Page 9

by Judith McNaught

"Katie, there is not much time."

"I know."

They walked back to the car and as they drove down Market Street, Katie idly suggested that he might like to drive down Lindell Boulevard. Ramon automatically followed her directions. They were driving west down Lindell when Ramon said, "What is that?"

Katie looked up and to her right. "St. Louis Cathedral." She was amazed when he pulled up in front of the elaborate structure. "Why on earth are we stopping here?"

Ramon turned in his seat and put his arm around her shoulders. "There are only a few days before we leave, with many decisions to be made and much to be done. I will help you pack and do everything I can, but I cannot tell your parents for you, nor can I resign your job for you.''

"No, I know."

His free hand touched her chin, gently lifting it, and the kiss he gave her was filled with persuasive tenderness.

"But why do you want to go into a church?" Katie asked when he came around and opened her door for her.

"Normally the finest skills the local craftsmen possessed at the time can be found in churches, no matter where in the world they are."

Katie didn't entirely believe that was his reason, and her nerves, already ragged and strained, were completely jangled by the time they had climbed the flight of shallow stone steps leading toward the domed cathedral. Ramon opened one of the massive carved doors and stepped aside for her to precede him into the vast cool interior. Instantly she was swamped with memories of burning candles and altar flowers.

Ramon placed his hand beneath her elbow, giving her no choice but to walk beside him down the cen­ter aisle. Katie kept her eyes moving over the endless rows of pews, scanning the distant vaulted ceilings with their spectacular mosaic scenes that glittered with gold, always avoiding the marble altar. Com­pulsively avoiding the altar. In the front pew she knelt beside Ramon, feeling like a fraud, an unwel­come intruder. She dragged her eyes toward the altar, then closed them against the dizziness assail­ing her. God didn't want her here—not like this— not with Ramon. It was too poignant being here with him. And too wrong. All she wanted was his body, not his life.

Ramon was kneeling beside her, and Katie had the terrifying feeling that he was praying. She was even quite certain what he was praying for. As if she could cancel out his private appeal, Katie began to pray, quickly, incoherently, the panic beginning to mount. Please, please don't listen to him. Don't let this happen. Don't let him care for me so much. I can't do what he wants me to do. I know I can't. I don't want to. God— Katie cried silently. Are you listening to me? Do you ever listen to me?

Katie jerked to her feet, tears blinding her as she turned and collided with Ramon's hard body. "Katie?" His low voice near her ear was filled with concern, his hands gentle on her arms.

"Let me go, Ramon. Please! I've got to get out of here."

"I—I don't know what came over me in there," Katie apologized, wiping her eyes with her finger­tips. They were standing in the brilliant sunlight on the church steps. Katie watched the traffic gliding down Lindell Boulevard, still too distressed and em­barrassed to even look at Ramon as she explained, "I haven't been to church since I was married."

She started down the steps, halting at the sound of Ramon's stunned voice. "You have been married before?"

Katie nodded without turning. "Yes. Two years ago when I was twenty-one, the same month I graduated from college. And divorced a year later." It still hurt her to admit that to anyone. She had descended another two steps before she realized that Ramon wasn't following her. Turning, she found him regarding her through hard, narrowed eyes. "Were you married in the Catholic church?"

The harshness of his tone, as well as the seeming unimportance of the question, surprised her. Why was he more upset about whether she'd been mar­ried in the Catholic church than he was by the actual fact of her having been married? The answer hit Katie like a bucket of ice water, revitalizing, yet sharply painful. Ramon must be a Catholic. His re­ligion would make it difficult to marry Katie if she had been married in the Catholic church and then divorced.

God had indeed answered her prayers, Katie thought with a mixture pf gratitude and guilt for the pain she was about to cause Ramon with a lie. She had been divorced, but David had been killed six months later so there was no actual obstacle to Ramon marrying her. On the other hand, he didn't know that and Katie was not going to tell him. "Yes, I was married in the Catholic church," she said quietly.

