They launch stones into the canyon until they're both panting, perspiring, and totally spent, arms aching with exhaustion.
"Okay, okay," the writer surrenders. "To 'throw like a girl' is a compliment. Not an insult."
"You bet your ass it's a compliment," she smirks.
He shoves his ranger hat off his head and it dangles on the cord around his neck as he unscrews his water bottle and dumps a half-liter over his sweat-matted hair. He groans in sweet relief and shakes his newly-damp hair like a dog after a bath, spraying her with a light shower of water droplets.
"Castle!" she squeals, running from him. "You're gonna get the camera wet."
"Sorry," he says with a breathless smile. "Can I have it?"
"No," she says, holding the Nikon protectively close to her chest.
"You need some pictures of yourself."
"I look disgusting."
"No," he argues, "You look radiant."
She stops in her tracks, the way he says it, with no leer or suggestion, stupefying her. He takes advantage of her momentary immobility to bind an arm around her waist and fluidly grab the camera strap, releasing it from the hook of her neck. It happens so fast, she barely registers his back against hers before he's already stepping away, her camera in hand, toting a triumphant grin.
He looks through the viewfinder at her, winds the dial, and snaps a photo. Of her, arms crossed, staring at him sternly.
"It wouldn't hurt to smile."
She flips him off instead.
Wind. Snap.
"Are you done?" she huffs out.
"Not even close," the writer says. He glances around at the other tourists milling about. "We have to get one together."
Before she can protest, he's engaging with a nearby couple who wear no-nonsense, stern expressions and he's miming movement between him and her. She overhears the man say something to his wife in a foreign language—something she recognizes.
What does this idiot want?
She stifles a laugh, and steps forward to intervene, replying in Russian, "The idiot wants a photograph."
The couple's eyes widen and the writer stares at her, his jaw dropping.
"Would you mind?" she asks the couple in their native tongue, taking the Nikon from a dumbfounded Castle and holding it out to them. She gestures at the couple's disposable Kodak camera. "We can take one of you, too."
The Russian couple nods, all smiles.
"We take," the woman replies in accented English, grabbing the Nikon.
"Spasibo," Kate says in thanks.
"Is it just me, or are you speaking Russian?" Castle asks, still in a stunned stupor.
She rolls her eyes.
"Do you want your damn picture or not?"
"Spaziblo!" Castle shouts proudly, waving at the Russian couple as they head back toward the Visitor's Center.
She snorts at his horrible pronunciation.
"What?"
"It's spah-see-boh," she says, enunciating it clearly.
"How do you know how to speak fluent Russian, anyhow?" he asks.
"High school summer program in Kiev, between junior and senior year," she reveals. And then, for some reason, she finds herself adopting a thick Russian accent to say, "Sometimes, when I am bored, I go to cafés in Little Odessa and pretend to be Muscovite."
He gapes at her. "That's the sexiest thing you've said yet."
She's in the middle of brandishing him with a withering glare when, without warning, she stumbles over a protrusion in the path, and she hits the pavement, hard, a loud cry leaving her lips.
"Fuck," Castle says, bending down and reaching for her. "You okay?"
She clenches her teeth as she gingerly touches her rapidly swelling ankle, inhaling sharply when red-hot pain blooms from the gentle press of her finger.
"Sprain?" he assesses. "I told you you should've gotten the hiking boots," he tsks.
"And I told you I didn't want to come in the first place," she lobs.
He sighs and offers himself as a perch as she tries to stand but she rebukes him.
"Just give me your stick."
He starts to open his mouth.
"Don't," she orders, on edge. She doesn't need anymore sexually-laden remarks from him. It's gotten her into enough trouble as it is.
He sobers his expression, watching solemnly as she hobbles ahead, her injured leg raised, the other jumping forward, her entire weight leaning heavily on his walking stick. It's a slow, arduous process and every hop sends harsh reverberations throughout her whole body.
"Kate," he says gently.
"What?" she snarls.
"You're gonna make it worse if you keep doing that. Let me carry you."
