Vance had come into the restaurant for a good steak and a nice liqueur.  Instead, he'd found a woman who made him glad he still had the urges of a human male and -- after Benjamin began speaking of the ranch's need for night time security -- a possible job.

"I think we could definitely talk more about this, Mister Stewart," Vance said with a smile and a nod.  "Night work sets just fine with me, and you'll never find me drinking on the job, no sir."

"Fine, fine," Benjamin agreed, nodding.  "You'll come out to the ranch tomorrow, then ... and we can talk terms.  And it's Benjamin."

"No, sir," Vance said quickly and firmly.  He glance to Lillian for a flash as if wanting to ensure she was listening to his respectful contradiction, looking back to Benjamin to clarify, "Prefer to call you Mister Stewart if I'm working for ya ... if that's okay with you."

Again Benjamin nodded, lifting his sherry glass in salute before draining it.

[quote]“What brought you to Willow Springs?”[/quote]

"The Southern Pacific," Vance answered Maxwell's question.  Jenny giggled at the little joke, causing Vance to chuckle with her before answering more seriously, "The news of Willow Spring's boom has reached all the way to the East Coast."

Jenny's continued participation in the conversation intrigued Vance.  As the beauty who'd drawn his attention to the family in the beginning explained her relative as [i]the social butterfly of the family[/i], Vance began to wonder if maybe he hadn't initially taken an interest in the wrong female.  Oh, sure, Vance was aware that her husband was sitting just to her side.  But he'd enjoyed the company of his share of [i]taken[/i] women over his centuries of life, if you could call what he was [i]being alive[/i].  Vance glanced to Jenny's husband and, once again, found his full attention on the food before him.  His smile widened a bit as he wondered whether Maxwell would even notice, let alone object, to Vance bending his flirtatious wife over the table for a bit of carnal joy.

"I came here from ... well, a great many places," Vance responded when asked about from where he'd arrived the previous day.  "I was most recently in New Orleans.  Before that, Chicago ... before that New York ... Atlanta, Toronto, Memphis, Chicago yet again ... spent some time in Mexico city ... Havana ... that's in Cuba ... then back to the States ... Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston--"

The mention of some of the cities -- foreign and domestic -- got different responses from different Stewarts, but it was the mention of Boston that got an immediate response, of course.  Vance listened to the Stewarts talk about Boston for a bit, but then Maxwell -- who'd finished stuffing his face full of his dessert -- returned to the conversation with a scrutinizing tone, "That's a lot of cities in a short amount of time, Mister Hamilton.  Either you're a couple'a hun'erd years old, giving you enough time to see all those places ... or ... have you been trying to stay ahead of something chasing after you maybe?"

Vance studied the man for a moment, wanting so badly to tell him that his first guess wasn't too far from the truth.  But a soft chastising from a pair of family members who thought Maxwell was being rude instead caused Vance to respond to the group as a whole, "No, no ... that's a fair enough question."

He looked to Maxwell, lying, "Boredom, actually."

Vance continued with his fiction, spinning a tale about his having come from money that he'd spent at a too rapid pace to see the world.  His father, he claimed, had owned a fleet of fishing boats in Newfoundland, and after the [i]Old Man's[/i] death and the sale of the business, a then-16 year old Vance set off to see the world.

"And now..." he reached into the little breast pocket of his vest to pull out a trio of gold and silver coins, flashing them as he continued with a wide smile, "I can hold what's left of my family's fortune in the palm of one hand."

"You have a job with us if you wish it, sir," Benjamin said quickly.  

Vance nodded his approval to the family's patriarch, glanced at Jenny as she showed her obvious excitement, then looked to Lillian with a longer more meaningful glance.  He only said softly about the promise of the job, "Good."

"I think they're wanting us out of here," Benjamin said, not recognizing the stranger's look of interest in his niece.  The others began to rise behind their patriarch, as did Vance.  The two men shook hands again, and Benjamin asked, "How's 'bout ten work for you?  We'll be done with most of our morning chores by then, and we can sit down for an early lunch."

Vance's expression got a bit more serious at the suggestion.  He himself had been about to suggest they meet again here for dinner, wanting to limit or entirely avoid his time out during daylight.  It wasn't as if Vance couldn't be out and about during daylight hours.  It was only that the [i]abilities[/i] and [i]protections[/i] he enjoyed as a vampire were [i]null and void[/i] between sunrise and sunset.

But, he'd killed just 20 or so hours earlier, draining the boy from the east of every drop of blood Vance could suck from his rapidly dying body.  So, while he would be more vulnerable than he preferred, at least he would recuperate quickly, almost as if he hadn't been out in the light of day to begin with.

"That would be fine, Mister Stewart," Vance said, again shaking the man's hand.  He shook hands with the other men as, one at a time, they made their way out of the restaurant.  Jenny almost looked disappointed at the realization that she and Vance were going separate ways, but it was Lillian for whom Vance showed the last of his attention.  He offered his hand out to her, saying with a bit too much obviousness, "It's been a joy ... and I hope I will see you tomorrow perhaps?"