HEY WENT TO FOREST PARK for their picnic, and Ramon spread the blanket Katie brought beneath a giant cluster of oaks, where they feasted on the wafer-thin delicatessen corned beef, imported ham and thick crusty French bread he had brought.

As they talked and ate, Katie was vaguely aware of his appreciative gaze on her animated face and his absorption with the shining tumble of red gold hair that spilled over her shoulders whenever she reached into the wicker picnic basket. But she was having such a lovely time, she really didn't mind.

"I believe fried chicken is customary for picnics in the States," Ramon said when there was a lull in the conversation. "Unfortunately, I cannot cook. If we have another picnic, I will buy the food and let you prepare it."

Katie almost choked on the hearty Chianti wine she was sipping from a paper cup. "What an utterly chauvinistic supposition to make," she berated him, laughing. "Why do you assume that I can cook?"

Stretching out on his side, Ramon leaned on a forearm and regarded her with exaggerated gravity. "Because you are a woman, of course."

"Are—are you serious?" she sputtered.

"Serious about your being a woman? Or about your being able to cook? Or about you?"

Katie heard the sensuous huskiness that deepened his voice as he asked the last question. "Serious about all women being able to cook," she informed him primly.

His grin widened at her evasiveness. "I did not say that all women were good cooks, merely that women should do the cooking. Men should work to buy the food for them to prepare. That is the way it ought to be."

Katie stared at him in speechless disbelief, half-convinced that he was deliberately goading her. "It may surprise you to hear this, but not all women are born with a burning desire to chop onions and grate cheese."

Ramon muffled a chuckle, then abruptly changed the subject. "What sort of job do you have?"

"I work in the personnel department of a big cor¬poration. I interview people for jobs, things like that."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Very much," she told him, reaching into the basket and extracting an enormous red apple. Draw-ing her denim-clad legs up against her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and bit into the juicy apple. "This is delicious."

"That is unfortunate."

Katie looked at him in surprise. "It's unfortunate that I like the apple?"

"It is unfortunate that you enjoy your job so much. You may resent having to give it up when you marry."

"Give it up when I—!" Katie giggled merrily, shaking her head. "Ramon, it's lucky for you that you aren't an American. You aren't even safe in this country. There are women here who could cook you for the way you think."

"I am an American," he said, ignoring Katie's dire warning.

"I thought you said you were Puerto Rican."

"I said I was born in Puerto Rico. Actually I am Spanish."

"You just said you were American and Puerto Rican."

"Katie," he said, using her name for the first time and sending an unexplainable thrill of pleasure through her. "Puerto Rico is a U.S. common¬wealth. Everyone born there is automatically an American citizen. My ancestors, however, are all Spanish, not Puerto Rican. I am an American, born in Puerto Rico, and of Spanish descent. Just as you are—" he leisurely surveyed her fair complexion, blue eyes and reddish blond hair "—as you are an American, born in the United States, and of Irish descent."

Katie was a little stung by the tone of superiority with which he delivered this lecture. "What you are is a Spanish-Puerto Rican-American-male chauvin¬ist—of the worst sort!"

"Why do you use that tone of voice to me? Be¬cause I believe that when a woman marries her duty is to take care of her husband?"

Katie gave him a lofty look. "No matter what you believe, the fact remains that many women need to have other interests and accomplishments outside the home, just as men do. We like having a career we can take pride in."

"A woman can take pride in caring for her hus¬band and children.''

Katie knew she would say anything, anything to wipe that insufferably complacent grin from his face. "Luckily for us, American men who are born in the United States, don't object to their wives hav¬ing careers. They are more understanding and con¬siderate!"

"They are very understanding and considerate," Ramon conceded derisively. "They let you work, permit you to hand over the money you earn, allow you to have their babies, find someone to care for their babies, clean their houses and," he taunted, "still do the cooking."

Katie was momentarily dumbstruck by this speech, then she flopped down on her back and burst out laughing. "You're absolutely right!"

Ramon laid back beside her, linking his hands behind his head, staring up at the powder-blue sky dotted with cotton-ball clouds. "You have a beauti¬ful laugh, Katie."

Katie took another bite of apple and said cheer¬fully, "You're only saying that because you think you've changed my mind, but you haven't. If a woman wants a career she must be able to have one. Besides, most women want nicer homes and clothes than their husbands could provide on their salaries alone."

"So she gets her fine house and clothes at the ex¬pense of her husband's pride, going to work herself and proving to him, and everyone, that what he can provide for her is not good enough."

"American husbands aren't as proud as Span¬iards must be."

"American husbands have abdicated their re¬sponsibilities. They do not have anything to be proud of."

"Baloney!" Katie replied unarguably. "Would you want the girl you love and marry to live in some¬place like Harlem because that was the best you could give her on the money you make driving that truck; when you knew that if she worked, doing something she liked, you could both have much more?"

"I would expect her to be happy with what I could give her."

Katie shivered inwardly at the prospect of some sweet Spanish girl having to live in a slum because Ramon's pride wouldn't allow her to work. His drowsy voice added, "And I would not like it if she were ashamed of what I do for a living, as you are."

Katie heard the quiet reprimand in his words, but persevered anyway. "Don't you ever wish you did something better than drive a produce truck?"

His answer was long in coming, and Katie suspect¬ed that he was marking her down as an ambitious pushy American woman. "I do. I grow produce too."

Katie reared up on both elbows. "You work on a produce farm? In Missouri?"

"In Puerto Rico," he corrected. Katie couldn't decide whether she was relieved or disappointed that he would not be remaining in St. Louis. His eyes were drifting closed, and she let her gaze wander over his thick slightly curling black hair to his face. There was Spanish nobility stamped on his bronzed features, authority and arrogance in the firm jawline and straight nose, determination in the thrust of his chin. Yet, Katie thought with a smile, the slight cleft in his chin and his long, spiky lashes laying against his cheeks, softened the overall effect. His lips were firm but sensuously molded, and with a tingle of excitement Katie wondered how it would feel to have those lips moving warmly on hers. He had told her yester¬day that he was thirty-four, but Katie thought he looked younger now, with his face relaxed in sleep.

