Regency Romance: An Intriguing Invitation (Historical Billionaire Military Romance) (19th Century Victorian Romance) (40 page)

Abigail nodded.

“
Oh,
I hear ya. Back at home on the Diamond T Ranch, my folks and I used to laugh the day away. Then when Pa passed, it was all I could do to muster a smile,” she released these words on a tired sigh, adding as she graced her host with a warm, knowing smile, “I have
the distinct feeling
, Gent, that you and I are two of a kind. One day we’re just moseying through the process of working our
own
land and living our dreams. Then that pesky
ol
’ thing called life happened along and threw some big
ol
’ cow pies in our path.”

Guffawing outright in response to her words, Cal stepped forward to offer the lady his hand.

“At this point Ma’am, I don’t give a lick if you lack one bit of experience in working the land,” he told her, adding as he inclined his head in her direction, “You
are hired
.”

*****

Two weeks after taking on
an additional
hired hand at his ranch, Cal Hopkins was pleased to see that she did indeed know how to work the land.
This lady Abigail, in fact, proved herself an expert on all things horticultural, standing tall and proud in rows of roses and making them grow and bloom more beautifully than ever; also tending his more conventional crops of corn and cotton, increasing the productivity of his farm while his second career as a law enforcement officer continued to thrive.

Although not a conventional beauty like his Elsa, he loved the way that her bright blue eyes came alight whenever she inspected a radiant rose; and the lovely smile that she displayed
whenever
she favored him with one of her hilarious jokes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in my life,” he mused at one point, looking on with keen amusement as she charmed him with an impression of an untalented chorus girl who gets her high kicking feet caught up in her voluminous petticoats after sipping on what was perhaps one too many tempered sarsaparillas.
“Not to mention think—this gal is probably the smartest I’ve met.”

When Cal came home at night, he always looked forward to the home cooked meals that Abigail prepared for him; feasts that featured corn and potatoes grown on his
own
ranch, along with juicy steaks and buttermilk biscuits coated with layers of fresh churned butter.

After
dinner,
the pair reclined in the comfy if rustic confines of his sitting room at the ranch house; a room lined with wooden walls and planked floors and filled with samplings of hand carved furnishings. And even as he played chess and poker with his newfound best friend, he saw reminders of the hostess who once reigned as the queen of his modest but well-kept homestead.

A rich
sampling of Cal’s home carved furnishings came covered with vibrant rainbow patterned quilts created by Elsa’s delicate hand; and just over his game table stood an ebullient oil painting that portrayed the lady herself—her wholesome blonde beauty shining forth from the canvas as she held one of her signature yellow roses.

“She sure was a beauty,” Abigail noted one night, laying aside a final hand of poker as she looked her
handsome
host straight in the eyes, “And you loved her very much, didn’t you?”

Cal nodded.

“More than anything,” he acknowledged, adding in a
soft,
reverent voice, “My wife was an angel on Earth, and our time together—well it was just magical.” He paused here, adding as he arched his feathered eyebrows in Abigail’s direction, “What about you, Miss Abigail? Have you ever been in love?”

Abigail snorted.

“Love,” she scoffed, adding as she pursed her pink lips in a sure sign of cynicism, “True love is what I shared with my folks. It was pure, sweet, unconditional. Romantic love is for people who bear a
strikin’
resemblance to your wife, God rest her soul, and
yerself
—and for that matter to my two younger sisters, both of whom were married off to a pair of handsome twin ranchers who whisked them off to Oklahoma. Now, to their credit, they’ve finally come back home to help Ma for the time that I’m away—
at least,
until I can send home enough money for her to cover my father’s debts and then hopefully hire some ranch hands.”

Cal nodded.

“So you’ve never been
courtin’
?” he asked her, tone curious and thoughtful.

Abigail shook her head.

“Never,” she declared, adding as she rolled her eyes heavenward, “Oh rest assured; as a
teen-ager
I occasionally poured my
big
body into a calico dress and went to stand motionless and alone at some barn dance, waiting in vain for some
gent
to ask me to dance. I almost went so far as to offer my services as a human coat rack for the other guests; heck, I might as well be of some use while I’m
standin’
there alone in a corner,
grinnin’
like a fool.”

Cal laughed, but only briefly.

“Well it
’s too bad
that those
gents
at the barn dance never stopped to talk to you,” he told her, adding as he reached across the table and covered her hand with his, “Then they would have realized what a smart, funny gal you are. And at the risk of sounding disrespectful, Ma’am, you do have the prettiest blue eyes I ever have seen.”

He grinned as Abigail ducked her head, her
ivory-skinned
cheeks flushing somewhat as she considered these words of unexpected praise.

“Why thank
you,
Cal,” she acknowledged the
praise
, adding as she cast those eyes upward in his direction, “I would return the compliment, but it’s just a mite hard to know where to start with you.” She paused here, adding as her gaze took a
brief
but admiring note of his sheer masculine perfection, “You have the prettiest—well—everything.”

She trembled as Cal met these words with a soft
sonorous
chuckle; entwining her fingers in his as he asked, “Would you like to know, Miss Abigail, just what it’s like to kiss a cowboy?”

*****

Abigail sat still and straight at the head of the poker table; struggling to tear her gaze from the beauty and charm of her
handsome ethereal
host.

