Tender Triumph

by Judith McNaught

  Katie closed her eyes, trying to think. If Ramon gave her time, was it possible that she might marry

  him? Absolutely not! Her mind sensibly replied. But her heart whispered, maybe…

  Why, Katie wondered, why would she ever con­sider marrying him. The answer was in that strange feeling she sometimes got when they were laughing or talking—an inexplicable feeling that, emotional­ly, they were almost perfectly matched; a feeling that something deep within him was reaching out to her and finding an answering response within her; this strong, magnetic pull that seemed to be slowly, inexorably, drawing them closer together.

  At that thought, Katie's logical mind instantly went to battle with her emotions: If she was foolish enough to let herself marry Ramon, he would expect her to live on his income alone, yet she wasn't very happy living like an American princess the way she did now.

  He was a Spanish male chauvinist; yet every instinct she possessed told her that he was a sensi­tive man, capable of great gentleness as well as strength....

  Katie almost moaned aloud at the predicament in which she found herself. She closed her eyes, and when she finally drifted into an exhausted slumber, neither logic nor emotion had won the battle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Katie spent the following morning waiting for Ramon in a state of spiraling apprehension, too worried about appearing at her parents' party with him to even contemplate the greater problem of his proposal.

  The possibilities for disaster at that party were almost limitless. It wasn't important to Katie that her family like Ramon, nor would she ever let their opinion of him influence her ultimate decision about going to Puerto Rico. She loved her family, but she was old enough to make her own decisions. What she did fear was that her family might say something to humiliate Ramon. Her sister, Maureen, was an outrageous snob who had conveniently forgotten that the Connellys hadn't always been wealthy. If she discovered Ramon was a farm laborer who drove a truck, Maureen was capable of snubbing him in front of a house full of people, as a way of emphasizing her own social superiority.

  Her parents, Katie knew, would treat Ramon with the same courtesy they would show any guest in their home, regardless of what he did for a liv­ing. . .as long as they had no inkling that there was anything except casual friendship between Katie and him. If they so much as suspected that Ramon want­ed to marry her, they were both capable of treating him with a freezing contempt that would reduce him to the level of a social-climbing parasite, and in front of all their guests. Ramon would be disquali­fied as a future son-in-law the instant they discov­ered that he couldn't possibly support Katie in style and comfort, and they wouldn't hesitate to make their position infinitely clear if they felt it was necessary.

  At precisely three-thirty, Ramon arrived. Katie let him into her apartment and greeted him with her best, cheerfully optimistic smile, which deceived him for perhaps two seconds. Drawing her into his arms, Ramon tipped her chin up, gazed into her eyes and said with grave humor, "We are not going to face a firing squad, Katie. We are only going to face your family."

  The kiss he gave her was gently reassuring and, somehow, when his arms released her, Katie felt in­finitely more confident. The feeling was still with her thirty minutes later when their car swept through the stone gates of Forest Oaks Country Club and pulled up in front of her parents' house.

  Set back from the private road on five acres of manicured lawn, the Connellys white-pillared colonial with its sweeping circular driveway was a very imposing structure. Katie watched for some reaction from Ramon, but he only glanced casually at the house as if he had seen thousands like it, and came around to help her out of the car.

  He still hadn't said anything by the time they were halfway up the winding brick walk that led toward the massive front doors. Some devilish impulse made Katie slant a jaunty, sideways smile at him and ask, "Well, what do you think?" She jammed her hands into the back pockets of her designer jeans and took four more paces before she realized that not only had Ramon not answered, he had stopped walking entirely.

  Turning, Katie found herself the object of his lazy, sweeping appraisal. With a spark of amuse­ment in his eyes, his gaze traveled leisurely from the top of her bright head, lingered meaningfully on her lips and the thrusting fullness of her breasts, then faithfully followed the graceful curving lines of her waist, hips and thighs, drifted down her long shape­ly legs, stopped at her sandal-shod feet, then swept upward and returned to her face. "I think," he said with quiet solemnity, "that your smile could light the darkness, and when you laugh it is like music. I think your hair is like heavy silk shining in the sun­light."

