6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Kate woke later than usual on Sunday morning and put on her running clothes before going downstairs. Castle's door was closed when she passed it, indicating that he was probably still sleeping; so she headed for the kitchen to find them something for breakfast. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, though, a quiet, steady clicking of computer keys was issuing from the study; and she went to investigate.

She stopped in the doorway, leaning against the door casing with her arms folded across her chest, and watched for a moment before finally asking, "How long have you been at this?"

Castle's sudden, jumpy movement showed his obvious surprise at hearing her voice, but he was just as obviously glad to see her.

Turning in her direction, he dramatically grabbed his chest and smiled at her. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Good morning to you, too. How long? Most of the night. I slept for a couple of hours, woke up with ideas I didn't want to forget, and I've been here ever since."

She grinned at his theatrical response and asked, "Do you do this often?"

"It's how I work. When inspiration strikes, I take advantage." Then there was a mischievous smile. "Those teeny little running shorts are inspirational."

"They aren't that short," she answered flirtatiously. "I was about to make us some breakfast and then go for a run. Do you want something?"

"I took a break a little while ago to make coffee and get out some muffins. They're on the counter. Why don't you have that before your run, and we can put together something healthier for brunch after you get back."

"Sounds fine. How is it going?" she asked, nodding toward the computer.

"Great. The second chapter Gina is expecting is nearly finished. Most of the initial work is done. I just need to flesh out a little more of the cliffhanger. I need you with me all the time. Writing has been easy this weekend. No telling how much writing I'd get done if I always had my muse around."

"What did I tell you about that word?" she reprimanded menacingly as she walked to the desk and picked up Castle's coffee cup. She left and returned shortly with a cup of steaming hot coffee and a muffin on a little plate.

"This is so you don't have to slow down," she explained. "I'm leaving now." She leaned down and kissed his cheek, and then his lips.

"Thank you." He caught her arm and pulled her back to return the kiss, wanting to say more. He wanted to tell her all the reasons he wanted to thank her, certainly for more than hot coffee and a muffin…and a couple of kisses. But he needed to finish the chapter and have time with her; so he settled for, "You'll let me know when you…"

"As soon as I've had a shower," she promised, with one more kiss on his cheek. "You probably wouldn't want me around before that," she said over her shoulder on her way to the back door.

"I'll always want you around, Kate Beckett," he called after her, and she started her run smiling.

As promised, about an hour and a half later, freshly showered and changed, Kate went to the study to report in; and she greeted him with another neck and shoulder massage and a kiss on his head.

"I could get used to this," he told her. "A beautiful woman taking care of me just because she wants to."

"You take care of me when I'm working…as much as I let you. Even if I don't always make it clear, I appreciate it. It makes me feel…" Her voice trailed away before she finished the sentence.

Castle wondered what she was about to say. Maybe a word neither of them was ready to bandy about quite yet; but if it was on the tip of her tongue the way it was on his, using it might not be far off. He suddenly realized Kate was speaking again and pulled himself back to her words.

"And I'm enjoying taking care of you. It feels good to take care of you."

Leaning his head back to look up at her, he said, "And that's it in a nutshell. Will you remember your last sentence when you argue about my doing things for you? It feels good to take care of you, too."

She kissed his forehead and promised to do her best, then he pulled her around his chair and into his lap and heard a little squeal as she landed.

"Another fun sound I've never heard from you."

She adjusted herself in his lap and put one arm around his shoulders and the opposite hand on his chest, then seemed to think better of it and slipped the hand on his chest up to his neck and sighed as she rested her forehead next to it.

"Did you get your cliffhanger worked out while I was gone?"

"I did. Gina's demands are essentially met. There's a little more work to do, but if I sent her what I have right now, she could get by with it; so I'm all yours for the rest of the day," he told her.

"What would you like to do?" she asked.

"Such a loaded question," he teased, "with you sitting in my lap voluntarily and all."

She sat up and swatted him on the chest. "You're incorrigible."

