Adored By The Rancher: Mail Order Brides Box Set

by Dreams, Brittany

  “What!” Lance began to feel a rush of panic surge through him. Again he tried to sit up, but his limbs would only twitch uselessly. “Is this a joke? Where am I? What’s going on, here? Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Relax,” Matthew said. “To answer your questions, this is not a joke. It’s just after midnight. You’re in the city morgue, and your next of kin has already come to identify your body. You – Lance William – are officially dead to the rest of the world.”

  “If I’m dead, how can I be talking to you?”

  “Because you’re in the process of becoming your new self,” Matthew said, with a smile. “A vampire.”

  Lance stared at him in a mix of bewilderment and anger. “Vampires aren’t real,” he said.

  “Oh, I can assure you,” Matthew told him, nodding, “we are quite real. And please, don’t confuse us with those fictional versions. We don’t turn into bats, we do cast reflections, and as you can see from looking at me, we don’t sparkle. We do, however, drink blood, we are immortal, and we can make other vampires with a bite. Which is what I did for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, you were dying.” Matthew checked the watch on his left wrist. “You should start being able to move in a few minutes.” He slid a strap off his shoulder and held up a duffle bag. “There are clothes in here for you, as well as enough money to help you get a start in your new life.” He placed the bag on a nearby table. “You will have to leave this area, because it’s too easy for you to be recognized right now. Until you learn how to mask yourself, you won’t be able to let anyone see you. I’ve provided a phone with contact numbers of others like us and sympathizers who will be able to help you by providing shelter and food.”

  “Food? What, you mean…blood?”

  “Well, that, too – but I was talking about regular food, too,” Matthew said. “You will need to consume blood at least once a month to sustain yourself.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to go around biting people on the neck?”

  Matthew winced and hissed, shaking his head. “I would avoid that, actually. Your vampire blood is immune to all diseases, but you could accidentally release the antibodies in your saliva and wind up killing someone. The only way you can make a vampire is if a person is dying, but to try it on a healthy person could kill them. So, be careful.”

  Lance found he could lift his hand. Slowly, he felt a warmth spread through his body to all his extremities. He sat up gingerly, the gurney creaking under him. The sheet slipped down to expose his naked chest. For a moment, he flashed on the memory of something metal sticking out of his body. He touched his abdomen in wonder. Not a mark, not even so much as a scratch to give any indication that he had been wounded. He swung his legs over the side of the table. “Why couldn’t I just be a vampire and let my family know I was alive?” he asked, voice cracking with emotion. He ran his fingers through his blond curls and shrugged. “Why do they have to be put through the pain and grief of thinking I’m dead when I’m still here, just…different?”

  “Because no one can know what you are,” Matthew explained. “We do have sympathizers but they are sworn to secrecy about our identities for both our protection and theirs. If people were to know we exist, that vampires are real – well, pardon the pun but it would be a bloodbath. Fear makes people do crazy things and we don’t need to be hunted to extinction. You were dead before I got to you – there was no way you were going to survive. Your family would have grieved for you, no matter what. If you suddenly came back to them, they would ask questions. If you thought life as a celebrity was like living under a microscope? It would have been worse, if you showed up looking like you had just walked away from that accident unscathed.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Lance growled. He launched himself off the table. The sheet fell away; completely nude, he surged toward Matthew, grabbed him by his jacket collar and yanked him up close. “You offered me ‘life’ and this is what you gave me? What kind of ‘life’ is this? I can’t have any contact with my family – with my son? I can’t see my friends? I have to give up everything I had worked so hard to achieve?” He shook his head. “You should have told me this was what I had to face – because I would rather die than have to live without the people I love!”

  “I’m sorry,” Matthew said quietly, grimacing, but he did not try to fight Lance off. “At least take comfort in knowing you’ll be able to watch them from afar. You’ll still be able to see your son grow up. Once you learn to mask yourself, to change your physical appearance through vampiric illusion, you’ll even be able to have brief moments of contact with your loved ones. But you can never let them know who you are – who you were.”