Every day since her arrival at Elsa’s Rose, Abigail had found herself
strongly
and inexorably drawn to the man who kept and tended this beautiful ranch.

Aside from being the rare man who liked and appreciated a hardworking woman—one who spent far more time in the fields than she did in the kitchen, and was durn proud of it thank ya very much—and who always treated her with the upmost kindness and respect, Cal never failed to dazzle her with his own special brand of masculine good looks.

If it was indeed possible for a man to glow, then Cal Hopkins pulled the trick off to splendorous effect; whether working in the fields in a pair of blue jeans and his trusty felt hat, or dressed for his other work in a black brushed cotton sack coat, a gray wool tweed vest and crisp white shirt underneath and tight black canvas trousers—along with appealing accents that included slick black gloves, a shiny silver star adorning his lapel, and a sleek ebony gun belt and holster that carried his signature sheriff’s six shooters.

And now this gorgeous prince of a man wanted to kiss
her, and
God
help
her, she could not resist him.

“Kiss me,” she released on a whisper, accepting his soft,
intimate
offer as she turned her face upward.

She shut her eyes tight as Cal leaned forward to touch her lips with his;
his full moist mouth stroking hers in a gentle but quite passionate advance
.

Cal swallowed her startled breath as he angled his head over hers; intensifying their kiss as he soon plied her lips with the sweetest kisses.

Even as his soft lips lulled her senses and she relaxed to pass into a dreamy otherworld
quite
foreign to her
practical
mind, her eyes opened wide to once again grace her vision with the whole of his masculine beauty.

This move proved a serious mistake, as her wandering gaze soon came to rest on the portrait mounted just above their table.

Soon her eyes collided with those of the radiant Elsa Hopkins, and the usually
iron-willed
Abigail found herself withering like a flower in the scope of soft almond eyes; eyes that seemed
kind
if wary and all knowing.

“I’m sorry. We have to cease this nonsense.
This is just wrong,” she mumbled suddenly, breaking their kiss as she sprang from the table and grasped her plain denim skirts in two resolute hands; headed for the small corner bedroom that served as her sole refuge in a home that seemed suddenly too familiar—and a man that, in all his infernal beauty, seemed suddenly too tempting to resist.

“Abigail!” Cal bellowed, jumping to his feet as he raced across the room. “Did I do something to offend you?”

Abigail shook her head.

“We were both
doin’
wrong,” she insisted, adding as she turned with a flourish to face her
tempter
in full, “We were
kissin’
like lovers in your wife’s house—
tarnishin
’ Elsa’s
rose
!”

These words echoed
strong
in Cal’s mind the next morning; as he rode hard through the downtown area where he presided as
deputy
sheriff.

As Cal straddled the back of Midnight Lightning, the sleek ebony stallion that came as part and parcel of his job, he knew full well that he looked the part of the powerful, authoritative deputy sheriff; sitting tall and proud in the saddle as he shifted his regal head to scan the scope of the downtown area—a place punctuated by an endless line of general stores, mills, seamstress shops, and saloons.

“The saloons tend to bring us more trouble than all of the other businesses combined,” he mused, adding with a slight smile, “Now we did face
a bit of a
ruckus at the general store last
week
when an overzealous 12-year-old tried in vain to snatch a bottle of sarsaparilla. And at the seamstress shop the week before last, we encountered the unfortunate case of two surly ladies at war over the same wedding dress. We had to pry the inordinately sharp knitting needles from their clutches, just to avoid what surely would have amounted to a woodshed of bloodshed.”

Although he chuckled lightly at his own, admittedly weak attempt at humor, Cal knew in his heart that his
strong
, dignified presence lent a certain air of security to the area he served as deputy sheriff.

“Funny,” he scoffed now, dipping his head low beneath the brim of his trusty white hat, “
Considerin’
the fact that I feel like the foulest, most despicable scoundrel in town.”

After presenting himself as a perfect gentleman to his mail order bride, a woman who he’d come to like, trust and befriend, Cal apparently had violated her trust and thrown up a tall emotional barrier between them; stealing a kiss that had caused her to flee from him, thus ruining what had been a perfect evening of sweet memories and kind conversation.

“I wanted only to please her, to perhaps change a mind that seems to be hard set against the concepts of dating and courtship,” he told himself, heaving a sigh as he added, “And although she sure seemed to be welcoming of and enjoying the gesture, it seems like all of a sudden she changed her mind—and her heart.
She bolted away from me like I had the plague—racing into her room and locking the door behind her.”

Although Cal had stood outside her door for nearly an hour, begging her to at least give him a chance to apologize for and explain his actions, a steadfast Abigail had refused to take leave of her
own
private refuge; finally insisting that he let her alone and go to his
own
bedroom.

Finally,
the cowboy relented and retired to the modest, wood planked room that formed his
own
private haven at Elsa’s Rose; a room occupied only by a camp bed and an unpainted
bureau
, and adorned only
with
yet another portrait of his beautiful late wife.

Here he could escape the
cold
condemnation of his mail order bride. He could not, however, avoid the all knowing almond gaze that followed him throughout the room; seeming to condemn him even as her smile remained kind and gentle.

“Are you condemning me for betraying your memory with another woman, and in your
own
house?” he asked her at one point, tossing and turning in his plain cotton sheets in the midst of a torturous sleepless night. “Or for clinging to your memory,
refusin’
in the process
to go on with my
own
life?”