14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

An early lunch with Martha was fun for all four residents of the beach house. After all the years they had been customers, Martha, Rick, and Alexis were all known to the restaurant staff. They introduced Kate as if the staff needed to know her, too, and joked and laughed with them as they came and went, asking about their families as well. When they left, Kate understood why it was Martha's favorite restaurant. As well as the easy-going staff, the food was wonderful.

When they left the restaurant, Martha had an hour and a half before the car was to pick her up for her return trip, so they went shopping in town near the restaurant. After visiting a couple of boutiques with sky high prices, they stopped at a little jewelry store that dealt in handcrafted gemstone jewelry. Exquisite work but not entirely unaffordable for someone with Kate's income. While Castle was examining pieces that showed excellent craftsmanship, he was also keeping an eye out for which pieces attracted the three women with him.

Martha insisted on stopping there, telling Kate they had interesting jewelry; and Kate seemed to find things that interested her, too. Alexis found a bracelet she liked, and asked her dad if she could buy it. Martha, after trying a number of necklaces and rings, simply handed her two favorites to her son, saying, "You have the card. You might as well take this, too." Castle rolled his eyes at Kate, and she laughed as Martha wandered over to a wall display to keep looking. He saw Kate try on a few pieces, but there was one ring she went back to several times. She hadn't done more than look for the last few minutes, though, pointing out interesting things to Alexis and moving on.

Castle looked at his watch and walked over to Martha. "Mother, the car will be at the house in twenty minutes. We should probably wrap things up here."

"I lost track of time. Thank you, Darling."

While he was close to her, he whispered, "Can you distract Kate for a minute? There was a ring she kept going back to."

"I saw that. It was lovely. And perfect for a gift for her. It only says pretty jewelry, nothing more."

"That's what I thought, too."

"You go and take care of the check. I'll provide the distraction." Martha then put her acting skills to work and called, "Katherine, did you see this?" then took her arm to move her away from Castle and off to a display behind him.

Castle and Alexis returned to them, Castle holding a couple of small bags, and he handed one to Martha. "We need to get Mother home," he told them. The car should be there any time now."

The car arrived about two minutes after they did. Castle brought Martha's bags out, and the driver greeted her as Ms. Rogers and then spoke to Miss Alexis, "And you must be Miss Beckett," he added.

"Yes, and you are…"

"Michael, Ma'am. Nice to meet you. I'll probably see you again." He nodded in her direction before opening the door for Martha.

Martha hugged everyone, ending with Alexis; and as she hugged her granddaughter, she whispered close to her ear. "Are you okay now?"

"I will be. Kate is trying hard, too."

"I have a good feeling about this. I like having her here."

"Thanks for this weekend, Grams."

"See you next week," her grandmother promised. "You can tell me all about the rest of the weekend then." With that, she got into the town car, and it pulled away.

"It's always so quiet when Mother leaves," Castle joked.

"Stop that." Kate backhanded his chest. "I love having your mother around."

"Alexis, she hit me."

"You earned it." Alexis smirked and went up the steps before the other two.

"My own child deserts me," he wailed dramatically, and both women laughed.

"Are all your drivers so formal? The best I can get from Darrell is Miss Kate."

"Company policy. Men are Mr. Whoever, or Sir. Male children are Master…followed by first or last name. Apparently any female, from birth on up, is eligible for Miss, or the married ones are Mrs. and the surname. You won't get them to budge…Miss Kate."

"It feels odd."

"You'll get used to it after a while."

When they returned to the house, they decided to spend some time on the beach, and Kate went upstairs to change clothes. Considering his daughter and his new relationship with Kate, Castle planned to wait until Kate returned before he did the same. Alexis was about to follow Kate upstairs, but then she turned to get the bag containing her bracelet. Her father had left it on the kitchen counter when they came in. When she picked it up, however, she realized there were two boxes, not just the one she expected.

"Dad, there's an extra box. Did Grams leave something behind?"

"That's for Kate," he explained. "She kept going back to that ring, and I didn't want to leave her out."

"Is it the oblong one with the opal?"

"That's the one. Mother and I thought it looked like a nice gift without looking intimidatingly commitment worthy."

"Good choice. When are you going to give it to her?"

"I don't know yet. Would you take it up with you and leave it on Mother's dresser? I think I'll just look for a good moment, and I can pick it up from there when I find one.

Kate and the Castles spent a couple of hours on the beach. Stan and Polly walked by and stopped to talk for a few minutes, and the three of them entertained themselves at home for the rest of the day.

The next morning, Alexis got a phone call from a friend a few houses away and was going to visit her.