  Slowly, Lance released him. He was never a violent man before, and he would not become one, now. He sagged in defeat. “I can’t believe this has happened to me,” he muttered. He wandered over to the bag of clothes sitting on the table. “My life was just starting. I had so much I still wanted to do and achieve.”

  “There’s nothing stopping you,” Matthew said. “You won’t be able to use your fame to make them happen, but you’ll still be able to achieve great things – unless all you wanted was bragging rights, to be able to say ‘look at this wonderful act of kindness I’ve performed; aren’t I a good person?’”

  “That’s not how I am, at all,” Lance said, defensive.

  “Then it shouldn’t matter.” Matthew stuffed his hands into his hoodie’s pockets and smiled like a kid on Christmas morning. “You’re going to find out that there’s more to being a vampire than drinking blood and living forever. Think of it in terms of being a superhero with a secret identity.”

  “Somehow, that isn’t very comforting.” Sighing, Lance unzipped the bag and began rummaging around inside. He pulled on briefs, blue jeans, a black button down shirt, and a pair of white running shoes. Thumbing through the wallet, he found several hundreds of dollars in cash. “What about identification?” he asked, showing the wallet to Matthew. “I don’t have a driver’s license, either.”

  “You won’t need one.”

  “Oh, so if a cop pulls me over, I’m supposed to pull a Jedi mind trick on him and tell him he doesn’t need to see my I.D.?”

  “Something like that.” At Lance’s eye roll, Matthew chuckled. “It’s all part of the illusion skill that comes with being a vampire. You’ll develop it quickly. You’ll be able to project thoughts into other people’s heads, like making them see you as you want them to see you – that’s the masking I mentioned, before. You’ll be able to show them a playing card and make them think they’re looking at a driver’s license.”

  “Sounds like a lot of manipulation,” Lance said. He tucked the wallet into the rear pocket of his new jeans. “I’ve never liked manipulative people.”

  “Don’t think of it in terms of something negative,” Matthew said. “Think of it as a survival tool.”

  “So what’s going to happen, now?” Lance nodded to the examination table where he had been lying just moments before. “Won’t someone get suspicious when they come in to get me ready for my funeral, only to find they don’t have a body?”

  “Oh, there will be a body.” Matthew checked his watch again. “In fact, it should be arriving any minute now.”

  Right on cue, the doors swung open and a handsome black man dressed in an emergency technician’s uniform came in pushing a gurney loaded with a black body bag. “Special delivery,” he said, with a lopsided grin. He looked Lance over. “I see he’s up and around. How’s he adapting?”

  “It’s going to take some time,” Matthew said. He unzipped the bag and peered inside. “But I think he’s going to be all right.”

  “You guys don’t have to talk about me like I’m not even in the room,” Lance quipped. He frowned and jerked his chin at the bag. “Who’s that?”

  “Just another unfortunate individual who likely came to Hollywood searching for fame and fortune, only to find a dirty needle and a lot of heartbreak,” Matthew
said. He glanced up. “Oh, by the way – this is Sherman. And yes, he’s also a vampire.”

  Sherman smiled at Lance. “’Sup?”

  Lance nodded a silent acknowledgement. He looked at the dead man in the bag and wrinkled his nose. Dirty, matted hair, a bushy beard, and sunken eyes, he probably smelled bad even before he died. “Jesus,” Lance muttered. “So, why would you save me but not this guy?”

  “Hey,” Sherman said, holding up his palms. “He was already stone cold dead when I found him.”

  “I asked Sherman to be on the lookout for someone who could double as you,” Matthew said.

  “This guy looks nothing like me,” Lance pointed out.

  “Doesn’t he?” Matthew smiled. “Look again.”

  Lance looked – and gasped. He could have been gazing at a wax figure of himself, perfect in every detail, lying there in the open body bag. He blinked and shook his head, closed his eyes and opened them again. “No,” he said. “That’s – how are you…?”

