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.