Katie was scarcely aware that they had gotten into the car and were driving toward the expressway. Her mind was drifting into the painful past. David. Rug­gedly handsome David, who had needed a way to si­lence the gossip about his association with the wife of the law firm's senior partner, as well as several of the firm's female clients, and had done it by becom­ing engaged to Katherine Connelly. She was lushly beautiful, delightfully intelligent and suitably naive. Those who had believed the gossip, took one look at her and knew that they had been mistaken. After all, what man in his right mind would bother with all those other women when he had a woman like Katie?

David Caldwell would. He was an attorney, an ex-college football player. A sophisticated man of great personal charisma, and an ego that fed itself on women. Every woman he met was a challenge to him. Every sexual conquest he made proved he was better than other men. He was such a charming man.. .until he was angered. Angered, he was 195 pounds of brutal, violent male.

On the six-month anniversary of their marriage, Katie took the afternoon off from her job. She stopped at the market for some special items and drove to the apartment filled with excited plans to surprise David with a celebration. When she arrived, she discovered David was already "celebrating" with the attractive, middle-aged wife of the senior partner of his law firm. As long as she lived, Katie knew she would never forget the moment she had stood in the bedroom doorway and seen them. Even now the memory of it made her feel nauseated.

But the memory of the nightmare that followed was far more painful.

The physical bruises David inflicted on her that night had healed quickly; the emotional ones were scars now. They were healed, but they were still sensitive.

Katie remembered the phone calls that came in the middle of the night after she left him: David insist­ing that he would change, he loved her. David curs­ing her viciously and threatening her with brutal reprisals if she dared to tell anyone what he had done. Even Katie's hope for a dignified divorce had been dashed. The divorce itself was quiet, on the grounds of irreconcilable differences, but David himself was not quiet. In angry terror that Katie might tell his secret, he set to work maligning her character and even her family to anyone and every­one who would listen. The things he said were so vile, so vicious, that most of the people he talked to must have turned away in disgust or begun to ques­tion his sanity. But Katie was too humiliated and de­stroyed to consider that.

And then one day four months after the divorce, she dragged herself out of the pit of horror and mis­ery where she had been dwelling, looked at herself in the mirror, and said, "Katherine Elizabeth Connelly, are you going to let David Caldwell ruin the rest of your life? Do you really want to give him that much satisfaction?"

With some of her old spirit and enthusiasm she set to the task of putting the pieces of her life back together. She changed jobs and moved out of her parents' house and into her own apartment. Her smile returned and then her laughter. She began to live again the life that fate had given her. And she lived it with a determinedly cheerful attitude. Except occasionally when it seemed so shallow. So terribly meaningless. So empty.

"Who?" Ramon snapped from beside her. Katie leaned her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes.

"David Caldwell. An attorney. We were married for six months and divorced six months after that."

"Tell me about him," he said harshly.

"I hate talking about him. I hate thinking about him, as a matter of fact."

"Tell me," he gritted.
/>   Haunted by the gruesome memories of her mar­riage to David that were swamping her now, and panicked by Ramon's relentless pressure to marry him, Katie grasped at the only escape she could think of at the moment: even though she despised her own cowardice, she chose to deceive Ramon into believing David was still alive in order to put an end to any more talk of her going to Puerto Rico and becoming his wife. Reminding herself to talk about David as if he were still living, she said, "There isn't a great deal to tell about him. He is thirty-two—tall dark and very handsome. He reminds me of you, in fact."

"I want to know why you divorced him.''

"I divorced him because I despised him and be­cause I was afraid of him.''

"He threatened you?"

"He didn't threaten."

"He struck you?" Ramon looked furious and re­volted.

Katie was determined to sound offhand. "David called it teaching me manners."

“And I remind you of him?''

He sounded ready to explode and Katie hastily assured, "Only a little bit in looks. You're both olive-skinned, dark-haired and dark-eyed. David played football in college, and you..." she slid a covert glance at him, then recoiled in alarm from the blazing anger in his profile, "... you look as if you should play tennis," she finished lamely.

