Talking to Lanie had been just what Beckett needed; she'd slept like a baby all night, safe with the knowledge that her friend agreed she was doing the right thing by not telling Castle exactly how she felt yet. She would tell him soon though, once she was certain he was willing to move on and forgive her for what she'd done to hurt him. But it had to be after that, not before, she couldn't risk ruining everything once more - she'd lost him once and it was a mistake she intended never to repeat. If she was certain about one thing in her life, it was that Richard Castle belonged there.

After her incredible nights sleep, Beckett wandered down to the hotel restaurant for a light breakfast of fruit and a croissant - with coffee, obviously, and set about deciding what she'd do with her day. Her head screamed at her to go and see Castle again, make him aware that she was still there and that she wasn't giving up and going home just because it wasn't easy, but her heart said the opposite. Let him think about her for the day, wonder if she'd caught the first flight back to New York or not, until it got so much that he came to her. Of course, that's what he'd been doing for the past three years and some would say it was definitely her turn now to do the chasing but she needed to play it cool at times, too. She didn't want him thinking he could tell them they wouldn't be together and she'd still turn up with coffee and a smile, had to let him sweat it out a bit. Perhaps she'd head over tonight and see if they could get dinner together or something..

Now that she had the day free, Beckett settled on making use of the hotels spa services, stopping by reception after breakfast to book herself in for a full body massage and a facial, she could do with unwinding properly. The stress of her job coupled with the anxiety of chasing Castle across the country had wound her tighter than a coil; a relaxing morning would do her body wonders.

Lying there with practiced hands un-kinking all the knots in her back and neck was absolute heaven, Beckett was half tempted to find a good masseuse back in New York and have one of these sessions monthly. Her whole body felt relaxed and invigorated, just the scent of the massage oils enough to clear her mind of any worries.

The masseuse was a friendly blonde woman who had a smile that could light up even the worst days and she definitely knew what she was doing. In just 40 minutes, she had changed Beckett completely, making the detective feel lighter and happier than she had done in months. Why hadn't she thought of this before? But then she realised – she'd only just started taking the time to actually put herself first for once. Ever since her mother had been murdered, it had been all about trying to get her dad to stop drinking, and then after that, it had been her work – fighting for justice for the victims and trying to uncover the truth about what had happened to her mom.

She'd always been pretty stressed out, being a homicide cop wasn't the easiest of jobs, but she'd learnt early on how to manage it. As long as she could put it aside and escape with a Castle novel and a glass of red at the end of the day, the stress was manageable.

But after she'd been shot, she had simply had to put herself first for a while or she never would have recovered properly. Having not done it much in a long time though had meant she'd gone so far to the other end of the scale that she'd shut everyone out – which was precisely why she was led on a table with a stranger kneading her skin right now.

Beckett left a generous tip, thanking the masseuse profusely for her magic hands and how wonderful the session had been, deciding she'd keep with the relaxed theme the day was taking and change into a bikini to laze by the pool for a bit.

Castle was confused. He checked the clock for what felt like the millionth time just that day, reading that it was now 12:47pm. A whole seven minutes since he'd last checked. If he was being completely honest with himself, he knew the reason behind his confusion – Beckett hadn't shown up on his doorstep with coffee and demanding they do something touristy today.

Panic flittered through him like a train through an empty station; what if she was back in New York? What if she had given up now, taking his words for face value and believing that he didn't want anything to do with her anymore? He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down; desperately trying to read the expression she had given him the previous night. He had been certain it was determination, a look that quite clearly screamed 'I'm not giving up', but what if he'd been wrong? He wasn't exactly an expert at reading women's signals, possibly why he had two failed marriages, but he could have sworn he was right with this one, after all, this was Beckett, not one of his ex wives, he knew her better than that, didn't he?

A few more minutes of doubting his own genius only produced one conclusion: he was going to have to find out what hotel she'd been staying in and make a trip over there, see for himself if she was still in town.

"Hey, Tony, its Rick Castle, how have you been?" A pause while he listened to the reply. "Yeah, things are going well in California." A lie. "I was just calling to see if I could cash in on that favour you owe me?"

Twenty minutes later and he had the name of the hotel Beckett was checked into. He was halfway out the door before he'd even ended the phone call.

