A CHOICE
Chapter 1
Rick knocked and waited patiently. He knocked on the door again, harder this time, and waited. Finally, the door swung open. "Hello, Mother."
"Richard!" She sounded happy to see him, if not a little surprised. "And Alexis. Come in, come in." She opened the door wide and stepped aside. Hand in hand, Rick walked in with Alexis.
"What brings you by, Richard?" Martha inquired. "Not that I'm not happy to see you or my granddaughter."
"Nothing special, really. But there's something I have to tell you." Rick let go of Alexis' hand and watched as she immediately headed for Martha.
"Hello, Alexis. How is my darling girl?" Martha picked her up and hugged her.
Martha looked at him. "So, what do you have to tell me?"
"The project is just about ready," Rick said. "We'll be leaving next week."
Martha raised an eyebrow. "Really? And you're certain you want to go through with this?"
"It's a good use of my money. Not that I'll be alone in this endeavor. I do have a partner," he reminded her yet again.
"Whose name that I can't even begin to pronounce." Then Martha brought up the same old argument. "But what about Alexis?"
"His name is Kuznetsov, Mother. And I have a plan for Alexis. I just need to find the right person." He had an idea of what he needed. He only had to interview them for the position. He was hoping he would find someone willing to relocate with them.
She sat down with Alexis. "And what do you think of this plan, little one?" Martha asked her, knowing full well that she wouldn't get an answer. Martha hugged her tight against her and felt a tear escape.
Rick sat down and watched the two of them. He knew his mother would miss seeing her granddaughter, but what else could he do? His commitment was two years in the making, and he couldn't back out now.
He tried one last time. "You could come with us, Mother. You're more than welcome."
But Martha shot him down yet again. "My place is here, Richard. I've got a job, and it's a good one. You, of all people, should know that I love acting. I live to act; you know this."
"I know. But I want you to think about it." Once more, Rick told her what would be available. "There will be a Shutter Studio, a babysitting service, a private trainer, a billiard hut, beach volleyball, a yoga studio, an underwater world, more activities than I can mention, a kids club, and an outdoor cinema. Surely out of all this, you can find something to do? Work with Alexis."
"It sounds nice, Richard, but I'm not a babysitter. Nor am I a worker in a kids club. I need something to do. Something that is more me." Martha shot him down. "An outdoor cinema is not a stage for an actress."
Rick sat back and tried to think of something that would sway her. Only for a moment, he thought about using Alexis, but he knew that would be a low blow. As much as she loved Alexis, he couldn't use her for that.
"As you wish, Mother. I'll bring Alexis by as much as I can before we fly out next week, late next week." It was close to two weeks, but not quite. "But I came by to ask you out to dinner. Please, come have dinner with us."
"I would love to! What do you think of that, Alexis? Shall we go to dinner together?" Martha asked her. But all she got was a smile and a little girl nodding her head. "Let me get my purse, and I'll come." Martha put her down and rose to go to her bedroom to retrieve her handbag.
"Lead on, Richard. Do you want to come with me?" Martha asked Alexis and held out her hand for her to take. Satisfied that she had Alexis, she led them out of her apartment.
~oo0oo~
It had been a heck of a week.
Rick had interviewed three prospects for Alexis. Two had immediately bowed out, while the third was a maybe. He was beginning to lose hope.
He was on his way home when he stopped for coffee. "Hot chocolate?" Rick asked Alexis, who nodded enthusiastically. "Hot chocolate it is." Rick placed his order for one coffee and one hot chocolate and let go of Alexis while he did. "And can you add one piece of pumpkin bread with that order, please?"
Alexis decided to look around. So she wandered from table to table until she stopped at one. She stood there and looked at the lady who stared back at her.
"Pretty," Alexis declared.
"Thank you! I think you're pretty too. Where's your mommy?" Kate asked her. Only to see her shake her head. "You don't know where she is, or don't know?"
Alexis just shook her head. She didn't have a mommy.
Kate was perplexed. "I don't understand."
"Alexis!" Rick found her and wasn't happy that she had wandered away. "Don't bother the lady." Rick would take her hand, but his hands were full of coffee, hot chocolate, and a bag that held his pumpkin bread.
"She's not bothering me. You're her father?" Kate asked.
"Yes, I am." Rick tried to coax her away from the lady. "Come on, Pumpkin. We need to find a table." But Alexis sat down next to the lady. "Alexis, we need to find our own table."
"It's okay. She can stay." Kate smiled at her. Alexis beamed back at her.
"You're sure you don't mind?" Rick asked hesitantly.
