The breeze tugged a few silken strands of hair loose from her elegant chignon. Katie lifted her hand to brush them out of her eyes, trying at the same time to brush away the vision of herself standing in this overgrown weed patch, looking as shabby and unkempt as this awful hovel. In a year or two she would become as slovenly as her surroundings, because living like this would corrode anyone's personal pride until they fast didn't care anymore.
Reluctantly she began picking her way along what was left of a brick walk leading to the door of the cottage. Red tiles had blown off the roof, shattering when they hit the walk, and Katie carefully avoided stepping on them with the thin soles of her expensive Italian sandals.
She walked hesitantly through the doorway, blinking her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Revulsion swelled in.her throat. The inside of the empty cottage was covered in layers of dirt, filth and cobwebs. Where the sun streamed through the broken slats of the shutters dust floated in the air. How could Ramon live like this, she wondered in horror. He was always so immaculately well-groomed, she couldn't imagine him existing in this... this squalor.
With a supreme effort, Katie brought her frantic emotions under control and forced herself to think logically. In the first place, no one had been living here—the dirt1 hadn't been disturbed for years. Or the mice either, she thought with a shudder as scratching sounds emanated from the walls.
Ramon was standing in the middle of the room, his rigid back to her.
"Ramon?" Her voice was an apprehensive whisper.
"Get out of this place," he gritted in a low voice vibrating with fury. "The filth will cling to you, even if you do not touch anything."
There was nothing Katie wanted to do more than leave here—unless it was to leave for the airport, then home, then her beautiful modern apartment. She started to go, realized that Ramon wasn't following her, stopped and turned toward him again. He was still standing with his back to her, either unwilling—or unable—to turn around and face her.
With a stab of compassion Katie realized how much he must have been dreading the moment when she would see this place. No wonder he had seemed so tense when they drove up the lane. Now he was angry because he was embarrassed and ashamed that this run-down cottage was the best he could offer her. She spoke to break the uneasy silence. "You—you said you were born here."
Ramon slowly turned and stared through her as if she didn't exist.
Braving his mood, Katie continued. "I assumed that you meant you had lived here since you were born, but no one has lived here for years, have they?"
"No," he snapped.
Katie winced at his tone. "Has it been long since you were here last?"
"Yes," he bit out.
"Places—houses that haven't been lived in for a while always seem dreary and ugly, even when they're really nice." She was trying desperately to console him, even though she knew he really ought to be consoling her. "It probably doesn't look the way you remember it."
"It looks exactly the way I remember it!"
His scathing sarcasm sliced into Katie's highly sensitized emotions like a razor blade, but still she tried. "If—if it looks exactly as you remember it, why, are you so furio.. .so upset," she amended hastily.
"Because," he said in a terrible voice, "I sent a telegram four days ago asking that as many men as necessary be sent to clean and make repairs to this place."
"Oh," Katie breathed in relieved surprise. Her evident relief made Ramon's whole body go rigid. His eyes became twin black daggers that impaled her. "Do you have such a low opinion of me that you think I would bring you to live in this—this filthy shack? Now that you have seen it like this, I would not permit you to live here. You would never be able to forget the way it looks now."
Katie stared at him in anger and bewilderment. Only minutes ago she'd been certain of her future and that she was wanted, secure and loved. Now she was certain of nothing, and she was furious with Ramon for unfairly venting his frustration on her.
A dozen indignant rejoinders sprang to mind, only to lodge in her throat behind a lump of sympathetic tenderness that swelled unbearably as she regarded him. Standing there in the middle of the shabby empty house where he was born, Ramon seemed so utterly defeated, and so proudly determined not to show it, that her heart twisted. "I think you have a low opinion of me if you believe that," she said into the charged silence.
Turning away from his narrowed gaze, Katie walked to the two arched doorways leading off the right side of the living room and peeked inside—two bedrooms, one large one at the front of the house, and a smaller one at the rear. "There's a lovely view from both bedroom windows," she announced.
