Chapter 5

By 1:30PM, Kate had booted Lanie from her office and sent her back to her own, thus avoiding any chance that her aggravatingly astute friend's path might cross with Rick's. The struggle she knew she was in for that afternoon-time alone with the man who admittedly wanted her, the man about whom she felt the same but couldn't give herself permission to have-was already going to be difficult enough without the added scrutiny of an audience convinced there was some "there" there to be found, and for Lanie, the finding would've taken no more than the blink of an eye.

At precisely the moment he'd told her he'd be there he was. It was 2:10PM when Rick knocked on the door with a heavy rap, one Kate's heart seemed to take as a challenge and promptly attempted to better.

"Stop," she snarled at her body's willfulness. "Stop." The second was a gentler plea, which she coupled with an intentional breath that managed to settle the thud some. Some, not entirely.

His hands were full when she opened. With a loaded drink carrier in one and an assortment of paper bags in the other, his eyes traveled down toward his outstretched foot.

"Sorry about the kick," he said, explaining the pounding he administered to her door. "I had to improvise, and you look…Wow." He apologized a second time, following what amounted to nothing more than a dribble of clumsy sounds. "I used to have more words, but they all just disappeared."

Somehow, his voice was even more intoxicating than it had been the night before, Kate thought, its warmth yielding a charge.

"What is all that?" she asked, pivoting the focus for her own comfort. When he declined her offer of help, she stepped aside and let him pass, peeking out into the hallway before she pushed the door shut. "Were you expecting a party?"

"I wanted to make sure I got something you'd like, so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. There are a few different coffees here, plus hot water for tea."

He set it all on the desk, turned back and watched as she crossed the office after him as if it were an event, relishing her every step nearer.

"There's sugar and a half dozen flavors of tea in one of the bags here, along with some milk, cream, half-and-half, a raisin scone, a lemon poppyseed muffin, and a raspberry oatmeal crumb bar that barely survived the trip over here from the bakery. It looked so good I almost couldn't resist. So good," he said again after a loaded pause, but it wasn't as much about the crumb bar as it was about the view from where he stood.

"You really didn't need to bring anything." That he was clearly thoughtful, however over-the-top Kate found the display, wasn't helping to bolster her resistance any. "I appreciate it, though."

"I told you I'd make it up to you, my being late. I never like to keep a beautiful woman waiting." He came around the chair Lanie had used before him and sat. "See something you like?"

In defiance of her silent demand to refrain, her eyes met his. Evidently, they possessed not only the color of ocean waves, but also the pull.

"I think I'm in a cappuccino mood myself," Rick continued with a smirk in his words, reaching for the tray. "Steamy."

He wasn't even trying to be subtle, and it wasn't as though he ever had, it was just that the circumstance already had Kate's sensitivity heightened and her fuse short.

"I just ate," she said, though the scent of the coffee had tickled her desire. "Have whatever you want. I'd really like to get this done if you don't mind, so I'm going to start. I'm sure you must have places you'd rather be. I know I do."

"Actually, I like it here." Rick's eyes scanned the office as hers had the restaurant the night before. "Here is very you. Very…uncluttered."

From her expression, he could see she wasn't wild about the assessment. He didn't know that was because what seemed to her little more than a cursory reading on his part left her feeling so exposed.

"Where are these places you'd rather be? Hot date after this?" he asked, sliding back against the chair. "You know what, never mind. Don't tell me. My heart can't handle the beating, not two days in a row. I'll just say I hope you have a miserable time with the guy who doesn't deserve you."

He made a sweeping gesture with his arm as if to give her back the floor but then instead kept it for himself.

"I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. The part about you having a miserable time, I don't hope that. The rest of it is true, but not that."

"Not that my places are any of your business, but there is no date." Kate didn't know why she even felt the need to acknowledge the grand leap he'd taken. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Her subconscious might've had an inkling. "Can we start this, please?" she said, plucking one of the pens from a marble holder on her desk. "How old are you?"

Rick cocked a brow, crossed his ankle over his knee.

"How old do you think I am?"

Without breaking from the page, she replied, "Old enough to give a simple answer to a simple question," which only served to widen his blossoming grin. "Thirty-nine," she threw in coolly and without inflection like she was certain of it, or certain about the effect her flash of whimsy would have, at least.

He slapped his free hand over his heart. "You wound me so, matchmaker. I bleed by your words. Oh, wait, I see." Kate's poker face had begun to falter. "So, we areallowed to have some fun together then, the two of us. That's good to know, and I'm 38, thank you."

She tugged her lip between her teeth, and it sent him spinning.

"Sorry to have wounded you so," Kate mocked with a roll of her eyes. "Married twice," she thought aloud, answering the next item for herself. "Do you have any children?" Catching herself hoping for one response over the other, she clenched her teeth in frustration over the apparently widening chasm between her head and heart.

"Thankfully, no." He let go of a laugh and coughed it away. "I mean I want to. I do. Imagining what it would've been like to have had them with my ex-wives, though. Yeesh." He grimaced. "I'm glad it's something I still have to look forward to."

On that they agreed, though only she was aware.

"Obviously, I know about the restaurant. Is there anything else you're involved in, professionally speaking?"

"Uh, not anymore, no. I used to be a writer," he went on when Kate picked up her head. "I guess technically I still am, but not practicing. Ever hear of Derrick Storm?" She shrugged with her face. "Yeah, Derrick doesn't really strike me as your type. It was a series of mystery novels I ended a couple of years ago. He was my main character. Spoiler alert: he doesn't make it, which is why the most recent ex-Mrs. Castle looks at me with daggers in her eyes all the time. She's my partner in the restaurant now, but she used to be my publisher. Yet another reason she doesn't like me very much."

