Page 53 of Royally Drawn (Resplendent Royals #3)

Just Follow Orders

KEIR

I stood in my mother’s kitchen when I got a call from my aunt. I knew I had to answer it.

“Hello, Auntie Nat,” I said.

“Great. I was worried I might not get you. I know you had sailing plans.”

“We haven’t left yet. Lars is held up with something,” I said.

I’d come home and spent a few weeks up north with my mother. While Lars and I weren’t besties, we were better than we were a year ago. We often went out with Peder to improve matters.

“Good. I need you to go to a funeral.”

“What? Has someone died?”

“Yes. I’m in Germany, or I would go.”

“I am on holiday. Who is it for?”

“I know you are. It won’t take but a minute. Promise.”

“Duncan cannot go?”

“Duncan is in New Zealand.”

I groaned. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a funeral. I returned home a week ago. I wasn’t supposed to be back on duty until June. I tried not to think about where they would send me next or for what.

“Where is it?” I groaned.

“The Dowager Queen of Neandia has died. We need to send someone.”

My stomach churned.

“No, no, no. Auntie, anywhere but there.”

Lars entered the kitchen, making eye contact with me like he knew something was up.

“You don’t have a choice. These are orders. Are you being insubordinate, Squadron Leader Inverness?”

“Fucking hell,” I groaned. “If I have no choice, I will go.”

I soon hung up and stared at Lars.

“You got the call?” Lars asked.

I nodded. “Are you?”

“Cici is competing. She just rang me. Uncle Olav is sending me in her place. Can you fly me? I’m just assuming?—”

“Yeah,” I said. “I have no choice. Mamma, please tell Auntie I cannot go. This is not an important funeral. The woman was a cunt.”

“Cunt or not,” Mamma said. “She told you to go. She makes the rules. If Olav or Natalie say jump, you all say how high.”

“But Neandia… Mamma, please.”

“Don’t whine,” Mamma said. “You’re thirty-two years old. You can handle going to a funeral.”

“He doesn’t want to see Ingrid.”

I glared at Lars. “And you probably do.”

“Stop it!” My mother shouted; voice short.

Lars’s girlfriend left the picture a month ago. I could only assume he’d want to move in on Ingrid now that the door was open.

“I’m not interested in Ingrid,” Lars said. “Promise. I will steer clear. I am only going because I follow the same orders you do. Anyhow, please tell me when you want to leave. We’ll coordinate it.”

“It will be a few days,” I said. “But there will be all the bullshit gatherings ahead of time. Maybe we can skip them?”

Lars and I both looked at Mamma for an out.

“That’s unkind. You both know better. ”

“I’ll find Pappa,” Lars said. “Are you ready to go out?”

“Just give me a few, and I will be.”

He left, and Mamma shook her head. “Keir, I love you, but you cannot hide from that girl.”

“I tore her heart out,” I said. “She hates me—understandably—and I’m not ready to deal with all of that. I’m only going to cause her more grief.”

“Have you thought of apologising?”

“What for? She’s moved on. She doesn’t care what I have to say, Mamma. She shouldn’t.”

“You still love her.”

“I will probably always love her. She hates me. She hasn’t so much as texted me since I ran off.”

“But have you tried Keir? I’ve never heard her say an angry word about you. Cici and Betty have never said anything and are closer than ever.”

“Then she didn’t love me.”

“I don’t believe any of that, Keir. That’s bullshit. I think you were madly in love with her? I think she was very in love with you. And I think something frightened you, but you’ll regret it if you don’t apologise. Because if you love her, you owe her that.”

I growled, “Fuck my life!”

“What happened? Can you even be honest?”

I took a deep breath. “I got scared. It was a combination of things. She told me if I wasn’t interested in marriage and kids someday, it didn’t matter how much she loved me.”

“That’s a fair statement. Did she give you a timeframe?”

“She doesn’t want me leaving again. She didn’t say I had to marry her or anything like that—not like tomorrow— I expressed doubt I’d ever be up to it, and I wasn’t willing to give up on work.”

“First, you never have to ‘give up’ on work. Second, sweetheart, that’s ridiculous. I think you want to be happy someday. Happiness for you will include marriage and children—with the right person. I don’t know if that person is Ingrid. Maybe it is? You are the only one who can say if that is true. But would it hurt to make things right with her and see how it goes? ”

“I don’t think I could ever love anyone enough to risk having children with them. And when her sister almost died… it hammered that home.”

Mamma looked down and nodded. She took a moment to compose her thoughts. I waited for her to speak.

“I know that was hard for you, Keir. Watching me go through hell wasn’t easy. I am sorry that so much of your childhood was painful.”

“You did a wonderful job trying to keep us safe, Mamma.”

“It about killed me, but I’d do it all the same every time. I am… I don’t want you to give up on the beauty of having a family just because losing Daddy was so hard. You cannot live in fear of that.”

“Her mother died giving birth to her.”

“So, this is just a worry about losing Ingrid?”

“No, it’s more than that,” I sighed.

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Do you regret marrying Dad and having us? Would your life have been less painful if you’d just married Peder?”

“First of all, Peder was taken, and we weren’t interested in one another until well after your father died,” Mamma said. “There was never anyone but your father. I turned someone down who wasn’t right for me. I would have rather been alone than with the wrong person.”

“So, then you agree marriage isn’t the end-all-be-all.”

“Keir, let me finish. I don’t regret giving over to your father and loving him completely until his last day. It was painful in the end, but the beginning was beautiful. And without you all, I’d be incomplete. I don’t look at it as an ugly thing. I look at it this way. I am lucky to have two great loves in my life. I felt loved by your father the way I only thought existed in movies. I didn’t think I could be adored and loved as he loved me. I want that for you. I don’t want you to fear that.”

She was in tears. Peder and Lars entered the kitchen to see Mamma wiping her eyes on the kitchen roll. I felt terrible.

Peder, confused, asked, “What is wrong?”

He looked at me, not my mother.

“I was explaining to Keir that not loving someone because there is a minute possibility he could lose her is irrational. I told him that if he loves someone, it is better to love and lose them in that small chance because his life would be incomplete.”

Mamma took my face in her hands. “You deserve to be happy. I deserved to be happy. I wanted you all. I am grateful for that life with your father—if only for far too short a time.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Go sail. I need a minute. And don’t make the biggest mistake of your life, Keir. Just follow orders.”