Chapter XIV

Hamptons, Long Island,

One day later

He'd been sitting in his studio, the room he'd set aside exclusively to write in, for nearly two hours and had barely written a paragraph.

If Detective Beckett wasn't who he thought she was, then who the hell was the character he'd based on her?

He'd refused to accept that this new character wasn't going anywhere. Because it had been the first time in months, no, years, that he'd produced something that he thought had a chance at hitting another best-seller list and he wasn't going to let Nikki Heat die just because Beckett was no longer in his life.

Kate Beckett didn't create Nikki Heat. I did.

Even so, she stubbornly seemed to come alive on the page only when Beckett was around.

Castle wrapped his fingers around his mug of coffee and squinted at the blank page in front of him, determined to squeeze at least a few paragraphs out of his useless brain.

"Richard, darling," his mother's voice carried across the room before she sauntered into the study. "I'm making smoked salmon sandwiches for lunch. Do you want one?"

It seemed like such a simple dish that even Martha Rodgers couldn't ruin it, but he'd fallen into that trap before. Besides, he had no appetite.

"No, thanks," he mumbled in response.

His mother suddenly appeared before him, standing next to his desk. "You have been in here moping the entire day."

He raised his brows and forced his attention away from the screen. "The whole day? You've only been here for what, three hours?"

"It was a figurative expression, Sherlock."

"I'm writing. Not moping. There is a difference."

"It's also possible to do both." His mother made herself comfortable, perched on the edge of his desk. "Have you called her yet?"

"Called who?"

Martha rolled her perfectly made-up eyes. "Oh, you know who. I told you she stopped by the loft. She seemed worried about you."

"I can assure you that she's not. You didn't tell her where I am did you?"

"I respected your wishes and I did not."

"Good."

"Richard," the sharp way she said his name forced him to meet her eyes. "When has running away ever solved anything?"

"Who says I'm running away?"

"Oh, come on. You're talking to your mother. I haven't seen any woman get under your skin like this since, well, since Kyra. You seemed less upset after your two divorces."

He felt his cheeks flush in anger. Hating that it was so obvious. Hating that someone who thought so little of him had, in fact, gotten under his skin, as his mother so kindly pointed out.

"Well, that's my mistake then. Letting her get under my skin." He mustered a smile. His mother wasn't the only one capable of acting. "Just give me a few days to squeeze her back out."

"Darling, will you at least tell me what happened? Because this isn't like you. You don't watch someone you care about almost get run over and then bolt. I know you. When that little gold-digger was poisoned you not only footed her hospital bill, you stayed by her bedside the entire night."

Castle shrugged. "What can I say? She was more receptive to being taken care of."

Martha snorted. "I'll bet. In every sense of the word."

"Mother…"

"So what happened with Katherine?"

"I don't really want to dis-"

"You should talk to someone. And knowing your disdain for professional therapy and your love for Alexis, that leaves your mother."

Castle groaned. The absolute last thing he wanted was to discuss this with his mother.

But then it slowly poured out anyway.

The hurt and the anger he'd held in at first, then denied altogether. He relayed how Katherine Beckett had essentially dismissed him as a shallow playboy who couldn't handle something real.

"She said it after I told her I couldn't go on with us pretending to be a couple. Not it if was gonna get her killed."

"You were pretending to be a couple to lure out this stalker?" Martha's eyes widened with the realization. "I see."

"That's when she made it very clear that I was an idiot for caring about her. That'd I'd put her on some pedestal where she doesn't belong. That I couldn't handle someone with issues anyway."

Martha winced. "Oh…"

He swallowed bitterly. "Speaking of which, she has more baggage than a Tumi store. She's right, you know. I dodged a bullet."

Martha frowned. "Do you really mean that?"

"Hell, yes."

"Thank God you never followed in my thespian footsteps, because you're a terrible actor."

"Thank you, Mother. I feel so much better now."

"So she tells you that someone like you can't possibly care about someone like her, and a second later you bolt? Why exactly? So you can prove her right? 'Cause what she said sounds an awful lot like a challenge to me."

