16. Chapter 16

Kate holds Ellery against her chest and bobs with the next wave; the girl blinks and gasps as water splashes up to her neck, chin lifted, her blue eyes soaking up everything else.

The two of them are nearly weightless in the water; the warmth of the October day is unbelievable to a New York City girl; and the feel of her daughter's wet, coiled body against hers is a balm.

Ella hasn't said anything since her awe of the ocean waves, but her delight in it is plain to see. Kate has pulled Ella's hair back in a pony tail to keep it off her face as the waves come in, but her own has spilled down her back in wet ropes. Ellery's fingers find new ways of tangling in it as she clings to her mother during the highest waves. As soon as the wave goes past them, Ella is pushing away again, trying it out on her own.

Kate lets her swim a little farther, paddling around like a puppy through the smaller waves. Kate can stand up without trouble here, the water comes just to her shoulder, but she keeps her hands close to her daughter, just in case.

Of course, Rick has taught both kids to swim, just as he taught Alexis in the pool at his place in the Hamptons. Their place. Not that Kate has really had much time off to go with her family. Rick takes the kids almost every weekend in the summer; she comes when she can. They usually spend a long weekend or a short week there together. The kids swim pretty much from the time they get up until they have to go to bed again.

Kate hasn't done too badly this year. She really has managed to keep a schedule, to go home by 7 instead of hanging out in front of the murder board. She's even managed to say no to a good many cases, given them to Esposito.

Of course. . .that's exactly what Lanie complained to her about before they left. Damn.

Ellery gets knocked under by a wave; Kate darts forward and scoops her up. Ella is laughing and choking, swiping at her eyes and blinking.

"Hey, you okay?" Kate laughs with her, tugging the girl in closer to brush the water out of her face.

Ella giggles, which is answer enough, and rubs at her eyes, coughing again.

"Don't swallow the water, baby girl."

Ellery giggles harder, then points over Kate's shoulder.

Kate turns just in time to get knocked by a huge wave, stumbling backwards, off-balance and going down. Ellery clings to her neck as Kate scrambles to get her feet under her.

When she can stand again, Ellery is giggling into her shoulder, both of them coughing up salt water.

"Don't swallow water," Ella giggles, putting her palms flat to the side of Kate's cheeks and grinning into her eyes.

"You are so right," Kate teases back, poking the girl, giddiness and adrenaline pumping through her veins. Kate shifts Ella to the other hip, wiping at her eyes and coming away with a few streaks of mascara. Crap. "You wanna stay in, or go build sand animals?" She's hoping for more words.

Ella makes a fish face and glances over at the wave coming towards them. Kate hops a little to stay above it, and Ellery giggles.

"Well, *I* want to go make sand animals, so. . ."

Still Ellery says nothing, so Kate starts walking back towards the shoreline, her legs pushing through the water. The waves wash over them from behind, pushing her forward until the curl starts dragging them back. When the water is low enough, Kate lets Ellery down, the girl splashing and jumping her way back.

As Kate comes out of the water, trailing behind her daughter, sand sticks to her feet, spraying up the back of her calves. She takes the rubber band out of her hair so that she can scrape it back into a pony tail, get the soaked locks off her shoulders. A few tendrils curl wetly around her cheeks. Her forehead feels hot with sunburn; she'll have to put on more sunblock.

Ellery stops to dig in the sand, picking up a broken shell. Kate walks past her towards where Dashiell and Rick are sprawled out. Dash is packing sand onto a huge mound of something faintly bunny-like, while Castle is talking to another couple whose towels are close to theirs; his arms are already browning in the sun.

A faint sense of unease trickles through her, but she shoves it down and drops next to Castle in her chair, flicking water at him.

"Hey," he grins, wrapping his fingers around her raised knee. Startled, she glances at his face, sees the help me in his eyes, wide and green and overly dramatic. "There you are."

She glances past him to the smiling couple, the woman a bleached blonde wearing a turquoise two piece, the man in khaki swimming trunks. She leans past Castle with her hand out.

"I'm Kate."

"Ooh, Kate! I'm Vicki Farrell. This is my husband Austin. We are *huge* fans-"

Ah. Shit.

Kate turns to Rick and raises her eyebrows. "Really?" She thinks fast, trying to figure out a way to get them out of this. "So am I."