She let her gaze travel down the long, superbly fit and muscled body stretched out on the blanket be¬side her. The red knit shirt he was wearing hugged his wide shoulders and chest, its short sleeves ex¬posing the corded strength of his arms. His Levi's accentuated his narrow hips, flat stomach and hard thighs. Even sleeping, he seemed to exude a raw potent virility, but this no longer repelled her. Some¬how, having admitted to him that facially he re¬minded her slightly of David, had banished all similarity between the two men banished from her mind.

His eyes didn't open, but the mobile line of his mouth quirked in a half-smile. "I hope what you are seeing meets with your approval."

Katie's chagrined gaze flew to the rolling parkland stretching out before her. "It does. The park is beautiful today, the trees as—"

"You were not looking at the trees, señorita"

Katie chose not to answer that. She was glad he had called her señorita; it sounded alien and odd to her, emphasizing the differences between them and neutralizing the effect his blatant masculinity had been having on her. What had she been thinking of, wanting Ramon to kiss her? Getting further in¬volved with him could only lead to disaster. They had absolutely nothing in common; they came from two completely different worlds. Socially, they were miles apart. Tomorrow, for example, she was ex¬pected to attend a barbecue at her parents' elegant home on the grounds of Forest Oaks Country Club. Ramon could never fit in with the sort of people who would be there. He would feel ill at ease if she brought him with her. He would be out of place. And the moment her parents discovered that he was a farm laborer who drove a produce truck during the spring, they would very likely make it obvious to Ramon that they didn't think he belonged in their home, or with their daughter.

She would not see Ramon again after today, Katie decided firmly. There could never really be anything between them, and her dawning sexual response to him was a solid enough reason to break off the rela¬tionship immediately. It could never lead to any¬thing meaningful or lasting.

"Why have you drawn away from me, Katie?"

His penetrating black eyes were open, searching her face. Katie made absorbing work of smoothing the blanket beneath her, then lying back on it. "I don't know what you mean," she said, closing her eyes and deliberately shutting him out.

His voice was low-pitched and sensual. "Would you like to know what I see when I look at you?"

"Not," she said primly, "if you're going to sound like an amorous Latin lover when you tell me. And from the tone of your voice, I think that's exactly what you were going to do." Katie tried to relax, but in the charged silence that followed her words it was impossible. A few minutes later, she sat up abruptly. "I think it's time I got back home," she announced, already scrambling to her knees and beginning to re¬pack the picnic hamper. Without a word, Ramon stood up and began folding the blanket.

The strained silence during the drive home was broken only twice by Katie who, in the hope of aton¬ing for her earlier rudeness, made two attempts at conversation only to be rebuffed by Ramon's mono¬syllabic replies. She was ashamed of her snobbish thoughts, embarrassed for the way she had spoken to him, and angry because he wouldn't let her smooth things over.

By the time he swung the Buick Regal into the parking space in front of her door, Katie wanted nothing more than to end the day, even if it was only three o'clock. Before Ramon could come around the car for her, she shoved open the door and practically leaped out.

"I will open the door for you," he snapped. "It is a gesture of common courtesy."

Katie, who realized for the first time that he was bitingly angry, was suddenly incensed at his obstinacy. "It may surprise you to hear this," she announced as she stormed up the steps and jammed her key into the lock, "but there is nothing wrong with my hands and I am perfectly capable of open¬ing a damned car door. And I don't see why you should be courteous to me when I have been abso¬lutely obnoxious to you!"

The angry humor of this remark was not lost on Ramon, but it was totally eclipsed by her next one. As she flung open the door to her apartment she turned around in the doorway and said furiously, "Thank you, Ramon. I had a very nice time."

Katie, who had no idea why Ramon had burst out laughing, was relieved that he wasn't still angry, and suddenly very wary of the way he had followed her into her apartment, firmly closed the door behind him, and was now looking at her with an unmistak¬able expression on his face.

His smoothly spoken words were part invitation, part order: "Come here, Katie."

Katie shook her head and took a cautious step backward, but an answering quiver was tingling up her spine.

"Is it not the custom of liberated American women to show their appreciation for having 'a very nice time' with a kiss?" Ramon persisted.

"Not all of them," Katie croaked. "Some of us just say 'thank you.'"

A faint smile touched his mouth, but his heavy-lidded gaze dropped to the inviting fullness of her lips, lingering there. "Come here, Katie." When she still balked, he added softly, "Are you not curious about how Spaniards kiss and Puerto Ricans make love?"

Katie swallowed convulsively. "No," she whis¬pered.

"Come here, Katie, and I will show you."

Hypnotized by that velvet voice and those mes¬merizing black eyes, Katie went to him in a trance that was a combination of fright and excitement.

Whatever she expected when she walked into Ra¬mon's arms, it was not to find herself crushed in an embrace of steel and swept soaring off into some thick sweet darkness where the only feel¬ing was of his parted lips moving ceaselessly on hers; the only sensation, the waves of liquid heat that raced through her in the wake of his caress¬ing hands. "Katie," he whispered hoarsely, drag¬ging his mouth from hers and kissing her eyes, her temple, her cheek. "Katie," he repeated in an ach¬ing whisper as his mouth again took possession of hers.

It seemed an eternity before he finally lifted his head. Weak and trembling, Katie laid her cheek against his hard chest and felt the violent pounding of his heart. She was utterly devastated by what had just happened. She had been kissed more times than she could remember, and by men whose technique had been practiced and perfected until it was almost an art form. In their arms, she had felt pleasure— not this mindless burst of joy followed by fierce longing.

Ramon's lips brushed the shining hair atop her head. "Now, shall I tell you what I think when I look at you?"