"No." He balked at the thought. "You couldn't be more wrong. She made it crystal clear that I wasn't fit to be with her. She couldn't have made it more clear if she'd stuffed her words into a Louisville slugger and hit me over the head with it." Castle shot back. "What was I supposed to have done? Begged?"

"No. But you could have stayed. Made her realize that she's wrong."

"And let her keep humiliating me?"

"I know it hurts because you care for her."

"Just because I didn't want her killed, doesn't mean I care about her," he countered. "I barely spent two weeks with her. Kate was right. I don't know her."

"Except that in those two weeks you spent more time with her than you have with some of the women that you dated for months."

"It doesn't matter," he told her, turning off his laptop and finally admitting defeat at the notion of getting any more writing done. The bitter taste in his mouth would only end up dripping onto his pages and he didn't want to risk it. "It's over."

"Darling," his mother squeezed his shoulder. "Wasn't she injured and concussed and possibly medicated when she said these things to you in the hospital?"

Castle cringed. Fine. She had a point. A tiny, miniscule point. "She seemed clearheaded at the time. You're saying I should pretend she didn't mean what she said because she was injured?"

"No," Martha countered. "But maybe let her explain when she's in a better state. Maybe take the moment when her words were said into consideration."

For the first time in two days, he felt a twinge of guilt, especially when he thought of the dozen or so unanswered texts he'd received from Kate Beckett. He'd let his wounded pride overshadow everything else. Hadn't so much as asked her how she was after she'd nearly died, even though he thought about it all the time.

"Just talk to her," his mother reiterated softly. "If it doesn't change anything then let it go, but don't end it like this. With so much left unsaid."

Part of him wanted to pout. All of this was starting to feel like another unwanted lecture. As a writer he'd gotten good at dealing with rejection on a professional level, but this was personal.

Truth was, Meredith leaving both him and Alexis had done a number on him. Made him question his worth and spend all his energies on relationships that he knew would never scratch below the surface. Relationships that he knew would never be able to blindside him like that again.

Maybe Kate Beckett wasn't the only one who carried around some excess baggage.

"Richard…"

"I'll think about it."

Martha bent down to kiss the top of his head and it made him smirk. "Promise me. I have a good feeling about this one."

"That makes one of us," he mumbled, as he watched her stroll out of his study.

So Martha Rodgers had been mum on the subject of Richard Castle's whereabouts and he was still stubbornly refusing to text her back or answer her call.

So what? Beckett told herself. She was a detective after all. One who used to enjoy this kind of challenge.

At first, she'd reached out to Gates to see whether they'd given him a new bodyguard and where they were currently located and was shocked to find out that Castle had steadfastly refused any further protection from the NYPD.

"We can't force it on him," Gates had reminded her. "And he has a point. He's not the one who seems to be threatened."

Beckett hadn't agreed with that. The stalker was getting bolder and more aggressive. There was no telling how they would escalate next. Castle was still the object of their obsession. They couldn't rule that out.

But Gates was right. They couldn't force protection on Castle either.

She'd ended that call with an uneasy feeling in her gut. If anything happened to him now, she'd feel responsible. She was the one who'd sent him running.

She considered that maybe he'd left New York, to get as far away as he could from everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Because that's what she might have done.

But he wasn't her, and she'd suspected that he hadn't gone far at all. Not with Alexis's summer theatre performance coming up two days from now.

One thing she'd learned over the last two weeks, was that the smart, bubbly teenager was his pride and joy. She'd bet her cop's pension that he wouldn't miss the opening night of his daughter's play.

All it took was one phone call to company that handled his home security to verify that he was indeed back in the Hamptons.

"Gotcha," she'd allowed herself a smile and decided to go there first thing the next morning. He wouldn't be able to avoid her if she got right into his face.

But that was now almost a day and a half ago.

Instead of getting a decent night's sleep, she'd woken up with a nightmare that was so vivid it kept her up all night and gave her the kind of post-concussion headache that even four of her illicit ibuprofen tablets didn't touch.

It made it hard to turn on the light, never mind embark on the long drive to the Hamptons. So she'd relented and mostly stayed in bed yesterday to give her injuries some more time to heal.

She hadn't even harassed the boys for new info on the case.

Mostly, she'd tried to push the nightmare out of her mind. Because thinking about it now still gave her chills.

