truth, but will use it to my own advantage as well. Plus, it doesn’t help that I’m a shit liar. I get away with nothing.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He tapped his fingers against his knee as he settled back into the plush seat. Her Porsche was a fancy ride, and, truth be told, suited her down to a T. “You don’t want cubs?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t have much say in it, do I?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Cinda shot him a look. “It will happen when the Goddesses will it.”

  “We can prevent it.”

  “You’d use contraception?” she asked, eyes widening before she quickly focused on the road.

  “Of course,” he gritted out. Fuck, what the hell did she think of him? “Having cubs is a major decision. It’s something we should both be prepared for.”

  She laughed a little. “According to Leah’s mom, you’re never prepared. That was one of the major arguments we had to discuss. She was using that mind set to convince herself Harry and she could cope. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she’ll head down the adoption route, but she was interested. She wants to be a good mom, even if that means not having the baby with her.”

  “I’m glad to hear that you got her to open her horizons. The last thing either of them need is to be having a kid at their age. Not only that, but their circumstances are so far from ideal it’s a joke.” He sighed. “I wish there was more I could do, but sometimes, my hands are tied.”

  “I’d imagine it’s more than sometimes,” she corrected softly. “And you’re only one person. There’s only so much you can do. Now we’re together, we can approach it differently. I have friends who will be willing to help too, to make donations and the like. Not just with money but with equipment and time.”

  He frowned at her. “Why would they do that?”

  “Because I’ll vouch for you.” She wrinkled her nose. “When I was in Phoenix, I did an article on the homeless there. I focused mostly on PTSD victims, veterans, and the like.”

  “That’s the one you won a Pulitzer for, isn’t it?” he asked
softly. “I read it. It was a beautiful piece.”

  “Thank you.” The smile she shot him was soft, sad. “It killed me to write it. I really researched that one too well.”

  “It came through. I read how it affected you.”

  She blew out a breath. “Still does. Wherever I go, I look into the scene now and try to do my bit. That’s how I came across you.”

  “What do you mean look into the scene?”

  “I try to help and volunteer my time. Offer to write something, entice donations out of people for the cause. Shit like that.”

  It pained him to admit that he’d always considered Cinda to be a selfish bitch. He’d believed her vain and spoiled. It always seemed to be the side of herself she had on display whenever he was around.

  To hear this from her was more than just enlightening, it came as a relief.

  “Jarvis? We’re nearly there.”

  He blinked, peered out onto the road and said, “Can we go to the clubhouse first? I need to speak with Mars.”

  She grimaced. “Do we have to?”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t go unless I needed to.” He shot her a look, one she happened to catch because she was glowering at him. “I want to explore the bond as much as you do but this is important. It involves a situation that the MC’s been involved in for a while.”

  She frowned. “What kind of situation?”

  “I can’t discuss it with you. Yet,” he amended when her lips turned down in irritation. “It’s one of the topics I need to discuss with Mars.”

  She seemed to accept that. “Okay.”

  “You remember the way to the clubhouse?” When she took the next exit, he grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Uh huh. Are you in danger? I know you can’t tell me anything yet, but are you?”

  “Not personally. The club is in hot water at the minute. Not with the law, but with an old partner. We’re working to defuse the situation.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. One thing that reassured me it was the right time to return was the fact the MC has gone national now. I saw the beer up in Vermont, for Christ’s sake. I knew to be impressed then.”