Chapter 8
Being the two closest to him, Martha and Alexis understood better than anyone the why of it, and while they may well have found the spring in Rick's step and the whistle in his words sweet, they also found his pep far beyond what that hour of morning called for or deserved. Quite frankly, if he'd had an off switch, neither would've hesitated to throw it.
While he buzzed about the kitchen, the morning's coffee dripped in a cruel shade of slow, and there they sat, side by side, glaring at the machine, cursing it for its failure in their desperate time of need.
"Honestly, Richard," Martha finally managed to wedge in between passes, "you're like a bee let loose in its first field of flowers. Would you please just stand still for one minute and give our eyes a rest?"
He bore the giddiness of a man who woke to find himself the overnight winner of both a Nobel and a Pulitzer-neither of which was true-and it seemed nothing was going to burst his bubble, least of all the dour mood his mother and daughter brought with them to the table.
"What time is she supposed to get here, Dad?" Alexis tore her bagel in half and then again, chomped it like there was no way she'd be able to manage another minute without its sustenance. "I hope it's soon," she muttered to her grandmother out of the corner of her mouth.
It was the day of Kate's first visit to New York since her move, since he traveled to D.C. on a whim, since they embarked on their new course together. The weeks in between had taken their toll, on them both, certainly, but as ever unskilled as he was in the art of patience, in the final countdown to her arrival he'd become even more of a handful for the ladies in his direct orbit to endure.
"Check that, would you, Richard?" Martha gestured with a wave in the vague direction of the gurgling contraption. "Yes, will Katherine be here for dinner? Shall I pick up something special?"
Rick released a burst of laughter as hearty as could be, without any attempt to moderate his reaction to the foolishness he assigned the question.
"Oh, you won't be seeing Beckett tonight, Mother. No, the only person seeing Beckett tonight will be yours truly, in our very expensive, very private hotel suite." He poured each a mug of coffee and placed them up on the bar, the wanderings of his mind written plainly on his face. "And we'll be sleeping in very late tomorrow, so don't expect us for breakfast either."
"Gross, Dad," Alexis grumbled, her nose practically bathing in the Italian roast set before her. "Please tell me you're staying there tomorrow night, too. I don't want to be traumatized by accidentally walking in on something I won't ever be able to unseeā¦or unhear." Her sleepy face crinkled. "Just thinking about it," she added with a shiver.
Martha gave Alexis's back a rub of solidarity.
"I'll second that, kiddo. I think we'd both appreciate it if you kept your hotel things at the hotel. We would like to see Katherine while she's here, though. We didn't have a chance to say goodbye before she left town, and now with the two of you"-again, she waved into the air-"doing your thing," she said choosing the way of tact, "it would be nice to catch up a bit, offer our well-wishes. Isn't that right, Alexis?"
With the nudge, Alexis climbed out of her coffee. "Yeah, right. I mean, this only took forever to finally happen, Dad." Realizing the exasperated tone in her voice, she promptly painted over it with a gentler brush. "We've missed seeing her, too."
"I like that, thank you," Rick said, touching a hand to both. "I promise, before the weekend's out, I'll make sure Beckett makes it over here for a little while."
A very little while, he thought, because he had no intention of sharing Kate with anyone for any longer than the bare minimum.
xxxx
Adrenaline coursed through Kate's veins, played on her heart and pounded in her head like a thundering symphony as she readied, its beat racing toward a crescendo.
The effecting of justice-its crafted blueprint, and even more so its execution-had always been an instrument of satisfaction for her, a rush of the most sacred sort, but as she stood there in the first light of morning, her back firmed against the house's coarse stucco skin with her weapon drawn and trained on the front door, the composition she heard was unlike any that'd ever come before it.
The suburb of Chicago she went to sleep and rose in wasn't yet astir, but she and the collection of agents she stood poised with had been awake for hours, buttoning up preparations for what was to be her first co-led op since joining Jordan Shaw's team, and she was humming with the anticipation of it. Of it and what awaited her on the other side.
In just twelve hours. Rick.
Within minutes of her crew taking position, the house's porch light flickered on. A silver-haired, robed woman pushed open the screen door for the resident Dobermans and stepped out after them, one hand hidden in the robe's pocket, the other holding a cigarette that glowed orange in the shadows.
She was the target's aunt, a title won by loyalty not conveyed by blood Kate knew. In her diligence, she learned about everyone that came and went from that house on Smedley Rd. Most of them, to no surprise, were far from the sort of company one would be likely to bring home to meet their mother.
It took only a few blinks for the duo of dogs to alert. That was their purpose, of course, and the cue for Kate's "Go!" which set a band of men in head-to-toe black charging on the place. Immediately, the stunned woman lost her footing and tripped down the front steps in a coughing fit, having choked on an inhale of smoke.
The first team cleared her and the dogs in swift order, while the next moved on the open door, Kate included.
Though the morning sky continued to brighten by the second, it was no match for the thick swaths of fabric that hung across the windows just inside. There were layers of them, of all sizes and shapes, secured together by duct tape, and they reeked of smoke for reasons obvious.
The only discernible sounds were the tick of a distant clock and their own cautious footsteps as the five fanned out, but they knew what was there in the blackness somewhere, ready maybe, dangerous surely.
Halfway down the entry hallway, Kate saw the faint sliver of light emanating from what intel indicated would be a bathroom, and hugging the wall as she moved, she approached with caution. As her support came up behind, with the toe of her boot she slowly pushed open the door, but she barely got a foot inside before a shot rang out and its bullet threw her backward into the doorjamb.
