He wasn't surprised when his phone dinged with an incoming text.
HavePassportWillTravel: Are you punishing me?
SoldierPrince: No.
He stripped and climbed into his rack. Tor hadn't slept in over thirty-six hours.
He was barely awake when the next chime sounded.
HavePassportWillTravel: Glad U R ok.
Was he okay? Tor ached in every muscle. He was so tired his eyes felt filled with sand and he had a couple scrapes that would sting for another day, or two.
SoldierPrince: I am alive. Tired. Need sleep.
HavePassportWillTravel: Pleasant dreams. TTYL
Yes, he had no doubt she'd text him later, because the woman who claimed they had no relationship apparently fell apart when she did not hear from him for a day.
That truth followed him into his dreams making them more pleasant than they might have been otherwise. Because they were filled with her.
Blythe watched Tor greeted his family for his November visit.
Wearing tailored slacks and a dress shirt, no suit jacket or tie, he looked almost the same as when he'd left for his final military training before being deployed.
Except his eyes. The humor that used to lurk there was gone.
Had that happened before he embarked on his two-year stint as a soldier?
She could not remember.
Sterner he might be, but he still fit in with his surroundings perfectly. The opulent palace décor that Blythe even now found uncomfortably royal sometimes, was such a natural backdrop for her prince. His family had waited to meet him at the palace in their private reception room.
Not noticeably more casual than the rest of the palace, it was nevertheless where they gathered for holidays and moments like this.
She had wanted to go to the airport and wait for his plane to arrive, but had known she could not. Not without giving away their secret.
Hungry for every glimpse of the prince, she found it even harder to look away now than it had been to stop herself showing up on the tarmac in advance of his arrival.
But that is exactly what Blythe had to do. Look away.
Janice already suspected Blythe had a thing for Tor. She couldn't afford to give the sister of her heart more evidence to feed that suspicion.
And knowing that, Blythe still watched as Tor shook hands with his father and brothers, gave a one-armed, sideways hug to Janice and a charming, but formal partial bow toward Janice's mom, Lady Ingrid, who was now married to Prince Canute.
Tor's reserved greetings for the adults shifted to something far more natural when Bjorn toddled up and lifted his arms toward him. Tor's gorgeous face transformed with a welcoming smile as he lifted his nephew for a hug before setting him back down.
"Bjorn, I have a gift for you."
The two-year old's face lit up. Tor made a motion with his hand and one of the security detail stepped forward with a large brightly wrapped box. Bjorn tore into the wrapping and cried with delight when he saw the building blocks designed for little hands that had been custom made so he could build a rudimentary replica of the palace he lived in. There was a stable and horses and little figures that represented the royal family, too.
"My house!" the toddler exclaimed with delight.
Blythe laughed softly at the little prince describing the palace as his house.
He was such a little sweetheart. She'd never really considered children before meeting Tor and then the sister-of-her-heart giving birth to a little boy Blythe could not help but love. Her own homelife hadn't leant itself to a desire for emulation, but something in her longed-for family in a way she never had before.
A family she could not have with Tor.