  Hypnotized by that deep voice, Katie simply stood there, warmth seeping through her system.

  "I think that you have the bluest eyes I have ever seen, and I like the way they sparkle when you are happy, or darken with desire when you are in my arms." A wicked grin highlighted his lips as he glanced again at Katie's breasts, which were empha­sized by her unconsciously provocative stance with her hands in her back pockets. "And I like the way you look in those pants you are wearing. But if you do not take your hands out of your pockets, I am going to take you back to the car so that I can put my hands in them, too."

  Katie slowly pulled her hands free, trying to sur­face from the sensuous spell he seemed able to cast over her with a few words. "I meant," she said in a husky voice, "What do you think of the house?"

  He glanced up at it and wryly shook his head. "Right out of Gone With the Wind."

  Katie rang the doorbell, which she could hear pealing majestically above the raised voices and laughter coming from within.

  "Katie darling," her mother said, wrapping her in a quick hug. "Come inside. Everyone else is already here." She smiled at Ramon who was standing be­side Katie, and graciously extended her hand to him as Katie performed the introductions. "We're very happy to have you here, Mr. Galverra," she said with perfect correctness.

  Ramon replied with equal correctness that he was delighted to be here, and Katie, who had been inex­plicably holding her breath, felt the tension drain out of her.

  When her mother excused herself to check on the caterers, Katie led Ramon through the house and out onto the beautifully landscaped lawn where a bar had been set up for the use of the guests who were standing in small groups, laughing and talking. What Katie had believed was to be a barbecue was, in reality, a cocktail party followed by a formal dinner for thirty people, and while it was immediate­ly obvious that Ramon was the only man there wear­ing jeans, Katie thought he looked utterly fantastic.

  With laughing pride, she noticed that she wasn't the only woman who thought Ramon was gor­geous; several of her mother's friends were openly admiring the tall dark-haired man who stayed by her side as they wandered sociably from group to group.

  Katie introduced him to those of her parents' friends and neighbors whom she knew, watching as Ramon conquered the females with his flashing smile and relaxed charm. That she had expected. What she hadn't expected was that he would interact so well with the men who were present, all of whom were prosperous local businessmen. Somewhere in the past, Ramon had obviously acquired a social polish and smooth urbanity that positively staggered Katie when she saw it. He was utterly at ease among this gathering of the martini set, perfectly able to converse on everything from sports to national and world politics. Particularly world politics, Katie couldn't help noticing.

  "You're certainly well-informed about world af­fairs," Katie observed when they were alone for a moment.

  Ramon smiled obliquely. "I know how to read, Katie."

  Chastened, Katie looked away, but as if he sensed her other question, Ramon added, "This party is not so different from any other. Whenever men gather they tend to discuss business if they are all in similar lines of work. If they are not, then they dis­cuss sports or politics or world affairs. It is the same in any country."

  Katie was not entirely satisfied with his answer, but she let the matter drop for the
time being.

  "I think I'm jealous!" she laughingly remarked a while later, when a forty-five-year-old matron with two grown daughters had monopolized Ramon's at­tention for a full ten minutes.

  "Do not be jealous," Ramon said with bland amusement that made Katie think he must be accus­tomed to the fawning admiration of women. "They would all lose interest the moment they discovered I am only a farmer."

  That, unfortunately, wasn't quite the truth, Katie discovered to her sublime discomfort two hours later. Everyone was seated in the elaborate dining room enjoying a gourmet meal, when Katie's sister inquired down the length of the long dining-room table, "What do you do, Mr. Galverra?"

  Katie felt as if the clink of sterling silver flatware on English bone china stopped altogether, along with every other shred of conversation at the table. "He's in the trucking business—and groceries," Katie improvised madly before Ramon could re­spond.

  "Trucking? In what way?" Maureen persisted.

  "What possible way is there?" Katie hedged shortly, shooting a killing look at her sister.

  "Groceries, did you say?" Mr. Connelly put in, his brows lifted in interest. "Wholesale or retail?"