She halts her progress and whirls toward him.
"Let you carry me?"
"We can do piggyback. Whatever makes you comfortable," he says, and then, at her doubtful look. "I promise I'll behave. No inappropriate commentary."
"That almost sounds too good to be true. Sure you can handle it?"
He secures his hat back atop his head. "Ranger Rick is nothing, if not, a consummate professional."
Beads of sweat trail down her forehead, and her ankle throbs painfully.
"Fine," she says, relenting. "But no unwarranted touching, or your supervisor will be hearing from me."
He has the sense not to gloat and once she hands his stick back, he quickly moves in front of her, crouching slightly, so that she can easily wrap her arms around his neck. She takes a breath before sealing her chest against his spine as one of his hands scoops beneath her thighs, gently hoisting her up, so that her legs can wind around his waist with little problem.
It's a surprisingly seamless transition. And true to his word, he doesn't offer up any inappropriate commentary. In fact, he doesn't say anything at all during their trek back to the car, carrying her along like she weighs nothing. It freaks her out a little.
"Okay, I didn't say you had to stop talking entirely."
"You're a very demanding woman," he says with a small chuckle. "Telling me when to talk. When to shut up," he explains. "But just so you know, I'm totally into that."
She raises a hand to his ear and yanks.
"Ow, ow, ow," he cries out. "Apples, apples!"
She releases her hold from the soft, sensitive flesh. "Apples?"
"Safe word. For when things get a little too kink—"
The rest of his sentence is cut off by another sharp tug to his earlobe.
"God, why?" he yells.
"That was two inappropriate comments," she explains. "Break the rules. Suffer the consequences."
He rubs his ear mournfully. "Jeez, you have freakishly strong fingers."
"Can you just let me down already?" she hisses, unable to bear their proximity much longer, their press of their bodies against each other, becoming too much of a natural habit. One that she fully intends on breaking.
He obliges, lowering her and helping her to carefully dismount as he opens the passenger-side door. She's about to fall onto her seat when the writer stops her.
"Wait, wait, you need something to cover the leather, it's gonna be hot."
He looks around helplessly and ends up unbuttoning his shirt and laying it out. He steps away and she gets a full view of his broad chest, the swell of his biceps, and a hint of abs lining his lower torso.
Oh, fuck. He looks like a Grecian statue. Those biceps. She's been secretly admiring them this whole time, but now, up close and sheened in sweat, she's finding it hard not to openly stare. She rapidly redirects her gaze toward the seat.
"That, uh, has your sweat all over it," she says dumbly, vaguely gesturing at his button-up. Thankfully, he's too occupied with solving their dilemma, he doesn't notice her flustered state.
"Yeah, okay. I'll be right back. One minute."
He falls into a sprint, heading for the Visitor's Center, his skin glistening under the sun, while she tries to ignore the rapid pulse of her heart.
He returns minutes later with several towels, a first aid kit, ice packs, and some cold sandwiches. He lays one towel over the hot leather and folds another on the dashboard, so she can stretch out her leg and elevate her ankle properly. He adds a pack over the bloated skin once they maneuver her inside and she bites back a moan of relief at the cool touch.
"Is this okay?" he asks worriedly.
She nods. It's really sweet, the way he's taking care of her. It must be the heat getting to her, but she's too weak and tired to fight him.
"Thank you."
"Here's some Tylenol. Should help with the swelling."
"Okay, okay. Stop hovering. You've done enough."
"They say adding pressure is important. I can bandage it."
"And how do you know so much about treating sprains?"
"General Hospital."
She snorts.
"I'm good for now, but maybe later, okay?"
"You sure?"
"Yes!" She snatches a sandwich off him. "Now, can we please get the hell out of here?"
"I spy..." he hems, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, searching for a suitable clue to provide when a sign appears not too far ahead, a midnight blue sign with a picture of a rock hurtling toward the edge of the frame, surrounded by a ball of fire "...a meteorite?" he says, perking with interest.