"That's been said before," he acknowledged. "Come back. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She leaned back against him, and he sighed in relief, holding her again and happy that he hadn't pushed her away with his teasing. He was determined to stick to her terms for the weekend. He promised, and he needed her to know she could trust him. But he had no intention of missing out on any physical contact she was willing to allow.

They sat for a few minutes, not talking, just enjoying the closeness, small movements of hands on arms or shoulders adding to it. Nothing sexual, just sensual. It felt easy and promising. Eventually someone's stomach growled, and they were too close to decide whose it was. That made the decision that it was time to consider brunch.

As they cleaned up in the kitchen afterward, Kate asked again, "What would you like to do?"

"Does an afternoon of surf and sand have any appeal?" he asked.

"It sounds great, but what about the book? You said you had more to do, and I don't want to be the reason you have any more difficulty with Gina."

"There's no way I can write and not have difficulty with Gina. And, except for this particular moment in time, that difficulty has nothing to do with you. I've ignored you long enough. You're going back to the city tomorrow evening, which is a real downer, by the way; so I intend to spend the rest of the day with you. We could go out for dinner tonight…the little place where we stopped on the way here. It's quiet, mostly local residents. It isn't the kind of place that draws gossip columnists."

She nodded uncertainly, and he asked, "You'd rather stay here, wouldn't you?"

She nodded again. "When I'm here later in the summer, we'll do whatever you want. You can show me all your favorite places."

"Deal. Then let's get our suits on and take advantage of having a private beach."

"You really are rich, aren't you?" she joked.

"Yep. You might as well get used to it." He grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the stairs.

"You don't really hide it, but you don't make a big show of it, either," she observed. "How do you manage that balance? We see people all the time who may not have as much as you do but still think the world should revolve around them. They don't seem to see anybody else as worth thinking about. But you seem to see the person."

"Part of it is the writer in me. Everybody has a story. But mostly it's Mother again. I watched her rise to the top of her profession without forgetting who and what it took to get her there. She's a good person to have in your corner."

"I know that. I've experienced it first-hand. So are you, Rick Rodgers," she said softly.

"You like him, don't you? Rick Rodgers?" he asked hopefully as he stopped them on the stairs. "That's who I need you to want. It's who I'll always be behind the money, and book titles, and shiny covers, and interviews."

"I like him a lot," she assured him, and placed a soft kiss on his lips to make her point.

He gave her an extra little peck on her lips and they continued up the stairs and changed into their swimsuits. They spent some time swimming in the ocean, then riding the waves before coming in to sit in the sun on their towels for a while. After wading in the surf and playing around in the water for a while longer, they turned to go back and sun themselves again, and almost literally bumped into one of Castle's neighbors, an older man with a winning smile.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed.

"Stan. Sorry. I didn't see you."

Looking at Kate both curiously and appreciatively, Stan answered. "Better things to look at, I suspect. Who is this lovely creature?"

"This is Kate. Kate, my next door neighbor, Stan. We've been friends since I bought the house. His daughter used to babysit mine."

"And I helped with many a sandcastle," Stan told her, shaking her hand. "I might be as big a kid as Rick. Nice to meet you, Kate."

"Nice to meet you, too."

"I'll be right there, Kate. Stan, can I talk to you a minute?"

When they were where the sound of the surf would cover their conversation, Stan said, "She's a knockout, Rick. You did good."

"It isn't what you think. I have a writing deadline to meet. She needed a break from work. She just broke up with a short-term boyfriend, and I didn't bring her here to take advantage of that…well, not exactly. There's been something between us for a while, and this weekend we're…"

He ran his hand through his hair looking frustrated, and Stan seemed to catch on.

"Ooooh. Are you trying to tell me that this one is special?"

"Yeah, she is. Long story, but we're trying to lay low…keep this weekend to ourselves. We're trying to work some things out. Next time she's here, I'll introduce her to everybody. But for now, could you not tell Polly?"

"Sure, kid. But if you want to keep it from the 'voice of the Hamptons', you should probably move your sunning up to the pool. Polly should be here in a few minutes. She told me to start my walk without her and she'd jog down and join me in about ten minutes. Half of that is probably gone, and you know she can't keep a good piece of news to herself for long. She tries sometimes, but it nearly kills her."