In the dream, she was kissing Richard Castle in his loft and he was setting her skin on fire with every touch. Every pleasure he took from her he gave back ten-fold.

In made her careless and reckless. He was the only thing she could focus on when his tongue moved over her skin like that.

She'd been so wrapped up in him, literally, that she hadn't noticed the sudden attack from behind. The ax that the attacker swung right into his skull, sending him to his knees.

It was so swift and brutal that there was nothing she could do. Nothing except watch him die in her arms, his blood running over both of them, because she'd been too distracted to see it coming.

That's when she'd woken up, her own skull feeling as though it has been split into two.

Goosebumps had lined her arms at the thought and she'd pressed her eyes shut.

It's just a stupid dream, she'd reminded herself. Maybe Freud would have enjoyed dissecting it, but still, just a dream.

But today she felt better. Felt like she could tackle the drive to the Hamptons and the much-needed talk she had yet to find the courage for. The longer she put it off, the harder it would be.

She was halfway there now, and mildly regretting it as she pulled over near Bayshore to stretch her legs and get a cup of coffee. Everything hurt again. Her wrist was protesting that she hadn't made the entire drive with one hand on the wheel and her shoulder hadn't appreciated sitting up straight for over an hour.

Beckett squinted into the distance before stepping inside the roadside coffee shop, and

then her headache reminded her that it was done with the glare of the sun, in spite of the dark sunglasses she wore.

She left them on when she stepped inside.

"Ma'am," the bearded barista greeted her. "What can I getcha?"

She thought about ordering one of those milky lattes that always eased the harshness of an early morning crime scene, but then changed her mind. Her destination today didn't involve a murder.

At least that's what she hoped.

"Espresso. Make it a double, please."

She had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

He gave up trying to write after his mother left.

Instead, he waited until she finished her sandwich-making in the kitchen and then stepped inside hoping to find some of the inspiration that had eluded him in his study. Maybe he could transfer his culinary creativity into his writing.

Instead, he was greeted by a mess on the counter top.

"Seriously, Mother," he grumbled to no one. Leftover smoked salmon sat on a plate and crumbs of bread were scattered all over the marble counter.

Much like his mother, Nikki Heat was going to be a terrible cook, he decided on the spot. Maybe that was petty, but she needed a few character flaws. He'd made her far too perfect. Put her on a pedestal just as he'd done with her inspiration. If he wanted his readers to care about her, relate to her, she desperately needed some flaws.

"Voila," he thought, brushing off the crumbs from the counter and dumping them into the compost bin. Twenty seconds in the kitchen and he was inspired already. The leftover salmon was inspiring him too, because he suddenly realized he had pastry dough, tomato sauce, and French brie left in the fridge.

He'd make pizza tarts. He'd use the salmon and brie and add a few thinly sliced pieces of fresh, seasoned tomatoes.

He could already taste his impending creation when he heard the doorbell ring.

He ignored it, figuring it was a canvasser. Was there an upcoming local election that he wasn't aware of?

Castle searched for his baking tray while the doorbell kept ringing.

"Really?" He made a face. Maybe it was Alexis and she'd forgotten her keys. Although he didn't expect her back until much later tonight.

And sometimes the gardeners needed something, but there was no one working the grounds today, and besides they had access to the house through the backyard doors.

The doorbell kept ringing.

"Oh come on." Irritated, Castle tossed down the dish towel he was holding and moved to answer it. If it was a canvasser, the only thing he was about to give them was a piece of his mind.

He yanked open the door, only to see Kate Beckett standing on his doorstep, as effortlessly beautiful as she'd been the day they'd joined Alexis and her friends for ice cream sundaes in Sag Harbour. Except today she wore a green summer dress, one with a loose neckline that made the soft fabric fall off one of her shoulders. She matched it with an oversized pair of fashionable sunglasses that were pushing back her thick, dark hair and gave her questioning eyes an unobstructed view right into his.

All of it made him instantly defensive.

Her unexpected arrival. The effect she had on him. The way that a single look of hers threw him right off balance.

Some nerve she had, staring at him as though she was the one who needed an explanation.

Frowning, he took a step back and stopped just short of slamming the door shut.

"Beckett, what do you want?"