Katie tried to answer lightly, but her voice was nearly as husky as his. "Are you going to sound like an amorous Latin?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

His chuckle was rich and deep. "I see a beauty with red gold hair and the smile of an angel; and I remember a princess who stood in that singles' bar looking very displeased with her subjects; then I hear a witch telling a man who was making advances to her, that her roommates were lesbians." He laid his hand against the side of her face, his fingers ten¬derly brushing her cheek. "When I look at you, I think you are my angel-princess-witch."

The way he referred to her as "his" brought Katie's drifting spirit plummeting back to reality. Abruptly pulling free of Ramon's arms, she said with false brightness, "Would you like to walk down to the pool? It opened today, and everybody from the apartment complex will be out there." As she spoke she jammed her hands into her back pock¬ets, caught the way Ramon's glance slipped to the straining fabric of her T-shirt across her breasts, and hastily removed her hands.

One black brow arched in mild inquiry, silently asking why she objected to having his eyes on her when he had just had his hands on her. "Of course," he said, "I would enjoy seeing your pool and meeting your friends.''

Once again Katie felt uncomfortable with him. He seemed like a dark, foreign stranger who was too in¬tensely interested in her. Added to that, she was leery of him now, and with good reason. She knew when a man intended to maneuver her into bed, and that was where Ramon wanted her. As soon as possible.

Sliding glass doors opened off the back of her liv¬ing room onto a small patio enclosed by a stockade fence that provided privacy. Two redwood loungers with thick flowered cushions were strategically placed in the center for sunbathing. Behind them, and on both sides, were scattered a profusion of Katie's lush plants, some of which were already blooming.

She stopped beside a redwood planter overflow¬ing with red and white petunias. With one hand on the door in the stockade fence, Katie hesitated, try¬ing to think of how to phrase what she wanted to say.

"You have a beautiful apartment," Ramon com¬mented behind her. "The rent must be very expen-sive."

Katie swung around, instantly seizing on Ramon's idle comment as a perfect means of drawing atten¬tion to the differences between them, and hopefully, cooling his ardent intentions. "Thank you. As a matter of fact, the rent is very high. I live here because it's reassuring to my parents to know that my friends and neighbors are the right sort of people."

"Rich people?"

"Not rich necessarily, but successful, socially ac¬ceptable people."

Ramon's face was a mask, wiped clean of all ex¬pression. "Perhaps it would be better then, if you did not introduce me to your friends."

One look at that aloof, handsome face, and Katie again felt ashamed of herself. Raking an agitated hand through her hair, she drew a determined breath and confronted the real issue: "Ramon, despite what just happened between us in my apart¬ment, I want you to understand that I am not going to go to bed with you. Now or ever."

"Because I am Spanish?" he asked dispassionate¬ly.

Katie's fair complexion bloomed with chagrin. "No, of course not! Because...." She smiled deri-sively. "To use a hackneyed phrase, 'I'm just not that kind of girl.'" Feeling much better now that everything was out in the open between them, she turned back toward the door in the fence. "Well, shall we go down and see what's happening at the pool?"

"I do not think that would be wise," he said sar¬donically. "Being seen with me could cause you embarrassment in front of your 'successful, socially acceptable' friends."

Katie gazed over her shoulder at the tall man who was now looking down his aristocratic nose at her, his hard eyes ironic and disdainful. She sighed. "Ramon, just because I sounded like a conceited ass, doesn't mean that you have to sound like one, too. Please come down to the pool with me?"

Laughter flickered across his features as he gazed at her. Wordlessly, he reached over her shoulder and pushed the door open for her.

The olympic-size swimming pool was a scene of total chaos, as Katie knew it would be. Four sepa¬rate games of water polo were under way with all in attendance yelling and splashing. Girls in bikinis and men in brief swimming trunks were sprawled on towels and chaise longues, their bodies slick with suntan lotion, toasting in the sun. Beer cans and portable radios were everywhere, and music was blaring over the clubhouse speakers.

Katie walked over to a nearby umbrella table and pulled out an aluminum chair. "What do you think of opening day at an American swimming pool?" she asked Ramon as he sat down beside her.

His enigmatic gaze swept the colorful pandemoni¬um. "Interesting."

"Hi, Katie," Karen called, emerging from the pool like a graceful mermaid, her voluptuous body shining with rivulets of water. As usual, Karen was accompanied by at least two devoted males, who padded dripping beside her over to Katie and Ra¬mon.

"You know Don and Brad don't you?" Karen said, with a perfunctory nod at the two men who were also tenants in the apartment complex. Katie knew them both almost as well as Karen did, so she was a little surprised, but then, as she soon realized, Karen didn't really care who knew whom, so long as she was introduced to Ramon.

With unaccountable reluctance, Katie performed the introductions. She tried not to notice the warm appreciation in Ramon's flashing white smile when he was presented to Karen, and the answering spar¬kle in Karen's green eyes as she extended her hand to him.

"Why don't you two change clothes and come back out and swim?" Karen invited, without taking her eyes off Ramon. "There's going to be a big party here at sundown. You should stay for that, too."

"Ramon doesn't have any swimming trunks with him," Katie quickly declined.

"No problem," the resourceful Karen replied, tearing her eyes from Ramon for the first time since she had climbed out of the pool. "Brad will loan Ramon a pair, won't you, Brad?"

Brad, who had been in hot pursuit of Karen for nearly a year, looked as if he would rather loan Ramon a one-way ticket out of town, but he politely seconded the offer. And how could he help it? Few men ever wanted to deny Karen anything—her looks promised so much in return. She was the same height as Katie, five feet six, but there was a ripe sexuality about her dark hair and curvaceous body that made her seem like passion fruit ready for the plucking—but only by the man of her choice. The independence that shone in her slanting green eyes made it perfectly clear that she did her own choosing. And from the way Karen was watching Ramon walk away with Brad to change into swim¬ming trunks, it was obvious to Katie that Ramon was Karen's choice. "Where,” Karen breathed almost reverently, "did you ever find him? He looks like a Greek Adonis... or was Adonis blond?

