ARLY THURSDAY MORNING, Miguel was going over the financial statement he had prepared with Ra¬mon, when Elise entered Ramon's office without her customary knock.

"Excuse me," she said, her face pale and stony. "There is a man—a very rude man—on the tele-phone. I have told him twice that you cannot be interrupted, but as soon as I hang up the telephone he calls back and starts shouting at me again."

"What does he want?" Ramon said impatiently.

The secretary swallowed apprehensively. "He— he wants to talk to the dirty bastard who is trying to put some green paint down his drain. Do you—is that you?"

Ramon's lips twitched. "I believe so. Put him through."

Eagerly, Miguel leaned forward. Ramon flipped on the phone's external speaker, then relaxed back in his chair, picked up the financial statements he had been reading, and calmly continued to study them.

Sidney Green's voice exploded through the room. "Galverra, you bastard! You're wasting your time, do you hear me? No matter what you do, I'm not paying one dime of that three million. Have you got that? No matter what you do!" When there was no response, Green shouted, "Say something, damn you!"

"I admire your courage," Ramon drawled.

"Is that your way of telling me you plan more guerrilla tactics? Is it? Are you threatening me, Galverra?"

"I am certain I would never be so crude as to 'threaten' you, Sid," Ramon replied in a bland, pre-occupied voice.

"Damn you, you are threatening me! Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I think I am the bastard who is going to cost you twelve million dollars," Ramon said and, with that, he reached out a hand and disconnected the call.

KATIE QUICKLY SIGNED HER NAME to the charge slip for one-half the cost of the furniture she had just purchased, then paid for the rest with some of the money Ramon had left for her. The salesclerk gave her an odd look when she asked for two receipts, each for one-half the actual amount of the purchase. Katie firmly ignored it, but Gabriella blushed and looked away.

Outside, the temperature was deliciously warm, and tourists were strolling along the sun-drenched streets of Old San Juan. The car was parked at the curb; a battered but reliable old automobile that belonged to Gabriella's husband, and which he was allowing them to use for their shopping expeditions.

"We're doing great," Katie sighed, rolling down her window to let the breeze into the stuffy car. It was Thursday already, the fourth day of their frenetic, but successful shopping spree, and she was happily exhausted. "I wish I could get over this feeling that there's something I'm forgetting, though," she mused, glancing over her shoulder at the two lamps and an end table that were crammed into the back seat. "There is."

Gabriella's pretty face was concerned as she turned the key in the ignition and shot Katie a rueful smile. "You are forgetting to tell Ramon the truth about how much this is costing." She pulled into the stream of downtown San Juan traffic. "Katie, he will be very angry with you when he dis¬covers what you have done."

"He isn't going to discover it," Katie announced cheerfully. "I'm not going to tell him and you promised you wouldn't."

"Of course I will not!" Gabriella said with a hurt look. "But Padre Gregorio has spoken many times on Sundays about the need for truth between a hus¬band and—"

"Oh, no!" Katie moaned aloud. "That's what I forgot." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "Today is Thursday, and at two o'clock this afternoon I was to meet with Padre Gregorio. Ra-mon made the arrangements on Tuesday and re¬minded me this morning, but I completely forgot about it."

"Do you want to see the padre now?" Gabriella offered an hour later as their car rattled into the village. "It is only four o'clock. Padre Gregorio will not be having his evening meal yet."

Katie quickly shook her head. She had been think¬ing all day about the picnic she and Ramon were going to have up at the cottage tonight. She was to bring the food up there where he was working with the other men. When the men left, Katie and Ramon were going to have a few hours alone—their first in the four days since she had arrived.

When they reached Gabriella's house, Katie slid behind the steering wheel, waved goodbye to Gabriella, and turned the dilapidated old car back toward the village where she could stop in the general store for food and a bottle of wine for the picnic.