It was a nice looking hotel, a tall building overlooking the ocean on one side, the penthouse sweet probably had an incredible view. Given that it was another hot day in LA, Castle decided to chance his luck and check the pool before charming the receptionist into giving him Beckett's room number.

He strolled in like he was staying at the hotel, trying not to make it too obvious that he had no clue where he was going. Using his initiative, he headed to the door leading straight outside at the back, hoping it was to the pool and not the laundry room or something.

Good fortune was on his side – the door did indeed lead to the pool and he came face to face with bikini clad women and men in everything from Speedos to board shorts. It didn't faze him though, this was LA and he was used to half naked people by now.

He slid into a seat on the far side of the bar, slightly camouflaged by the tall palm tree placed in the middle, but with a good enough view of he pool, allowing him to survey the area from behind his sunglasses without alerting suspicion to himself. The last thing he wanted was to make a scene, especially not if Beckett was here.

He almost missed her when he first looked over to her sun lounger. The Kate Beckett he knew wore smart pants and turtleneck sweaters, not the most ridiculous excuse for a bikini he'd ever seen. Her tanned legs went on for miles, leading up to perfect hips and a toned stomach, before reaching her chest. Drawing his eyes away from her incredible body, Castle's gaze rose to her face and he couldn't hide his grin when he saw what she was reading. The very first Nikki Heat novel - seemed she still loved it even now.

Now that he'd seen her, lazing around the pool reading her autographed copy of Heat Wave, he felt like an idiot. What was he doing here? Just last night he'd told her that 'it wasn't like that anymore', that they weren't going to happen and yet here he was, stalking her at her hotel, just to ease his fears that she hadn't done exactly what he'd been telling her to do ever since she first showed up on his doorstep.

He couldn't let her see him, couldn't let her know that he'd been here to check on her just because she hadn't shown up at his place again. The last thing he wanted was to give her the wrong idea; it had damn near killed him tearing himself away from her the night before and right now the temptation was too much. That thing she was wearing hardy covered anything as it was and he knew damn well it would come back to haunt him in his dreams for the next few days. Weeks. Probably months.

With one last glance in her direction to check it was safe to slip away, Castle slid down from the bar stool and hurried back through the door he'd used earlier and back out to his car.

"That's a good one, isn't it?" Came a voice from the left. Glancing around, Beckett saw it belonged to a pretty young woman, also topping up her tan in the afternoon sunshine, referring to the book she was holding.

"One of my favourites," Beckett agreed with a smile.

"I hear it's based on a real life detective, did you know that?"

"I heard the rumours," Beckett muttered, biting her lip to stop her grin. And the temptation to spill to the stranger that she was the detective it was based on.

"I'd love to meet him one day," the young woman continued with a dreamy smile. "He's got the most amazing eyes.."

Didn't Beckett know it. She'd spent the best part of three years trying to get rid of the image of his eyes as they sparkled with mischief out of her head.

"Anyway, enjoy!" The woman said as she headed towards the pool. Becket didn't have the chance to tell her that the man himself had left the hotel not five minutes ago. He had thought he was being sly but this was Castle, he could make himself obvious in a room of Richard Castle look-alikes, subtlety was not his strong point.

It was sweet though, if not slightly creepy, the way he'd managed to track her down and find her here, just another indication that he hadn't meant what he'd said last night.

Four pm the following afternoon found Beckett at the beach, enjoying the sunshine once again. She still hadn't shown up at Castle's, forgoing her plans of turning up to go for dinner with him the previous evening after spotting him at the hotel looking for her. That had been a clear indicator that he was still interested so she'd let him sweat it out a little more before seeing him again. Well, not too long..

The reason she was at the beach was due to a text she had received that lunchtime from a certain red-head she knew. It had made Beckett laugh when she read it, simply saying: "a New York homicide cop currently in LA may be in luck at spotting her favourite author at Surfrider beach in Malibu around 4.30 this afternoon."

So here Beckett was, another revealing swimsuit on under her kimono, stretched out on a towel on the sand. She was close to the back of the beach, where she had a clear view of the sea and the rest of the sand, being able to observe freely.

