WORTH WORKING FOR
CHAPTER SIX
She's read enough Page Six articles and gossip magazines to know that Rick is known for his annual Halloween party. Every year, he rents out a warehouse or hotel ballroom and goes all out, decorating to a different theme every year, hiring a band, and being the life of the party until the early hours of the morning.
It's always held on the Saturday before the holiday, so she's surprised when he asks her to come over to his apartment when the party would usually be taking place.
Judging by what she's read about his parties, too, she'd expected to see lavish decorations on his door. Instead, all she sees are some fake leaves and string around the doorframe, making it look like cobwebs.
Aside from the shameless flirting the night they met, and confidence in bed that can only come from a fair amount of experience, the Rick Castle from the tabloids is nowhere to be found.
The door opens a few seconds after she knocks, and the man in question grins and steps aside to let her enter.
"Hey," he greets her, helping her out of her coat.
She lifts the bottle of wine in her hand. "Here, I brought this for you. Hopefully, it goes well with whatever we're having for dinner." She smirks when he takes it and examines the label. "I had to guess, since you refused to tell me the menu, or let me bring anything," she teases.
Rick winks, but instead of opening the bottle, he places it in the small wine cooler in his kitchen. "Thank you. I can't wait to drink it with you."
"I brought it for tonight," she protests, moving towards the cooler to retrieve it, but he blocks her.
He rests his hands on her shoulders. "I want to wait and enjoy it with you," he insists. She opens her mouth to argue, but he presses his lips to her forehead, freezing her in place. "Besides, my mother will probably drink enough for all of us."
His words lighten the mood enough that her nerves about meeting his mother almost disappear entirely; that is, until she arrives.
"She won't care that we had a one night stand," Rick had reminded her last night, "seeing as how that's why I exist. She knows we're adults, she knows how things happen, and she won't make a big deal out of it."
Kate had sighed and leaned back into her couch cushions, put her phone on speaker so she didn't have to hold it up. "And she won't think I baby-trapped you?" she'd asked.
"Won't even cross her mind."
Kate had finally relented. She'd meet his mother eventually anyway - and Rick has to meet her dad, she'd realized with horror - so it may as well happen sooner rather than later.
The knock on the door sounds as soon as she sits at the kitchen island, and she immediately stands, grips the hem of her sweater to try and distract herself from her nerves as Rick answers the door.
"Hello, Mother," Rick says, his voice warm and affectionate. "Wine?"
"In a minute. I want to meet this woman you've been talking about."
Kate doesn't have a chance to register the comment before Martha appears and immediately pulls her into a warm hug. Kate catches his eye over his mother's shoulder, and he just smiles and shrugs.
"Kate, this is my mother, Martha. Mother, Kate," he jokes.
Martha releases Kate and grips her upper arms, and gazes into her eyes. "It is such a pleasure to meet you."
Kate smiles, her nerves melting away with the welcome warmth in her eyes. "You too. Rick said you've been on tour?"
"Yes, the national tour for Pippin."
"Revisiting her Tony-nominated role," Rick adds, pouring a generous glass of wine and handing it to his mother.
Martha smacks his chest with the back of her hand. "Oh hush. Go finish dinner while I get to know your girlfriend."
"Oh, we're not-" Kate starts to protest, but Rick just shakes his head and mouths don't bother as Martha drags her towards the living room. She sits on one end of the couch and folds her hands on her lap, feeling very much like she's about to be interviewed…or interrogated.
Martha sits on the armchair across from her and leans forward, and Kate is struck by the similarities between her and her son. She's sitting in an almost identical pose to the one Rick took when she visited him at The Old Haunt and told him about their…situation. Rick obviously picked up some nonverbal cues from his childhood spent accompanying his mother on Broadway tours.
"Katherine - may I call you Katherine?"
Kate hesitates but nods. Her full name has always been reserved for special occasions, like official paperwork, or when she was in trouble as a kid. Her initial reaction to hearing it now is fear that she's about to be grounded, but there's only tenderness in Martha's voice.
Martha nods, her eyes softening. "Tell me about yourself. Richard has been light on details, just said that he wanted me to meet this wonderful woman he met at his bar." She smirks. "I've been forced to fill in other details," she teases.
Kate feels her face flush. Aside from knowing that he hasn't divulged her pregnancy, she didn't know that Rick told his mom about her at all.
"Okay." Kate leans back and crosses one leg over the other, trying to relax. This isn't an interrogation; Martha's just trying to learn more about the woman her son has apparently talked about.