"I'm sure." Kate watched as he sat down. "So, is your name Alexis?" Kate asked, only she didn't get anything back.
"Here's your hot chocolate, Pumpkin." Rick handed her cup of hot chocolate to her. "She doesn't talk much," he explained.
"Oh, surely that's not right!" Kate got her to grin. That was at least something. So she turned to Rick for an explanation.
Instead, he deflected and offered his name. "I'm Rick Castle, and you've met Alexis." Rick saw her eyes open wide, suggesting that she knew him.
"You're Richard Castle?" Kate asked, not quite believing it was him.
"You've heard of me?" Rick was surprised and pleased at the same time.
Kate nodded. "My mother read all your books."
"But not you? I'm hurt." Rick clapped his chest with his hand, overdoing it more than a little.
She rolled her eyes. "You'll get over it. I'm Kate." She offered her hand to him. Rick shook it and waited for her to say something else.
"Drink your hot chocolate, Alexis. And here's your half of the pumpkin bread." Rick broke the slice in two and put her half on a napkin since her hands were full, holding her hot chocolate.
Still, Kate waited for his explanation. But Rick continued to deflect. "You know I'm a writer, so what does Kate do?"
And Kate let him. "I'm a college student, one that's out of college."
Now it was Rick who waited for an explanation. "I had a life-changing event, and I quit college. So, I'm a student without a college," Kate said, waiting for his explanation.
Rick loved a good story, and she definitely had one. But he knew she was waiting for his. "I'm divorced. Alexis' mother decided she didn't want her. She got half of everything since we lived in California at the time. I got Alexis. At first, Alexis didn't understand, given she was just a baby, but she's older now.
"She still doesn't understand why her mommy doesn't want her. The moment that broke her was she was at school, and the teacher asked her students about their mothers. Since she didn't have one…" Rick let it trail off.
"Oh." That touched Kate's heart. She was without a mother now, and Alexis didn't have one. "I'm so sorry." She turned to Alexis. "It's okay, sweetie. I don't have a mommy either." Kate reached over to touch her.
Alexis looked at her. She wanted to ask her but knew she couldn't. Instead, she just smiled at her.
Rick continued to explain. "Alexis chose to stop talking after that event. I can't get her to talk at all now."
Kate didn't understand. The little girl had come up to her and called her pretty, so she knew better. "You can talk to me," Kate told her but saw her shake her head. Kate tried again. "But you called me pretty. You're very pretty. I love your hair."
Alexis ran her hand through her long orange hair. She loved her hair.
"You're sure you don't want to talk?" Kate asked her again. All she got was a shake of her head. "I'll get you to change your mind." Kate didn't plan to give up.
That comment gave Rick an idea. "I've been searching for a teacher for her if you're interested. Alexis turned eight last September. She should be in school, but she needs special care. Before you decline, please hear me out. You would be part teacher and part nanny. But there's a catch. You would need to be willing to relocate. It's not exactly close." Rick was vague on purpose.
"I would be willing to pay you $26 an hour for the nanny position. And another $120,000 annually for the teacher position. That's $170,000 annually. You would get medical coverage and two weeks vacation."
Kate's eyebrows shot up at hearing that. "But you don't know anything about me!"
"I know you're a student who isn't a student, and if you say Alexis talked to you, that's more than she said in years. That alone tells me a lot. So tell me about yourself," Rick asked.
"I don't know." Kate wasn't sure she was ready to take on a child, no matter how cute she was.
"Pretty," Alexis said one last time.
Rick gaped at her and his eyes opened wide. "Tell me what I need to know. Please." Rick really needed to understand her.
"My mother was killed recently, and now I live with my dad," Kate began.
"I'm so sorry." Rick hadn't thought the story would lead to that.
Kate felt Alexis' hand on hers and looked at her. Those sweet blue eyes told her a lot. "I was studying pre-law, and wanted to be a lawyer like my parents. I didn't do any babysitting to earn money. I did other things to earn money. I used that money to buy a motorcycle. I was a normal teenager." Kate stretched the latter a bit. She was anything but normal.
"I quit college when my mother was killed, which was about two weeks ago. I haven't decided what to do." Kate shrugged. "That's the short version."
Rick pulled out a Sharpie marker and wrote his number on a napkin. "Here, think it over and let me know. As for your dad, he could come with you. I could use a lawyer." He slid it over, and Kate picked it up. "I would pay him as well." Rick didn't know how much, but he could work that out later.