  "Wholesale," Katie interjected hastily, again cut­ting off Ramon's reply.

  Beside her, Ramon leaned very close, smiled charmingly, and said in a low, savage voice. "Shut up, Katie, or he will think I do not know how to talk."

  "Wholesale?" Mr. Connelly mused from his position at the head of the table. He was always eager to talk about the grocery business. "What end of it—distribution?"

  "No, growing," Ramon answered smoothly, clasping Katie's icy hand under the table in silent apology for the way he had spoken to her.

  "A corporation operation, I imagine?" her father said. "How large?"

  Calmly slicing a tender piece of veal Oscar, Ramon said, "It is a small farm, barely self-supporting."

  "Do you mean you're an ordinary farmer?" Maureen demanded in subdued outrage. "In Mis­souri?"

  "No, in Puerto Rico." Katie's brother, Mark, leaped into the breach with all the finesse of a pole-vaulter with no pole. "I was talking to Jake Masters last week and he told me he once found a spider in a shipment of pineapples from Puerto Rico that was the size of a—"

  One of the guests, who apparently wasn't interest­ed in spiders, interrupted Mark's desperate mono­logue to say to Ramon, "Is Galverra a common Spanish name? I've read of a 'Galverra' but I can't recall his first name."

  Beside her Katie sensed, rather than saw, Ramon tense. "It is not an uncommon name," Ramon re­plied. "And my first name is very common."

  Katie, in the act of giving Ramon an apologetic, encouraging smile, intercepted a look from her mother that could only be described as displeased and she felt the knot in her stomach tighten.

  By the time they could leave, Katie's stomach was positively churning. Her parents were polite as they said goodbye to Ramon in the entrance foyer, but Katie saw the narrowed speculation in her mother's eyes when she looked at Ramon, and without actual­ly saying anything, she managed to convey to Katie, and undoubtedly to Ramon, that she did not ap­prove of him or of his continued association with Katie.

  To make everything worse, as Ramon and Katie were leaving, Maureen's seven-year-old son jerked on her skirt and loudly announced to one and all, "Mommie, that man talks weird!"

  In the car Ramon drove in thoughtful, withdrawn silence. "I'm sorry I told you to wear jeans," Katie spoke finally as they neared her apartment complex. "I could have sworn my mother told me two weeks ago this was going to be a barbecue."

  "It is of no importance," Ramon said. "What people wear does not change what they are."

  Katie didn't know whether he meant that better clothes wouldn't have improved his image, or that he felt his image was adequate regardless of what he was wearing. "I'm sorry about the way Maureen acted," she tried again.

  "Stop saying you are sorry, Katie. One person cannot apologize for another. It is ludicrous to try."

  "I know, but my sister is such a pain in the neck, and my parents—"

  "Love you very much," Ramon finished for her.

  "They want to see you happy, with a secure future and all the things money can buy. Unfortunately, like most parents, they believe that if your future is secure you will be happy. And if it is not, it follows that you will not be."

  Katie was amazed by his defense of her parents. Inside her apartment she whirled on him, her gaze searching his dark, inscrutable face. "What sort of man are you?" she asked. "Who are you? You de­fend my parents, knowing that if I decided to go to Puerto Rico with you they would do everything to prevent it. If anything you were amused, not im­pressed, by the people you met tonight and the size of my parents' home. You speak English with an ac­cent, but your vocabulary is better than most men I know who have college degrees. Who are you, any­way?"

  Ramon put his hands on her tense shoulders and said quietly, "I am the man who wants to take you away from everything you know, and people who love you. I am the man who wants to take you to a strange country where you, not I, will have the handicap of language. I am the man who wants to take you to live in the cottage where he was born, a cottage with four rooms that are clean, but nothing more. I am the man who knows he is selfish to do these things, yet still I will try to do them."

  "Why?" Katie whispered.

  He bent his head and brushed his lips warmly against hers. "Because I believe that I can make you happier than you have ever dreamed of being."