  “It’s the illusion I told you about,” Matthew said. “I made you think you saw yourself.”

  Sherman wiggled his fingers and grinned. “The old vampire razzle-dazzle.” He nudged Lance with his elbow. “Look at it this way: your loved ones get to think they’re laying you to rest, and this guy gets a decent funeral he never would have had.”

  Lance watched as Matthew pulled the dead homeless man out of the bag and lifted him onto the table with incredible ease. “Oh, and you might have heard that vampires have increased physical strength,” Matthew said.

  “Now, don’t go bench-pressing any Cadillacs just yet,” Sherman added, lightly thumping Lance’s chest with a finger. “You’re still kind of weak, right now, but don’t worry – it’ll come to you.”

  They cleaned up the dead man a bit before covering him with the sheet. “So, that’s it?” Lance asked. “Everyone’s going to think this is me?”

  Matthew shrugged and nodded. “Yes.”

  “And what happens to me, now?”

  “You’re going to leave town, as I suggested. You’ll go north. There’s a list of safe houses for you to stay at, all in the phone I’ve provided for you. All you have to do is show up and they’ll take you in, no questions asked.”

  Lance stood there for a moment, staring at the body. Finally, he said, “Okay. I’ll go – but after my funeral.” He looked up, defiantly meeting Matthew’s gaze. “I want to take one last look at my friends and family before I have to leave.”

  Matthew’s face pinched with concern. “I understand,” he said, “but I will warn you right now: this will not be easy for you. Seeing your loved ones in pain, grieving for your loss, will tear at your heart. You’ll have to fight the urge to comfort them. I’ll be able to mask you and our friend, here. You’ll be just another face in the crowd of mourners, and that’s all you can be. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

  Swallowing thickly, Lance still managed to set his jaw and nodded. “Yes.”

  “All right.”

  ***

  Lance stood at the back of the packed chapel next to Matthew. They had slipped in along with the other mourners and maintained a safe distance from the close family and friends at the front of the room. The sounds of sniffling and sobbing filled the air, mingling with the sweet fragrance from all the floral arrangements standing around the coffin. Lance had to fight to hold back his tears. Matthew had not lied about how this would affect his heart. He bit his lips to keep them from trembling as he watched his son, Micah, walk up to the casket and place a kiss on the cheek of a dead junkie. The Oscar, recovered from the limo’s wreckage, stood on a pedestal beside the coffin. Lance had promised it to Micah and hoped he would still receive it, after the services.

  Dean Vincent, Lance’s best friend and costar in the Take the Money and Run films, gave a tearful but beautiful eulogy. “In closing,” he said solemnly, “I would like to quote from a poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., who Lance played in High Flight.” He pulled out a piece of paper from inside the breast pocket of his black suit jacket and unfolded it. Tears ran down his face onto the note as he read, his deep voice a thick rasp.

  “’There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light –

  The hands that thrilled to touch a woman’s hair;

  Blue eyes, that loved the Day, and looked on Night,

  A soul that found at last its answered Prayer.’”

  Folding up the paper, Dean swallowed and turned to look at the casket. “You will always be in heart, Lance,” he said, his breath hitching. “We’ll see each other again, someday, my friend.”

  Lance had to wipe at his own tears and look down at the floor. Okay, so maybe coming here was a bad idea.

  A couple of his musician friends played his favorite songs. When they finished, the pall bearers – Lance’s two brothers, Dean, and three other friends – lifted the casket and carried it down the aisle and out to the waiting hearse. Someone picked up the Oscar and handed it to Micah, who took it and hugged it to his chest. Lance smiled and stifled a sob.

  The procession of cars wound its way through the streets of Los Angeles to Forest Lawn Cemetery. Lance stood and watched as his loved ones said their final goodbyes and left. Then the fans moved in. For hours, they had waited outside the cemetery and now they flowed past the grave, the mountain of flowers, trinkets, and candles piling ever higher.

