Tender Triumph Read online

  What more could she possibly want or need to make her happy? "A man," Karen would say, as she often did.

  A faint smile touched Katie's lips. "A man" was definitely not the answer to her problem. She knew dozens of men already, so it was not a lack of male companionship that was responsible for this restless, waiting, empty feeling.

  Katie, who positively loathed anything that even approached self-pity, caught herself up short. There was absolutely no excuse for her unhappiness—none whatsoever. She was very lucky! Women all over the world were longing for careers; fighting to be in­dependent and self-sufficient; dreaming of financial security and she, Katie Connelly, had all of that, and at only twenty-three years old. "I have everything," Katie said determinedly as she opened the book in her lap. She stared at the blur of words on the page, while somewhere in her heart a voice cried out, It's not enough. It doesn't mean anything. I don't mean anything.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They 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 cor­poration. 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. Draw­ing 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. common­wealth. 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 chauvin­ist—of the worst sort!"

  "Why do you use that tone of voice to me? Be­cause 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 hus­band 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 hav­ing careers. They are more understanding and con­siderate!"

  "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 beauti­ful laugh, Katie."

  Katie took another bite of apple and said cheer­fully, "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 ex­pense 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 Span­iards must be."

  "American husbands have abdicated their re­sponsibilities. 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 some­place 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 suspect­ed 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