Sunday Morning
Richard Castle enters his loft and looks past the living room on to the kitchen. There he spies his wife and her best friend Lanie Parish sitting at the dining room table. It appears that they have located every magazine ever printed relating to brides and weddings and have clipped the information that they found of most interest and have arranged dozens of images in some type of order all over the table top.
When he comes into the dining room he sees that there is not a square inch where the actual wood of the table can be seen. He walks up behind his lovely lady and places a kiss on the top of her head. That is when he sees what appears to be an old worn picture of a wedding dress. This picture is obviously been ripped from a bridal magazine at some earlier time. Probably many, many years before. At one time Kate had said that she never ripped a picture of a wedding dress from a magazine. She must have found this picture hidden away in her kinky box
Kate turns her head up and Castle repeats the kiss, this time on her lips
Lanie smirks "you two could wait until I leave before getting into a lip lock you know?"
Kate smiles over at her best friend "Lanie, we're just trying to make up for a lot of lost time"
"Good morning Lanie" Castle speaks up after the kiss to his wife
"Hello yourself Castle" Lanie responds "How are you?"
"Doing very well. Just took Alexis to brunch"
"Where did you take her?"
"I took her to a new little breakfast and lunch café just a block from Columbia called "Your Eggs Your Way"
"Sounds interesting"
"It was really good. I enjoyed it" turning to Kate "We will have to go sometime"
Lanie continues "So how was Alexis this morning?"
"She was great. We talked about her current classes. How she still is interested in medicine. Thanks to you I might add"
"She having any luck in the love department there yet? You know college romances are usually fast, hot, and heavy."
"I don't need to know about hot and heavy right now. Anyway I actually think she does have someone that she is interested in but she won't talk about him yet. I will get it out of her sooner or later."
Castle is looking at the totally covered table "I see you two have been very busy while I was gone. What have you ladies come up with?"
Kate smiles up to Castle "Rick, there is a lot I would like to do, but it is all so expensive. I need to sit down and see what I can come up with budget wise before Lanie and I start ordering invitations, a cake, and flowers"
Lanie's phone chimes with a text message. She looks down and reads the text being sent to her "Oh! WOW!"
"What is it Lanie?" Castle asks
"There has been a fire over in the 54th. They have a DB in one of the offices of the professional building on the west side. The fire is of suspicious origin. I have to meet the arson investigator at the scene. They believe it might be a fire to cover up a murder."
"Well, call me if you can come back later or we can work on this later on in the week"
Lanie gathers her stuff and heads out of the loft. "See you two later"
Castle sits down in the chair that Lanie had occupied. He starts looking at all the papers the two ladies had scattered all over the table. "Looks like you two have a nice start to what your wedding will involve"
Castle picks up the clipping of the wedding dress. "So you really did clip wedding dress pictures from magazines?"
Kate smiles while looking at the image he is holding. "Yeah, I did. But you know women don't admit to men what they fantasize about. Especially men that she thinks might become more than just friends with at some future date"
"What do you mean more than friends? When I asked you about clipping pictures of dresses, you and I were just friends. You had no interest in me back then."
Kate puts on her best cheeky grin "Are you sure I had no interest in you back then?"
"Oh you teasing, tempting woman. This is why I love you so much"
"I love you too" Kate is looking down at all the clippings and pictures on the table "Rick, I will trim this all down to something more manageable and affordable. I know my dad had planned to help pay for my wedding someday, but for a very long time it looked like that was never going to happen. And I know he would not be prepared for this" pointing at all the paper clippings scattered all over the table top
Rick picks up the image of the dress again "Kate, we will start right here. Tomorrow, I will take this over to Eduard Poteet and have them get started on this dress"
"Castle, I heard that his studio is now completely swamped with orders after the newspapers told about how the dress I wore for the Nikki Heat party came from him. You can't honestly ask him to stop everything just for my dress. And that dress alone will cost a fortune. I can't afford that"
"Well actually, I can, we can. Since I own, or more accurately WE, you and I own 50% of his design studio, he will do whatever we need done"
"What? We own half of his business? How?"
"I put the cash up about a year ago to get him started. I believed in him and his designs. It looks like my trust was well placed. So now, because of that dress you wore in Vegas he is having to expand the business. He has doubled his staff. So making one more dress for his business partner is a slam dunk:
"But still, there is still a large amount of other expenses related to a formal wedding so I have to budget very carefully"
"Well that brings me to something else I need to talk to you about."
Kate looks at Castle with puzzlement in her eyes.
Rick reaches into his pocket and pulls out a checkbook and hands it over to Kate "Here is a little wedding present for you to use to get started on the wedding expenses"
Kate takes the leather check folder from her husband with a questioning look on her face.
Rick smiles to her "Open it. The check register shows the beginning balance for you to start with. This is money for you to spend just for the wedding. If we need more, I will add more to it. OK?"
Kate opens the folio. He has never seen Kate's eyes so big and she covers her mouth with her hand to keep from screaming. She has never seen a check book balance with that many zeros "Castle! Are you kidding me?"
"This is just a start, Kate. I want your formal wedding to be everything you had wished for and dreamed for and more. I don't want you to have any regrets down the road about the ceremony, our marriage, or anything else".
Kate grabs her husband around the neck and kisses him with every bit as much passion as she had shown him at his front door on their first night together. Just this time there is no grief, anger, or angst. It is all love and passion.
She pulls back from his face "Mr. Castle, I believe we had started working on celebrating our marriage in every room in the loft before I got distracted into the wedding planning. Where did we leave off?"
"Yes Mrs. Castle we were. But I don't remember what room was next on the list"
Kate grins "I forget too Mr. Castle. So I think we are going to have to start all over at the beginning. Don't you?"