As they were pulling into the parking space in front of her apartment, it dawned on Katie that this would undoubtedly be their last day together. If Ramon was as devout a Catholic as Spaniards were purported to be, he would not be able to consider marrying her.

The idea of never seeing him again was surprisingly painful, and Katie felt a little desolate and forlorn. She wanted to prolong the day, to be able to spend more time with him. But not alone—not where he could take her in his arms and in five minutes have her drowning in desire and confessing everything to him. Then she'd be right back where she was an hour ago. Trapped.

"Do you know what I'd love to do tonight?" she said as he walked her to the door. "That is, if you don't have to work."

"No, what?" he said through clenched teeth.

"I'd love to go someplace where we could listen to music and dance." Her simple statement made his face darken with rage. The hard line of his jaw tightened until a drumming pulse stood out in his cheek. He was furious, Katie thought with a jolt of fear. Quickly, apologetically, she said, "Ramon, I should have realized that you might be a Catholic and that my having been married before in the church would make it impossible for you to marry me. I'm sorry I didn't think to tell you before."

"You are so 'sorry' that you now wish to go out dancing," he said with scathing sarcasm. Then, making a visible effort to control his fury he asked tautly, "What time shall I come for you?"

Katie glanced at the afternoon sun. "In about four hours, at eight o'clock."

Katie chose a silky halter dress in royal blue that was the exact shade of her eyes and was striking against the contrast of red highlights in her hair. In the mirror, she scrutinized the slight amount of cleavage showing between her breasts to be certain Ramon wouldn't think the dress was too revealing. If this was going to be their last night together, she didn't want to spoil it with another argument about her clothing. She put gold hoops in her ears, a wide gold bracelet high on her arm, and stepped into dainty sandals that were the same blue as her dress. Giving her hair a quick toss to send it spilling back down her shoulders, she went into the living room to wait for Ramon.

Their last evening together… Katie's spirits drooped alarmingly. She went into the kitchen and poured a tiny bit of brandy into a glass, then sat down on the corduroy sofa at a quarter to eight, slowly sipping the brandy and watching the clock on the opposite wall. When the doorbell rang at exactly eight, she jumped nervously, put her empty glass aside, and went to answer it.

Nothing in their brief acquaintance had prepared Katie for the Ramon Galverra who was standing there when she opened the door.

He looked breathtakingly elegant in a dark blue suit and vest that fit him to perfection and contrast­ed beautifully with his snowy-white shirt and con­servative striped tie. "You look fantastic," Katie said with a beaming smile of admiration. "You look like the president of a bank," she added, stepping back to better admire his tall athletic frame.

Ramon's expression was sardonic. "As it hap­pens, I do not like bankers. For the most part they are unimaginative men eager to reap the profit from risks, yet unwilling to take any risks themselves."

"Oh," Katie said, somewhat abashed. "Well, they're terrific dressers, anyway."

"How do you know?" Ramon replied. "Were you also married to a banker who you have forgotten ten to mention?"

Katie's hand froze as she reached for the silky printed shawl that coordinated with her dress. "No, of course not."

They went down to one of the riverboats and listened to Dixieland jazz, then back to Lacledes Landing where they stopped in three more places for jazz and blues music. As the evening wore on Ra­mon became increasingly cool and unapproachable, and the more aloof he became the more Katie drank and tried to be amusing.

By the time they had driven to a popular place out near the airport, Katie was slightly flushed, very ner­vous, and thoroughly miserable.

The place she had chosen was surprisingly crowd­ed for a Tuesday night, but they were lucky enough to get a table beside the dance floor. There, how­ever, Katie's luck ended. Ramon flatly refused to dance with her, and Katie did not know how much longer she could endure the glacial reserve that bare­ly concealed his contempt. His hard eyes examined her with a detached, cynical interest that made Katie mentally squirm.

