Lasting Pride (Pride Series Romance Novels)

by Jill Sanders

  “Oh, thank you kind sir, for that more than generous offer. But, I’ll pass… tonight.” She walked out of the room, slipping on the wet tile as she tried to dry herself off.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning after dropping Rob off at her office, he ran a half dozen errands that he’d needed to take care of. When he walked into his gallery just after one, he was surprised to see his sister leaning against the front counter talking to Kimberly.

  “Katie, what are you doing here?” he asked, as she rushed towards him. She stopped cold, halfway across the room.

  “Oh my god! What happened to you?” She rushed the rest of the way to his side.

  He knew what she saw. The bruising had spread throughout the night. His whole forehead looked like he’d bashed it against the wall. But, he was thankful she couldn’t see his shoulder and hip. He’d even winced at the colors he saw in the mirror that morning. He was stiff and sore all over.

  “I had a little run in with a car,” he smiled, “The car won.”

  “When did this happen?” she asked as he tried to pull her towards the stairs. He nodded to Kimberly who looked very concerned as well.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her before pulling his sister up the stairs. “It happened last night. I was going to call you, but I had company over,” he said climbing the stairs with her in tow.

  “Company?” she stopped on the top stair and smiled. “Anyone I know?” His sister was always one to hear and spread the latest gossip.

  “Not that kind of company. Although I wouldn’t mind…” he saw his sister’s eager face. “Never mind. It was just a friend who had to wake me every hour for the concussion.”

  “Oh! Ric, a concussion.” She ran over to him again and grabbed his head in her hands and looked closer at his forehead. “You have stitches too. Did you call mom or dad?”

  “No, why would I?”

  “Well, to tell them what happened. They would be frantic.”

  “Katie, I’m a big boy. If I need them, I’ll call them. Besides Dad is still in Alaska and Mom, well. I think she’s…” his mind flashed to an image of Dante Cardone. “I think she’s still in Italy.”

  “Oh, well. I’m here now. I can take care of you.”

  “No! Please!” He said a little too eagerly. “I can care for myself. Besides, the last time you saw fit to take ‘care’ of me, I remember ending up in the hospital with food poisoning.”

  “It wasn’t my fault that the chicken you had in your fridge was bad. My chicken soup was perfect. If you had bought good chicken…” she took a big breath. “Let’s not rehash the past.”

  “Yes, let’s not,” he smiled at her as he sat behind his desk. “So, what brings you to Portland?”

  “Well, it’s spring break this week and the rest of my friends are on the beach somewhere, but I just wanted to come visit my big brother.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

  “Oh, okay! I’m worried about Mom. Do you know I called her at her hotel the other day and a man answered. A very Italian sounding man! Did I mention it was almost midnight there? Ric,” she got up and started pacing in front of his desk as she rambled on. “What is a very Italian man doing in Mom’s hotel at midnight? I hung up immediately, I didn’t know what to do. You just have to do something.”

  “Are you sure you had the right number?” He leaned back in his chair. His sister always worked herself into these little episodes. Most of the time, she would call and he could talk her down, but this time she’d actually flown across the states to vent.

  “Of course I got the right number. It’s programmed in my phone. She always stays at the same place, you know that.” She leaned on his desk. “What did she say to you the last time you called her? Did she mention Dad?”

  “No, when I called…” He was interrupted by his phone. Holding his finger up he motioned for his sister to sit and wait.

  “Ric Derby,” he answered his phone. “Send her up please.” He knew that his smile got huge, but he didn’t care. He saw his sister’s eye brows raise in question. Then, Roberta walked into his office and he saw that she too wore a Cheshire grin.

  “Hello,” Rob walked into the room. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  His sister stood and looked at the woman who had Ric grinning like a school boy.

  “Rob, this is my sister Katie. Katie this is detective Roberta Stanton. Rob is handling the case of my break-in.”

  “Hello, it’s nice to meet you. Ric has told me so much about you. Spring break?” Rob asked.

  Katie smiled and nodded her head. “Thank you for taking care of my brother last night.”

  Ric looked at his sister. The little brat knew too much, so he jumped in.

  “Have you eaten lunch yet?” His question was aimed at Rob, but his sister piped in.

  “Oh, what a wonderful idea. I’m starved. Roberta would you care to join us? I’d love to hear all about how you became a detective.” His sister reached over and took Rob’s arm, then started steering her towards the stairs.

  It was several hours later when Roberta let herself into her apartment. Jack came and rubbed himself all over her boots, no doubt wanting his dinner.

