Chapter 1
If only he hadn't listened to Gina and Paula. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be sitting here, signing books, dressed in a Santa Claus coat and hat. He'd absolutely forbidden them even to suggest the red pants. His love of theatre, dressing up, celebrations and general joyfulness didn't include looking like a clown. Santa should be fat and jolly, and while he was happy to be jolly, he wasn't going to look like a chubby tomato. They'd just have to be content with his muscular chest and rugged handsomeness. After all, Paula had told him – and everyone who read his PR, which was everyone – that he was ruggedly handsome, so he might as well believe it.
He looked up from the next signature, and concealed his sigh at the length of the line. He'd be here till the store closed, which might be great for his bank balance but wouldn't let him go find some more presents for his mother and Alexis. He'd much rather be shopping for gifts: even if the pile under the tree was immense already, a few more wouldn't hurt. He scrawled his signature and a few hackneyed words across the page, smiled at the woman – the line was ninety per cent women, and he'd bet that the few men were buying the signed book for women – and moved on.
And on. And on. Interminably on.
Finally, six o'clock approaching, Castle looked up to see – at last! – the end of the line. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, there was a fuss at the door as someone raced in, just before the cut-off time. He sighed. He could really have done without even one more person. He pasted his celebrity signing smile back on to his tired face, and picked up his pen once more.
His mouth dropped open as the last woman didn't put her book down in front of him, but burst into laughter.
"Beckett?" he said, befuddled. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I was going to get my book signed, but now I think I walked into the comedy show at the Christmas display at Macy's." Her words were barely intelligible through her laughter, though Castle thought that he detected a discordant edge to it. She plumped down on the edge of the table. "Santa Castle. Bringing gifts to all your devoted fans."
"Clearly you're one of them, since you're buying a book and you want me to sign it," Castle pointed out.
"This is a present for someone else." Beckett quelled his enthusiasm instantly.
"You mean you've already bought your copy?"
"Why would I do that?"
"You're a fan," Castle said smugly. "I've known that for months. Of course you've gotten a copy." Suddenly, he smirked. "I'd have given you one, if you'd asked."
"You're not Santa, I don't need to receive gifts from you, and anyway Santa isn't real," Beckett said. "He's just as fake as all the rest of Christmas-time."
Castle clasped his hands theatrically over his heart. "Of course he's real!" he proclaimed. "See, he even lent me his hat and coat."
Beckett blew a raspberry. "Are you going to sign this book or not?" she demanded. "I want to go home. You might like hanging out in bookstores after hours, but I bet the staff don't."
"I'll happily hang out in any store with you," Castle oozed, and signed before her scowl could ignite the book, table, and his head.
"Are you quite finished, Rick?" Gina snapped. "Detective Beckett has a point. We're done, and the store staff want to clean up."
"Okay." He noticed Beckett whisking out of the store, considered following her, and then considered that it would be far more fun to go around and tease her later. He stood, made exceedingly brief farewells, and departed, quite deliberately keeping the hat and coat. He could feel Gina's eyes burning holes in his back, but he'd managed to ignore that for all of their acquaintanceship and he wasn't going to pay it any attention now.
Some half an hour later, Castle found that his feet had carried him to the New York Public Library. They did that to him fairly frequently, especially when he wasn't concentrating. However, and most unusually, he didn't want to go in. In fact, he thought, spotting a swirl of Christmas-flavoured stalls, he wanted to amble around the Christmas market in Bryant Park, and…
And purchase some silly gifts for Beckett, who could use a heap more silliness in her life. Even that would only bring her around halfway to joyful, but he was working on that. He grinned affectionately. Beckett might be as prickly as a porcupine and as armoured as an armadillo, but he'd wormed his way into her affections anyway.
Ho-hum. Not ho-ho-ho. Affections might be a little overstating the case. But she wasn't threatening him with mutilation or murder every moment any more, so, yeah, affections.
He looked happily around him. Christmas cheer was everywhere. He bought an eggnog, and wandered around, ensuring that he checked out every single stall. He'd investigate them all, and then wander around again, buying his heap of silly gifts. If the stallholders wouldn't wrap them, then he'd go home, wrap them himself with a ridiculous number of ribbons and rosettes, and then take the whole pile to Beckett's apartment – oh, ooh! – in a Santa sack.