These past four days had a strange, unreal quality for her. Ramon had been working at the farm in Mayaguez in the mornings, and at the cottage in the afternoons until it was dark, so she only saw him in the evenings. She spent her days shopping and plan¬ning and choosing color schemes for Ramon's house with only her idea of Ramon's tastes to guide her. She felt as if she were on a vacation, earning her way by redecorating his house—rather than planning for her own home. Perhaps it was because he was so busy and she saw so little of him, and when they were together there were always other people near¬by.

Rafael and his sons were also working up at the cottage with Ramon, and at dinner every night the four men were cheerful, but plainly worn-out. Al¬though Ramon lavished her with his attention in the evening, keeping her near him while they sat in the friendly atmosphere of Rafael's living room with the rest of his family, the "time and place to share ourselves with each other" so far had not presented itself.

Each evening, Ramon walked her back to Gabri¬ella's darkened house, led her over to the sofa, and drew her down beside him.

By now, Katie could hardly pass that sofa in the daylight without feeling her face grow warm. For three nights in a row, Ramon had tenderly stripped her of most of her clothing, aroused her until she could hardly stand it, gently dressed her again, walked her back to the bedroom, and silently bade her good-night with a final, passionate kiss. And each night Katie crawled beneath the cool sheets of her temporary bed in a state of aching, unfulfilled desire, which she was beginning to think was pre¬cisely what Ramon intended her to feel. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that he was always more aroused then even she was, so it made no sense for him to put them both through this torture.

Last night, in a welter of confusion and desire, Katie had taken matters into her own hands and volunteered to get the blanket from her bed so that they could go outdoors where there would be privacy and no fear of interruption.

Ramon had gazed down at her with eyes like fiery black coals, his face hard and dark with passion. But he had reluctantly shaken his head. "The rain will interrupt us, Katie. It has been threatening for the last hour." Even as he spoke a flash of heat lightning cast an eerie glow through the room. But it had not rained.

Tonight, no doubt, was the "time and place" he had been waiting for, Katie decided, and she was charged with anticipation. Katie pulled the car over in front of the general store and climbed out. Push¬ing open the heavy door, she walked into the crowd¬ed interior of the ancient building, blinking her eyes to adjust to the light.

Besides doubling as the village post office, the general store stocked everything from flour and canned goods to bathing suits to inexpensive pieces of furniture. Stacks of merchandise covered the wooden floors with only a narrow aisle between them for customers to walk through. The counters were heaped with goods, as were the shelves high along all the walls. Without the assistance of some¬one who worked there, it would have taken Katie and Gabriella weeks to dig their way through every¬thing.

The Spanish girl to whom Gabriella had intro¬duced Katie before as Ramon Galverra's novia, saw Katie, beamed a bright smile at her, and hurried over. With her help on Monday, Katie had discov-ered thick, fluffy towels in solid colors of red, white and black beneath a stack of men's work pants. Katie had bought all six of them and ordered a dozen more in assorted sizes. Evidently the girl thought Katie had come to see if the rest of the towels were here yet, for she picked up a towel, held it up, and regretfully shook her head, relying on pantomime since she spoke no English.

Katie grinned and pointed to the shelves of gro¬ceries interspersed with shovels and rakes, then went over to make her selections. Carrying the fresh fruit, bread and packaged meat she had selected over to the crowded counter, Katie dug in her purse for her money. When she glanced up, the little Spanish girl smilingly presented her with two bills, each for one-half the amount of her purchase. The girl was so proud of having remembered that Katie always asked for the bills in this way, that Katie didn't bother trying to explain that it wasn't necessary for groceries.

The scene that greeted Katie when the car bumped past the canopy of scarlet poinciana trees took her completely by surprise. The yard was filled with bat¬tered old trucks, two horses and another truck load¬ed with debris, which had obviously been removed from the house and was being hauled away. Two men were replacing tiles on the roof, and two more were stripping all the peeling paint from the wood trim. The shutters had been repaired and were open beside windows with crystal-clear panes of glass. This was the first time Katie had been here since Sunday, and she was eager to see what progress had been made inside. She took a quick look in the car's rearview mirror, freshened her lip gloss, and smoothed her hair back into place.

