Chapter 1

Sitting in her plane seat, Brooke was nervous. She was about to land in New-York in a few minutes and then see a friend she hadn't seen in almost fifteen years, Kate Beckett.

The two women had met each other when they were younger. Indeed, Jim Beckett had long been Paul Davis' lawyer and between these two men, a strong friendship had developed. As a result, every summer, during almost ten years, the two families spent two weeks together in a large Hampton house.

Tragically, these annual holidays ceased the day Johanna Beckett was killed. Indeed, after that date, Jim Beckett could no longer tolerate seeing anyone who could remind him of the years of happiness with his wife. As a result, Brooke and Kate had stopped being in contact for almost fifteen years.

Nevertheless, six months before, the two women had re-established contact through social networks and had agreed that Brooke, her husband Julian and their twins would spend a week in New-York.

When the Baker family reached the arrival terminal at Tree Hill Airport, Kate saw Brooke directly. The designer ran to her friend and the two women hugged each other in memory of their friendship. Julian who was next to his wife took the suitcases and the two families headed to the parking lot where Brooke's car and the car Julian had rented for the week were parked.

After each family had gone through the road to Castle's apartment entrance, the children went upstairs to play in Johanna's room, Kate and Rick's daughter. Meanwhile, the parents settled around the bar to have a drink.

"What do you want?" Rick asked as he looked in the fridge, "I have red wine, white wine, beer, whiskey, in short I have all kinds of things."

"I'll take a glass of white wine", answered Brooke.

"Same things for me", pursued Julian.

Kate pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and spilled four glasses of white wine, which she handed to her husband and friends while her husband introduced them their apartment.

"So, as you can see, right here, you have the living room with a kitchen area, a lounge area and a dining area. In the back, you have my office that leads to our bedroom and bathroom and upstairs, you have four bedrooms for Johanna or my daughter Alexis."

"I have to admit that you're extremely well housed here!" Says Brooke joyfully. "Did you buy this apartment together?"

"No, not at all!" Kate replied, "Rick bought this apartment a long time ago, even before we met. This is where he raised his daughter Alexis and so it was here that we decided to live and build our family."

"That apartment is so damn cool!" Said Julian. "You girls should probably have a drink downtown together. Rick and I take care of the kids. I think you have some catching up to do."

The two women finished their drinks before ordering a taxi to go away for a night that was going to be memorable.

The two young women got into the taxi and headed for the city center. Kate had given the driver the address of a trendy bar. When they got there, they sat at a table and ordered two cocktails.

"So, what are we toasting to?" Asked Kate

"Simply to our lives, to our incredible husbands, to our fabulous children, to our fabulous jobs and to this evening that is going to be fantastic."

"Well, I' m fine with that as reasons to drink." The two young women toasted smiling. "In fact, if someone had told us the last time, we saw each other that our lives would turn out so well, we wouldn't have believed it."

"That's for sure! By the way, Rick seems to be a great man. You never told me how you met."

"Are you planning on going to bed early tonight or are you planning on listening to me tell you my story through the night?"

"Anyway, tomorrow morning, we have nothing planned so we can sleep in."

"Well, in that case, I'll try to shorten things up. We met almost ten years ago. There was a series of murders that looked like those in Rick's novels. So he worked as a consultant on this case and after the murderer was found, he continued to work with us. A year later, I realized that I really liked it."

"And you told him?"

"No, because due to my mother's death, I still had internal walls and I wasn't ready to have the kind of relationships I wanted. The thing was that each time one of us stepped towards the other, the other backed away."

"How did you find a way to finally be together, get married and be the parent of a beautiful little girl?"

"Time has gone by. As the days passed, we had more feelings for each other. However, one day, as part of an investigation, I was shot and when I found myself on the ground, I heard Rick say to me, "I love you"."

"And that's when you got together?"

"No, I pretended not to remember!"

"You did what? You are the most awful person in the world!"

"Actually, we got together a year later because we had a fight. He found out that I knew he loved me, I almost died and so I went to tell him that I loved him."

"You almost died?"

"Don't worry, it was just a normal day in my life as a NYPD cop. Being close to death is like having coffee in the morning." They both laughed and recommended another cocktail. "And, so, tell me how you ended up with Julian!"

"So, where are you with my stories?"

"Last time I saw you, you spent the summer telling me about this guy named Lucas and all your stories with him!"

"Ultimately, Lucas is now married to Peyton, my best friend, and they have a pretty little girl, Sawyer. And so, I met Julian thanks to Lucas because Julian wanted to adapt his novel into a film. We got together at that time. You see, sometimes it doesn't take ten years to get into a relationship and it works!"

"Very funny, Brooke!"

"Well, so, we stayed in a relationship for a while at that time, but the movie never became a reality. He had to go back to Los Angeles and that's when I realized that I loved him and that I wanted to be with him and not someone else."

"That's a pretty romantic way to meet."

"I agree. The complicated thing was that for a while I thought I was sterile so it was hard and one day the surprises came."

"I'm sorry for both of you, I can't imagine how hard it must have been."

"Anyway, that period is over now. I propose a toast to friendship, love and our wonderful lives."

The two women were happy, they knew that even if life sometimes made them take distant paths, they would end up finding each other anyway.