Santa was going to be real, and he was going to visit Beckett. Okay. Change of plan, Castle. Visit Beckett late this evening. Oh, yes. He hummed Santa Claus is Coming to Town, bubbling over with happiness and joy. He'd take hard eggnog, or maybe mulled wine? Or should it be punch? Chocolate. Definitely chocolate, and, um – oh, those silly British things. Mince pies, that was it. He was sure he'd be able to find some. And a stocking for her. She needed to have a stocking, for Christmas morning. And some more baubles for her tree. She was bound to have a tree, and in Castle's Christmas-addled mind, nothing succeeded like excessive decoration. Oh, and tinsel. More tinsel. He'd even put some on her precinct chair. He'd noticed that there wasn't any, which was a shame. Everyone else had tinsel.
Castle bounced around the market stalls, higher than Tigger on uppers, happily and lavishly spending. Everywhere he went, he left stallholders delightedly richer, and with every gift he bought, his happiness grew.
It never occurred to him that Beckett's was the only desk and chair in the bullpen without a shred of decoration; that she hadn't once discussed Christmas, gift-giving, celebrations or, indeed, anything to do with the season, and that she'd done even more overtime than usual; washed through with enough coffee to kill an elephant. Castle's delight in Christmas had led to his Beckett-observing being conducted through rose (or tinsel) coloured spectacles.
Beckett had fled home with her signed book, which was indeed a present – for Lanie, who'd never read a crime novel in her entire life, but who'd been more than usually persistent and irritating on the subject of Beckett's private life. Private. Not that Lanie recognised privacy or boundaries when it came to Beckett. She had taken Advent to mean that she could provide twenty-four days of increasingly lascivious suggestions for Beckett to undertake with Castle. Beckett had tried to hide, but Lanie's power to find her, no matter where she was, made it quite likely that she had put a tracker on Beckett. An inch-by-inch search of her outerwear had failed to find it, but Beckett was quite sure that it was there.
She humphed. Lanie's lubricious commentary wasn't doing anything to convert her, Beckett, from her strongly held belief that the Grinch had had the right idea. Finding a lonely cave on a hillside without cell service or transport links and staying in it until January 10th – would be perfect. If it wasn't for her dad, she'd have booked vacation and gone to…Timbuktu. Where there would be no annoying MEs and no irritatingly jolly writers. Jolly was considerably over-rated.
Sexy isn't, a little worm in her brain said. She thought about freezing it, and then deep-froze it instead. It nibbled its way out of the ice-block. You'll be needing the ice. I wouldn't waste it on me. Save it for your dreams. Beckett growled, and returned to plotting her revenge on Lanie, starting with giving her that present. If she was that keen on Castle, she could have him.
You don't mean that. Do so. Do not. You'd shoot her and throw the corpse in the Hudson if Lanie made a single move on Castle. Wouldn't, Beckett grumped. You so would. Lanie knows it, too. Otherwise she'd have jumped him right off the bat. She can have him. Liar. Since ice hadn't worked, Beckett took a mental flamethrower to the worm. It drank it down, and spat it back out, with pretty coloured sparks. Vodka seemed to be indicated.
She poured herself a small drink, against her inclination to make it an enormous drink, and sat down, regarding her undecorated apartment with satisfaction. On her table, Lanie's present – unwrapped, because Beckett certainly wasn't going to waste her money on wrapping paper for her thoroughly undeserving sometime-but-not-now friend – and her father's present, beautifully and tastefully wrapped, sat undisturbed by any hint of Christmas cheer. Her fridge contained pizza, which had no hint of turkey, ham, or any other Christmas meat; and ice cream. Coffee flavoured, naturally.
Christmas, Beckett thought firmly, was humbug; merely a punctuation point in the rhythm of the year. It had no true historical grounding: it was merely an annexation of a much older festival. It encouraged over-consumption, bratty behaviour, and unpleasantness – not to mention the migraine-inducing properties of tinsel, twinkling lights, or shining stars; the ridiculousness of all known Hallmark Christmas movies; and the instantly disprovable but nevertheless persistent concept of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, who were – at least those whom she arrested – most certainly not merry or indeed gentlemen.
Castle's merry. Yeah, another good reason not to like his company. Liar, the brainworm said again. Beckett strangled it with some imaginary tinsel, since she didn't have any real tinsel. The worm turned it into a bow tie, and bowed. Beckett had another gulp of vodka, and ate some ice cream, which soothed her temper. The brainworm wriggled back into its home in the recesses of Beckett's subconsciousness.