She climbed out of the car and brushed a piece of lint from her designer jeans, then tucked her plaid shirt into her waistband. The constant staccato sounds of hammering that had been coming from inside ceased abruptly. The men on the roof scam¬pered down as Katie walked up the brick path, which was no longer missing bricks or strewn with broken tiles. She glanced at her watch: it was exactly six, and apparently the men were finished for the day.

The front door, which Ramon had broken on Sunday, had been rehung, and the peeling paint stripped down to smooth bare wood. Katie stepped aside as eight men came through the doorway carry¬ing their wooden toolboxes. Rafael and his two sons were behind them. There was an army working up here, Katie thought with amazement. "Ramon is in the kitchen with the plumber," Rafael said with one of his warm, fatherly smiles. His sons both grinned at her as they passed.

The living-room walls, which were made of grooved boards, had been sanded already, as had the planked floors. It took Katie a moment to understand why the house seemed so cheerful and sunny. Then she realized that all of the windows were sparkling clean, and some of them were open, letting the balmy breeze in to mingle with the pun¬gent scent of fresh sawdust. An elderly man carrying a huge wrench in each hand shuffled out of the kitchen, tipped his hat politely to Katie, then van¬ished through the living room and outside. The plumber, Katie guessed.

With a last appreciative glance around her, Katie wandered into the kitchen. Like every other wooden surface, the kitchen cabinets had been stripped, and the ugly peeling linoleum had been taken up. The sharp clang of metal on metal drew her attention toward the sink. A pair of long, muscular legs were stretched out on the floor, the torso belonging to them hidden beneath the sink. Katie smiled, recognizing those long legs and slim hips even without seeing the head and shoulders that were blocked from view by the convoluted plumbing pipes.

Apparently Ramon didn't realize the plumber had left, because his familiar Spanish voice issued a muf¬fled order in a sharp tone. Katie hesitated uncertain¬ly, then, feeling like a child playing a trick on an adult, she picked up the wrench lying on the counter and passed it beneath the newly installed stainless steel sink to Ramon. She almost laughed aloud when the wrench was rudely shoved back at her, and the same order was irritably repeated, this time accom¬panied by an impatient bang on the bottom of the sink.

Making a calculated guess, she leaned forward and turned on both taps. The torrent of water brought a string of savage curses that erupted from below the sink at the same time Ramon did, with water streaming from his face, his hair and his bare chest. Snatching a towel from the floor, he came to his feet in one lithe, furious movement, drying his head and face while Katie frantically dived for the taps and turned them off. In appalled fascination she listened to the scathing Spanish remarks coming from behind the towel, then jumped when he flung it down and glared at her.

His expression turned to blank shock. "I—I wanted to surprise you," Katie explained, biting her lower lip to control her laughter. Water was drip¬ping from his curling hair, his eyebrows and his eye¬lashes, and sparkling on the crisp hairs on his broad chest. Katie's shoulders began to shake.

A gleam entered Ramon's eyes. "I think one 'sur¬prise' deserves another." His right hand shot out and turned on the cold water tap. Before Katie could do more than squeal a protest, her head was being forced down into the sink a bare inch from the rush¬ing water.

"Don't you dare!" she shrieked, laughing. The water was turned up harder, and her head forced even closer to the spout. "Stop it!" she howled, her laughter echoing in the stainless-steel sink. "The water is running all over the floor!"

Ramon released her and turned off the tap. "The pipes leak," he remarked without concern. He arched an eyebrow at her and added ominously, "I will have to think of some better way to 'surprise' you."

Katie laughingly ignored the threat. "I thought you said you knew about carpentry," she teased, plunking her hands on her slim hips.

"I said," Ramon corrected dryly, "that I know as much about carpentry as you know about making curtains."

Katie choked back a giggle and managed to look comically indignant. "My curtains are progressing far better than your plumbing." Because Gabriella and Senora Villegas are doing the sewing, Katie add¬ed silently.

"Oh, is that right?" Ramon mocked. "Go into the bathroom."

