Time to put a bow on this story
A Christmas Present to my readers
I want to wish for Peace to the entire world
EPILOGUE
Kate returns home to find her husband still looking at his laptop "How's it going?"
"Just finishing up"
"Great. You want to go to town and grab a bite of late lunch?" she leans over his shoulder
"Yeah. Give me a minute. I will change and we can go"
"I'll be waiting" she steps back out and rushes to the bedroom to change herself so he will not see what she picked up at Karen's.
Moments later he comes into the bedroom she is already in the car waiting for him. He is so mentally distracted from the rewrite he had to do that he does not notice she is wearing a long coat.
As they pull out of the driveway he is silent. When they get on the highway he finally speaks "When were you going to tell me about the fed's offer?"
Surprised, she looks across the seat. She reaches over to take his hand, wrapping her fingers into his "Actually, I was never going to mention it"
This causes him to give her a questioning look "Why?"
"Because it is a non-issue" she squeezes his fingers tighter. "There is no way that I would even consider that. Not now. Not with what I have now"
"Now?" he asks honestly not understanding her response
"I have more here than I could ever achieve there. I would be stepping down to take that job and not up"
She watches the joy on his face at her answer
"Really?"
She smiles across the seat at her husband "Yes. Really"
His happiness is expressed all over his face now.
After a few minutes Kate has tells her husband that she thinks that she might have left something in the tower at the lighthouse and wants Castle to drive her up there to get it.
Being it is on their way to the restaurant, he agrees to go there first
As they pull up to the lot, Kate tells Castle to just wait in the car and she will be right back down
He refuses to allow his wife to go in the dark spooky tower alone "We still have not found the ghost that is haunting the tower. All the kids say that they had not been up there in days"
"CASTLE. There are NO ghosts, but if you really want to come up then let's get going"
The couple go into the door of the lighthouse just as the sun is beginning to set giving the inside an eerie orange glow
As they stop finally at the top level Rick looks around "What is it you needed to do up here?"
Kate turns around and removes her long coat revealing a very, very short brightly colored micro-dress with knee boots to match. The outfit is identical to the wildly colored costumes worn by the character, Daphne Blake, in the Scooby-Doo cartoon series "I got to thinking about next Halloween and what I might wear as a costume from Scooby doo"
Castle is silent
"What were you saying about me not being Velma but that I am Daphne? Long legs…short skirt. Are these the legs and is this skirt what you had in mind?"
Kate is not positive if her husband is still breathing. His eyes dropped down to her legs and never moved again
"Are you OK?"
"OK? UH…yeah…I am…OK…I…"
"Speak up Mr. Castle. Tell me what it is that you have on your mind"
He stands unmoving and looking dumbfounded
She takes a short step toward her husband. "If memory serves me right we had come up here earlier and we were planning on doing something but we were interrupted. When we thought we were ALONE the last time we were up here but found a dead body instead"
No more words are spoken as Rick crosses the short distance between him and his wife and wraps himself around her.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
It is just after dark when the two finally emerge from the building to get back into the car. They both had to stop several times coming down the stairs to regain their composure
Once in the car and getting the engine started, Kate looks over at Rick with so much love in her eyes and his toward hers as well. Basking in the afterglow of what just happened and neither ready to begin the trip to dinner just yet
"So Mr. Castle. I still have it?" she asks
"Never lost it" Rick responds
A moment of silence is followed by his next statement "How do we keep being this way together?"
"You keep doing things for me" she responds
"And you continue to do things to throw me off guard and distract me…like what you just did"
Silence is brief "And what did I do to justify having you as my wife? And what did I do lately that pleased you so much?"
Her gentle smile lights the space "You supported me in whatever decision I made about my job"
"Speaking of that…what have you decided?"
A larger smile crosses her face. "After all the nice things that were said about me by Fallon and Joy and the park chief, I think I need to continue to keep you off guard as much as I can, so to do that I need to stay in law enforcement"
Castle reaches across the seat and takes her hand "If that is what you really want to do"
"That way I can bring you interesting cases for us to theorize over…at home…in bed"
"I like that idea" Castle puts the car in gear and pulls out to leave when he hears his wife's voice loudly scream
"CASTLE…WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"What? No I haven't DONE…no I…I have not done anything. Why?"
Kate points toward the top of the lighthouse
There is a green/blue glow coming from the top level "Did you put that up there to announce to the entire world what we just did?"
Rick has a shocked look on his face "I would never do that. As much as I would love to, I am not about to tell the entire world that I just had amazing sex with my wife"
As the two are watching, the glow begins to spin around inside the glass dome of the tower running faster and faster, then, with a pop…Vanishes"
Their eyes lower to look at each other and in unison they both speak "I ain't afraid of no ghost"
Finis
Thanks to all who have read the junk I write. It is my desire that these tales of fiction have brought a little laughter to your lives
So
Until ...
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