"There's one more thing." Rick had held this back since, so far, it had been a deal breaker. "The job is outside the US. It's in the Maldives. I'm spending my money on a resort. I have a partner, but you would be working for me, so he doesn't have a say. Your dad as a lawyer would be another matter, but I don't think he would say no."
"The Maldives!" Kate was almost speechless.
"There are twenty-five villas on land with another twenty-one built over water. There's the main room, six cabanas, four mini cabanas, a kids club, a tennis court, a beach retreat, one pool, an exercise room, a dock for six boats for rent, a restaurant, and a dock for a seaplane which is the only way in except by boat."
"You would be in one of the two two-bedroom beach houses. There would be me, you, and Alexis. You would be sharing a room with Alexis, not me. My partner gets the other two-bedroom. I believe he has one daughter as well," Rick explained. "Think about it, please? Come on, Pumpkin. It's time to go."
"I'll think about it, I promise." Kate felt Alexis touch her before she left. She watched them walk away and looked at the napkin with his phone number.
Rick waited until they were in a taxi before he confronted Alexis. "You talked to her! You must like her." All he got was seeing her smile. "She could say no," he told her and watched her shake her head. "She could, Alexis." Rick didn't want to get her hopes up, even if he hoped she would say yes, all because his little girl talked to her. Still, he needed to go home and start making their dinner before it was her bedtime.
~oo0oo~
Rick sat on her bed, and she cuddled up next to him while he read to her.
"Goodnight, Pumpkin." Rick willed her to say something, but she didn't say a word.
Rick was anxious. He couldn't sleep or keep himself busy. He worried that Kate would say no.
~oo0oo~
Jim answered the door and saw his daughter on the other side. "Katie."
"Hi, Dad." Kate walked in and past him. She still hadn't asked for a key, even if she was staying in her old bedroom. It felt like she was a stranger to her.
"The door wasn't locked, just so you know." He didn't understand why she wouldn't accept a key.
"I met someone today," Kate told him. "His name was Richard Castle."
"Richard Castle. The Richard Castle? Your mother's favorite author?" Jim didn't know what to think.
Kate nodded. "That's the one. It seems he has a daughter."
"Now that I didn't know. He must be keeping her out of the papers," Jim commented as he sat down and watched his daughter pace.
"He offered me a job, Dad," Kate told him. "He wants me to be his daughter's nanny and school teacher."
"And?" Jim waited for her to tell him more.
"She's… she's emotionally challenged and doesn't speak. But she talked to me. Me. I don't know what to do, Dad."
"Start from the beginning, Katie. The very beginning," Jim said.
~oo0oo~
"So what do I do?" Kate asked after telling him everything.
Jim turned it back on her. "What do you want to do?"
"DAD!" Kate didn't need to be played.
"Katie, you're a smart young woman. A little girl who doesn't talk spoke to you, and her father is grasping at straws. He sees something in you, something that will help his little girl. If his offer is legit, what do you think you should do about it," Jim asked her. "Keeping in mind that you don't have a plan at the moment."
Kate sighed. "I should go to the Maldives and be a nanny to a little girl."
"A cute little girl, your words," Jim reminded her.
Kate tried again. "Yes, a cute little girl, but that still leaves me with the question, what do I do?"
Jim raised an eyebrow, and he stared at her. "You're asking me if you should turn down a job that pays $170,000 with medical coverage and time off when you don't have a job?"
"Well yeah, there is that." Kate ran a hand over her face. "Fine, you have a point." She gave him that. "But you didn't answer my question. Do you want to go? Is that it?"
"I'm considering it," Jim admitted. "Your mother's dead, and it hurts in a way I can't begin to explain. I dated her, married her, had a child with her, and helped raise that child. Do you think that that doesn't hurt? Do you!" Jim pulled himself together. "You think you're the only one hurting here? This would give me an opportunity to get out of town. To not live in the house that reminds me of her. To not remind me that I didn't know what she was doing. That's what I'm talking about."
"I'm sorry, Dad. You're right; I didn't think about anyone besides myself. I'm so sorry for that," Kate said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Jim closed his eyes for a moment. "No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything. I'm grasping at straws too. Is this a good idea? I wish I knew, but I know it's different. A new place might be just what both of us need."
Kate agreed that it might be what they both needed. "Okay then." She fished out the napkin with the phone number scrawled on it. "I need to use your phone." They were both going to make a change in their lives. Hopefully, it was the right one.
Kate dialed the number on the napkin and listened to it ring. A man's voice answered. "Hello?"
"Mr. Castle, this is Kate Beckett. If your offer is still open, my dad and I would like to accept."