She looked around, more to avoid Ramon's cold eyes than because she was interested in her sur­roundings, and her gaze collided with a handsome man sitting at the bar watching her. He raised his brows, mouthed the word "Dance?" and Katie, in sheer desperation nodded her head.

He approached the table, eyed Ramon's obvious height and lithe build with a certain wariness, and politely asked Katie to dance.

"Do you mind?" Katie asked Ramon, eager to get away.

"Not in the least," he replied with a disinterested shrug.

Katie loved to dance; she had a natural grace and a way of moving that was very eye-catching. Her partner, it became obvious, not only loved to dance, he was a positive exhibitionist about it. The colored lights flashed overhead, the music pulsed, and Katie moved with it, giving herself to the rhythm. "Hey, you're good," her partner said, forcing her with his own movements to do a much flashier kind of danc­ing than she preferred to do.

"You're showing off," Katie told him as the crowd on the dance floor began to move back and give them more room, then stopped dancing alto­gether. At the end of the disco number there was a loud round of encouraging, insistent applause from dancers and nondancers alike.

"They want us to dance some more," her partner said, tightening his hold on her arm when Katie would have started back toward the table. Simul­taneously, another disco number started reverberat­ing through the packed room, and Katie had no choice but to give in gracefully to what she privately felt was exhibitionism. As she danced, she stole a glance at Ramon, then quickly jerked her eyes away. He had angled his chair toward the dance floor, shoved his hands into his pockets, and was watching her with the dispassionate interest of a jaded con­quistador observing a paid dancing girl.

As the music wound to a close there was a gratify­ing thunder of applause. Her partner tried to get her to stay with him for another dance, but this time Katie firmly refused.

She sat down at the table opposite Ramon and sipped from her drink, growing increasingly an­noyed with the way they were behaving to each other. "Well?" she asked with a twinge of hostility, when he made no comment about her dancing.

One black brow rose sardonically. "Not bad."

Katie could have hit him. Another song began, this one slow and romantic. She looked around, saw two more would-be partners bearing down on their table and stiffened. Ramon, following her gaze, saw them and reluctantly s
tood up. Wordlessly he put his hand under Katie's elbow and led her onto the dance floor. The love song, combined with the piercing sweet­ness of being in Ramon's arms again, was Katie's undoing. Moving close to him, she laid her cheek against the dark blue cloth of his suit coat. She wished his arms would tighten, that he would gather her against him and brush his lips against her temple as he had the last time they danced out by the pool. She wished... a lot of hazy, impossible things.

She was still wishing when they got back to her apartment. He walked her to the door and Katie practically had to beg him to come in for a nightcap. As soon as he had downed the brandy he stood up and without saying anything, simply started for the door. "Ramon, please don't leave. Not like this," Katie pleaded.

He turned and looked at her, his face expression­less.

Katie started toward him, then stopped a few feet away, shaken by a surge of heartbreaking sadness and longing. "I don't want you to go," she heard herself say, and then her arms were around his neck as she pressed herself against his unyielding body, kissing him desperately. His lips were cool and unre­sponsive, his arms remained motionless at his sides.

Humiliated and hurt, Katie stepped back and raised blue eyes shimmering with tears to his. "Don't you even want to kiss me goodbye?" she asked with a catch in her voice.

His whole body seemed to stiffen into a taut, rigid pose of rejection, and then he jerked her into his arms. "Damn you!" he hissed furiously as his mouth came down hard, taking hers with a deliber­ate ruthless expertise that immediately had Katie clinging to him, responding wildly with helpless desire. His hands fondled her thoroughly, roughly molding her body to his. And then he abruptly pushed her away.

Trembling and breathless, Katie looked up at him, then backed away in alarm from the murder­ous rage blazing in his eyes.

"Is that the only thing you want from me, Katie?" he snapped.

"No!" Katie quickly denied. "I .mean, I don't want anything. I—I just knew that you didn't have a very good time tonight and so—"