Author's Note-And with this we say goodbye to this story. Thank you for joining me on this journey and helping me into the the Castle Fanfiction Writer's club :D I have appreciated every kind or constructive word, and have loved writing for you. Hope to see you all in one of my other stories soon. NYLF xx
Castle watched on with a proud smile as Alexis and Nevaeh dragged Kate towards the ocean. He could hear her protests from his spot on the grass where they sat the first time they were here. The girls' laughter at Kate's moaning made his heart glad.
He watched for a few more minutes, watching as Kate stubbornly stuck her heels into the sand, watched as his daughter and sister in law tried in vain to drag her along. He knew Kate would let her shoulders dislocate before allowing them to take her anywhere she didn't want to go. He shook his head at her obstinacy before setting down his drink and running to join his family.
Kate's screamed laughter, as he banded his arms around her hips and picked her up, brought out a besotted smile before he started marching after the girls towards the water.
"Rick! You put me down this instant, Mister." Kate demanded, although the bright smile bellied it just a little.
"Or what Kate, huh? What ya gonna do?" Castle taunted.
Kate pushed her head into the side of his. "I will make you sink with me."
Rick laughed, making her growl. He put her down and turned her, leaving his hands on her shoulders. "Kate, are you seriously worried you'll sink?"
Kate blushed and dropped his eye line. "Look at me, Rick." She murmured.
Castle couldn't help obliging her request. He first saw the insecurity scribbled across her beautiful features, then the glinting golden wedding band on her left ring finger, the tiny diamond, her insistence not his, on the ring above it, before his eyes landed squarely on her swollen stomach.
"You're beautiful Kate." He shrugged as if it was obvious. It was, apparently to everyone but her.
"I'm huge." She whispered.
Castle smiled before leaning down to kiss her. "You're six months pregnant Kate. You're beautiful. Besides, you don't even look pregnant from the back." He flicked her nose before slipping his hand in hers, his own skin and sun warmed wedding band comforting in her palm. "Come on."
"Come on Rick, hurry up!" Nevaeh called brightly, holding onto Alexis' back for dear life as the older girl jumped the waves. They had become fast friends over the years.
"We're coming." Rick assured them. "Kate had a wobble."
Kate gasped and brought the back of her hand in contact with his chest.
"Honestly Kate, you look stunning." Her stepdaughter told her truthfully. "If I look anything like you at six months pregnant I will be one happy lady." She hypothesised, chuckling at the sudden paleness of her father's face. "Hey, let us just get through the wedding before you start thinking grandkids, Mr I-may-have-a-daughter-in-her-mid-twenties-but-I'm- still-about-to-be-a-dad-again."
Kate chuckled. "Thank you Alexis. I just..."
"Have a hard time remembering you're the pretty one?" Nevaeh chimed in.
"Hey missus, you're gorgeous." Kate defended as she and Rick finally walked into the sun warmed water.
Nevaeh scoffed. "Yeah, alright then."
"Teenagers." Rick sighed dramatically. "What will we do with them?"
Navi poked her tongue out at him, jumping on his back and making him stumble before he took a deep breath and sank beneath the water, making his cling-on scream, thrashing to come back to the surface, laughing as soon as she did.
The Hamptons had been a tradition since that first summer Nevaeh had been in their lives.
The family came every year consistently.
Sometimes Martha and/or Jim would join them, more recently Alexis's fiancé Mark would tag along, when he wasn't travelling for a story-top journalist, her father was so proud.
Neither Rick nor Kate could wait until next year though.
Castle couldn't wait until he was less outnumbered, their son making it three on two rather than three on one and Kate couldn't wait to have a legitimate excuse to watch on from a sun lounger while her family played, her baby boy in her arm, Rick's newest book in hand.
Extending Heat by Richard Castle.
For my ever extending family, and my wife's ever extending waistline.
She may actually have to make good on her threat to shoot him.