Ramon was speaking to the priest in a calm voice when Katie entered the cottage wrapped in the blanket. He held his arm out to her and drew her comfortingly close to his side, but his first words were laced with reproof. "Why did you not keep your appointment with Padre Gregorio, Katie?"
Katie's chin lifted defensively as she looked at the priest. Bald at the crown, his head was circled with a wide rim of white hair. His bushy white eyebrows slanted up at the ends, giving him a satanic look, which Katie thought was entirely appropriate for an old devil! Nevertheless, her eyes wavered when they collided with his piercing blue ones. "I forgot it."
Katie could actually feel Ramon's narrowed gaze aimed at her head.
"In that case," Padre Gregorio said in a cool, uncompromising voice, "Perhaps you would care to make another—for four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."
Katie agreed to this command performance with an ungracious, "Very well.''
"I will drive you back to the village, Padre," Ramon said.
Katie nearly dropped through the floor when, after nodding his acceptance, the priest directed a meaningful look at her over the rim of his wire spectacles. "I am certain that Senorita Connelly wants to return to Gabriella's now. It is growing late."
Without waiting for Ramon to reply, Katie turned abruptly and walked into the bathroom, closing the door. In a state of suffocating humiliation, she struggled into her damp clothing and combed her fingers through her hair.
Pulling open the door, she walked right into Ramon who was standing in the doorway, his hands braced high against the frame on either side of her. The wry amusement in his expression chafed against her already lacerated emotions. "Katie, he thinks he is protecting your virtue from my lecherous intentions."
Katie, who was suddenly perilously close to tears, stared at the cleft in Ramon's chin. "He doesn't believe for one minute that I have any virtue! Now please let's go, I want to get out of here. I—I'm tired."
As Katie stalked toward Padre Gregorio who was standing at the car, her soaked canvas shoes made a loud, squishing noise and her denim Levi's slapped wetly against her legs. This indisputable proof that her clothes had truly been soaked brought a flickering smile of approval to the priest's lips, but Katie merely gave him a frosty look and slid into the car. On the way to the village, he made two attempts to converse with her, which Katie discouraged by replying in monosyllables.
After leaving the priest in the village, they pulled up at Gabriella's house. Fifteen minutes later, when Katie emerged from her bedroom in dry clothes, Ramon was standing in the living room talking with Gabriella's husband, Eduardo. The moment he saw her, Ramon excused himself and invited Katie outside. Most of the ill effects from her encounter with Padre Gregorio had evaporated, but Katie was vaguely uneasy about Ramon's mood.
In heavy silence, they strolled through the neat little backyard. At the far end of it, Katie stopped and leaned her shoulders against a tree trunk. Ramon's hands came down on either side of her, imprisoning her. Katie saw the determination in his jaw and the cool speculation in his intent gaze. "Why did you not go to see Padre Gregorio this afternoon, Katie?"
Completely taken aback, Katie stammered. "I—I told you, I forget."
"I reminded you this morning when I came to see you, before I left for work. How could you forget it a few hours later?"
"I forgot it," she said defensively, "because I was busy doing what I've been doing for four days—trying to buy everything you need for your house."
"Why do you always refer to it as my house instead of our house?" he persisted relentlessly.
"Why are you suddenly asking me all these questions?" Katie burst out.
"Because when I ask myself the questions, I do not like the answers that occur to me." Moving back a step, he calmly extracted a thin cigar and lighter from his pocket. With his hands cupped over the flame he lit it, watching an uncomfortable Katie through the haze of aromatic smoke. "Padre Gregorio is the only possible obstacle to our getting married in ten days, is he not?''
Katie felt as if he were verbally stalking her, backing her into a corner. "I suppose so, yes."
"Tell me something," he said with casual curiosity, "Are you planning to keep your appointment with him tomorrow?"
Katie raked her hair off her forehead in an agitated gesture. "Yes, I'm going to keep it. But you may as well know right now that he doesn't like me, and I think he's nothing but a tyrannical busybody."
