Heirly Ever After - Vernon, Magan (pdf ebook reader .txt) 📗

it?” he asked, crossing his arms so his pale blue button down stretched across his broad chest. The fabric didn’t even wrinkle against him. What was that? Some secret expensive material?

I glanced down at my own outfit of cut-off jean shorts and a faded T-shirt. Nothing about me screamed I was desperate, but something in me lit up at the thought that maybe someone other than my ex was interested in me. Even if it was just a drink at a bar car.

Not with some random guy on a train though, Madison.

I chewed on my bottom lip for a minute before slowly looking up to meet those soft green eyes. I swore a flicker of something crossed his stare as we locked eyes, but I could have just been seeing things.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to get to my seat. Maybe I’ll see you around.” I forced a smile before I turned and quickly made my way toward the back. After finding my seat, I placed my suitcase in the overhead bin then plopped down.

I focused on the window instead of whoever was about to take the spot next to me.

Luckily, it stayed empty and I had the area to myself.

Pulling out my sketchbook and charcoal pencil—I never went anywhere without them—I tried to make out the smattering of trees outside the window. Lately, inspiration had been lacking. Maybe if most of my views for the last few years hadn’t been of my ex-boyfriend, Chris, at gaming conventions, I’d have something to draw.

The outlines of the birches, barely visible through the downpour, cast shadows against the bricks outside the station, as if they were little kids playing a game of tag. My pencil moved as if on its own volition, tapping to the same rhythm as the drops on the window.

“Looks like we’re in for a helluva trip if this rain keeps on.”

I froze and turned to meet the smug smirk of the guy who’d insisted on playing hero when he wasn’t needed. He lounged in the seat across the aisle from me.

“Are you stalking me?” I swallowed hard. Deep down I sensed there was nothing wrong with this guy, yet I couldn’t hold back my knee-jerk response.

“Are you stalking me?” he asked, tilting his chin down, those big green eyes of his daring me.

I rolled my eyes, more so I wouldn’t have to keep matching his stare and possibly have my face flush again. “I don’t even know your name or have the foggiest idea who you are. Don’t be so full of yourself.”

He laughed, leaning back against the seat. He was so tall that the tuft of his wavy dark brown hair could be seen over the fuzzy blue of the chair. “Fair enough.”

He then turned toward me, scooting forward as he put a hand out across the aisle. “I’m Jacob. Not a stalker. Just a lad headed to Webley who happened to find a damsel in distress and decided to be chivalrous and help. A damsel who then tried to turn down her knight.”

I pressed my lips together, but my shoulders still shook as I tried to hold back my laugh. Before I couldn’t contain it anymore and burst out, I covered my mouth so I didn’t snort in the guy’s face.

He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think my statement was that funny.”

I sucked in a deep breath before dropping my pencil so it rolled down my sketchbook and onto my lap. “I’m hardly a damsel in distress, and unless your name is Sir Jacob, I highly doubt you’re a knight in shining armor. Maybe shining Prada loafers, but grabbing my fallen clothes doesn’t exactly make you a knight or my savior.”

Something crossed his face that was between a frown and a smirk, but just as quickly he was back to that annoying little dimpled smile. “Very well. Then what should I call you if not damsel?”

“Madison. I’m Madison,” I said before picking up my pencil again.

“Madison,” he repeated, as if savoring my name. “You seem to have quite an eye for art. I can’t even see anything past those dark clouds, yet you have an entire forest laid out.” He stretched across the aisle to take a closer look, but I pulled my book to my chest.

My heart thumped hard against the paper. Sure, I went to school for art, but no one aside from my professors and maybe some random strangers who would pass me at cons saw my work. Especially not chicken scratch sketches.

“Um, thanks. I was just playing around.”

“With this weather, it’s going to be a bloody long ride, so hopefully the conductor sees those trees better than I can.”

“Is it the conductor who drives the train? I thought that was just the guy who walks around and makes sure that everything is okay. Like a cruise director or something.”

He laughed. “I’d never heard someone use that term like that, bonnie, but that does sound right.”

“Um, my name’s not Bonnie.”

He grinned, flashing that damn dimple. “It’s a Scottish term of endearment. I guess it’s like you American southerners calling everyone darling.”

My heart did a little jump at his words and how they rolled off his tongue like a lullaby.

Scottish.

That’s where the accent was from.

And now I had to regain my wits, so I swallowed hard as I tried to tamp down whatever my heart was doing right now. I blamed jet lag and a recent breakup for the reaction.

“How did you know I was from the South?”

He nodded toward my shirt. “Your shirt. Raleigh is in North Carolina, right? Or do I have my geography off?”

I glanced down at my clothing, heat flushing my cheeks as I wished I had a better response. “Oh…yeah…it is.”

The train still wasn’t moving, the rain pelting harder against the windows, echoing like a bad DJ trying to mix a beat at a night club.

An older man in a dark blue sweater and matching captain-style cap, complete with gold emblem, strutted down the aisle. “Ladies and