  Unbelievably affected by the merest touch of that mouth, Katie tried to follow his logic. "But how could I be happy living in a primitive cottage where I don't know anyone and couldn't speak to them if I tried?"

  "I will tell you later." He grinned suddenly. "For now, I have brought my own swimming trunks."

  "Y—you want to swim?" Katie stuttered in disbe­lief.

  Ramon's smile was positively wolfish. "I want to see you with as little clothing as possible, and the safest place for that, for both of us, is down at your pool."

  Relief won out over disappointment as Katie went into the bedroom and quickly stripped off her clothes, pulling on a shockingly bright yellow bikini. She studied herself in the mirror with a faint smile. It was the scantiest suit she had ever owned; two ex­tremely narrow strips of bright cloth that revealed every curving line of her body. She had never had the nerve to actually appear in it before, but today it seemed perfect. It was all well and good for Ramon to arbitrarily decide that he was going to keep his distance, but, perversely, she wanted to make it as difficult for him as possible. She brushed her hair until it was shining and emerged from her bedroom just as he came from the bathroom. He had changed into black briefs that hugged his body, displaying his magnificent physique in a way that made Katie's mouth go dry.

  Ramon's response to her, however, was far less enthusiastic. His black eyes raked her all but naked body from head to toe. "Change it," he said in a hard tone that she had never heard before. Belated­ly, he added, "Please."

  "No," Katie said firmly. "I'm not going to change. Why should I?"

  "Because I asked you to."

  "You ordered me to, and I didn't like it."

  "Now I am asking," Ramon persisted implac­ably. "Please change that suit."

  Katie shot him a killing look. "I am wearing this suit down to that pool.''

  "Then I am not going with you." Suddenly, Katie felt vulgarly naked, and she blamed Ramon for her humiliation. She went into her room, pulled off the suit and put on a green one. "Thank you," Ramon said quietly when she walked into the living room.

  Katie was too angry to speak. She shoved open the glass patio door, banged through the gate in the stockade fence, and marched down to the pool, which was nearly deserted. Most of the tenants were apparently spending Memorial Day with their fami­lies. Katie sank down gracefully on the chaise lounge closest to the deep end of the pool, ignoring Ramon, who stood looking down at her with his hands on his hips.

  "A
re you going to swim?" he asked.

  Katie shook her head, her teeth clenched to­gether.

  Sitting down on the chair across from her, Ramon lit one of those very thin cigars he seemed to like, and leaned forward, his forearms braced on his knees. "Katie, listen to me."

  "I don't want to listen to you. I don't like a lot of the things you say."

  "But you will listen anyway."

  Katie's head swung toward him so swiftly that her long hair came spilling over her shoulder. "Ramon, that is the second time tonight that you have told me what I'm going to do and I don't like it. If I had ac­tually been willing to marry you, which I never was, these past twenty minutes would have changed my mind." She came to her feet, enjoying the sensation of towering over him for a change. "For the sake of what's left of our evening, our last evening together, I will swim. Because I'm sure you're going to order me to do that next."

  Three long angry strides and Katie did a shallow racing dive into the pool. A few seconds later she felt the impact of Ramon's body hitting the water behind her. Katie swam for all she was worth but she was not really surprised when Ramon easily caught her, or even when he forcibly pulled her stiff, un­yielding body against his. "There are four other people in this pool, Ramon. Now let go of me before I yell for help."

  "Katie, will you shut up and let me—"

  "That was strike three for you," Katie snapped furiously. "You're out!"

  "Dammit!" he said savagely, plunging his hand into the hair at her nape and jerking her head back as his mouth possessed hers.

  More incensed then ever. Katie twisted her head away and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. "I didn't like it!" she spat.

  "Neither did I," he answered. "Please listen to me."

  "I can't see where I have any choice. My feet aren't even touching the bottom."

  Ramon ignored that. "Katie, it was a beautiful suit and the sight of you in it took my breath away. If you will listen I will explain why I do not want you to wear it. Last night more than one of the men who live here asked me if I was getting anywhere with their 'vestal virgin.' They call you that."