Ramon dismissed this with a noncommittal shrug. "I believe it is customary, even in the States, for a priest to assure himself that an engaged couple is reasonably suited to each other and has a good chance of making a successful marriage. That is all he wishes to do."
"He's not going to believe that about us! He's already decided the opposite."
"No, he has not," Ramon stated implacably. He moved closer and Katie unconsciously pressed back against the rough bark of the tree. His gaze roamed her face, calculating her answer to his next question before he even asked it. "Do you want him to decide we are not suited, Katie?"
"No!" Katie whispered.
"Tell me about your first marriage," he commanded abruptly.
"I will not!" Katie flung back, her whole body stiffening with anger. "Don't ever ask me to do that, because I won't. I try never to think about it."
"If you had truly recovered from it without scars," Ramon continued, "you should be able to talk about it without pain."
"Talk about it?!" Katie exploded in stunned rage. "Talk about it?" The violence of her own reaction momentarily shocked Katie into silence. Drawing a deep breath, she gained control of her stampeding emotions. With an apologetic smile at Ramon who was studying her like a specimen under a microscope, she said, "It's only that I don't want the ugliness of the past to spoil the present, and it would. Surely you can see that?"
The ghost of a reluctant smile touched Ramon's face as he gazed down at the smooth perfection of her glowing features. "I can see," he sighed softly. His hands slid up her arms in a gentle caress, tightening to draw her close against his heart. "I can see that you have a beautiful smile, and that you look tired.''
Katie twined her arms around his neck. She knew he wasn't satisfied with her explanation, and she was grateful beyond words that he wasn't going to pursue it further. "I am a little tired. I think I'll go to bed."
"And when you are lying in bed, what do you think about?" he asked, his voice husky and teasing.
Katie's eyes held an answering sparkle. "A color scheme for the kitchen," she lied.
"Oh, is that right?" he breathed softly. Katie nodded, a slow smile touching her lips.
"What do you think about?"
"The wholesale price of pineapples."
"Liar," she whispered, her gaze on the sensual mouth that had moved tantalizingly close to hers. "Yellow," he breathed against her lips.
"You mean the pineapples?" Katie murmured absently.
"I mean the kitchen."
"I thought green," she said, her heart pounding with anticipation.
Ramon drew back abruptly, his entire expression friendly and thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right. Green is a lively color, and one rarely becomes tired of it." He turned her and headed her toward the house with an affectionate pat on her derriere. "You think about it in bed tonight."
Katie took a few surprised steps, then turned to look at Ramon with puzzled disappointment.
His even white teeth flashed in a lazy grin as he quirked a brow at her. "Did you want something more? Something better to think about in bed, perhaps?"
Katie felt the sexual magnetism he was exuding as if it were some primitive force against which she had no resistance.
Even his velvet voice seemed to reach out and touch her. "Come here, Katie, and I will give it to you."
Katie's whole body felt flushed as she walked into his crushing embrace. The turmoil of the last hour, the wild fluctuations of mood from desire to humiliation to anger and now to
teasing, had twisted Katie into a mass of raw emotion that exploded the instant Ramon's arms closed around her.
Driven by a desperate need to somehow reassure Ramon—and herself—that everything was going to be all right, she kissed him with an unleashed urgency, a deep passion that sent a tremor through his powerful frame and made his arms tighten convulsively.
Ramon pulled his lips from hers and kissed her face, her forehead, her eyes, her neck.
And just before his mouth sought hers for one last stormy kiss, she thought he whispered, "Katie, I love you."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Katie and Gabriella spent the morning and most of the afternoon combing through shops in two neighboring villages. Katie liked Gabriella immensely. Besides being a wonderful companion, she was a tireless shopper. At times she was more enthusiastic about what Katie was doing than Katie was. But then, endless shopping with hundreds of things to buy and no time to do it was not Katie's idea of pleasure.