Tender Triumph Read online

  "I do not think that would be wise," he said sar­donically. "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 sepa­rate 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 lounges, 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 pandemoni­um. "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 Ra­mon.

  "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 spar­kle 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 swim­ming 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 in­stead.

  "Really? I didn't see him there, and he'd be al­most impossible to overlook. What does he do, be­side 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 normal­ly 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 dissatis­fied 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