Well, anyway, he looks like a black-haired Greek god."

Katie resisted the uncharitable impulse to cool Karen's interest in Ramon by informing her that he was a black-haired Spanish farm laborer. "I met him at the Canyon Inn, Friday night," she said in-stead.

"Really? I didn't see him there, and he'd be al¬most impossible to overlook. What does he do, be-side look sexy and gorgeous?"

"He", Katie hesitated, then to spare Ramon any possible embarrassment, she said, "He's in transportation. Trucking, actually."

"No kidding?" Karen said unanswerably, giving Katie a searching look. "Is he your private stock or can anyone sample?"

Katie couldn't help smiling at Karen's bluntness. "Would it matter?"

"You know it would. We're friends. If you say you want him, I won't take him away."

The odd thing was, Katie knew she meant it. Karen had personal ethics; she didn't steal her friends' men. Nevertheless, it rankled Katie that Karen automatically assumed she could take Ramon away, unless, out of the spirit of friendship, she chose not to do it. "Help yourself," Katie said with an indifference she didn't entirely feel. "He's all yours if you want him. I'm going to go change into my suit."

Changing into her bikini in her apartment, Katie was annoyed with herself for not telling Karen to leave Ramon alone. And she was equally annoyed for caring one way or another. She was also a little crushed by the frank admiration she had seen in Ramon's expression when he looked at Karen's lush bikini-clad figure.

Katie stood in front of the mirror in her bathing suit, critically surveying her appearance. The bright blue bikini revealed a stunning figure in all its glory, from full high breasts, narrow waist and gently curving hips, to long shapely legs. With disgust, Katie thought she must be the only woman alive who could look coolly proper when she was practically naked!

Men whistled appreciatively at girls like Karen Wilson; they stared in silence at Katie Connelly. The quiet pride in the tilt of her chin and the natural grace with which she moved always made her seem vaguely aloof, and Katie was powerless to change her image, even if she wanted to, which she normal¬ly didn't.

With the exception of singles' bars, Katie was rarely approached by men she didn't know. She didn't look approachable. As a rule, men took one look at her flawless skin and clear blue eyes and saw classic beauty rather than sex appeal. They expected her to be remote, untouchable, and they treated her with restrained admiration. By the time they knew her well enough to realize that she was basically warm and friendly with an irrepressible sense of humor, they also knew her well enough not to press her for more than she was willing to give. They talked with her and laughed with her and asked her for dates, but their sexual overtures were usually verbal rather than physical—softly spoken innuendos that Katie smilingly and pointedly ignored.

Katie pulled a brush through her tumbling mass of waving hair, gave it a quick shake to restore it to its casual, windblown style, and took a last dissatis¬fied look in the mirror.

When she reached the pool area she found Ramon stretched out on a lounger beside three young women who had spread their towels on the cement pool deck and were sitting there, blatantly flirting with him. Seated at the umbrella table on his other side was Karen, along with Brad and Don.

"May I join your harem, Ramon?" Katie quipped, standing over him with a faint smile.

A lazy, devastating grin swept across his tanned face as he looked up at her, then he lithely rolled to his feet, getting up to give her his coveted lounger. Inwardly, Katie sighed. She may as well have come out here in an overcoat. Not once had Ramon's gaze dropped below her neck.

He sat down at the table with Karen and the other two men.

Trying to ignore her mixed emotions, Katie began rubbing suntan oil on her leg.

"I'm very good at that, Katie," Don grinned at her. "Need some help?"

Katie glanced up with a plucky smile. "My legs aren't that long," she declined. Unlike Brad, Don was not completely obsessed with Karen, and Katie had sensed for the last several months that if she gave him the slightest encouragement, he would easily shift his interest from Karen to herself. She was in the process of spreading the oil onto her left arm when she heard Karen say, "Katie told me that you're in the transportation business, Ramon."

"Oh, she did, did she?" Ramon drawled with enough sarcasm to make Katie pause and stare at him. He was leaning back in his chair with a thin cigar clamped between his white teeth, his piercing eyes leveled on Katie. Katie flushed and hastily pulled her gaze from his.

A few moments later, Karen did her utmost to get him to go swimming with her, but was met with a firmly polite refusal.

"Do you know how to swim?" Katie asked Ramon when the others had left.

"Puerto Rico is an island, Katie," he replied dry¬ly. "The Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Carib¬bean on the other. There is no shortage of water in which to swim."

Katie looked at him with a puzzled frown. From the moment he had kissed her in her apartment, a subtle shift in power had been taking place. Until then she had been confident and in control of their relationship. Now she felt confused and strangely vulnerable, while Ramon seemed decisive and self-assured. Shrugging, she said, "I was only going to offer to teach you to swim if you didn't know how. There's no need for you to launch into a lecture on Puerto Rican geography."

Ignoring her cross tone, he said, "If you wish to swim, we will swim."

Katie's breath froze as he came to his feet and stood looking down at her in Brad's white swimming trunks. He was six feet three inches of splendid masculinity, wide shouldered and narrow hipped, with the firm muscles of an athlete. His chest was covered with a light furring of black hair, and as Katie arose, she kept her eyes carefully fixed on the silver medallion hanging from a chain around his neck.

Disconcerted and embarrassed by the way the sight of his bronzed body was affecting her, Katie did not look up at him until she realized that he had no intention of moving out of her way. When she finally dragged her eyes to his, he said softly, "I think you look very nice, too."

An unbidden smile curved Katie's lips. "I didn't think you noticed," she said as they began walking over to the pool.

"I did not think you wanted me to look at you."

"You certainly looked at Karen," Katie heard herself say. She shook her head bemusedly and spoke her next thought aloud as well. "I didn't mean to say that."

"No," he said with amusement. "I am sure you did not."

