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“Oh, Magnus,” Ella says with a roll of her eyes. “Stop trying to get people to join your nonexistent cigar club.”
“Nonexistent?” he says, mouth agape. “I’m the Prince of Norway.”
“Doesn’t mean you have a club,” she says.
“Ottar smokes cigars with me.”
“Then it’s a club of two, and Ottar turns green.”
He looks at me, shaking his head like she’s lying.
“I do like a good cigar,” I tell him.
“There you go, I knew there was a reason I liked you. Okay. Let’s round up the kids.”
Even with Laila on the job, rounding up Tor and Bjorn takes a team effort, but eventually we’re all piling into the cars and heading off into the Norwegian wilderness.
Ottar is at the wheel in the SUV, Einar in the passenger seat, with the prince, princess, and Lady Jane in the back.
I’m in the passenger seat of the VW, absolutely cramped, with Olaf, who drives excruciatingly slow, and Laila and the boys in the back seat. I watch her in the rearview mirror, sitting between them, trying to stop Bjorn from smacking Tor on the head with his mitts.
It’s a long drive, made even longer by the stilted conversation with Laila and the kids kicking and yelling the whole way. Olaf doesn’t say a word, and I’m starting to think he can’t hear much at all. I’m envious.
Finally, after a few hours and several rest stops along the way, we pull down a long snow-covered road to see the SUV waiting and three rugged ATVs.
“Here we are,” Laila says, unbuckling the boys.
“This?” I ask, peering up at a snow-covered mountain, the top obscured by heavy white clouds. There’s no cabin in sight. The slope looks steep as hell, covered by forest until it turns alpine. I have no idea how we’re going to get up there.
I catch Laila smirking at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re from Scotland. Don’t you have your Highlands?”
“Aye, but I was born in Glasgow,” I tell her. “Let me tell you that at no point did any of my foster families take me on any hiking expeditions up north.”
“First time for everything,” she says.
We approach the ATVs, where Magnus and Ottar are already securing packs. Ottar takes my bag and brings it to the back of one.
“You know how to drive an ATV, don’t you?” he asks me.
I don’t, actually, but I can’t imagine it’s any different from a golf cart. On steroids. “Of course,” I tell him, hoping that doesn’t bite me in the ass.
“Great. You’ll take up Laila, Ella, and the boys. Magnus will ride with Einar up in the front. I’ll take the rear with Lady Jane.”
At that, Lady Jane bursts out into raucous laughter.
“Oh, grow up,” Ottar yells at her, laughing too. He looks at me and shakes his head as if to say, Women.
It’s not long before we’re on our way. The seat is a little small for my frame, but I make it work. Ella sits in the front with Tor on her lap, Laila in the back with Bjorn. I look over my shoulder at her, her arm around Bjorn, trying to hold them both in place.
“Hey, buddy,” I say to Bjorn. “This is a dangerous journey we’re about to take. Better keep your seat belt on and hold on to Laila so that you don’t lose her. I’m counting on you to be the man back there.”
I’m hoping that will trick him into behaving.
Bjorn just glares at me.
I look at Ella, hoping I wasn’t stepping on any toes. She’s staring at me in utter amusement.
“He does know English, right?” I ask her.