"Would you like to take Kate to the lighthouse this afternoon?" Castle asked his daughter before she left. "We had planned to go the last time she was here and never got there for some reason." Since Alexis wasn't looking, he gave Kate a mischievous smile and got one in return.

"That sounds like fun," Alexis answered. "We haven't been there in a long time."

They arranged a time to leave, and Alexis told them, "Nina is going to meet me halfway. I'll tell her I can't stay too long, and I'll be back for lunch before we leave."

"Have fun," Kate called after her as she left.

When she was out of the house, Castle turned to Kate. "We're childless for a while. Should we exercise that urge you seem to have…the one that makes you want to rip my clothes off. Only to avoid possible embarrassment at the lighthouse this afternoon, you understand."

"No clothes off until she's had fifteen minutes to come back because she forgot something."

Amused by the difference in her usual eager participation in bed and her complete paranoia that his daughter might know what they're doing…even though Kate was sleeping in his room, he answered, "You're going to have to get over that sooner or later,"

"Well, it won't be this weekend. I don't want us to traumatize her. She already had to call in reinforcements to face me at all."

"You're considering my daughter. I guess I can't complain."

"Don't paint a one hundred per cent altruistic picture yet. I don't want to traumatize me, either. If she came back and even just heard us, I might never be able to look her in the eye again. And you're her father. Why isn't it bothering you?" She shoved his chest playfully.

"No need for violence, Woman. I don't want to be in that little picture you're imagining, either. But she's at someone else's house by now." He enunciated the last sentence very clearly and smiled.

"I'm sure she knows it's going to happen sometime, but she doesn't need evidence of when. I haven't had to consider a child before. Am I a bad role model, Rick? I don't know how to do this."

Seeing that she was more concerned than he realized, he took her shoulders to get her attention. "Kate, look at who she's lived with her whole life. Mother doesn't bring her dates home, either. I insisted on that when she moved in. But Alexis has witnessed many a walk of shame, and some of them have been mine. I won't say I'm proud of that, but the role model thing…it's a worry you should put behind you."

"But this is me. And seeing you come home...that only leaves an abstract idea. I…"

"Shhh… Stop worrying. We'll be quiet at night when she's here. My room at the loft is reasonably soundproof and much farther away from hers, and at your place we only need to worry about whether you'll ever be able to face your neighbors again." His smirk earned his chest another shove, after which he stooped, wrapped his arms around her legs, picked her up, draped her over his shoulder, and hauled her up the stairs, laughing at her half-hearted protests.

By the time Alexis returned, the two satisfied adults were dressed for their lighthouse excursion and sitting innocently in the living room waiting for her.

"There's a sandwich and some fruit in the fridge," Kate called when they heard her come in. "We're in the living room."

Alexis appeared a couple of minutes later with her lunch and ate it as her father gave her the rundown of plans for the afternoon."

They drove to the lighthouse and behaved like tourists, investigating every nook and cranny available to the public, including the gift shop where Castle bought a lighthouse magnet. The women teased him about it, but he reminded them they were tourists. "Tourists buy these things," he insisted unapologetically.

When they had worn themselves out, they sat down on an open strip of ground for a while, looking out over the water. It was nearing dusk by then, and the sun was beginning to get lower. The sky was gradually getting darker, and there were deep gray clouds overtaking the lighter ones that had been the norm earlier in the day. They watched as bright, white clouds seemed to explode from the gray ones here and there, made even brighter against the gray that obliterated the sun that lit the lighter ones from behind. Castle pointed out a cloud that looked like the spaceship from Close Encounters, then Alexis found a volcano spewing lava in one of the brighter fluffier clouds.

"Look over there," Kate said, pointing out a blend of clouds with a light gray area in the center and a slightly darker gray around the outside. A lighter cloud surrounded the center, with sunlight lighting it from behind so it glowed. "It looks like The Fortress of Solitude."

"Oh, that's beautiful," Alexis exclaimed. "And, Dad, she knows about The Fortress of Solitude."

"I told you she's the right one for us," he answered. "And she's right. There's the mountain and the entrance, and it looks like it's lit from the inside."

"There's another one," Kate pointed out. "Over there where that white one is changing shape. It looks like a sailboat."

"The gray piece that just broke off is a dragon," Alexis chimed in.

"Uh,oh. Trouble," Castle warned. "Alexis's dragon is about to eat your sailboat." About thirty seconds later the women heard, "Aaaaaaand it's gone."

"I hope it has a stomach ache," Kate grouched, and Alexis laughed.

"As nice as this is," Castle said, "It's looking stormier out there by the minute. We should probably head home."

