But unfortunately, he damn well did.
Jared Sinclair rested one muscular shoulder against the brick exterior of Shamrock’s Corner Pub on Main Street, watching as Mara Ross left her doll shop and walked briskly across the road, swiping angrily at her cheeks. He held his breath as she passed within a few yards of him on her way down to the boardwalk, feeling like a damn stalker. Her gaze was focused straight ahead, and he released the air from his lungs as Mara walked right by him, completely unaware of his presence.
She never even saw me.
That shouldn’t bother him, either, but somehow it rankled that he was so fascinated by Mara, enthralled enough by her that he stopped everything to watch her, and she never even acknowledged him.
Why is she crying? She’s always smiling.
Pushing himself away from the building, he followed her, unable to resist the compulsion to chase after her, selfishly hoping her unhappiness wasn’t caused by his actions.
She shouldn’t know . . . yet.
It could be anything. Maybe she was just hormonal. That happened to women, right? Or perhaps her dog died. Tragic, but animals did have short life spans compared to humans, and they did die. He’d never had a pet, but Jared imagined losing a canine companion would definitely make Mara cry. Problem was, Mara didn’t have a dog, and her only close relative, her mother, had passed away a year ago.
It could still be anything, some other reason.
He cursed himself for caring, his curiosity getting the better of him as he continued to trudge after her.
She’d disappeared from the boardwalk, obviously making her way to the sandy, deserted beach. The weather was dismal, and it had been raining all day long. Yeah, there was a temporary break in the storms at the moment, but all Jared had to do was take one look at the sky and he could see the next one quickly moving into Amesport. The dark clouds were coming straight toward the small Maine coastal town—which was the primary reason most sane people were indoors right now. The streets and beach were nearly deserted.
Cursing his fascination with the curvy brunette, he took a slug of his coffee from Brew Magic and headed for the boardwalk. Personally, Jared loved the darkness of the stormy day, the crashing of thunder and deluge of rain matching the agitating restlessness he felt inside himself. He didn’t much care if he acted like a prick most of the time. It was better than trying to fake a happiness that didn’t exist for him.
I wish I’d never left the Peninsula and come into town. I wish I had stayed indoors and dry like the tourists are doing today. Then I never would have seen her, never would have known she was even upset.
Since he was probably the worst cook in the world, he’d driven from his home on the Amesport Peninsula into town to get something to eat. Just as he’d been heading back to his vehicle, he’d stopped to stare across the street at Mara’s store. Two very different, odd compulsions struck him deep in his gut whenever he saw the monstrous old structure that was Mara Ross’s shop and home. Certainly, he was drawn to the old residence because it was part of the Sinclair history in Amesport, a house that had belonged to a sea captain who was his ancestor. Every time he looked at the home, he wondered what it had looked like two hundred years ago. Hell, he was an architect by education. Wasn’t it normal to imagine seeing the rambling old structure as it had been in its glory days? Jared could shake those feelings off because of his education and occupation. He loved old houses in general, the sense of history he felt when he was near them. Understandable, perhaps—considering his background. What really disconcerted him was his obsession with the building’s occupant, Mara Ross.
She helped me out a few times. It’s normal to feel a certain amount of gratitude, right?
Jared was bullshitting himself, and he knew it. There were a lot of people who had helped him research the Sinclair history in the town of Amesport since he’d arrived there for a visit to his vacation house weeks ago. Intrigued because he’d never known just how entrenched the Sinclairs had been in this community historically, he’d sought information just for the hell of it in the beginning. The more he learned, the more he wanted to put all the puzzle pieces together of his family history. Although he was grateful to everyone who had helped him put the mystery of his Amesport ancestors together, he didn’t feel any inexplicable pull toward a single one of them—except her.
Oblivious to the damage he was doing to his casual but expensive Italian leather shoes, Jared left the boardwalk and went down the small incline to the beach, his feet sinking into the wet sand.