Kate reads the giant text on the looming billboard: Experience the BEST Preserved Meteorite Impact Site on Earth! Exit 233, and a resigned sigh is already falling from her lips as his face alights with excitement, a pleading look in his eye.
"Absolutely not," she says, firmly. "We're way behind schedule."
"If we're already behind schedule, what's the harm?"
"Is this some sick plan of yours? To try and delay me and hold me hostage as long as you can?"
"You really think I'm harboring such nefarious intentions? That I'd keep you against your will?" he asks, taking genuine offense, his voice laced with hurt.
Shit. It's just...she's overheated and frustrated and confused. He's confusing her.
"No," she says, her tone beseeching. "Just don't want to make any more unnecessary stops. Make this day worse than it already is," she says, motioning toward her bruised and swollen ankle.
"Unnecessary? It's the best preserved meteorite impact site on Earth, Kate. On Earth. Of course it's necessary."
"You're just going to do what you want anyway," she mutters.
He sighs in his own resignation, before he sets his shoulders with a fierce fortitude, like a man with nothing to lose.
"What I want for you is to find joy in the little things. Because sometimes, that's what life's about. Believing in the silver lining. Believing that on the worst days, there's always a possibility for joy."
"And why would you want that?" she asks, her heart pounding, unsure of what she expects him to say, but his next words render her speechless.
"So you don't look so sad anymore."
God-fucking-damnit.
It's not his job, but Richard Castle keeps making it his personal mission to put a smile on her face, come hell or high water, and it's absolutely destroying her. She's not used to someone giving a damn about her. Or her happiness. Not lately.
He barely even knows her, and no matter how hard she tries to push him away, he's still trying to lift her spirits. So she caves. Gives into his request yet again.
At the crash site, the writer cheerily informs her that an asteroid collided with Earth fifty-thousand years ago at approximately twenty-six thousand miles per hour, leaving a crater more than one mile across and more than 550 feet deep.
"Kind of looks like how my heart feels," he remarks, suddenly morose, standing just outside the ginormous dent punched into the dirt and gravel.
It was pretty cool, actually. Kind of looked like a giant had come along and scooped a large spoon of rocky road ice cream right out of the desert valley floor.
Castle would probably like her analogy. She can imagine the crooked curl of his lips and the soft awe in his gaze if she were to speak it aloud, but she's too much of a coward, too afraid to believe in the silver lining…the possibility of joy. Because if she starts believing in things like that, she might have hope. That rare and magical kind of hope. And that was a dangerous thing.
He was dangerous—a threat to her carefully constructed walls, meant to keep people out.
She lifts her camera. The dial whirs. The lens snaps.
"Did you just take a picture of me?" he asks. "While I'm pontificating about my misery?"
She's still in the car, parked a few feet away, content to view from afar in the safety of the vehicle, where she can't be subject to further bodily injury. Her side of the compromise. And he promised they only had to stay for five minutes. Tops.
"Weren't you saying all great writers should have a brooding portrait?"
"You have been listening," he says, "I'm touched."
"Yeah, touched in the head, Mr. Chatterbox."
"I prefer the term raconteur."
"When you tell a story in an amusing way, I'll let you know."
"What if I were to fall in right now? Bet you'd think that's amusing, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yeah," she says, muffling a laugh. "That'd bring me a lot of joy."
He doesn't mean to keep delaying them. Not intentionally. But he is glad for any excuse to spend more time with her.
By the time they leave the meteor crater, it's late afternoon and they still have over 350 miles left on the road (about six hours, Kate informs him wanly). He offers to drive through the night, so they'll be in Santa Fe before morning, but she's not a fan of the idea. More than anything, she just wants a shower and a place to lie down. And he'll give her anything she wants, already way too invested in the ember smoldering between them. They both agree to drive as far as they can until it gets dark and find a place to stay for the night.
She calculates they'll end up in Gallup, a town a few hours outside of Santa Fe. She even selects the El Rancho Hotel from his travel guide, a place she thinks he'll like because it claims to have housed movie stars throughout the 1930s and 40s when they filmed Westerns in the area.