Vicki giggles and a teenaged boy in skull and crossbones trunks comes up to them, a boogie board under one arm.

"Yo. Mom. Got anything to drink?"

Vicki turns and taps a cooler. "In here. Go for it." The kid drops to his knees and reaches for the cooler handle, giving Kate and Castle a look through the fringe of his long bangs.

Austin Farrell sits up and grabs his ankles, his skin looking faintly red at this angle despite being in the shade of an umbrella. "Vicki's right, though. We do love your work, ah. . Rick."

Kate glances back over the sand towards Ellery, finds the girl laying in it and digging a hole. What happened to sand animals? Whatever.

"Where are you guys from?" Rick is saying.

Dashiell hops up and wanders close, his eyes on the teenager's boogie board. His chest rises and falls; Kate is pleased to note a fresh layering of sunblock on the tops of his shoulders. Rick remembered.

"We're from Arkansas." Austin Farrell shuts the cooler his son has left open and scans the horizon even as he speaks. Kate takes that to mean they have at least one other kid out there somewhere.

"Oh. You really don't have an accent." Castle glances over at Kate for that help apparently, eyebrows raised.

She still has nothing.

"Well, we live in Little Rock. Capital city. And Austin's originally from Iowa."

"What is that?" Dash says suddenly, pointing at the teenager's board.

"Boogie board, kid."

Kate leans forward, hooking her arms around her knees, suddenly anxious to have Dash closer. Not because she doesn't like the Farrells, honestly, she doesn't think they're all that bad, but more because Dash's interactions with older boys aren't always. . .so hot.

Dash is kind of a lot to handle. He talks a lot. And has questions.

"What do you do with it?" Dash says, eyes on the board.

"You ride it," the teenager says. He puts the top on his water bottle and sinks it into the sand. "Like your sunglasses, little dude."

Dash puffs up with pride and Kate notices that the teenager's sunglasses are the exact same Oakleys.

"My sunglasses keep the brightness down to a dull roar," Dash answers, still looking at the board.

The teenager grins, laughs a little. "Yeah, little dude, they do. Mine too."

Dashiell takes another step towards the Farrell's daisy chain of towels. "How do you ride it?"

"Dash-"

"I got my brother's board. Wanna try it?" The teenager reaches behind him and grabs another board, stands up with both, one in each hand.

"Yeah!"

Dashiell is bounding away before Kate can even grab him, the two kids off towards the ocean.

"Rick-" Kate says, glancing to him and realizing that this is the perfect opportunity to allow him to escape. "Go with them." She raises an eyebrow at him and he reads her perfectly.

"Ah, yeah. Good plan," he murmurs, and jumps up to run after them.

Even when Castle has made his escape, Kate finds that the starstruck-ness hasn't left Vicki Farrell.

The other woman gives a nervous laugh. "Oh, they'll be fine. I promise. Graham's the oldest and he's really good with kids."

Sure he is, Kate thinks. Castle has already caught up to the two boys without any trouble, she notices, and is talking with Graham. Dash is bouncing on his toes as he walks, looking excited.

"Sorry. Just. . ." Kate shrugs. "That's *my* oldest, and it still feels like he's a baby sometimes. Mostly because he acts like one." She gives the Farrells a laugh, hoping to ease Vicki's nervousness.

Vicki grins softly. "I understand. Graham's had a lot of experience being patient though. Our middle one, Tate, has autism. Graham's great with him, knows when to help and when to back off, knows how to teach."

"Oh." Kate sits back in the chair, blinking at them. She didn't see that one coming.

"Oh no, it's fine. I mean, well, it has its own issues. What doesn't? But Tate is doing really well. He's 14, in school, has a couple close friends. He's high-functioning. And then our youngest, Claire, is ten. She's. . ." Vicki trails off, glancing around. "Oh. Uh, well, I think she's with yours."

Kate jerks her head to Ellery and sure enough, another little girl has joined her. The two of them lay on their stomachs and dig together. She has a feeling that Ellery is digging for Japan, Totoro's home, but who knows if she's said anything at all about that to the other girl. Dash was the one who told Ella that you dig to get to Japan.

When Kate was a kid, you were always digging to China. But whatever. "Oh. That's mine, yeah. Ellery."

"Cute name."

