Tender Triumph

"Invite any man I meet!" Katie sputtered indig­nantly, no longer feeling the slightest obligation to be courteous. "In the first place, I only invited you in here because you asked to use the phone, and I felt I had to be polite after you had helped me. In the second place, I don't know about Mexico, or whatever country you come from, but—"

"I was born in Puerto Rico," he provided.

Katie ignored that. "Well, here in the United States, we do not have such antiquated, absurd ideas about women's reputations. Men have never wor­ried about their reputations, and we no longer worry about ours. We do as we please!"

Katie absolutely could not believe it. Now, when she wanted to insult him, he was on the verge of laughter!

His black eyes were warm with amusement, and a smile was hovering at the corner of his mouth. "Do you do as you please?"

"Of course I do!" Katie said with great feeling.

"What is it that you do?"

"Pardon?"

"What is it that you do that pleases you?"

"Whatever I want."

His voice deepened. "What do you want... now?"

His suggestive tone made Katie suddenly and un­comfortably aware of the raw sensuality emanating from his long muscular frame outlined in the reveal­ing Levi's and closely fitted white shirt. A shudder ran through her as his gaze moved over her face, lin­gering on her soft full lips, before dropping to leisure­ly study the thrusting curves of her breasts beneath the clinging fabric of her dress. She felt like scream­ing, laughing, or weeping—or a combination of all three. After everything else that had happened to her tonight, Katie Connelly had managed to latch onto a Puerto Rican Casanova who thought he was now go­ing to make himself the answer to all her sexual needs!

Forcing herself to sound brisk, she finally an­swered his question. "What do I want now? I want to be happy with my life and myself. I want to be— to be—free," she finished lamely, too distracted by his dark, sensual gaze to think clearly.

"Of what do you wish to be free?" Katie stood up abruptly. "Of men!" As she came to her feet, Ramon started toward her with a slow deliberate gait. "You want to be free of so much freedom, but not of men."

Katie continued backing toward the door as he advanced on her. She had been crazy to invite him in here, and he was deliberately misunderstanding her reason for doing so, because it suited his purpose. She gasped as her back bumped into the door.

Ramon stopped six inches away from her. "If you wished to be free of men as you say, you would not have gone to that place tonight; you would not have met that man in the parking lot. You do not know what you want."

"I know that it's late," Katie said in a shaky voice. "And I know I want you to leave now."

His eyes narrowed on her face, but his voice gen­tled as he asked, "Are you afraid of me?"

"No," Katie lied.

He nodded with satisfaction. "Good, then you will not object to going to the zoo with me tomor­row, will you?"

Katie could tell that he knew she was acutely un­easy with him and that she had no desire to go any­where with him. She considered saying that she had other plans for tomorrow, but she was positive he would only press her to name another time. Every instinct she possessed warned her that he could become extremely persistent if he chose. In her tired, overwrought state, it seemed more expedient to sim­ply make the date and then not be here when he came. That rejection even he would understand and accept as final. "Okay," she feigned. "What time?"

"I will come for you at ten o'clock in the morn­ing."

When the door closed behind him, Katie felt like a spring that was being wound tighter and tighter by some fiend who wanted to see how far she could be twisted before she snapped. She crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling. She had enough problems without having to cope with some amorous Latin who invites her to the zoo!

Rolling over onto her stomach, Katie thought of the sordid scene with Rob and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to escape her tired misery. Tomorrow she would spend the day at her parents' house. In fact, she would spend the entire Memorial Day weekend there. After all, her parents always com­plained that they didn't see enough of her.

CHAPTER THREE

The alarm's buzzing at eight o'clock the next morning woke her from a deep, exhausted sleep. Bewildered over why she had set it to go off on a Saturday, she groped for the button and pushed it in, silencing the insistent noise.

When she opened her eyes again it was nine o'clock and she blinked at the light flooding into her flowered bedroom. Oh, no! Ramon would be here in an hour....