When he teases her about knowing what he might like, she quickly snipes back with some quip about him being a man-child, but she has a difficult time hiding the blush in her cheeks. Oh, yeah. She's totally warming up to him.
She's napping now, pretty socked out. It's been a long day. But every moment of it has been exciting and unexpected for him. Every reaction, every expression, every movement giving him new insight to the mystery of her, the pages of his Moleskine calling for the attention of his pen.
He glances at her sleeping form, noticing the ridge of her brow is pinched together, like she's having a bad thought and he wonders again who she lost. Must've been someone really close from the way she shuts down every time he tries to broach the subject. Someone she deeply loved. Hmm, maybe a romantic partner? A high school boyfriend, perhaps. No, wait…a childhood sweetheart-turned-fiancé. Yes. That's it.
Well, he doesn't know for sure. But his imagination runs wild, June Winter's tragic history unfolding with perfect clarity in his mind's eye…
June is a bright and determined young woman in her first year of med at UCLA, about to marry the boy-next-door when, on the morning of their wedding, he's found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his suicide note claiming he couldn't go on because he slept with a stranger at his bachelor party and he gambled away their life savings.
But June knows her John would never do any of those things. He would never cheat on her. Would never put their future at stake like that. And he certainly would never leave her. Not by his own hand. Not like that.
Someone else did this to him.
But no one believes her. Thinking she's grasping for straws, too blinded by her grief. But she knows, deep down, that she's right. She just needs to find proof. One day, she'll find proof.
So instead of becoming a doctor who saves lives, she decides to become the kind of doctor who honors the dead, the one who helps tell their stories after they're gone. She becomes June Winter, M.E.
Her days are spent haunting the halls of the LA county morgue, while her nights are consumed by shots of tequila and the lustful embrace of a stranger's touch.
Everything changes the morning she wakes up to find Chase Knight, the charming true crime reporter from New York who was her warm body for the evening, snooping around her apartment. When she confronts him, he reveals that he knows about John. And that he believes her.
He believes her because his fianceé died the same way.
And he thinks someone else did it, too.
He's loathe to wake her, but he gently nudges her as they arrive in Gallup, just as the sun is setting. She stirs and thankfully, doesn't have the urge to maim him. Instead, she's in quiet awe as they roll down the main street of the small town, lined with mom-and-pop shops covered by vintage-style awnings and signs that light up in neon, a dazzling spectrum of oranges, purples, and blues.
He parks in front of the El Rancho Hotel and comes around to the passenger side to check on her ankle. Despite her protestations that she's fine, he manages to bully her into applying a salve and convinces her to let him wrap her up in gauze.
"It's just a mild sprain. There's no need for all this fuss," she argues.
"Think you can walk on it?"
She tests her weight on it, a look of satisfaction blossoming when she's able to stand upright with only a slight wince.
"See? Mild."
They end up with adjacent rooms again. Not only that, there's a connector door between them and they share a balcony.
"Fate," Castle sing-songs through the connector doorway.
"You specifically requested this. I was there," she says with a laugh, heaving her saddle bag onto her bed.
"But you didn't stop me," he contends.
"Only because it was a package deal. I'm not going to say no to a discount."
"Okay, then...the discount was fate."
"You really do believe that, don't you?" she says, quirking her gaze at him.
"I'm a man of conviction."
Her tongue pokes into her cheek, a bit-back laugh.
"More like a man of delusion."
"But you do agree that I'm a man?"
That earns him a sardonic glare and then, she's swinging the connector door shut in his face.
"Are you ordering the pizza or am I?" he shouts through the wood, grinning.
He calls down to the front desk to put in their order, and as he unpacks a few things from his duffle, his cell rings. He flips open his Motorola StarTAC (he chose the brand because they were inspired by the Star Trek communicators, and it was the world's first clamshell handset).
"Hello, Mother," he chirps. "Greetings from Gallup, New Mexico!"
"New Mexico? What are you doing in New Mexico? Aren't you and Kyra supposed to be in LA, celebrating your engagement?"