Kate shrugs, not wanting to offer too much information. She and Rick haven't really talked about this before, how much to give out in public to people who. . .could be friends? People they meet on vacation. Well, it's never come up because how often do they do this? They've *never* done this.

"Ellery's almost three," Kate says suddenly, because she really does like this couple. And their son, who is currently helping Dashiell sled on the boogie board where the the water is shallow. "And Dash is almost five."

"Oh wow, they're so big," Vicki says softly.

Kate glances over at her in surprise.

Vicki blushes. "Sorry. It's just. . .well, I know some about you."

Oh.

"I mean, through the books, and just. . .you see things online."

Her heart picks up; the sun is suddenly intense on the top of her head. Kate adjusts her sunglasses and looks over at her daughter. The girls are giggling together.

"Even in Arkansas," Kate muses.

"Well. We do live in Little Rock," Austin says with a laugh. "That's a big city."

"Oh," Kate replies, a little horrified by her thoughtlessness. Where is her mind? "I didn't mean it like that. I meant-"

Vicki laughs back, shakes her head. "No, no. We understood. But Richard Castle is a bestseller, hon. In Little Rock too."

Kate puts a hand to her forehead and gives the couple a sheepish look. "That was. . .sorry about that. I know that. I think we just were hoping the whole. . .circus of it would be nonexistent here."

"Yeah, no, I didn't recognize him at first," Austin says. "Vicki is the one who put it together. He told us your first names, and then it clicked with her."

Vicki leans over and rifles through her beach bag, pulling out Castle's latest Nikki Heat. Kate laughs.

"Ah, Heat of the Moment. Okay, yeah. Got it."

"But don't worry. We don't know anyone down here; we have no one to tell. We won't out you."

Kate pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiles at them. "Thanks for that. You seem trustworthy anyway."

"Kate?" Vicki says hesitantly. "I just. . .it's just really cool to meet you both. And I hope Austin and I are cool enough not to be too crazy in awe or anything. Just. . .normal people, right?"

"Oh." Kate puts a hand over her mouth and tries to hide her smile. "Well. Normal people, yes. And it's good meeting you too."

Austin laughs and opens the cooler, grabbing a bottle of water himself. They've got umbrellas open over their towels, and the man sits in the shade, but his skin is pretty fair, freckled, and his hair is a strawberry blonde that clashes with the red-looking shoulders and nose. Vicki, now that Kate is really looking at her, has an oval face with a narrow chin, beautiful blue-violet eyes, and hair that looks sun-bleached rather than bottle.

The woman glances away from the ocean and over to Kate. "Well, I'm just gonna say this. I feel like I know you, and not just because of stuff online. But because of these books."

"It's fiction," Kate says automatically.

"Not the Nikki Heat stuff," Vicki shakes her head. "The dedications. They're. . .beautiful. They tell a story all on their own."

Kate blinks and drops her hands to her lap. "They tell a story," she repeats, rather stupidly.

"It's just. . .so interesting. You guys meet and it's obvious he's smitten with you, that extraordinary line-"

Smitten?

"-in that first dedication. And then there's real respect there, for you and for the people you work with-"

Kate bites her lower lip. Those dedications have always been. . .special to her. It's strange to hear an in-depth analysis of them from this woman, this fan. Could everyone read the story there? Everyone but herself, for so many years.

"And then. . .well, it's just such a love story. My favorite? 'For Kate, who said yes.' That is so romantic."

Kate blushes. The thing is, everyone thinks she said yes to a marriage proposal. And that's not true. She said yes to having his son. . .which of course is kind of romantic as well and it did lead to marriage. Reverse order of the traditional route, but they've never been traditional.

"It is," she says softly. But she's not going to share anything more than that. Some things are just for them.

"Actually, I have another favorite. This one, in Heat of the Moment. It's just. . .so wonderful."

For Kate, I'm your biggest fan.

Kate blows out a long breath and keeps her eyes on Castle in the distance as he watches their son paddling on a board in shallow, ankle-deep water.

"It's just so clear he loves you. And it makes the books better somehow."

Kate finally smiles, glances back to the woman. "I think you're right. I think it does too."

Vicki smiles back and smooths her hand over the book; Kate can see it's been well-loved, cover bent and pages dirty. She bites her lip, reminding herself that there are lots of people - women - who love Castle's novels as much as she does.

Though no one loves the man like Kate does.