"Neither of which have glass in the frames," Ramon responded tersely.
Katie ignored him and went to another doorway. A bathroom, she surmised with a mental grimace at the rusted sink and tub. An unwelcome image of her parents' sunken marble bath paraded across Katie's mind, followed immediately by the memory of her own modern bathroom at the apartment. Bravely, she banished both from her mind and flipped on a light switch. "There's electricity right to the house," she enthused.
"Which is not turned on," Ramon snapped. Katie knew she was sounding like a real-estate saleswoman trying to make a sale, but she couldn't help herself. "And this must be the kitchen," she said, walking over to an antiquated porcelain sink standing on steel legs. "Which has hot and cold running water." To prove it, she reached for the taps.
"Do not bother," Ramon said in a tight voice, watching her from the doorway. "They do not work."
Katie's chin lifted as she tried to summon the courage to turn around and face him. In the process she found herself staring out a wide grimy window above the sink. "Ramon," she breathed, "whoever built this house must have loved a view as much as I do." Verdant green hills spread out in a panorama in front of her, their slopes covered in blooming yellow and pink blossoms.
When she swung away from the sink there was genuine pleasure in her expression. "It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful! I would wash dishes for a living if I could look out at that while I washed them." Eagerly, her gaze moved over the large rectangular kitchen. At the opposite end, one entire wall of windows was joined at the corner with another large expanse of windows. Situated in front of them was a crude wooden table and chairs. "It would be like eating on a terrace—you can see for miles in two different directions," she announced, watching a slight uncertainty flicker across Ramon's frozen features. "Why, this kitchen could be made to look bright and spacious!"
Studiously avoiding looking at the peeling linoleum on the uneven floor, Katie turned and marched back into the living room. She walked over to the large panes of glass that extended across two walls and rubbed away a bit of the grime. Peering out through the patch she had cleared, she gazed at the view. "I can see the village!" she exclaimed in awe. "I can even pick out the church. From up here it's like a little white toy village with green hills all round it. Ramon, it's like looking at a—a picture postcard. These windows must have been placed so that no matter where you look there will always be something beautiful to see. Do you know what—?" Unaware that Ramon had walked up behind her, Katie whirled around and collided with his tall, powerful body. "This house has real possibilities!" She met his cynical expression with a bright smile. "All it needs is a fresh coat of paint and some new curtains."
"And an exterminator and an army of carpenters," Ramon replied acidly. "Or better yet, a competent arsonist."
"All right—fresh paint, new curtains, an exterminator and you with a hammer and nails." She bit her lip as a disquieting thought occured to her. "You do know about carpentry, don't you?"
For the first time since they had arrived at the house, Katie saw a glimmer of humor touch his handsome face. "I imagine that I know as much about carpentry as you know about making curtains, Katie."
"Wonderful!" bluffed Katie who hadn't the foggiest notion how to make a curtain. "Then you won't have any troubl
e fixing things here, will you?"
He seemed to waver, then he swept the shabby room with a contemptuous glance. His features hardened until his face seemed to be carved out of stone. Katie, realizing that he was about to refuse, put her hand on his arm. "This could be a cozy, cheerful home. I know you're embarrassed because I've seen it looking this way, but that will only make it more rewarding and exciting when it finally looks the way it should. I'll really enjoy helping you restore it—honestly I will. Ramon," she whispered beseechingly when he simply stared at her, "please, please don't spoil it for me like this."
"Spoil it for you?!" he exploded, raking his hand through the side of his hair. "Spoil it for you?" Without warning he reached for her, and Katie found herself crushed against him, his arms wrapped tightly around her. "I knew I should not have brought you to Puerto Rico, Katie," he said in an agonized whisper. "I knew it was selfish of me, but I did it anyway. Now that I have, I know I should send you back home, where you belong. I know it," he said, drawing a ragged breath. "But— God forgive me—I cannot bear to do it!"