Preferring to forget the whole exchange, Katie stood poised at the deep end of the pool. She dived, cutting the water in a clean, graceful line. Ramon was right beside her, pacing himself to her strong strokes with an effortless ease that Katie had to ad¬mire. They swam twenty laps together before Katie let her feet touch bottom. She stood watching Ramon finish ten more laps before she laughingly called, "Show off!"

Diving neatly, he disappeared from her sight. Katie let out a startled shriek as hands jerked her feet out from under her and hauled her to the bot¬tom. When she surfaced she was gasping for air, her eyes stinging from the chlorine. "That," she said with laughing severity as Ramon raked his wet curly hair back and grinned at her, "was a very childish thing to do. Almost as childish as—this!" Slicing her hand at the water, she sent a geyser of it spraying into Ramon's face, then ducked around trying to avoid reprisal. There followed a laughing, dunking, racing session that lasted for fifteen minutes and left her breathless and exhausted.

Hauling herself over the side of the pool, Katie padded over to the lawn chair and handed Ramon the towel she had brought for him. "You play too rough," she chided him good-naturedly as she bent over and wrung out her long heavy hair.

His chest heaving from their exertions, Ramon looped the towel around his neck and put his hands on his hips. Quietly, he said, "I would be as gentle with you as you wished me to be."

Katie turned liquid inside at the meaning she read into his words. Almost certain that he had been referring to making love to her, she flopped down on the lounge on her stomach and laid her head on her arms. Her skin flinched as Ramon drizzled sun-tan oil onto her back, then sat down beside her. She tensed as his hands began slowly stroking up and down her back, rhythmically massaging the oil into her satiny skin. "Shall I unfasten the back?" he asked.

"Don't even consider trying it," Katie warned. By the time his hands had moved up to her shoulders and his thumbs were circling just below her nape, Katie was breathing in shallow little breaths, and every inch of her skin was vibrantly alive where his hands had touched it.

"Am I bothering you, Katie?" he asked in a husky whisper.

"You know you are," Katie murmured lethar¬gically, before she could stop herself. She heard his satisfied chuckle and turned her head away from him. "You're doing it on purpose, and it's making me very nervous."

"In that case, I will let you relax," he said as his weight lifted from her chaise longue. When he was gone, Katie tried not to wonder what he was doing and firmly closed her eyes to the blazing late-afternoon sun.

Occasionally she heard his deep voice followed by a peal of feminine laughter, or one of the men call¬ing something to him. He certainly fit in well here, Katie mused. But then, why shouldn't he, she though dourly. The only requirement for popularity around here with the opposite sex was having an at¬tractive body, preferably combined with an attrac¬tive face, and if you were a man, a good job. Katie, with her small lie, had provided Ramon with the lat¬ter.

What was the matter with her, Katie wondered drowsily. She had absolutely no reason to complain. Despite her occasional bouts of discontent lately, when her world seemed populated by phony, shallow people, she enjoyed the clever bantering that she exchanged with the confident, self-assured men she knew. She liked having nice clothes, a beautiful apartment, and being the object of so much mascu¬line admiration. She genuinely enjoyed men's com¬pany even though she carefully avoided becoming intimate with any of them, because Katie's physical desires were never stronger than her overwhelming need to retain what pride and self-respect David had left her.

Rob would have been the only other man she had ever let make love to her. Luckily she had discovered he was married before she let that happen. The right man would come along someday and she would hold nothing back. The right man, not just any man. Under no circumstances was Katie Connelly going to find herself sitting around the pool or at one of the singles' bars, with three or four men who all had intimate knowledge of her body. It happened to other women all the time, but Katie found the idea degrading and repulsive.

"Hey, Katie, wake up and roll over," Don com¬manded.

Katie blinked, surprised that she had fallen asleep, and obediently rolled onto her back.

"It's almost six o'clock. Brad and I are going to get some beer and pizzas for the party tonight. Do you want me to bring anything stronger for you and Ramon?" Was there a sneer in the way he said Ramon's name?

Katie wrinkled her nose at her grinning admirer. "Stronger than Mama Romano's pizzas? Heaven

forbid!" She looked around for Ramon and saw him walking toward her with Karen on one side and another woman on the other. Carefully extinguish¬ing the ridiculous flare of jealousy she felt, Katie said to Ramon, "There's going to be a party out here tonight—dancing and that kind of thing. Would you like to stay for it?"

"Of course he would, Katie," Karen said prompt¬ly on his behalf.

"Then it's fine with me," Katie said with a shrug. She would enjoy the party with her friends, and Ramon could enjoy it with Karen and whomever else he chose.

By nine-thirty that night the food had been de¬voured, along with several cases of beer and count-less bottles of liquor. The pool lights were lit, giving the water an iridescent green glow, and someone had put on a disco tape to play over the loudspeakers. Katie, who loved to dance, had been doing so for nearly an hour with assorted partners when she noticed Ramon standing far away from the activity, a solitary figure leaning against the fence that sur¬rounded the pool, staring out into the distance. Silhouetted in the night, with his swimming trunks a stark band of white in the inky darkness, he seemed very aloof, and yet, somehow, lonely.

"Ramon?" Katie said anxiously, coming up be¬hind him and putting her hand on his arm. He turned slowly and looked down at her, and she saw the pleasure her touch brought to his smile. Cau¬tiously, she removed her hand. "Why are you over here, all by yourself?"

"I needed to escape from the noise so that I could think. Do you never feel the need to be by your¬self?"

"Yes," she admitted, "but not usually in the mid¬dle of a party."

"We do not have to be here in the middle of a party," he pointed out meaningfully.

Katie's heart gave a funny little lurch, which she steadfastly ignored. "Would you like to dance?"

He tipped his head in the direction of the Neil Diamond recording that was now blasting over the loudspeakers. "When I dance I like to hold a woman in my arms," he answered. "Besides, I would have to wait in line for the privilege of danc¬ing with you."