  “You do know we can go at any time,” Matthew reminded him quietly, after two hours. “The casket’s been closed, no one can see who is inside.” He looked at Lance. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

  “Because it’s my funeral,” Lance replied, now sounding cold and hollow. “I’m paying my final respects to the life I no longer have.” He pulled on a pair of sunglasses. He found it interesting that they could go outside in broad daylight and stand beneath the California sunshine with no ill effects. Yet another vampire myth, debunked. “I’m ready to go, now.”

  ***

  Lance sat behind the wheel of the car Matthew had presented to him, windows down, the warm breeze blowing through his blond curls. He thought back to their last conversation, as he had prepared to get on the road headed north. “Why me?” he had asked Matthew. “Why did you decide to offer me this life?”

  After a moment, Matthew had answered. “Being a vampire is like being an angel: you either deliver death or mercy. When I saw the crash, I knew there would be fatalities. I went in, prepared to help release the victims from suffering and speed them on their way. Then I saw you, and I recognized you immediately. I knew from your charity work that you were a good person, someone dedicated to helping others. I wanted you to have the chance to continue that work. Not all vampires do what Sherman and I do. There are those who take whatever they want and abuse the gift they have to grant life or death. They’re not interested in saving lives – they’d rather take them. But you? You’ll be merciful. You’ll know who can benefit from your gifts. There will be times when you’ll be faced with the decision to pass on those gifts as I did with you. I believe you’ll do the right thing. I believe in you.”

  Matthew had also promised to keep in touch and connect with Lance again whenever he needed help in adapting to his new life. He then put Lance on the road and told him to lie low for a while as he adjusted. His first stop would be a safe house in Bakersfield. Lance followed the phone’s GPS directions and soon found himself pulling into a little suburb. He stopped in front of a single-level ranch house with attached two-stall garage nestled in a cul-de-sac of similar houses with well-manicured lawns. With his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

  A moment later, the door opened. An attractive young woman with caramel-colored skin and dark brown eyes stood there, barefoot and just as tall as Lance. She treated him to a wide smile. “Hello,” she said, brushing her shoulder-length black hair back off her neck before offering her hand in greeting. “I’m Sara Lopez. Matthew told me to expect you.”

  “Did he tell you my
name?” Lance asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “He said you hadn’t come up with one, yet,” Sara replied. “But since you’re still new to this, it’s all right if you want to go by your old name…Lance.”

  “You…know who I am? Was?” Lance corrected himself quickly.

  “Are you kidding? I’m a huge fan.” She stepped aside and tilted her head. “Come on in.”

  As he stepped into the house, he took a moment to look around. The foyer opened onto a huge living room with comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs. Off to the right, he could see through a doorway to the kitchen. He inhaled deeply and smiled. “Something smells good.”

  “Just making up a batch of tamales for dinner,” Sara said. “Let me give you the tour, and show you to your room.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Sara led him to the left down a short hallway. “There are three guest bedrooms which share a common bath,” she explained. She pointed to a closed door at the end of the hall to the right. “This is the master suite, which is mine.” She took him to the room directly across from hers. It featured a single bed, a dresser with a small flat-screen television on top, and a desk with a computer. “There are clean linens including towels in the hall closet, and any toiletries you might need.”

  Lance dropped his bag onto the bed. “It’s nice,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Come with me,” she said, and he followed her back through the house to the kitchen. Lance could not help noticing her curvaceous figure, the way her light blue leggings hugged the perfect rounds of her buttocks. On the other side of a breakfast bar he saw a family room with a large flat-screen television mounted on the wall, a corner brick fireplace, and sliding glass doors to the back yard. A tall privacy fence enclosed the area, which featured several large orange trees. “There’s a washer and dryer in the garage,” Sara pointed out, showing him the door that led off the kitchen to that part of the house. “That’s also where the special refrigerator is kept.”