A little while later, vodka and ice cream had restored Beckett to serene indifference to the season. She found a non-Christmas TV show, and a non-seasonal book, and curled up on her couch; perfectly happy. Christmas made no difference to her life whatsoever, and could reasonably be ignored.
A knock on her door, sadly, could not be ignored; especially as she knew exactly who it was, and that he would keep knocking until she had to answer. Or shoot, which was almost as desirable, but had unfortunate consequences. She might not like Christmas-tide, but she'd like a women's correctional facility a whole lot less. Already irritated, she heaved herself up from her lovely comfy couch to open the door.
Immediately, she wished she hadn't. That's another lie, remarked the brainworm. Many more lies like that and you won't be able to fit your nose in this apartment. If only brainworms had noses, Beckett would have tweaked it till the blasted worm squealed.
Castle was wearing the ridiculous Santa hat and coat. She did not want any reminders of Christmas in her absolutely Christmas free apartment, thank you very much.
"Yes?" she said disagreeably. "I didn't invite Santa."
"He hasn't arrived." Beckett looked him up and down with considerable disfavour. The hat bent rakishly over his left ear, which turned her disfavour to something that looked a lot like outright dislike. "I've come as a substitute."
"This is a Christmas-free zone. Go away."
"Nope," Castle said cheerfully, and pushed in, hauling the sack with him.
"What do you mean, No?"
He means no, the brainworm said. It's not a long word, or hard to understand, unless you had a lot more vodka than I thought you did. Shut up. I don't want Christmas. Oh? No. You might not want Christmas, but you want this Santa-substitute. It's as fake as he is. Don't give me that bullshit. You do so want him – maybe without the Santa coat or indeed any of the rest of what he's wearing. Beckett suffocated the worm with a Santa hat. It popped back up wearing it jauntily, with a smug smirk.
"Can't I get a coffee?" he asked pathetically.
Beckett regarded him with entirely justified suspicion, and was just about to answer when her eye fell on the sack. "What is that?" she demanded.
"A sack."
She glared at the sack, which, from the protrusions, lumps and bumps, was evidently full of things. Things should not be in sacks on her tidy floor.
"Don't you want to know what's in it?" Castle said provocatively. "And while you're considering, please may I have that coffee? I'm cold."
Beckett, rather sulkily, turned for the kitchen, which had been precisely the result for which Castle had hoped. He whisked to the couch, and concealed the sack behind one end, where Beckett wouldn't spot it, then whipped off the hat and coat and meandered to the kitchen to join her.
"Thank you." He wrapped broad hands around the mug to warm them – he hadn't thought about gloves, so his fingers were numb – and took a sip. "You always have great coffee."
Beckett's spiky irritation softened at the compliment. "I like coffee."
Castle manfully didn't say you're addicted to coffee and the only reason you don't take it intravenously is that the IV pole would get in the way of catching criminals. Now there was a thought. Surely in his collection of guys-he-knows he could find someone who could invent a small caffeine pump, like an insulin pump? One that could be strapped to Beckett's body or live in her pocket or… He realised that he'd drifted into a pool of insanity, and resurfaced. "I know," he said, and by dint of biting his tongue hard, didn't add anything unfortunate.
Beckett took her half-gallon mug of coffee to the couch, and tucked her toes under her where they'd stay cosy. Shortly, she became aware that Castle was scrutinising her. "Has my hair turned green?" she snarked. "Or have I developed blue spots?"
"No. I'm just searching for something."
"What?" Beckett enquired, which on balance was a mistake.
"An iota of Christmas spirit, though by the looks of that glass you've drunk it."
Beckett raised the deadly left eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?" she said with icy dignity.
"Well, if you had a drink, can I get a drink too?" Castle smirked. "I don't think it's fair if you get a drink and I don't."
She glared. Castle activated his first brilliant idea, as planned earlier, and held up a finger. "But I don't like vodka," he continued, "so isn't it lucky that I brought something else?" He rummaged in the sack, and pulled out a bottle of mulled wine. "See?" He tossed back his coffee and bounced up. "Have you a pan to heat it up?" He didn't wait for an answer, but boinged, Tigger-like, to the kitchen and opened each cupboard till he found a suitable pan, popped it on the stove top, poured the liquid in, and switched on.
About that point Beckett recovered her brain. "What are you doing?" she screeched.