"Ramon, do you know how to dance?" Katie persisted, certain that he probably didn't, and about to offer to teach him.

Flinging his cigar away in a glowing red arc, he said tersely. "Yes, Katie, I know how to dance. I know how to swim. I know how to tie my own shoes. I have a slight accent, which you seem to think means I am backward and ignorant, but which many women find attractive."

Katie stiffened angrily. Lifting her chin, she stared straight into his eyes and said very quietly and very distinctly, "Go to hell." Intending to walk away, she pivoted on her heel, then gasped in sur-prise as Ramon's hand damped on her arm, jerking her around to face him.

In a voice vibrating with anger, he said, "Do not ever speak to me that way again, and do not swear. It does not become you."

"I'll talk to you any way I like," Katie blazed. "And if all the other women find you so damned at-tractive, they're welcome to you!"

Ramon gazed down into her stormy blue eyes and proudly beautiful face, and a reluctant smile of ad¬miration broke across his features. "What a little spitfire you are," he chuckled. "And when you are angry—“

"I am not a little anything," Katie interrupted hotly. "I am nearly five feet seven inches tall. And if you were about to say that I'm beautiful when I'm angry, I warn you, I'll laugh my sides off. Men al¬ways say that to women because they heard it in some ridiculous old movie, and—"

"Katie," Ramon breathed as his firm, sensual mouth descended to hers, "You are beautiful when you are angry—and if you laugh, I will toss you into the pool."

A jolt rocketed through Katie's nervous system as his warm lips covered hers in a lingering kiss. When he lifted his head, he slipped his arm around Katie's waist, drew her unresisting body close to his side, and led her to the crowd of dancing couples as a slow love song began to play.

Ramon's low voice murmured something in her ear as they danced, but Katie didn't understand the words he said to her. She was too preoccupied with the unbelievably arousing feel of his bare legs and thighs sliding intimately against hers as they moved in time to the music. Desire was pouring through her, melting her resolve. She wanted to lift her head and feel his mouth claim hers the way it had in her apartment; she wanted to be crushed in his strong arms and swept off into that same sweet, wild obli¬vion he had shown her before.

Closing her eyes in despair, Katie admitted the truth to herself. Even though she'd only known him for forty-eight hours, she wanted Ramon to make love to her tonight. She wanted it so badly that she was shaken and amazed... but at least she could understand her physical attraction to him. What she couldn't understand, and what frightened her, was this strange, magnetic pull she felt toward him emo¬tionally. Sometimes, when he spoke to her in that deep, compelling voice of his, or looked at her with those dark penetrating eyes, Katie almost felt as if he were quietly reaching out to her and inexorably drawing her closer and closer to him.

Mentally, Katie gave herself a hard shake. Getting involved with Ramon would be disastrous. They were hopelessly incompatible. He was proud, poor and dominating, while she was also proud, wealthy by his standards, and innately independent. Any re¬lationship between them could only end in hurt and anger.

Like the intelligent, sensible young woman she was, Katie decided the best way to avoid the danger of Ramon's attraction was to avoid Ramon himself. She would stay away from him as much as possible for the rest of the evening and firmly refuse to see him again after tonight. It was as simple as that. Ex¬cept that when his lips brushed first her temple, then her forehead, Katie nearly forgot that she was sensi¬ble and intelligent, and almost lifted her mouth up to his, to receive the stirring kiss she knew he would give her.

The instant the song ended, Katie broke away from him. With a bright, smile pinned to her face she met his questioning look and said airily, "Why don't you mingle and have fun? I'll see you later."

For the next hour and a half Katie flirted with every man she knew, and several she didn't. She was her most dazzlingly sociable self, and wherever she went the men followed, each one ready to dance, swim, drink, or make love, according to her slightest preference. She laughed and drank and danced.... And every moment she was aware that Ramon had apparently taken her suggestion and was thoroughly enjoying himself with at least four other women, particularly Karen, who never left his side.

"Katie, let's get out of here and go somewhere quiet." Don's breath was hot in her ear as they danced to a throbbing disco beat.

"I hate quiet places," Katie announced, twirling away from him and draping herself across Brad who was surprised, but not displeased, to find her sud¬denly sitting on his lap. "Brad hates quiet places too, don't you?"

"Sure I do," Brad leered. "So let's go back to my place and make noise in private."

Katie wasn't listening. From the corner of her eye she watched Karen dancing with Ramon. Both of her arms were wound around his neck, her body swaying sensuously against his. Whatever Karen was saying to him certainly must have been amusing, be¬cause Ramon, who had been grinning down at her, suddenly threw back his head and burst out laugh¬ing. Irrationally, Katie was hurt by his easy defec¬tion. Redoubling her efforts to be gay, she stood up and pulled a reluctant Brad to his feet. "Get up, lazy, and dance with me."

Brad relinquished his can of beer, strolled into the dancers with his arm around Katie's shoulders, then caught her in a surprisingly crushing em¬brace. "What the hell has got into you?" he de¬manded in her ear. "I've never seen you act like this."

Katie didn't answer because she was frantically looking for Ramon and Karen who, as she soon re¬alized, were nowhere in sight. Her heart plummeted. Ramon had left the party with Karen.

When they hadn't returned after thirty minutes, Katie abandoned all pretense of enjoying herself. Her stomach was twisted into sick knots and, whether she was dancing or talking, her eyes con-stantly scanned the shifting bodies, desperately searching for Ramon's tall form.

Katie wasn't the only one who had noted Karen's disappearance with Ramon. Katie was dancing with Brad again, ignoring him entirely while she craned her neck looking for the missing couple, when Brad hissed contemptuously, "You aren't by any wild chance hung up on that spic that Karen's taken to her apartment, are you?"

"Don't call him that!" Katie said fiercely, pulling out of his arms. There were tears in her eyes as she turned and plunged into the throngs of dancing cou¬ples. "Where are you going?" an authoritative voice

demanded right behind her.