Katie was surprised when he didn't follow her, but instead reached for the towel and the clean shirt hanging on a nail. Outside the bathroom door she paused, mentally bracing herself to face again the crawling insect population that had inhabited the rusty bathtub on Sunday. When she hesitantly opened the door her eyes widened.

Gone were the old bathroom fixtures. In their place was a modern vanity with a sink, and a large fiberglass shower stall with sliding glass doors. Experimentally, she pushed one of the doors aside, noting with approval that it slid smoothly on its track. The shower spout was dripping, however, and Katie shook her head in amusement at Ramon's lack of concern about leaking water. Cautiously, she stepped inside, avoiding the slippery puddle on the fiberglass floor, while reaching out for the tap to turn it off. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as a deluge of freezing water hit her in the face. Blinded, she turned to leap out of the shower and the leather sole of her shoe slid from beneath her, sending her sprawling on all fours beneath the icy downpour.

She crawled out of it on her hands and knees, her soaked clothing clinging to her skin, water stream¬ing from her hair and face. Awkwardly, she strug¬gled to her feet and lifted the hair out of her eyes. Ramon was standing in the doorway, visibly strug¬gling to keep his face straight. "Don't you dare laugh," Katie warned darkly.

"Would you like some soap?" he offered solici¬tously. "A towel, perhaps?" he volunteered dead-pan, handing her the towel he had been holding in his hand. He pulled the clean shirt he had just put on from his waistband and began unbuttoning it, continuing conversationally. "Would you allow me to offer you the shirt off my back, then?"

Katie, who was on the verge of laughing herself, was about to make some sheepish retort when Ra¬mon added, "Strange, is it not, the way one 'sur¬prise' can lead to another?"

Outrage burst within her at the realization that he had actually done this to her on purpose. Shivering, she snatched the shirt from his hand and slammed the door in his grinning face! He must have watched her step into the shower and then turned on the main valve, she thought furiously as she pulled off her freezing wet jeans. So this was how a Latin male re¬taliated for being made the recipient of an uninten¬tional dousing! This was the sort of retribution their monstrous male egos demanded! She flung open the bathroom door, clad only in her wet underpants and Ramon's white shirt, and stalked out of the empty house.

Ramon was in the front yard, calmly spreading the blanket she had brought in the trunk of the car, beneath a tree. Of all the monumental arro¬gance...! He actually believed she would meekly tolerate this sort of treatment. He truly expected her to stay here and have a cozy little picnic with him!

Ramon paused in his crouching position and looked up at her, his expression impassive. "Do not ever slam another door in my face," he said evenly. And then, as if that was supposed to conclude the entire episode, his expression warmed admiringly. Seething inwardly, Katie folded her arms beneath her breasts, leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, and crossed one trim ankle over the other, letting him look his fill. Because looking at her was all he was going to do. In another few seconds she was going to pick up that blanket, wrap it around her and drive back to Gabriella's!

Ramon's gaze moved from the cascade of reddish hair hanging in damp waves down her shoulders, over her thrusting breasts revealed by the clinging shirt, paused at the place where his shirt ended at mid-thigh, then continued down her long, shapely legs. "Have you seen enough?" she asked him, not bothering to hide her hostility. "Are you quite satisfied?"

His head lifted sharply, his eyes assessing her face as if he could not quite fathom her mood. "Is 'satis¬fying' me what you have in mind, Katie?"

Ignoring the sexual innuendo, Katie straightened and strolled over to the blanket where he was sitting back on his heels. "I'm leaving," she said, looking down at him with stony hauteur.

"There is no need to go for more clothes. Yours will dry, and in the meantime, I have already seen you wearing far less."

"I'm not going for more clothes. I have no inten¬tion of staying here for a picnic after you purposely soaked me to get even."

Ramon came slowly to his feet, towering over her, and Katie angrily kept her eyes on the bare expanse of his bronzed chest. "I need the blanket to put around me so that I can go back to Gabriella's, and you're standing on it."

"So I am," he said softly, stepping back.