  Instantly her senses went on alert. Something wasn’t right. Pulling her service weapon out, she checked the place over. Nothing. Holstering her weapon, she stood in the middle of the room and scanned her living space. What could have caused her to be on alert? She wasn’t one to freak at the smallest things. She’d been alone for most of her life and wasn’t a girl who jumped at shadows. Something was out of place in her apartment. Jack, the cat seemed to think nothing was amiss, except for the lack of food in his bowl. Walking over, she started to get him a can of wet food, when she saw it.

  Something strange sat on her kitchen counter, right next to her answering machine. Walking over she picked up the small pin. Rolling it over in her hand, she knew for a fact that she’d never seen this pin before. It looked like a quarter, but on the back was affixed a small pin. The shinny silver front had a symbol that she’d only seen once before in her life. Rushing to her closet, she pulled out a box from the top shelf. It took some maneuvering, but finally the box sprung free from its spot wedged between two boxes of old shoes. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she opened the box that held the last memories of her father.

  Digging around, she was beginning to think she’d lost it, when her fingers touched the small disc. Running her thumb over her father’s medallion, she held the matching pair side by side.

  Someone had been in her apartment. Who had it been? What did this mean? Why had they left this here? So many other questions ran through her mind.

  When Jack jumped up in her lap and rubbed his face on hers, she set the medallions down next to the box and went to feed the starving, ten pound feline.

  Rob was having one of those days she wished she’d stayed in bed. It seemed like nothing was going right. She not only wished she had stayed in bed, she wished that everyone would just leave her alone.

  Jack, had tripped her when she’d gotten out of bed. She’d ended up on the floor in a tangled pile, which he had taken as the perfect opportunity to come and lay on her chest, demanding more food. Then, her water heater pilot light had gone out, which of course, she hadn’t noticed until after she’d gotten naked and wet. She had just tolerated the cold shower, rather than running outside to relight it.

  On her drive into work, her car had acted up as well. It sputtered and back fired when she’d parked in the garage. Which had caused several people, who had been entering the building, to look over and watch her exit her car.

  But, the icing on the cake had been when she’d walked in and seen Dante Cardone sitting at her desk. She didn’t want to deal with him right now. She had the two matching medallions tucked in her pocket and she needed to do some research. Marching over to her desk, she tried to ignore the headache that was slowly building behind her eyes.

  “Mr. Cardone, is
there something I can do for you?” She sat down and silently wished away the stacks of paperwork which were piled so high on her desk that they were leaning.

  “Hello again, Detective,” she noticed he deepened his accent when he spoke to her. “Your partner told me I could wait here for you. Yes, I would like to open a report to have this,” he tapped a folder that was sitting on her desk, “officially reported as stolen. My insurance agent informed me that I needed a police report. It appears that my… that Mr. Derby and The Blue Spot are willing to work on trying to fix this matter and it appears that this might have something to do with the theft and murder at his gallery.”

  “You could have filled out this report with my partner.” She waited as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

  “Yes, well. I wanted to take a chance that you were on duty.” He smiled at her and she realized that he actually looked more like Katie than Ric.

  “Is there any chance we could go somewhere? Lunch maybe?”

  “Are you asking me to lunch for a professional reason or a personal one?” She was getting irritated now because she could see that he actually thought he was getting somewhere with her.

  He shifted gears again and tried to pour on his charm by smiling smoothly and leaning closer. She continued to look at him, not taking his bait and waited it out.

  She had always loved playing the game. She could usually read people; guilty people usually didn’t look you in your eyes. People, who had something to hide, would look, but then quickly turn away. People who had nothing to hide could stare you down, most of the time. Dante Cardone had something to hide.

  “Well,” he shifted uncomfortably now, “I wanted to make sure that you didn’t think of me as a suspect in Mr. Derby’s case.”

  She smiled a tight smile, “Let me assure you Mr. Cardone, that if you were a suspect in this or any other cases, you would know when I wanted you to know and no sooner.” She stood and handed him a form. “Fill this out and you can turn it in at the front desk. Now, if you will excuse me, I have other matters to see to.”

  Walking down the hall without looking back, she entered the geek’s office. Well, that’s what she called Ryan McAllen. He was a twenty-something kid who was faster on the computer than anyone she’d ever seen. He could crack any firewalls or websites, hack any email, and track all spam and viruses. And, he’s always been able to make Google cough up the answers that she could never seem to find.

  When she walked into the dark room, his four monitors, the only light source in the room, illuminated his thin face. His wire thin glasses always seemed to be dirty. His thick dark hair stood up like he’d been running his hands through it or he’d forgotten to comb it that day.

  “Hey Mic,” she knew he hated it when everyone called him that, but the nick-name had stuck since day one. “I need your help with something.” She flipped on the lights and could have sworn she heard him hiss. Taking a seat next to him, she pulled out the medallions she’d been carrying since discovering the one in her apartment.

  “What?” he asked impatiently.