"Um, I'm not quite sure where to start," she admits. "I guess with the basics? I'm a homicide detective in the NYPD, born and raised in the city."
Martha glances at Rick, who's in the kitchen finishing dinner. "Homicide detective? Richard must have been beside himself when he found out," she jokes.
Kate feels her cheeks flush. He respects her boundaries and her desire to not talk about work, but every time her job comes up, he can hardly contain his excitement.
"Yeah, he's pretty fascinated," she agrees.
"Ladies, I'm sorry to interrupt, but dinner's ready," Rick announces, appearing next to the couch. He holds out his hand as Kate starts to stand, as he usually does, and without thinking, she takes it.
She notices the knowing look from Martha, but she ignores it, instead follows Rick to the table. Before she sits, she feels Rick's hand on her lower back, and she pauses and looks up at him.
"Mother, before we eat, we have some news to share."
Martha looks between them, a twinkle in her eye. "You two are dating."
Kate flushes.
"Not exactly." Rick's fingers clench the back of her shirt, as if he wants to embrace her, but doesn't want to cross any boundaries. "We're not in a relationship, but we are having a baby."
Martha's jaw drops in surprise, but then her whole face softens, and she comes around the table to pull him into an embrace. "Oh, my dears, congratulations." She moves to Kate after several seconds, and once again, Kate finds herself melting into the older woman's arms.
There's no judgment in Martha's reaction, no questioning, no doubt about Kate's intentions, and she can't put into words how glad she is that Rick was right about his mom.
"Thank you," she breathes, closing her eyes and leaning into Martha's touch when she cups her face with her hands. "It wasn't exactly planned, but…"
"We're excited," Rick interjects.
Kate lifts her gaze to his, surprised that she finds herself agreeing. She's nervous and scared as hell, but knowing that she'll have Rick at her side, along with her friends and family, makes her think she can be excited, too.
"That went well," Rick says a few hours later, setting a mug of peppermint tea on the coffee table in front of Kate.
She immediately reaches for the tea and takes a long, slow inhale. Earlier that week, just after stocking up on ginger tea, she made the unfortunate discovery that it stopped working against her nausea. Luckily, peppermint does, so Rick had dropped off several boxes at her apartment, and apparently, stocked up himself.
"Your mom seemed happy," she agrees, settling back into the cushions. "I thought you said she stays here when she's in town, though."
Rick sits on the other end of the couch and shifts so he's facing her. "She usually does. Her excuse of being out late and not wanting to bother me upon her return hasn't stopped her in the past." He meets Kate's gaze and smirks. "She probably didn't want to impose. I don't think she believes we're not a couple," he teases.
Kate chuckles and rolls her eyes. Judging by the knowing looks she caught several times, Rick is probably right.
"She likes you."
Rick's words take her by surprise, and she looks up to see him gazing at her with a warm smile. "Yeah?"
The corner of his mouth quirks. "Yeah. She told me to, and I quote, 'hang onto that one,'" he adds.
Her body goes hot at the naked desire in his eyes. Even though they're not pursuing anything romantic, he's not shy about his attraction to her.
An attraction that she doesn't want to admit is very much still mutual.
She clears her throat. "Well," she rasps, noticing his eyes darken, "not much chance of me going anywhere, is there?"
Her name falls from his lips as he leans forward, his gaze dropping to her mouth. She clenches her thighs together; she's tempted, so, so tempted, but she reminds herself that she can't let him get too close. If he manages to worm his way into her heart and doesn't like what he sees…
She sets her barely-touched tea down and stands, wipes her hands on her slacks. "I should go," she whispers.
"Hang on." He follows her off the couch and ducks into his office, emerges a few moments later holding a small gift bag.
"What's this?"
"Got you something." He grins when she takes it, and she glances at him while she takes out the contents.
She laughs when she holds up the piece of clothing: a onesie that's made to look like Elektra's costume, reminding her of their conversation last week. "This is awesome." She sets it back in the bag and looks up at Rick, feels her breath catch in her throat at the softness in his gaze.
It's a look she notices often, and it always makes her blush, makes her feel like the only person in the world that matters to him.
Like he's falling for her.
She reaches out and touches his arm. "Thanks, Rick," she says quietly.
His gaze flicks to her mouth before meeting her eyes again. "You're welcome."
Her body goes hot at the intense look in his darkening eyes, and she tightens her grip on the bag. "I better get going," she whispers. She clears her throat. "Shift tomorrow."