Katie snatched it up, wrapped it around her toga-style and headed for the car, aware that Ramon was leaning casually against a tree, watching her every step. She slid behind the steering wheel and reached for the keys she had left in the ignition. They were gone. She didn't need to search the seat, she knew exactly who had them.

She glowered at him through the open car win¬dow, and he reached into his pocket, extracted the keys and held them out to her in his open palm. "You will need these."

Katie climbed out of the car and marched toward him with as much dignity as her trailing blanket would allow. Warily, she searched his face when she came within arm's reach. "Give them to me," she said, thrusting out her hand.

"Take them," he replied indifferently.

"Do you swear you won't touch me?"

"I would not dream of it," Ramon replied with infuriating calm. "But I see no reason why I should not make you touch me." In angry stupefaction Katie watched him shove the keys into the deep pocket of his Levi's, and cross his arms over his chest. "Go ahead and take them."

"Are you enjoying this?" Katie hissed furiously.

"I am planning to."

Katie was now so angry she'd have knocked him down and wrestled him for the damned keys. She strode up to him, jammed her hand down into his side pocket ignoring the intimacy, and jerked them out. "Thank you," she said snidely.

"Thank you," he replied suggestively.

She whirled around and took a step, only to have her blanket come loose and fall to the ground—with the aid of Ramon's booted foot, which was firmly planted on the end of it. With her fists clenched impotently at her sides, Katie swung around on her heel.

"How could you think I would deliberately do a thing like that to you?" he asked her quietly.

Katie scanned his handsome, composed face, and her anger evaporated, leaving her deflated. "Didn't you?"

"What do you think?"

Katie bit her lip, feeling utterly foolish and thor¬oughly obnoxious. "I—I don't think you did," she admitted, glancing at her bare feet in dejected shame.

His voice was tinged with amusement. "Now what are you going to do?"

Katie's blue eyes were warm with laughter and apology when she raised them to his. "I am going to show you how sorry I am by waiting on you hand and foot for the rest of the night!"

"I see," he said with an answering grin. "In that case, what should I do now?"

"Just stand there while I arrange the blanket, then I'll pour you some wine and fix you a sand-wich." With amused satisfaction, Ramon allowed her to fix him three roast beef sandwiches, keep his wineglass filled, and provide him with slices of cheese whenever he requested one.

"A man could get used to this," he chuckled when Katie insisted on not only peeling his apple but cutting it into wedges and feeding it to him.

Katie looked at him in the deepening twilight, her senses alive to his nearness. He was stretched out on his back, his hands linked behind his head, looking like a lithe, powerful jungle cat who knows that his prey is within reach and not going to escape.

"Katie," he murmured in a sensuous voice. "Do you know what I want now?"

Katie's hand stilled as she lifted her glass of wine to her lips, her pulse quickening. "What?" she asked softly.

"One of your back rubs," he announced, rolling onto his stomach, presenting his back for his ministrations.

Katie put her glass aside and came up on her knees beside him. His broad, muscled shoulders and tapered back felt like bunched satin, smooth and warm beneath her stroking fingers. She continued kneading and rubbing his hard flesh until her hands tired, then she sat back down and picked up her wineglass.

"Katie?" he said again, turning his dark head away from her.

"Hmm?"

"I did it on purpose."

In one lightning movement, Katie dumped her wine on his bare back, scampered to her feet and sprinted toward the house. Ramon grabbed her by the waist when she was halfway across the dark liv¬ing room, his whole body shaking with laughter as she kicked backward at him. "You beast!" she gasped, caught somewhere between hilarity and hos¬tility. "You are the most treacherous, arrogant—"

"Innocent person you know," he chuckled. "I give you my word."

"I could murder you!" she laughed, wriggling and writhing ineffectually in his unbreakable hold.

Behind her, his deep voice suddenly became very husky. "If you continue to do that, I am going to need a cold shower.''

Katie stilled, becoming aware of the stirring hard¬ness pressing against her rounded bottom, while desire began to pour through her veins. His lips brushed her ear, then slid sensuously down the curve of her neck, tasting and exploring every inch of her exposed skin. His hands caressed her breasts with, the same possessive mastery that always made her knees weak.

