15. Chapter 15

For awhile, Kate hangs back with her daughter, watching to make sure the little girl can handle the wooden planks of the boardwalk. Ella watches every person who passes them, stares after the little boys with their dripping swim trunks and loud laughter, adores the older girls with their cell phones in hand and their bikinis and movie star sunglasses.

Ella takes her time down the boardwalk, wearing her black swimsuit with its pink ruffles and her pink, sparkly sandals. She refuses to wear sunglasses, so her blue eyes are squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun as she watches people. When Dash raises his hand and calls for his mom, Kate leaves Ella to go at her own pace, taking her son's hand.

Dash swings between his parents down the boardwalk, taking leaping steps so that his jumps will be higher and farther out. He's back to his black Oakleys (Castle bought those), his lime green trunks with frogs all over them (Kate found those last year and bought them for five dollars; he's adorable in those trunks). His swim shirt collar is smeared with sunscreen already, and she can see it thick behind his ears. Kate adjusts her hold on his hand and peers through her sunglasses down to the end of the boardwalk.

"Mommy it's a yellow flag!"

The yellow flag means the ocean is strong today, and beyond that, Kate can see the white caps topping the waves. The noise of the ocean reaches them even here, loud and roaring. For the first time since she suggested they all go to the Gulf (after Castle's insistence on a family vacation), she's regretting it.

Ellery's only two. She's been on the protected beach at the Hamptons, but how can she compete against this kind of undertow? This sheer. . .force?

"Waves first! Waves first!" Dash yells.

"I don't know, kid. Might ask Mommy about that. She has rules." Castle says as they stop at the end of the boardwalk to push off their sandals.

"Mommy, can we go right in?"

"I don't have rules about that," she huffs, glaring at Castle. Then she thinks of rules. "So long as me or Daddy are with you, you can-"

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a blur of black, little streaks of pink, and Ellery is flying down the steps onto the sand, running for the waves, her hair streaming out behind her.

"Ella!" Castle's voice booms across the distance, but Kate has already dropped everything to run after her.

Ella never does this. She doesn't *do* this-

Her heart in her throat, she churns sand, cursing herself for running too far this morning and now having nothing left, watches her daughter dart for the huge, relentless shoreline, impossibly far ahead of her.

"Ella-"

The tiny girl runs right to the edge and stops, causing Kate to skid. She sprays sand in an effort to stop, drops beside her daughter, breathless, reaches out to grab Ellery's arm, fingers tight with a panic that still thrums in her chest.

Ella stands before the ocean, rapt, blue eyes entranced. Her mouth is open in a round O of disbelief; she doesn't move.

After a moment, Kate can turn and look at the ocean as well, see what her daughter sees.

Before them, the churning, rolling water comes in at the beach with a roar, endless and unceasing. The crests of each wave lift high, tossing manes of grey-green water, then collapse into the shore, expelling a sound like a great beast falling to its knees.

With her heart still pounding, Kate sinks back to sit on her feet, releasing her grip on Ella's arm, taking a slow, long breath. She feels Castle and Dash coming up behind them.

Dash breathes in sharply. "A yellow flag," he murmurs, sounding stunned.

Yeah, this isn't the Hamptons.

"That's the ocean, Ella," Kate says softly, brushing the hair out of her daughter's eyes.

"Ocean," Ella repeats, blinking slowly. "All ocean."

Kate glances up to Rick, but he's heard it too; he nods and sits down next to them, glancing past her to their daughter. The girl is rigid with shock. Or bewilderment.

Dash stands a little apart, watching the waves as well.

Ella turns her face to Kate, her eyes wide. Awe floods her face like light. "Mommy. The ocean. So. . .so much. All. So much."

Kate chews the inside of her lip and nods, clears her throat. "Yeah, Ella. It's. . .yeah."

The ocean. Her daughter. All of it.

Rick's hand catches hers; she clings to it, trying to catch her breath again.

Ella squats down on her haunches and peers out at the ocean with those clear and intense blue eyes, pushing back her dark hair with both hands, then shifts her gaze to her brother.

Dashiell turns his face towards hers as if she's said his name. He sits down beside her, dropping his bucket, and digs his toes into the sand in front of them. He leans in like he's listening, his eyes on the waves, and Ella points her finger towards the ocean.

Dash nods and looks at his parents.

"Ella wants to stay right here. Can we put our towels out now?"

Castle watches his wife strip out of her black wrap, like a dark Venus out of her dark shell. Her legs. . .damn, her legs and that metallic bronze swimsuit which looks entirely too model-esque for South Padre, entirely too sexy for a mom with two kids, and entirely too amazing with its strips of material wrapped against her skin.

"I thought I took care of that," she says, smirking at him, her eyes darting to his waist.

He chokes on a laugh and settles down to the beach chair beside hers, watching Dashiell arrange and organize the toys around his sister at some silent instruction from the girl. (Because watching Kate is not productive right now).

"Oh you did. It was taken care of. It's just. . .you know. Going for the record here, and-"

"But not on the beach right now, Castle."

"Well, no. All these people."

"All these kids," she says softly, but it's that secretive and suggestive softness, not that sweet and kind rejection.

"Are you. . .saying the beach is a location that interests you, Kate?"

He looks away from his kids to see his wife, the lines of her long limbs, her hair half-pulled back from the smooth, kissable expanse of her neck. She turns her head slowly towards his, and suddenly he's very glad he can't see her eyes behind those metallic sunglasses.

She hums, a sound he barely hears over the ocean, and her fingers lift from the arm of the beach chair and drift down his forearm. His breath catches, his fingers link with hers the moment they reach his hand.

She touches the tip of her tongue to the corner of her mouth. "I could be. . .interested."

Before he can pursue this fascinating line of inquiry, Dashiell is jumping into his lap.

"Daddy, I wanna swim. In the waves! Can we do the waves first?"

Castle tears his eyes away from his devastatingly beautiful Kate, and looks down at his son. "Sure, my man. Take the swim shirt off-"

A sharp squeeze of his hand. "No. Castle-"

"He's layered in sunblock, Kate. The shirt is nuts." Castle winces as Dash bounces in his lap, struggling to get his shirt off before his mother can get out of the chair to protest.

"Girls on the beach, boys in the ocean!" Dashiell flings his shirt back over his shoulder, hopping up.

"Pick up your shirt. Respect, Dash." Castle gets to his feet, jerking his head towards the swim shirt lying in a heap about three feet away.

"Why do I have to respect my shirt?" Dash groans, throwing his hands up.

"Because first of all, you didn't pay for it. Mommy bought it for you. And second, you and I are already breaking Mommy's rules letting you take it off, aren't we? So we don't fling it around, boasting about it."

Dash grumbles, but moves to pick up his shirt. Ellery is digging a hole in the sand with her hands, putting the wet stuff she finds into a bucket, piling the dryer sand off to one side. Castle glances at Kate; she's not smiling.

"Hey. We can slather sunblock on him the second he gets out of the water. Okay?"

"Castle."

"I know. I'm breaking the rules. But you *know* he hates the way the shirt feels on his skin."

She sighs. He's won.

Dashiell shakes his shirt out, causing sand to fly. Castle snatches it out of his grip and folds it, puts it on top of their stuff behind his chair. Kate sighs again and brushes sand off her legs, her stomach.

Her smooth stomach, the dip of her belly button, the long lines of her legs-

Castle is suddenly glad to be headed for the water.

"Come on, wild man. Let's get in the waves." Cool off.

Dash leaps forward, running for the water's edge.