Free Unforgiven by Anne Calhoun

you know her?”
    There was a loaded question. He shrugged, then considered the books in his hand. “I’ve known her all my life.”
    Alana pulled books from the boxes and set them on her desk. The room had warmed up enough for her to remove her coat and drape it over the chair. “Marissa ordered these books via interlibrary loan.”
    “The books she said she didn’t want anymore.”
    “Yes.” Alana looked at him. “I think she should still have the chance to take a look at them. Skim them, if that’s all she has time to do. Would you take them to her for me, please?”
    His boots clunked loudly in the silence as he walked back to the circulation desk. The books, six in all, came from libraries in places like Delray Beach, Newport, and San Luis Obispo. He scanned the bindings for the titles, then looked at Alana. “What’s this all about?”
    “Oh, just your average, run-of-the-mill obsession.” He cut her a look at the lighthearted tone over the stone-cold serious words.
    Apparently he didn’t know Marissa nearly as well as he thought he did. “What does she owe you for the shipping?”
    “Sixteen thirty-four,” Alana said.
    Adam gave her a twenty, then put the change into a clear acrylic box marked Library Fund. The stack of books tucked between his arm and his hip, he walked out the front door and jogged through the rain to his car. Inside, he wiped the accumulated drops off the spines, then, under the dim illumination of the dome light, carefully read the back cover copy for each of the six books. When the dome light dimmed he tossed the books into the backseat, then drove through town to County Highway 12, headed for Brookhaven.
    Approaching the house from the southeast with storm clouds massed behind it, her house looked like a fanciful ship, the sharp corner of the wraparound front porch poised at the peak of the hill. Rain sheeted from the figurehead’s streaming hair and white Grecian gown, her arm outstretched, pointing west, tilting at an odd angle. The windows at floor level were clear glass, and the inset windows above were all made of stained glass, but not in the typical geometric forms. Rather, waves of blue and gray gave way to the warm colors of the sunset.
    On a windy fall day, the prairie unbroken to the horizon, the house looked like it was about to launch off into the swells of windblown green grass. He looked at it, blinked. Barked out a laugh. That wasn’t the Brookhaven he remembered, with peeling white paint and a vaguely abandoned, ramshackle air about it. No, the house was now utterly unconventional, passionate, unique.
    He blinked again, and it was just an odd old house, cobbled together from bits and pieces of architectural styles and auction junk. Where the hell had she gotten a sailing ship’s figurehead in South Dakota?
    He parked in the circle drive, followed the paving stones around to the servants’ entrance, knocked on the door, and found himself braced like he was outside officers’ quarters. When she opened the door he was grateful for the stance, because his heart stopped for a split second, then took off in triple time.
    She’d always been a tomboy, the kind of girl you’d see in a Michael Bay film, sexy as a centerfold while she kicked alien ass. He hadn’t given any thought at all to what she’d wear for a day of apartment hunting. She stood in the doorway in a pair of slim-fitting dark jeans and a forest green turtleneck sweater that clung to her lean body. Her dark hair spilled around her face and shoulders in tousled waves. A light coat of gloss gleamed on her full mouth, and she’d put on just enough eye makeup to make her brown irises dark and mysterious.
    Silence held, then she ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ear. “What?” she said.
    “You look amazing.”
    That got him a smile. “Thanks. Better than carpenter jeans and work boots, right?”
    “Just different,” he said. “Jeans and boots work for me.”
    “You have a thing for