He nods, but his eyes flash with annoyance. He never pushes for her to stay, but he doesn't like that she pulls away, either. She knows he wants to know more about her than she's been willing to share, but he respects her too much to make her uncomfortable by pushing.
He walks her to the door, and he helps her into her coat, holds out his arm for support as she puts her shoes back on. His fingers graze the back of her hand when he hands her the gift bag, sending shivers down her spine.
"Good night, Kate," he rasps.
Somehow, she manages to keep her breath steady as she exhales. "Good night," she whispers before walking out the door.
"Kate, come on in."
She stands at her therapist's invitation, and silences her phone and tucks it in her bag. She feels a little bad stepping away from Rick mid-conversation, but therapy is one of the few things she does that makes her focus on herself, and not her job or pregnancy.
Dr. Burke shuts the door behind her, and she hangs her bag on the coat rack, then sits in her usual spot on the couch.
He sits in his armchair across from her, and he simply leans back, notepad on his lap, and waits for her to get comfortable. "How are you?" he asks once she tucks her feet under her, the nonverbal sign that she's ready to start.
"I'm fine," she says with a shrug. She doesn't need to look at Dr. Burke to know that he's raised a brow, or that he's not going to fall for her lie. This isn't his first rodeo, especially not with her, and he quickly learned when he needs to push her, and when he simply needs to just wait her out.
After several seconds of silence, she sighs and stares at her hands on her lap. "I don't know," she admits. "I am fine: not bad, not good, but somewhere in the middle. Just…fine."
Dr. Burke nods. "Okay, let's break it down. Physically, how are you feeling?"
"Um, okay. The nausea's annoying, since it's unpredictable. But I can generally manage it. I have sometimes needed to step away from crime scenes if they're really gruesome. I've been able to excuse it, though, so I don't think anyone suspects," she adds.
She rests a palm on her still-flat belly. "And they're growing normally. Everything looks good so far."
"Good." Dr. Burke scribbles a few things on his notepad. "How's work otherwise? Have you had any other incidents, like your first week back?"
She scoffs. "You mean when someone put a gun in my face and I froze?"
"It was your second day back at work after being shot, Kate. You had a perfectly normal reaction. Perhaps…"
He pauses, and Kate tenses, already suspecting what he's going to say.
"Perhaps it means you returned too soon," he finishes.
"If you didn't think I was ready," she snaps, "maybe you shouldn't have signed off on it."
"I didn't say that I thought you weren't ready," he points out. "You were, and I stand by my assessment. But ready to return to work, and having the tools to face your demons when they appear, those are two separate things."
Kate sighs and looks down at her hands.
"How's Rick?"
The subject change takes her by surprise; she'd assumed he would push more about her "demons," whatever that means.
Well, she thinks she knows.
She hadn't planned on continuing therapy after returning to work. But during her first case back, she'd been chasing a suspect when he turned and pointed his gun at her. She'd frozen, one hand on her gun that she didn't even manage to get out of her holster. If the suspect had been paying closer attention to her, he may have realized that she was frozen in fear, barely able to tell him to put his gun down. He could have easily killed her, and it would've been her own damn fault.
Luckily, her partners had been right behind her, so the face-off that felt like hours was resolved in less than a minute.
She'd called Dr. Burke that night.
Her goal initially was to deal with the obvious unresolved trauma from her shooting, whatever fear lived inside her, waiting to bubble to the surface.
And then she got pregnant. So now, she doesn't even know what the hell her end goal is.
She hasn't had any guns pointed at her since she found out, and for that, she's grateful. She isn't sure how she'd react now that she has a life growing inside of her, this physical reminder that she has more than herself to think about now.
"Rick's fine," she finally answers. She shrugs a shoulder. "You know. He's supportive, constantly checks on me, asks if I need anything. It's almost too much."
"How so?"
She sighs. "I don't know, I'm an adult, I can take care of myself, you know? If I need help, I'll ask for it."
She anticipates Dr. Burke's response as soon as the words are out of her mouth.
"Would you really?" There's a twinkle in his eye, betraying his tone.
She rolls her eyes, but she can't stop the quirk of the corner of her mouth. "Okay, I'll give you that," she jokes, before falling serious again.
"Look, Kate, I haven't known you for very long. But one of the first things I figured out was how stubbornly independent you can be."
She snorts. He is, once again, not wrong.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing," he continues, setting his notebook aside and crossing one leg over the other, and folding his hands on his lap. "Have you told him about your mother? Or your shooting?" he adds when she just raises her brows at him. He lets out a quiet "hmm" and nods. "You'll get there."