Tumbling out of bed, she hurried into the bath­room and turned on the shower. Her pulse quick­ened with each passing minute, while everything else seemed to slow down. Her blow dryer took forever to dry her heavy hair; she kept dropping everything she touched, and she longed for a brac­ing cup of coffee.

Moving quickly, she opened drawers, putting on a pair of navy blue slacks and a matching top trimmed in white piping. She pulled her hair back and tied it with a red, white and blue printed silk scarf, then threw a random assortment of clothing into her overnight bag.

At 9:35, Katie closed the door of her apartment behind her and stepped into the balmy blue of a May morning. The large apartment complex was quiet: the typical lull of a predominately singles' complex in the aftermath of Friday night dates, parties and revelry.

Katie hurried toward her car, shifting her over­night case to her left hand as she searched in her cavernous canvas shoulder bag for her keys. "Damn!" she breathed, putting her case down be­side her car and rummaging frantically for her keys. She threw a nervous, apprehensive look at the traffic passing in both directions on the busy street, half-expecting to see a produce truck rattling into the entrance of the complex. "What did I do with them?" she whispered desperately. Her nerves, already strained to the breaking point, exploded in a stifled scream as a hand locked on her arm.

"I have them," a deep voice said smoothly near her ear.

Katie spun around in fright and fury. "How dare you spy on me!" she raged.

"I was waiting for you," Ramon emphasized.

"Liar!" she hissed, her fists clenched at her sides. "It's nearly half an hour before you're sup­posed to be here. Or don't you even know how to tell time?"

"Here are your keys. I put them in my pocket by mistake last night." He raised his hand and held them out to her, along with a single, long-stemmed red rose that lay across his palm.

Snatching her keys from his hand, Katie scrupu­lously avoided even touching the unwanted crimson flower.

"Take the rose," he told her quietly, his hand still outstretched. "It is for you."

"Damn you!" Katie raged in desperation. "Leave me alone! This isn't Puerto Rico, and I don't want your flower." Ignoring her, he con­tinued to stand patiently. "I said I don't want it!" Katie snapped in frustrated fury and reached down for her overnight case. In the process she inadver­tently knocked the rose out of his hand.

The sight of the beautiful bloom falling to the concrete sent a pang of guilt through Katie that shattered her anger and left her feeling deeply em­barrassed. She glanced at Ramon; his proud face was composed, reflecting neither anger nor con­demnation—only a deep, inexplicable regret.

Unable to meet his eyes Katie dropped her gaze from his, and her guilt sharpened into shame as she saw that buying her a flower wasn't the only thing he had done to try to please her—he had obviously dressed with great care for their date, too. Gone were the worn Levi's, replaced by immaculate black slacks and a short-sleeved black knit shirt; his face was freshly shaven, the scent of spicy cologne clinging to his smooth jaw.

He had only meant to please and impress her; he didn't deserve such treatment, especially after the way he had defended her last night. Katie looked at the waxy red rose lying at her feet, and she was so ashamed that tears stung her eyes and made her throat ache. "Ramon, I'm very, very sorry," she said contritely as she bent down and picked up the rose. Clutching the stem, s

he dragged her eyes upward and gazed pleadingly into his guarded face. "Thank you for the beautiful flower. And if—if you still want me to, I'll go to the zoo with you, because I promised I would." Pausing to pull more air into her constricted lungs, Katie plunged on. "But I want you to understand that I don't want you to get—well—serious about me, and start—start… " Katie trailed off in be­wilderment as his eyes began to gleam with laugh­ter.

In a dryly humorous voice he said, "I only of­fered you a flower and a trip to the zoo, not mar­riage."

Suddenly Katie found herself smiling back at him. "You're right."

"Shall we go then?" he suggested.

"Yes, but first let me put my overnight case back in the apartment." She reached for it, but Ramon was quicker. "I will carry it," he said.

When they entered her apartment, she took the case from him and started for her bedroom. Ra­mon's question stopped her. "Was it me you were running away from?"

Katie turned in the doorway. "Not exactly. After last night, I just felt the need to get away from everything and everyone for awhile."

"What were you going to do?"