  “I need to find out more about this symbol.” She set the two pieces down.

  He leaned over the desk and looked at them, then returned to his computer screen without a word.

  It took him less than five minutes to have the matching picture with information on his screen.

  “I’ll print everything up for you, but from the looks of it, you’re looking at two coins from Bahia, Brazil. They appear to be from the sixteen hundreds. Very old, very valuable. Where did you get these?” He turned to look at her, she just looked at him.

  “You know, there’s a myth about the first gold coins in Brazil.” He typed in something else and another screen came up.

  “Here,” he pointed, “It says that gold was discovered in Brazil in the late 1600’s and most coins made around then were later melted and turned into guineas. But, the myth states that a handful of coins had surfaced before gold had been officially discovered in Bahia.” He turned and looked at her again, this time swiveling his whole chair. He paused for effect. “You’ve heard of the legend of El Dorado.” He tapped his desk and held back a laugh.

  Roberta laughed, “You have got to be joking. Kid, you need to get out more. First off, these,” she picked up the two pieces, “aren’t even gold. They are…” Looking down at them, she realized she didn’t quite know what they were. “Silver? Second off, there is no way my old man would have kept anything valuable lying around in an old shoe box if he knew he could pinch it for enough liquor to last the rest of his miserable life.”

  “Look, I’m just relaying the myth here. Take this,” he reached over and handed her the stacks of paperwork he’d printed. “Read about your coins and maybe you’ll find the answers.” With this he turned back around and cleared his screen and began working again. “Oh, and hit the lights on your way out,” he called over his shoulder.

  Rob walked out of the dark office with her stack of papers, wondering how the damn thing had ended up in her place. She didn’t think her father had any living relatives. At least he’d never talked about his family. To be honest, she didn’t even know her grandparents’ names on either side. Then a thought crossed her mind, quickly doing some basic math, she realized that they could still be alive.

  Making her way back to her desk, she sat down to do some digging on her family history.

  Chapter Ten

  Katie Derby sat in her brother’s apartment bored out of her mind. How could her brother stand to be on a business call for two whole hours?

  She hadn’t decided what she was going to do after college, let alone what major she was aiming for. But, whatever she did decide to do, she was going to damn well make sure it didn’t involve being on the phone for two hours on a Friday night.

  Flipping through the channels on his large flat screen, she ended up watching the news and thinking about Jason. Jason Keaton had been on her mind for years. Her best friend, her roommate, her confidante, the only man she’d ever wanted to be with. And, the only man who didn’t have any interest in her at all. Ever since leaving Boston, she’d checked her phone for messages every five minutes.

  If her brother knew that the real reason she was in town was to show Jason she didn’t need him, she was sure he’d send her packing. Ric and her were made of stronger stuff, they had never run away from anything, including their problems. They faced them and tore down anything that got in their way. Not like their parents, for them, running to different corners of the globe had been a standard.

  Checking her phone for messages again, she wasn’t surprised to not see any. Even Brenda, her best friend since second grade, hadn’t messaged her all weekend. Brenda, along with four of her other friends had decided to spend the weekend in Mexico. Basking in the sun, picking up guys, and drinking all night didn’t sound like much fun to Katie right now. But, maybe the beach was better than here?

  Looking around her brother’s sparkling apartment, she wondered why she’d bothered to come here at all. She could be at the beach, getting over the kiss and the embarrassment she caused herself with Jason. Maybe she would call and get a flight for the next day.

  Just then, she looked up to see her brother walking in. He really did look like someone had beat him over the head with a baseball bat. Every time she saw him, she cringed knowing he must be in terrible pain.

  Meeting Roberta, Rob as she’d told her to call her, had been the only highlight of the weekend so far. Knowing she had something to hang over her dear brother’s head, she smiled and decided he could take a little more poking from his sister.

  Ric hated dealing with lawyers and insurance agents. Having his art stolen in his gallery was an easier task to deal with than having something stolen as it was being delivered. Even though Roberta had filled out the police report, which he had multiple copies of. He still had to explain to three different agents and two different lawyers what had happened. Couldn’t they just look at the damn reports?

 
His head was throbbing as he walked back into his living room. His sister’s dark head bounced up when she heard him walk into the room. His television was on the news and about twenty decibels louder than he would have liked.

  Walking into the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water and downed his medications.

  “No, you don’t,” his sister said as she walked into the room. “you aren’t suppose to take those on an empty stomach. Besides, you promised me you would take me out tonight.

  Looking at her, you would think they weren’t related. Where Ric was tall, sandy blond hair and blue eyes, his sister was shorter, dark wavy hair and she had eyes the color of his old chestnut horse, Caramel. He’d actually called her Caramel Katie for most of their childhood.