Katie swung around and faced Ramon, her fists clenched impotently at her sides. "Where have you been?"

One dark brow lifted. "Jealous?"

"Do you know," she said, almost choking, "I don't think I even like you!''

"I do not like you very much tonight, either," Ramon replied evenly. Suddenly his gaze narrowed on her face. "There are tears in your eyes. Why?"

"Because," Katie whispered furiously, "that stupid bastard called you a spic."

Ramon burst out laughing and dragged her into his arms. "Oh, Katie," he laughed and sighed against her hair, "he is just angry because the woman he wants went for a walk with me."

Tipping her head back, Katie searched his face. "You only went for a walk?"

The laughter vanished from his expression. "Only for a walk. Nothing more." His arms tightened, holding her close as they moved in time to the music. Katie laid her cheek against the reassuring strength of his chest and surrendered to delight as his hands caressed her bare shoulders and back, then slid lower, splaying against her spine to force her pliant body into intimate contact with every hard line of his legs and thighs. One hand lifted and curved around her nape, stroking it sensuously, then tightened in an abrupt command. Drawing an unsteady breath, Katie obediently lifted her head to receive his kiss. His hand plunged into her thick silky hair, holding her captive for the driving hunger of his mouth.

By the time he finally drew back, Ramon's breathing was harsh and Katie's pulse was racing out of control, the blood pounding in her ears. She stared up at him and shakily said, "I think I am get-ting very scared."

"I know, querida," he said gently. "Things are happening too quickly for you."

"What does 'querida' mean?"

"Darling."

Katie closed her eyes and swallowed, swaying weakly against him. "How long will you be here be¬fore you go back to Puerto Rico?"

His answer was a long time in coming. "I can stay until Sunday, a week from today, but no longer. We will spend every day together until then."

Katie was too disappointed to even try to hide it. "We can't. I have to attend a big Memorial Day gathering at my parents' house tomorrow. I have Tuesday off work but Wednesday I have to be back at the office." She could see that he was about to argue, and since she also wanted to be with him as much as possible in the time they had left, Katie said, "Would you like to come to my parents' house with me tomorrow?" He looked uncomfortable and some sanity returned to Katie. "That probably isn't a good idea. You won't like them, and they won't like you."

"Because they are rich and I am not?" He smiled faintly. "I may like them in spite of their wealth, who knows?"

Katie smiled at the way he deliberately misstated the problem, and his arms tightened possessively, drawing her closer to him. He had a very engaging smile that softened his virile handsomeness and could make him look almost boyish. "Shall we go back to my place?'' Katie said.

Ramon nodded and Katie went to collect her things while he poured Scotch into two paper cups, added ice and water, and then crossed to where she waited.

When they got to her little enclosed patio area, Katie was surprised that, instead of going indoors, Ramon put the drinks down on the small table be¬tween the two redwood lounge chairs, then stretched out on one of them. Somehow, she expected that he would try to carry on the rest of their conversation in her bed.

With mingled feelings of disappointment and re¬lief, she curled up on the other lounge and twisted toward him. He lit a cigar, its glowing red tip her only focal point in the darkness. "Tell me about your parents, Katie."

Katie took a fortifying swallow of her drink. "By most people's standards, they're very wealthy, but they weren't always. My father owned an ordinary grocery store until ten years ago, when he talked the bank into letting him expand it into a luxury super¬market. It did very well, and after that he opened twenty more of them. Haven't you passed any mod¬ernistic supermarkets with the name 'Connelly's' on them?"

"I believe so."

"Well, that's us. Four years ago my dad joined Forest Oaks Country Club. It isn't quite as presti-gious as Old Warson or St. Louis Country Club, but the Forest Oaks members like to pretend it is, and my father built the biggest house on the club grounds, right on the golf course."

"I ask you about your parents, and you tell me about their money. What are they like?"

Katie tried to be honest and objective. "They love me very much. My mother plays golf, and my father works hard. I guess the most important thing to them, outside of their children, is having a gorgeous house, a maid, two Mercedes, and belonging to the country club. My dad is handsome for being fifty-eight, and my mother always looks terrific."

"You have brothers and sisters?"

"One of each. I'm the youngest. My sister, Mau¬reen, is thirty, and she's married. My dad made her husband a vice-president of Connelly Corporation, and now he can't wait to take over when dad retires. My brother, Mark, is twenty-five, and he's nice. He isn't nearly as ambitious and greedy as Maureen, who spends her life worrying that Mark may get a bigger piece of the family business when dad retires than she and her husband will. Now that you know the worst, do you want to come tomorrow? A lot of my parents' friends and neighbors will be there, too, and they're pretty much like my parents."

Ramon stubbed out his cigar and wearily leaned his head back against the chair. "Do you want me to come?"

"Yes," Katie said emphatically. "But it's selfish of me, because my sister will look down her nose at you if she finds out what you do for a living. My brother, Mark, will probably go so far out of his way to show you that he isn't like Maureen, that he'll embarrass you even more."

In the deep, velvety voice she was coming to adore, Ramon asked, "What will you do, Katie?"

"Well, I'll—I don't really know."

"Then I guess I will have to come with you so that I can find out." Putting his glass down, he rose to his feet.

Katie, realizing that he intended to leave, insisted that he stay for some coffee, for the simple reason that she couldn't bear for him to go yet. She carried it into the living room on a small tray and sat down beside Ramon on the sofa. They drank their coffee in a long, increasingly uncomfortable silence, which Katie was helpless to break or to understand.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked final¬ly, searching his somber profile in the dim light of the single table lamp.

"You." Almost harshly he asked, "Are the things that are important to your parents, important to you also?"

"Some of them, I suppose," Katie admitted.

"How important?"

"In comparison to what?"

"In comparison to this," he said in a savage whis¬per. His mouth came down hard on hers, his lips moving roughly back and forth, forcing her lips apart for the invasion of his tongue, while he pulled her down on the sofa and twisted his body so that it was half-covering hers.