It did seem a little odd that Castle would be at this beach given that it wasn't the closest to his apartment, but Beckett had shown up anyway, wondering if Alexis had been right and Castle would be here soon. She had no reason to believe Alexis would be lying, the young girl had given Beckett her fathers address for starters, surely that meant she would be for them giving it a shot.

He worries were eased when she spotted Castle walking up the beach with- oh wow, he had a surfboard with him. She had to contain her laughter at that, whipping out her cell to rattle off a text to Alexis.

"He's going to surf? Man, I can't wait to see this!" She typed, hitting send and stowing her phone securely back in her bag to protect it from the sand. Beckett couldn't believe this was actually happening, watching Castle surf was bound to be exciting. That explained why this beach, though, from what Beckett knew – which wasn't a lot – this was one of the best beaches to surf at in LA.

He'd been working out, that was the second thing Kate noticed about him. His abs were toned and tanned, biceps more defined than she remembered, he definitely looked amazing, that was for sure. As he reached a spot near the sea to the right of where Beckett was watching, he set his board down on the sand and looked around, as if he were waiting for someone.

And it soon became clear who he was waiting for, as a tall, beautiful brunette joined him on the beach, also carrying a surfboard. Beckett tried not to let it get to her, told herself it was just a friend and they surfed together, nothing more. Perhaps they'd met on the beach while surfing alone one day and decided to get together to explore their common interest, that was a likely possibility.

Now that he was here and preoccupied, Beckett took the chance to move, shifting her bag and towel down closer to the sea, closer to Castle and his friend but not close enough to be obvious about it. However, now that she had moved nearer, Beckett had a better view of Castle's friend – and she was strikingly gorgeous. She stood next to Castle and barely had to raise her head to look at him as they spoke, she had to stand at at least six foot, if not an inch or two more. Her chocolate brown hair was laced with blonde at the ends, lightened by the constant sun here in LA. And what she was wearing didn't leave much to the imagination, a simple yellow string bikini top with matching bottoms showed off an incredible figure and tan, the woman would make a Victoria's Secret model jealous.

As they laughed together and picked up their boards in unison, Castle happened to glance to his left – his gaze landing directly on Beckett. He looked startled at first, but recovered quickly, following his friend down to the edge of the water. He didn't look her way again, instead paying rapt attention to whatever miss perfect over there was saying. Beckett wasn't jealous, she really wasn't..

It soon became clear, when the woman practised a manoeuvre on her board, still on the edge of the water and Castle observed and then copied that she was his surfing instructor. Although it didn't necessarily rule out any romantic relationship, Beckett had to admit that she felt some sort of relief knowing he was paying her for this and they weren't just friends meeting up for a late afternoon surf.

Beckett almost laughed when they stood up again and Castle beamed at the instructor, placing a light touch on her arm. He was flirting with her – which he hadn't been doing before he spotted Beckett. The flirting continued as they headed out into the water, coy looks and just not quite innocent touches that lasted a second too long. I was obvious he was trying to make Beckett jealous and she had to admit, it was working slightly, she just wanted to head out into the water herself and push the stupid woman off of her board and into the sea but she stopped herself. Just.

He was just doing it to get to her, Kate knew that and she'd be damned if she let him think he was. Oh no, there was no way he was going home with a smug grin on his face thinking he'd got one over on her, not a chance in hell.

Instead of nearly drowning Castle's new best friend – however tempting it may have been - Beckett did what she did best – teased and taunted him. Just as the two of them began to paddle back towards the shore, Beckett stripped down to her bikini and threw down her cover up, heading towards the ocean without even a glance in Castle's direction. She paddled out to waist height, before diving cleanly all the way under, bobbing back up to the surface a few metres further out. Turning 180 degrees back to face the beach, she allowed herself a quick look towards Castle, who was quite openly staring at her as he stood with his instructor at the edge of the water once again.

Good, she grinned, that had been her intention. Swimming around for a bit, Beckett cooled off before making her way slowly back to shore, swimming at first, until she reached shallower water, and standing up. Quickly checking her red two piece was still in place, Kate strode slowly back through the water dripping wet. Flicking her hair over one shoulder, she squeezed the excess water out and left her hair where it was, only grinning at Castle's shocked expression as she sauntered back up the beach.

That would teach him to flirt with his surf instructor in front of her.

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