Kate sat back. He was even messier than she thought.

"If she doesn't like you, why is she your partner?"

"A logical and fair question. Mainly, I think it's to torment me. It turns out that killing off the hero of one's most successful series without running it by the boss first sometimes doesn't go over great, and this particular boss happens to enjoy grudges, especially against yours truly. I plan to be paying for it for the foreseeable future-literally and figuratively."

He hadn't remarked on it yet, but behind Kate's desk was an entire wall of bookshelves, floor to ceiling, lined with books of all sizes, shapes, and colors. It was a library of what had to be hundreds, and he held more than a suspicion she'd read every one.

"I don't know if reading is your thing or not," he kidded, "but if you're curious, I could bring you a copy. I'll even autograph it. That way, if you hate it, you can sell it on eBay and make yourself a cool $12…including shipping, of course." He smiled small. "I'm not sure why because I feel like I should hate it, but it kind of turns me on that you didn't know I was a writer. Some might say a pretty famous writer. Is that weird?"

Kate didn't know what it was, but he'd generously set the ball up on the tee for her, which she gladly took advantage of.

"That people think you're famous or that you think I could get $12?" she quipped, matching the resulting curl of his lip. "Why would you kill off your character if your books were so successful?"

Rick sipped from his coffee and then placed it back on the desk.

"Nope, sorry. That's a story I tell only on first dates. If you really want the goods, you could-"

"I really don't, but thanks. Moving on. What would you say is your best quality and what's your worst?"

It was something she didn't always ask her clients, but with him she couldn't help herself. Like he about her, she had a hunger to learn everything. The good. The bad. All of it.

"That's one of the easy ones? I'm suddenly having flashbacks of the SATs. I feel like I should've studied." Rick angled forward, his elbows on his knees. "My best and worst qualities, huh? I suppose they might be the same: I'm stubborn. No, persistent is better. It has a more positive lean to it. When there's something I want, I'll keep coming for it. I'll find a way, no matter how high the wall I have to climb. Unfortunately, that can bring a lot of scraped knees."

Kate knew well about walls, from being inside them more than outside.

She could've stood up right then, walked over to the door to her office, and locked the world out. More than that, locked them inside, together, alone. That was the path her mind wandered in that moment and that her body craved.

This man stirred things inside her that no other ever had, and it was like he was fully aware of it, like he had her every number, knew her every button. How could it be that in less than a day's time she found herself so enthralled? How could it feel so different?

Kate Beckett studied. She calculated and formulated and weighed. She didn't jump, she crawled, inch by inch across mapped terrain. That painstaking prudence was what'd helped to bring together so many who came into her orbit, and for better not worse.

But none of that had gotten her heart what it wanted. That was the enigma of it. Most recently-though not all that recent-she'd spent six months loving a man who, in the end, decided he loved a job more, and before she'd let herself dive into them, she'd fully believed her parachute to be secure. He'd checked nearly every box she had, and they were not few.

So, how could she trust Rick, this man who spun into her life like a tornado and had her so upside-down and turned around, when she couldn't even trust herself?

"Is there…Do you have hobbies?"

"I wish you'd give me a chance, Kate," he replied with an earnestness that nearly took her breath away. "I really wish."

"Rick, please." Had her fingers gripped the pen any tighter, they might've snapped it in half. "I've asked you more than once to stop. If you aren't here as my client then you should go. I can't offer you anything more than that."

"Can't or won't?" he returned in a shot, and to Kate that he said it felt like some impossible understanding he already had of her. For its jolt she barely granted him her eye, let alone an inch. "Fine. I like doing the Times crossword, watching old movies, playing poker, and taking walks on the beach."

There was more. He rattled off a lengthy-occasionally peculiar-list and Kate scribbled it down, all the while trying to mentally prepare herself for the finale; the question whose answer interested her above all the others.

"I guess that's it except for"-she scanned the page as though she didn't know precisely her course-"right, what is it you're looking for in a woman?"

Rick straightened up, stretched for one of the paper bags. "I could tell you in one word what I'm looking for, but I have a hunch that wouldn't be the wisest decision, and I'd prefer to leave here today with my limbs intact."

"That'd definitely make the walks on the beach easier," she bantered.

"Are you mocking me again?" he inquired around a bite of the scone he chose. "I'll have you know that you're making fun of the owner of an architectural gem of a place that overlooks an incredible stretch of Southampton beach, and if you're not careful, you're going to mock your way right out of an invitation."

Kate turned her lips into a frown, phony of course. "Gee, how ever will I carry on without an invitation to your beach house?"

He jabbed at the air with his finger while he swallowed.

"You want to know what I'm looking for? That. A woman who challenges me, and who gives as good as she gets. I want funny, and playful, and sharp-witted, and the kind of smart that knocks me on my ass because of how sexy it is. I want her to be exactly who she is. I don't want perfection. I already have enough of that for two," he said in jest, and with a wryness that pained him added "and I guess it'd be nice if she, you know, found me the least bit attractive." He waded a second or two into the ensuing lull and then broke it. "I don't suppose self-deprecation does anything for you?"

The devil on Kate's shoulder leaned in close and caroled a wicked song into her ear that elicited a blush she enjoyed. Her eyes slid to his fingers as they broke off another piece of the scone and delivered it to his mouth.

"I'll admit I actually almost changed my mind. For a minute there, I thought you might've had a shot." Rick's posture stiffened. "But then you grabbed that scone. Sorry, but raisins are a deal-breaker," she informed in a deadpan worthy of award.

Rick crumpled up what remained into its tissue paper and tossed it toward the trash can in the corner, missing his target in spectacular fashion.

"Cruel times two," he sighed to himself as he got up, unaware of the smile in Kate's eyes as she watched him shuffle off to retrieve it.