Page 21 of Royal Rising

Or maybe he was trying to break one up. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see the cause.

I hope he didn’t start it.

The thing with Kalle is that there’s always been an undercurrent of bad temper simmering under his surface. Sometimes it boils over into anger but most of the time it’s a mild annoyance at the world around him. I’ve learned long ago not to take it personally, and I’ve mastered some skills to head off a really bad mood.

Kalle hates having no choice about his future.

He’s never come right out and said it, but I can read him pretty well. I know him pretty well. He lives with the uncertainty ofwhen, ofhowhe will follow in his father’s footsteps. Ofwhyit has to be him.

And whether it should be. I know that keeps him up at night.

The order of his birth has put him in this position and there’s nothing he can do about it.

But learning from Mathias that there might have been a different path for Kalle sets my thoughts spinning.

What would Kalle be if he wasn’t a prince of Laandia set to inherit the throne? Would he even stay in Battle Harbour?

He had been happy when he was playing sports—it’s amazing that he could be so successful in three different sports. Kalle is a natural athlete and I knew, seeing him in the midst of a drunken brawl last night, he wouldn’t be hurt.

Seeing him holding Jubblie Mark, with his T-shirt pulled up to show a few inches of toned, tanned skin…

I’m not blind. I know how attractive Kalle is. Even with his grunts and growls and monosyllabic answers to important questions, Kalle Erickson ishot. He’s the second tallest with shoulders and biceps that strain the best of cotton T-shirts, darker than Odin and Gunnar with his dark blond hair with streaks of red andbrown, and perma-tan. The haughty slash of a nose that somehow remained unbroken despite the fights and hockey pucks during his short career on the ice, and five-day scruff covering a strong jaw. Those eyes that can make you feel—sometimes at once—both like a tiny bug and his favourite person ever, and mirror the ocean on a calm day.

It’s amazing how many different shades of blue eyes there are in that family.

If I were a painter, I could commit Kalle to paper by memory alone. But I don’t, because there’s not a creative bone in my body.

Kalle is attractive despite his temper—

Or, some women might be more attracted to the bad-tempered, brooding type.

Not me. I’ve always tried to stay away from men who remind of Kalle. It’s easier that way. Because Kalle is in my face every day.

And he is a nice face.

He smiles at a lot of women with that face, and every time he does more than smile, I’m forced to talk myself through the sensation that something just isn’t right in the world. It never lasts for long, though, because they never last for long. The architect working on Odin’s Viking exhibit. The Sports Illustrated model who got a chance to interview anyone for the magazine and picked him. The city councillor who won’t give us a permit for a patio after Kalle stopped seeing her.

Fenella seems different.

She’s the type of woman he should be with: the strong, smart type who can help lead him through the pitfalls of celebrity life. When Kalle becomes king, he’ll be known throughout the world for more than being a three-sport professional athlete with killerabs and a fine backside. People will watch and question and make comments on what he does for Laandia and what he can’t. He needs someone beside him to shoulder the scrutiny.

And Fenella, with her background and family could help him.

Plus, she’s so incredibly gorgeous, that he’s probably not even thinking of the other positives.

It takes a while before I finally manage to fall asleep.

I’m not awake to see Kalle’s light turn on.

The next morning, I wake up to a full-fledged summer storm. Rain pours down in curtains, and thunder rumbles in the dark clouds hanging low. The wind is almost as loud, and outside everything that’s not held down has taken flight.

Kalle must have opened early; when I go down for twelve, it’s clear the fishermen of last night and more have chosen to hunker down and wait it out here. Skywalker, our chef who rules the kitchen with teasing and good temper, mans the grill while Leah, his wife, smiles good morning as she carries plates of eggs and bacon to a table.

My father sits at the bar beside Dillon.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he says. Even the tubes up his nose pumping oxygen to clogged lungs can’t mask his cheerful smile.

“Mom kick you out because of the rain?”

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