"Heating up the mulled wine," he said happily. "Have you any spices? We could add more cinnamon and nutmeg." He stared around, and then started investigating more cupboards. "Aha! Here we are." He pulled out both, rummaged for a second and found cloves, and added all of them liberally as Beckett failed to find words, resorting to inarticulate noises of absolute horror. "There. It'll only take a minute or two and then we'll have something nice to drink."
Beckett's inarticulate noises resolved into profanity, culminating in "What the hell?"
"I told you. Mulled wine. Hot, spicy, and delicious. Just like me." He grinned rakishly. It was obvious that he was thinking something naughty. Beckett, who had a well disciplined mind that was under full control at all times, squashed any naughty thoughts, and scowled. It made no difference at all to Castle's wicked grin.
Yep, said the ill-disciplined brainworm salaciously. He sure is. You should sample him. Shut up, Beckett thought at it. It had no effect at all either.
Meanwhile, Castle found a couple of large wine glasses, examined them, found them to be satisfactory, and put them on the counter. He stirred the mulled wine, put it back on the heat, and returned to the couch. "What's up?" he asked.
"I don't like mulled wine," Beckett fibbed.
"I know you do." He smirked offensively. "You were drinking it a week ago."
Beckett humphed.
He caught you out. Shut the hell up. He could arrest you. Those handcuffs under your bed… Shut up! The brainworm smirked evilly.
"See, you do like it. You're just being contrary. Or ornery." He pouted plaintively. "I know you like mulled wine. You're just being mean and nasty."
Beckett regarded the plaintive pout and locked the lid of the box in which she kept all sympathetic impulses. The small drops of sympathy leaking out could safely be ignored.
Unfortunately the small drops of sympathy were being collected by the brainworm, bearing a bucket, and poured over Beckett's brain, drowning her normal cynicism.
"Oh, okay. I'll have some."
"You could have some what?"
"Mulled wine." Castle waited. Beckett scowled. "Please."
Castle produced a deeply disappointed look. "I was hoping you'd say you could have me."
Beckett's scowl reached galaxy-destroying intensity. Castle ambled off to pour the mulled wine, and brought it back. It smelled nice.
It smells delicious. You're a worm. You can't smell. Can so. That smells almost as good to you as his cologne does.
She ignored the worm, which had no business wiggling itself into her brain and making ridiculous (they're true) comments, and sipped the mulled wine, cautiously so as not to burn her tongue.
If you burnt your tongue, he could kiss it better. Shut up.
Incautiously, she took a large gulp of scaldingly hot mulled wine, and emitted a loud Ow!. It was all the damn brainworm's fault, she decided.
"Are you okay? It's hot."
"Yes, Castle, I know it's hot. That's why my mouth is burnt."
"Give it a chance to cool down." He smiled gently. "I don't want you to get hurt." The smile turned naughty. "Though I could kiss you better."
"Nope."
"Awww. You'd like it. Castle kisses, guaranteed to cure all ills, bumps, bruises and unhappinesses."
Beckett harrumphed, and then thought of something else. "Why are you here?"
"Ah, Beckett, why are any of us here? The universe has a purpose for each and every being under the sun, so there must be a reason" –
Beckett made a slashing motion with her hand, and Castle, recognising the imminent danger, stopped talking. "No metaphysics. No crazy theorising" –
"But" –
"No." The tone could have stopped the world spinning. "Why are you, Richard Castle, present in my apartment right now?"
Castle pouted again. Beckett hadn't left him any wiggle room at all. "I missed your shiny happy Christmas spirit," he tried. The glare melted granite. "I missed you," he said soulfully.
"You have turned up here with a sack," she said, pinpoint-precise. "Why?"
Extremely belatedly (because inspiration was hard to find) I present a two-chapter Christmas story: tonight and Thursday 4th. Apologies for the delay.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I wish you all a very happy, healthy and wealthy New Year in 2024. As we say in my home country: Lang may yer lum reek!
Courtesy of FF's many issues with alerts late last year, some of you might have missed my Hallowe'en story: Familiarity. I urge you to read that (and review if you feel so inclined: all reviews are answered if you are not a guest and accept PMs). Alerts appear to be working, though I had to change my dot co dot UK account to a dot com account to start getting them.
And in my usual plea, if you like my Caskett stories and haven't yet tried my original novels, do go and find them on all Amazons everywhere: on Kindle, in paperback, and FREE on Kindle Unlimited; under SR Garrae: the Casey & Carval series, starting with Death in Focus. There are six of them now, and I'm writing the seventh, slowly.