He heard sounds of agreement, and they stood and dusted themselves off to head back to the car; and they made the drive home, reaching the house barely ahead of the storm. It was almost dark by then. Within minutes of entering the house, the wind and rain was blustering and there was thunder and lightning; and they all stood at the windows in the dark living room to watch for a while. Castle put his arms around his two loves protectively, pulling them close to his sides.

"Doesn't look nearly as nice as The Fortress of Solitude," he observed.

"It looks a lot more like sailboat-eating dragons out there," Kate answered, reaching around Castle to poke his daughter in the ribs, and Alexis giggled. "But it's pretty spectacular in its own right," she added.

"I know it's summer, but storms bring out the hot cocoa monster in me. Anybody else want one?"

Hearing positive responses, he kissed each of his women on the head and went to the kitchen, leaving them alone together in the living room.

"Thanks for today, Kate," Alexis said shyly. "I enjoyed it."

"I did, too." Kate reached out and stroked her hand on Alexis's upper arm briefly.

"My mom or Gina, if we could even talk them into going with us, would have whined about the heat, or getting their clothes dirty, or wanting to go home. We might have been there an hour, tops. But we spent all afternoon, and you looked like you were having fun."

"I was. I had a great time. You guys are good company."

They walked to the kitchen and got down mugs; and when Castle turned around, both of them were standing with their arms crossed looking impatient, mugs in hand.

"You have to wait until the milk is hot," Castle protested. "I can't do a thing about that."

Both of them laughed and put all the mugs on the counter near the stove.

"That's how it's going to be, is it? Did you instigate that, Katherine Beckett? Maybe the hot cocoa monster won't share."

Alexis looked at Kate. "Don't worry. He threatens, but he always shares.

Castle took the lighthouse magnet from his pocket and made a little show of placing it on the refrigerator door.

"To commemorate our first outing together," he said.

"Castle, don't put your daughter on the spot like that. Alexis is barely used to having me in the house."

"I had fun," she assured Kate. "It's going to make a nice memory."

After the hot chocolate, Alexis excused herself for a shower and bed and left the two adults in the kitchen.

"She enjoyed this afternoon...enjoyed you. I could tell," he assured Kate.

"She told me she did. I did, too."

"Good." He leaned over and kissed her gently. "How is that urge of yours? Want to rip my clothes off…quietly?"

"Can we have a quiet shower first? We can sneak upstairs while Alexis is taking hers."

"Good plan."

After their shower, Castle slipped across the hall to his mother's room and picked up the little box on the dresser.

When he came back, Kate was sitting propped against the headboard on her side of the bed; and he sat down close beside her on his side, facing her. "I got something for you this afternoon. It isn't anything big," he assured her, taking the ring from the box."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to. It looked nice on you, and I could tell you liked it." He took her right hand and put it on her ring finger.

"Rick…"

"It doesn't have to mean anything other than I wanted to give you something you liked."

"Thank you." She held out her hand to look at it again. "I do like it." She looked down and paused for a moment, looking uncertain.

"Is something wrong?" Castle asked, looking worried.

"No. I just need to tell you something."

"Is it bad?"

"I hope not."

"Then just tell me.

"I know we said we were falling in love, but I've passed that." She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath, as if breathing in courage. "I love you, Rick. I wanted you to know that I'm sure. I've made such a mess of everything else that I didn't want to wait for it to be a response to you…I wanted to say it first. You don't have to say anything. It can wait."

He took her in his arms and held her close, breathing against her hair as he answered. "I've wanted to tell you every time I've called since the last time you were here. I wanted to whisper it to you when you got here on Friday…to say it every time we made love this weekend, but I was afraid to push too hard. I love you, too…so much."

"Now that we started being honest, it doesn't look like we know how to take things slowly."

"Maybe we were inevitable. Maybe the universe finally got our attention and isn't letting go until we cooperate."

"You think we're that important to the universe?"

"If that's where all this is coming from, I hope so."

"I think we could give ourselves a little credit for finally acting like grown-ups."

"Yeah, we should. Telling me…that was hard for you wasn't it?"

"It took me the whole weekend to work up to it. If I were sure we'd have some time alone tomorrow, I would probably have put it off until then." She felt his chuckle vibrate through her chest. "What's wrong with me? I can take down seasoned bad guys and never flinch, but when it comes to us, I've been such a wuss."

He moved back enough to pick up her right hand and ran his thumb across the ring. "I know what we can do. This can be an 'I love you.' ring. If we need to say it at the precinct or somewhere else that's inappropriate, one of us can run a finger across it, and we know it was said."

"How can somebody who can be so goofy be such a romantic at the same time? You're a paradox, Richard Castle… but I love all the bits and pieces."

From there, they gently…and quietly…celebrated being in love.