"About that…"
He tells her about Grand Central Station, his night in Hollywood, and deciding to take the long way home in his new ride.
"Oh, Richard. I'm so sorry, darling. But are you sure it's the best idea to travel alone in your state?"
"About that…I'm not alone."
He tells her all about Kate, his new muse.
"You sound smitten," his mother assesses.
"It's pure curiosity," he protests.
A knowing sigh from her. "Be careful, kiddo. I simply don't want you getting hurt again."
"Relax, Mother. It's not like that. We're just friends. And I finally have a new book idea."
"That's wonderful to hear. Speaking of, your publisher reached out to me. They know you're on vacation, but you're weeks behind on the outline you owe them. Thought I could give you a gentle nudge."
"Tell 'em it'll be in their inbox within the hour."
They chat for a few more minutes, his mother regaling him with tales of her latest shenanigans and her new piano-player boyfriend with the exceptionally long fingers.
"And that's enough for me," he says, hanging up with a goodbye and a grimace. He shudders slightly and then picks up the hotel phone again.
"Do you have a business center?" The concierge replies in the affirmative. "Excellent. How fast is your dial-up?"
"You did what?"
"We put a cow on the roof of the school."
"Okay, I take it back. You were a little bit of a rebel."
"A little bit? My principal said he wished I'd never been born. Probably why he expelled me the first chance he could. Which sucked, because I couldn't go to prom. And my date was unbelievably hot."
She resists the urge to roll her eyes. They're both freshly showered and dressed casually in sweatpants and soft-cotton shirts (hers, a Blink-182 tee and his, sporting the Batman logo), lounging in vintage rocking chairs with big, puffy cushions, a pizza box and a bottle of wine open between them on their shared balcony. Her left ankle is strewn on a footstool in front of her, encased in a proper brace the writer retrieved from a nearby pharmacy, the swelling considerably reduced and the once-red bruise mottled into a purplish-green, well on its way to healing.
The few hours apart had been a nice breather. A chance to recharge and reconcile the anarchy staging protest within her, the authority of her grief being challenged by an upstart writer with an indefatigable optimism. She'd spent the last six months in anger and despair, making reckless decisions, not caring if she hurt herself or anyone else. More recently, she'd tried hard not to feel anything at all. She'd been numb, practically paralyzed, but now...now, despite her best efforts to crawl inside her mother's death and hide there, deep down in the rabbit hole of darkness, someone is trying to pull her out into the light. She just doesn't know if it's enough. What if she drags him down with her instead?
The writer pours more wine into his plastic cup, and she takes another bite of her cheese slice.
"I bet you were a riot. Coolest girl in school. Probably didn't even go to prom. Too conventional, right?" he guesses.
Her mouth cracks slightly into a grin.
"Went to a poetry slam in the East Village instead."
"A woman who appreciates the spoken word. Respect."
There's a nice, quiet lull. He checks out their view of the lit-up desert town. She sips from her wine, peeking at him over the lip of her cup. Yesterday, she was a lone wolf, trying to lick her own wounds. And now, she's crossing state lines with this...impish and silver-tongued romantic who's weaseled under her skin without her permission.
"Staring is creepy, you know," he says, a smile in his voice.
Caught, her face burns.
"Don't flatter yourself. I'm just thinking how best to dispose of your body when I inevitably strangle you."
"Oh, well, there's a twist. You've been the serial killer all along. Is that the deep, dark secret you've been keeping?" he asks, rocking in his chair.
"You should sleep with one eye open tonight."
"You gonna sneak in?" He arcs his brow. "Sure you're not trying to get into my pants?"
She scoff-laughs. "You're incorrigible."
"Just a guy who enjoys the company of a dynamic woman. Potential killer tendencies, notwithstanding."
"Stop that."
"What?"
"Showering me with all your pretty adjectives. It's ludicrous."
"Only if you stop saying things like incorrigible and ludicrous. You know what a robust vocabulary does to me."
"You make it harder to insult you when you say nice things."
"Here's a thought…why don't you stop insulting me?"