Suddenly, their target flew at her from behind the shower curtain, and while the vest she wore managed to keep her alive, the adrenaline that had her so electrified managed to keep her upright until her fellow agent jumped in, knocked him to the floor, and dove on him.
"You in one piece, Beckett?" Kate heard the voice of her leader come over the radio. Someone reported the takedown, and the hit that had her ribs fucking screaming. "Since getting shot isn't new for you, I guess I don't need to mention that'll sting like hell for a while."
Jordan's humor was always just dark enough.
"I'm fine," Kate confirmed with some effort into the mic below her shoulder, expecting her torso would likely soon resemble an abstract painting in tones of black and blue. "We're clear," she advised once given the signal, and there, hunched over, resting on her knees to catch her breath, the corners of her mouth curled up ever so slightly.
xxxx
Before the driver of the car Rick hired for the trip out to the airport could make it the few steps from his door back to the passenger's to perform his customary service, Rick was already out and up on the sidewalk in front of the arrivals terminal at LaGuardia.
"The alert says her flight landed on time, so this shouldn't take long. She wasn't checking a bag," Rick informed the young man in the black suit and tie, who, upon closer inspection, looked barely of age to even hold a driver's license.
The man presented his contact card. "Text me when you're ready. I'll come back around," he said as if coming back around at LaGuardia Airport were a breeze and not the ultimate test of one's patience. "I'll put up the partition while I'm gone."
Rick swore he could hear a wink. Not that he didn't fully intend on asking for the very thing.
Inside, it seemed every human on the planet passed through the baggage area before he caught sight of Kate. In fact, it was a handful of minutes and a few hundred folks. After the weeks of agonizing wait, for him it was still too long and too many.
Beside the gap in the railing that ushered the freshly landed in the direction of the exit, he stood with his hands clamped around the metal, squeezing it harder and harder as she got nearer and nearer. When her eyes finally met his, he probably could've torn the barrier straight out of the ground with the force of his excitement alone.
"God, I'm so happy to see you," Rick whispered against her ear when she finally made it through and into his arms.
He held her in such firm embrace, with such gladness, and despite the knifelike pain that shot through her courtesy of that morning's bullet, she matched his every ounce of enthusiasm in the reunion.
"I missed you." Kate cupped his jaw in tender hands, echoed the sentiment in equally tender tone before surrendering her lips to his. "So much."
"Here, let me take that," he said of the bag at her feet, grabbing it with one hand and her hand with the other. "I got us a car. I'll text the driver from outside. You smell incredible, by the way. And look incredible. And taste incredible."
It wasn't lost on her how many times across the years she thought those things and wasn't able to express them. It made her blush to think about how her secret wasn't always a torturous one. For a while it was just plain fun.
Unsurprisingly, their driver's return wasn't speedy, but the pair settled in together, hip to hip and hand in hand, for the trip back to the city, the privacy partition raised, as promised.
"Are your mom and Alexis home?" The words out of Kate's mouth were, in themselves, innocent, but the motive behind them was anything but.
"It doesn't matter where my mother and Alexis are, as long as they aren't in the suite I booked for us at the Carlyle for the weekend." Her head swiveled his direction. "That's right, I pulled out the Black Card. Don't sweep a lady off her feet without it," he joked.
"Just you, me, room service, and a view for two nights. And, yes, before you ask, I did verify the hotel will allow you to not wear clothes the entire time. Better safe than sorry. Can't have a lawwoman getting in trouble with the law, especially since I've seen what a hard-ass your new boss can be."
Kate pressed a kiss against his shoulder, leaned her head against the spot. Every muscle in her body released the breath they'd been holding since she'd last felt him beside her, and she practically sank into him.
"I love you," she said in her peace and her fatigue, and then closed her eyes and slept her way to the Carlyle amid the snarl of Friday evening traffic.
xxxx
"If I knew sleeping with you came with views like this, I might've done it a lot sooner." Kate couldn't tear herself from the wall of windows in their room that overlooked the panorama of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline against the setting sun. "Too bad you didn't say something," she shrugged, played it up with an exaggerated sigh.
Rick closed in, gave her shoulders a squeeze before he drew his hands around her waist and clasped them at the front. "I said plenty." He paused and inhaled the fragrance of her that his senses spent so many weeks longing to live in again. "I think the problem was you were just a lousy listener. Have I told you how incredible you smell?"
With her hair tied up, he had a clear path to her neck, where he placed a kiss and let his lips linger.
"That I remember hearing." She reached a hand up and into his hair. "No matter how long I'm away, I never forget how beautiful this city is. Thank you for doing this, for getting this place."
Slowly he moved around in front of her. The city was the city. She was the only thing he had any interest in seeing.
"It was selfish on my part, but you're welcome." He inched her into his body, slid his hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "I didn't want to share you with anyone else. I did have to promise we'd make an appearance at some point, though. The girls asked to see you."
"That was nice. I should probably wear clothes for that, huh, at least for Alexis's sake. Martha seems like she might go with it."
Rick stared off into the distance.
"Let's pretend that isn't true. How about for now," he said, steering his focus back to where it belonged, "we stick to the plan and get you out of them. What say I call down for some champagne and grab the room service menu, while you head into the bathroom and get the hot water running in that swimming pool in there. We can"-he waggled his brow-"have ourselves a dip, not put on the complimentary robes and slippers afterward, and then order up a feast."
"No robes or slippers." Kate floated her eyes down the front of his body and back up. "You're going to need to give a big tip."
"That one's just too easy," he said and gave her a playful pinch on the behind.