"Thanks. We'll get moving."

"Good luck…on all scores. I'll backtrack a little, and if I see Polly, I'll stall. You'll let me know how it goes?"

"Sure will. Thank you."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go!" He laughed as Castle moved quickly back to Kate. "Nice to meet you, Kate," Stan called as he waved and turned back in the direction of his house.

"His wife can't keep a secret to save her life, and she'll be here any minute. Let's move our center of operations to the pool before she gets here. Stan is going to stall for us." Castle told Kate.

"Center of operations? Are we spies now?"

With a very bad Russian accent, and a very playful look, Castle told her that if they didn't move now, their cover would be blown and their mission would fail.

"Castle, that's probably the worst Russian accent I've ever heard." Then she launched into a much better Russian accent, with an equally playful look and said, "We can't allow our operation to be compromised. Get the towels. The codes are sewn into the labels." And she threw things into her bag, grabbed it, and ran toward the pool.

Castle stood in shock for a second before taking off after her, laughing. On reaching the pool, he found Kate hiding behind a lounge chair near a table, taking a seemingly serious look at the beach. "Is that the enemy approaching?" she asked.

Castle stooped to the ground close to her. "That's her. Get down." He looked at Kate and grinned. "You played spies with me."

"Yeah," she answered, using her own voice. "Too silly?"

"Of course not. I thought you were about to make fun of me with the center of operations thing."

"I like Ricky Rodgers, remember?" And she grinned back.

"Is the enemy gone?" he asked.

"Walking out of sight on the beach," she reported, both of them standing and checking to be sure the neighbors were gone. She turned to face him more seriously. "It probably seems silly to you that I want to keep this weekend to us…and want to put off something we both want."

He sat down on one of the wide lounge chairs and pulled her down to sit with him. Taking her hand, he said, "It isn't silly. And I think you were right. All I've done is kiss you and hold you, but I already feel closer to you…and I understand you a little more than I have before. We needed this weekend entirely to ourselves, and we needed to be respectful of the people we left behind in order to have it. We took time to talk about some things we needed to know about each other. And sex, as appealing as the thought of it is, would probably have distracted us from some of that. See? You're not as bad at these things as you seem to think you are."

"Neither are you."

"I wanted to take you for dinner at the little place we stopped on the way here." It was presented as much as a question as a statement.

"Do they deliver?"

"They do for me."

"Is there a story there?"

"Alexis and I got to know the owners over the years. They treat us like family. I try not to take advantage, but I will tonight."

"You're enough, Rick. I don't need to be wined and dined. Maybe next time."

"We're going to have a next time. I haven't frightened you off yet." He smiled contentedly as he leaned back in the chair, propped up his feet, and closed his eyes."

"You must be exhausted," Kate said as she watched him. "You were up writing almost all night, and you've spent the entire afternoon trying to entertain me."

"I've spent the entire afternoon entertaining myself by being with you. Don't feel guilty about my choices." He opened one eye to see if she recognized her words from the night before. When he saw that she did, he patted the space beside him, encouraging her to lie down with him; and she chuckled and stretched out beside him.

"Good comeback," she answered. "You could be a writer."

He chuckled then, and they settled in each other's arms and gradually drifted into a long nap, waking up at dusk when a thunderstorm was rumbling in the distance and dropping rain on them.

"In the house, now," Kate ordered, grabbing the towels and her beach bag.

"Right behind you.

They had just reached the open space between the house and the pool when they saw Stan and Polly jogging back up the beach toward home. Kate plastered her back to the back of the house and used her Russian accent again. "Enemy approaching at three o'clock," she reported sharply. Stand in front of me, big boy. The codes are still safe."

Castle did as he was told, and waved as Stan looked toward the house, after which he turned to assure her that 'the enemy' was out of sight. Then, in absolute glee that the extraordinary KB was still playing with him, he scooped Kate up in his arms, bag and towels included, and carried her back to the house, both of them laughing.