"How else am I supposed to curtail your cretinous innuendo?"
"Oh, you're an evil, evil woman."
"Must be my killer tendencies."
He laughs, rich and verbose, and she finds herself giggling—honest to God giggling—as an unfamiliar warmth kindles in her chest.
He brings out the portable radio from his room and starts fidgeting with the dial. A few minutes go by with a constant stream of crackle and blip noises, the writer unable to decide on a station. She shoves his hand away.
"Let me do it." A few turns of the dial later, a familiar lilting voice dances from the speaker. She leans back in her chair, closing her eyes. "I love Joni Mitchell."
"Kyra liked her, too."
Her eyes fly open.
"Oh...um, I can change it."
"No, it's okay. Ms. Mitchell is the master of articulating pain. She also changed her given name, you know? I feel a kinship with her. It's like she knows exactly what I'm feeling. What better way to heal?"
Both Sides Nows croons from the radio. They listen in quiet content.
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
"This one's one of her favorite's," he says, lost in thought, "We used to sneak off to this rooftop where I would write and she would pretend to study. Her parents never approved. Thought I had too many romantic notions and wasn't practical enough. Predicted I'd end up a starving artist. When my book got published, they still didn't think much of it. Said I was no Patterson or King."
Moons and Junes and Ferris Wheels
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
"That must've been hard…never being good enough for them. Do you think that's one of the reasons she pushed you away?" she asks.
"She didn't think much of their opinion. Didn't matter to her because she loved me and I loved her."
I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
"Why didn't you go after her?" Kate asks.
A brief pause from him. "To be honest, I think we'd been drifting apart ever since my book got published. Proposing was my way of showing her that all the new attention didn't matter to me. That I hadn't changed. And I just needed her," he confesses quietly. "But I guess she didn't need me." He shrugs, and her heart aches for him, feeling his sorrow; understanding his loneliness. "I also didn't want to be the reason she didn't go after her dream. Not after she helped me achieve mine," he explains. With a sigh, "I just can't believe she blindsided me like that. We could've talked…maybe figured something out."
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all
"Does that make her the one who got away?"
"Dunno. She didn't stay when things got difficult. What we had wasn't enough, I guess…" He stares off into the distance. "I just wish that I had someone who would be there for me, and I could be there for her, and we could just dive into it together."
The song fades away, and their rocking chairs creak slowly, something in the air shifting, something—
"It's late. I think I'm gonna turn in," she says, cutting the moment short.
He frowns.
"You're going to leave me all alone? You know I have abandonment issues."
She rises from her seat with a short laugh.
"And co-dependency issues."
"You really know how to kick a guy when he's down."
"It's getting cold," she counters, rubbing her goose-fleshed arms.
"We could go inside. Find something on TV. I can take the comfy chair if you want to sit on my bed."
"Oh, I'm sure you'd like me in your bed, wouldn't you?" she says, eyes expanding right as the words escape from her mouth. Fuck. She hadn't meant for it to sound so...come-hither…or maybe she had? The wine is making her tongue loose and bolder than usual. God, what was happening? Did she want…?
"Only if that's where you'd like to be," he says neutrally, his eyes holding hers, amusement and a thread of something else, something very much like arousal, flaring in the ocean of blue. "The pillows are very comfy."
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
No. She can't. She won't. It's not right.
He's grieving a relationship. And she's...she's just grieving. It would make things awkward. And she still has to sit in the car with him in the morning. She can't slink away in the middle of the night like she's done in the past with her other conquests.
Besides.
She doesn't think Richard Castle would be just another conquest.
"Dream on, Writer Boy. I'll take the chair," she says, "And I'm in charge of the remote."
xxx
A/N: Thank you to the guest reviewer who mentioned the Meteor Crater landmark! I missed this tourist attraction in my initial research, so I'm glad you brought it to my attention. While most of these chapters have been written in advance, I'm always editing and moving parts around if inspiration strikes, so I appreciate any and all input.
Reviews are the best writer's fuel, so let me know what you think!