Katie moaned in protest and instantly his mouth softened, then began a slow, unbearably erotic se¬duction that soon had Katie writhing beneath him in wild hunger. His tongue tangled with hers, with¬drawing, then plunging deep, slowly receding as she tried to hold it, until Katie was pressing her parted lips fiercely to his, lost in the soul-destroying kiss.

When he started to raise his head she curved her hand around it, trying to keep his mouth on hers, then gasped with shocked delight as he jerked the top of her bikini down, freeing her breasts and lowering his mouth to the pink peaks. Slowly he began sucking hard on first one and then the other, until Katie was reduced to a state of mindless, aching desire.

Ramon braced his weight on his hands and lifted slightly off her, his hot eyes restlessly caressing her swollen breasts, their nipples hardened and erect from his tongue and lips and teeth. "Put your hands on me, Katie," he rasped.

Katie lifted her hands, slowly moving her sensi¬tized fingertips over the sinewy muscles of his chest, watching them flinch reflexively and then relax. "You are beautiful," she whispered, her splayed hands drifting from the taut planes of his bronzed hair-roughened chest, along his broad shoulders, then down the corded muscles of his arms.

"Men are not beautiful," he tried to tease, but his voice was thickened from the effect her hands were having on him.

"You are. The way oceans and mountains are beautiful." Unthinkingly, she let her fingertips trace the narrowing vee of dark hair on his chest toward the place where it disappeared beneath the waist¬band of the low-slung white trunks.

"Don't!" he ordered hoarsely. Katie stayed her hand and looked up at his face, dark with the passion he was fighting to keep under control.

"You're beautiful and you're strong," she whispered into his burning gaze. "But you're gentle, too. I think you are the gentlest man I've ever known—and I don't even know why I think so."

His control snapped. "Oh, God!" he groaned. His mouth took hers with an unleashed passion that sent tidal waves of desire crashing over her. His hands sank into the thickness of her hair, holding her head immobile for the endless plunder of his lips. Katie gloried in the feel of his stiff throbbing manhood pressing intimately to her, then moaned with feverish longing when he began slowly circling his hips against her. "Want me," he ordered rough¬ly. "Want me more than you want the things money can buy. Want me as much as I want you."

Katie was almost sobbing with desire when he suddenly pulled away from her, sat up, and leaned his head against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes. She watched his labored breathing even out and, after a few minutes, she straightened her cloth¬ing, ran a shaking hand through her wildly dis-ordered hair, and sat up. Feeling discarded and hurt, she squeezed herself to the farthest end of the sofa from him and curled her legs beneath her.

"Katie." His voice was bleak and harsh. Warily, Katie eyed him. His head was still back against the sofa, his eyes still closed as he spoke: "I did not want to say this to you while you were in my arms and we were both wild with desire for each other. I did not want to ever say this to you, yet I have known from the very first night that before I left I would still be saying it… “

Katie's heart stopped beating. He was going to tell her that he was married, and she—she was going to become hysterical.

"I want you to come back to Puerto Rico with me."

"What?" she whispered.

"I want you to marry me."

Katie opened her mouth, but it was several sec¬onds before any words would come out. "I—I can't. I couldn't. I have a job here, and my family, my friends—they're all here. I belong here."

"No," he said angrily, turning his head and pin¬ning her with his gaze. "You do not belong here. I watched you the first time I saw you in the bar, and I watched you tonight. You do not even like these people; you do not belong with them." He saw the growing apprehension widening her eyes and stretched his arm out to her.

"Come," he said soft¬ly. "Now I want you in my arms."

Too dazed to do anything but obey, Katie slid across the sofa and into his comforting embrace, leaning her head on his shoulder. Gently, he con¬tinued, "There is a fineness in you that sets you apart from these people you call your friends."

Katie slowly shook her head. "You don't even know me, not really. You can't be serious about wanting to marry me."

His hand touched her chin, tipping her face up to his, and he smiled into her glazed blue eyes. "I have known what you are from the moment you knocked the flower I brought you on the ground, then nearly burst into tears with shame for what you had done. And I am thirty-four years old; I know exactly what I want." His lips clung to hers in a shattering kiss. "Marry me, Katie," he whispered.

"Couldn't… couldn't you stay in the States, in St. Louis, so that we could get to know one another better? Maybe then, after—"

"No," he said with absolute finality. "I cannot." He stood up and Katie stood with him. "Do not an¬swer me now. There is time yet for you to decide." He glanced at the small glass clock beside the lamp. "It is late. I have to get dressed and then I have work that must be done tonight. When shall I call for you tomorrow to take you to your parents'?"

Numbly, Katie told him. "Oh, and I think my mother said it was a barbecue, so we may as well wear Levi's."

When he left, Katie wandered around, mechan¬ically picking up coffee cups, turning off the lamp, and undressing for bed.

She lay down, stared at the ceiling, and tried to absorb what had just happened. Ramon wanted her to marry him and go to Puerto Rico with him! It was impossible, absolutely out of the question, too soon to even contemplate such a thing.

Too soon to contemplate it? Even if Ramon gave her time, would she ever really contemplate it?

She turned her head into her pillow and could still feel his hands caressing her with such violent tender¬ness, his mouth hungry and urgent on hers. No man alive had ever made her body come to life like that, and she doubted that anyone else ever would. It wasn't just practiced sexual technique with Ramon, it was instinct. It was natural for him to make love with such demanding, dominating sensuality; he was, by birth and culture, a dominating male.

Funny, Katie thought, she had liked being domi¬nated by him. She had even felt a surge of excite-ment earlier today at the way he had ordered her into his arms with his quiet, "Come here, Katie." And yet, he was so gentle.

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 con¬sider marrying him. The answer was in that strange feeling she sometimes got when they were laughing or talking—an inexplicable feeling that, emotional¬ly, 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 sensi-tive 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.