54. 55: Friday

55

Kate heads back inside for the paperback she left on the bedside table, sliding the glass door aside and slipping into the cool air. She pushes her sunglasses back up on her face and grins at Martha, who's making them frozen banana daiquiris - she is intent upon ferreting out the San Pedro secret recipe.

"Ooh, wait, darling. Try this before you go," she says, holding up a spoon. Kate diverts her path, takes the offered utensil, swallows hard at the burn and the ice.

"Uh," she says, coughing to clear her nasal passages. "It's - not quite as fruity as theirs."

"You're right; you're right," Martha laments, throwing up her hands. She's wearing this gorgeous flowing beach cover-up that exposes all of her still well-shaped legs. Kate hopes she ages half as gracefully. "However, I do not especially love bananas, so maybe I should add some more exotic fruit?"

"Sounds like a plan," Kate agrees, pushing back from the counter and towards the living room. "But in the meantime, Rick and I will gladly taste-test all your failures."

Martha laughs and gestures to cluttered kitchen. "Don't worry, dear girl. I am doing some tasting of my own."

When Kate makes it to their bedroom, she spots the novel right away, picks up with a wash of pleasure at being here, able to read on the beach with Castle and his family, able to take a break, able to have her only worry be about whether or not she's going to warp Alexis's John Green book with her wet fingers.

The moon, the endless stars, the infinity of the ocean, the flutter of brightly colored fish that dart through her fingers, the length of her own leg against the innumerable grains of sand, the too-red spots of color on Castle's nose and forehead when he turns to smile at her and winces halfway through. . .

These things will fade, given enough distance and space, but the moments themselves are timeless. Kate's not one for introspection under a beach umbrella with the sound of the ocean and laughter, but in the moment of quiet as she heads back to this little family, she recognizes that she is building something here.

She is building something when her whole life has been about clinging to a thing that was already demolished, already dilapidated, already crumbling around her.

When Kate settles in to read beside Castle in the ridiculously comfortable beach chair, he lifts a lazy hand and strokes it up her shin and back down, circles her ankle before letting go to tap the screen of his ipad. Presumably turning a page.

She takes a deeper breath as she looks at him, stunned by Richard Castle lounging in the beach chair beside her, sunglasses wrapping around his face and hiding his eyes, and suddenly he is a stranger.

She has no idea about this man, nothing but what he deigns to show her, and sometimes even that is a facade as well, or a finely-crafted mask, or maybe just what he thinks she needs to hear. What is he reading? She couldn't begin to guess, and that thought both frightens her and thrills her in a way she can only imagine comes from being in love.

Kate reaches out a hand to his head, puts her thumb at his temple, snug under the band of his sunglasses, and then threads her fingers through his hair a few times, over and over, watching him. He doesn't move except to keep reading, turning a page with the touch of a button, and his mouth half-curls in a smile, but whether from the book or from her fingers, she doesn't know.

If she doesn't ask, she'll never know. And even if he gives her an answer, will it be the truth? It usually is; she can read him like one of his novels (which pleases her inordinately). So yes, there are ways she can know him, but the whole being of him, the Rick that is neither his made-up name Castle nor the given name Rodgers - this is the man she has.

This is the man she loves, even if she doesn't know him as well as she'd like to. Even if she might never completely know him. Because this is the man she trusts.

The man who called her irritating and frustrating and in the same breath said he loves her; the man who planned a Belize vacation because he wanted to get her out of the city; the man who opened his door to her but put her away when she tried to solve their problems with a kiss, put her off until something like a conversation could be had.

No, there wasn't much talking that first night, but what was said was necessary.

"You know. You're right," he starts drolly, not turning to look at her, intent still on his book. "The staring is creepy. I concede. You've proven your point."

She grins widely, opens the book on her lap, but flicks her eyes back out to the ocean where Alexis is floating. Close, but still far enough to feel a little untethered.

Or so Kate can imagine.

"What are you reading?" she asks him.

Castle glances up from the page and into the too-bright glare of the sun, wincing and pulling back as if that will help. It doesn't of course. Kate shifts and suddenly she's blocking the sun, and he unsquints his eyes and grins at her.

"Thanks. Uh, I'm reading Nick Hornby."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you know him. About a Boy, High Fidelity-"

"Oh, yeah. I saw the movies-"

"Arg," he growls, but she's already shaking her head and poking him in the calf with her bare toes.

"And then I went out and read the books. Let me finish my sentence before you judge me, you elitist book snob-"

He dives for her, grabbing her bare sides to - what was his master plan here? tickle her? really? Kate Beckett? he was going to tickle Kate Beckett? She knees him off of her and shoves him back, but she's rolling her eyes and actually laughing, and then her fingers are curling at his neck and she's kissing him.

He's good with that. He likes the play of her tongue at his lips and the way she slides right in, like how he imagines her taking a bath. How he has actually seen her take a bath. Leisurely.

When she pulls back, he kisses the corner of her mouth, the rise of her cheek, the sharp angle of her jaw, and then rubs his thumb at her skin as he lets her go. She doesn't. Let go that is. She hangs on to him and watches him for a moment.

"What book?"

"Huh?"

"What Nick Hornby novel are you reading?"

He grins. "Actually, it's a collection of his columns about reading. The Polysyllabic Spree. He lists at the top what books he intends to read and then in another column what he actually read, and then he writes about what he read. And sometimes he writes about how he meant to read and didn't. It's pretty good."

"So I was right," she murmurs, lifting an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Elitist book snob."

"Hey now."

"If the shoe fits-"

"I write mystery novels, Kate Beckett. Best-selling mystery novels. If I wrote stuff that never sold, then yes, you could call me an elitist book snob. But I will read anything. I don't care, so long as it's good."

"So that makes you more of a what? A book whore?"

He laughs out loud at that, sees her grin cracking open across her face as well. She's amazing. She's more than he expected and he realizes now how inadequate his love for her has been, and really, he's got to step up his game with her, because she ought to have so much more than this. He loves her and he will work to keep loving her, and more importantly, he will work to keep her loving him.

"You could call it that," he answers instead, because he doesn't really have any answers to the mystery and riddle of Kate Beckett other than wrapping his hand in hers and holding on for the duration, for eternity.

She's still grinning at him, amusement and relief both shimmering there - for what, he has no idea - and so he puts his reader aside and stands up, holding out his hand to her.

"Let's go float out there for a while. Get lost. Be unbound from the earth."

She breathes out, drops the book as she gives him her hand, standing up beside him.

"Yeah. Funny. I was just thinking that."

And the Kate lifts up on her toes and kisses the underside of his jaw, and then she's the one dragging him out to the waves, through the hot sand and into the cool, blessed relief of the water.