"Your nipples are hard," he told her in a low, throbbing voice, his thumbs brushing over the hard¬ened, sensitized nubs. "And your breasts are swell¬ing to fill my hands. Turn around, querida" he murmured hotly, "I want to feel them against my chest."

Shivering with anticipation, Katie turned in his arms. He stared at the cleft between her full, aching breasts, then lifted his burning gaze to hers. Mes¬merized, Katie watched his mouth slowly descend¬ing, as his hand slid up her nape and his fingers sank into her heavy hair.

The moment his parted lips covered hers the kiss was out of control. His tongue plunged into her mouth with a driving hunger and naked urgency that made Katie burst into flames in his arms. His free hand swept down her spine, fusing her melting body to the scorching heat of his thighs, holding her there as he kissed her into absolute insensibility. He lifted his mouth from hers. "Come outside with me," he ordered hoarsely, and when Katie whispered "yes," he groaned and buried his lips in the moist softness of hers for one more endless, shattering kiss.

A blinding flash of light exploded behind Katie's closed eyelids at the same instant a voice demanded, "May I ask who performed the wedding that pre¬cipitated this honeymoon, Ramon?"

Katie's eyes snapped open, her shocked gaze flew to the peculiarly garbed man who was standing in the now brightly lit room, then ricochetted to Ra¬mon whose head was thrown back, his eyes tightly shut, his expression a combination of utter disbelief, irritation and amusement. Sighing, Ramon finally opened his eyes and looked over his left shoulder at the intruder. "Padre Gregorio, I—"

Katie's knees buckled.

Ramon's arms tightened, his gaze swerving from the priest to Katie's white face with its huge, stricken eyes. "Katie, are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

"I am certain that Senorita Connelly is not all right," the old priest snapped. "She would un-doubtedly like to go and clothe herself."

Embarrassed antagonism brought bright flags of color to Katie's pale cheeks. "My clothes are soak¬ing wet," she said. Unfortunately at that moment she became conscious that with Ramon's arms around her, his shirt was hiked up above the lace band at the leg of her underpants. Self-consciously she jerked the shirt down and pulled away from Ra¬mon's supporting arms.

"Then perhaps you would like to put that blanket I saw outside, to the use for which it was intended, and cover yourself with it."

Ramon said something in sharp Spanish to the priest and reached out to stop Katie, but she side-stepped and stalked outside. She was humiliated, intimidated and furiously angry with herself for feeling like a naughty fifteen-year-old. That hateful, domineering old man was the priest whose approval she had to win before he would perform their mar¬riage, she raged inwardly. Never, never in her life had she despised anyone more! In ten seconds he had made her feel dirty and cheap. She who was practically a virgin by today's standards!

Ramon was speaking to the priest in a calm voice when Katie entered the cottage wrapped in the blan¬ket. He held his arm out to her and drew her com¬fortingly close to his side, but his first words were laced with reproof. "Why did you not keep your ap¬pointment 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 after¬noon."

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 spec¬tacles. "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 inten¬tions."

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 flicker¬ing 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 re¬plying 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, Ra¬mon was standing in the living room talking with Gabriella's husband, Eduardo. The moment he saw her, Ramon excused himself and invited Katie out¬side. 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 lit¬tle 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—try¬ing to buy everything you need for your house."

"Why do you always refer to it as my house in¬stead of our house?" he persisted relentlessly.

"Why are you suddenly asking me all these ques¬tions?" 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 mar¬ried in ten days, is he not?''

Katie felt as if he were verbally stalking her, back¬ing her into a corner. "I suppose so, yes."

"Tell me something," he said with casual curiosi¬ty, "Are you planning to keep your appointment with him tomorrow?"

Katie raked her hair off her forehead in an agitat¬ed 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 al¬ready 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 com¬manded 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 teas-ing.

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, per¬haps?"

Katie felt the sexual magnetism he was exuding as if it were some primitive force against which she had no resistence.

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 humili¬ation 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 ur¬gency, 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."