Checked out, p.1
Checked Out, page 1
Checked Out
Checked Out
Synopsis
Copyright
Title Page
________
The Light that Always Answers
Part One - In the Lane Snow is Glistening Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part Two - Dashing through the Snow Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Three - ‘Tis the Season Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part Four - To Face Unafraid Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
In the Service of Love
________
Dedication
A Jingle Jangle Playlist
Notes and Acknowledgments from Karin
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Sample from Velvet in Venice
Other Works by Karin Kallmaker
About the Author
Synopsis of Checked Out, A Coin of Love Romance
The Coin of Love Series: Women discover the magic they need to find the love they deserve.
Peri Garritsen thought it was a simple assignment: get a small-town librarian to answer a few questions. Easy is what everyone tells her she needs right now. She’ll make it a quick trip, prove she’s fit for duty, and get back to doing something actually important.
Librarian Lisette Osborne is not happy at the arrival of another imperious government agent in her office. The library policy is not hard to understand: no warrant, no answers. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Ms. “I Hate Small Towns and the Holidays” Homeland Security.
Agent Big City Grumpy meets Librarian Small Town Sunshine. Checked Out is all that in a jingle bells novella full of books and cookies, plus one very old coin.
Books in this series can be read in any order.
Holiday Romance novella; Lesbian, Sapphic, woman-loving-woman story. Please read the free excerpt!
Copyright © 2023 Karin Kallmaker
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Your respect for the author’s copyright is deeply appreciated. All rights are reserved. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book by any means, including machine learning and AI, without the permission of the publisher is illegal, punishable by law, and endangers the future of stories like it. Please read only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy.
Cover design: Karin Kallmaker
Editor: Heather Flournoy
Published by Romance and Chocolate Ink
Eiderdown
…
In the deep olive groves of Aphaea Artemis the women dance, they mourn, they love. Always in the light, be it sun or moon, fire or star. On the night She hammered her essence into me, the molten power of her forge poured from the slopes of Mons Mykali.
I was made in fire and honor for the Beloved to mark the beginning of Forever.
As I wander hand to hand, the centuries roll one to another with countless dark seasons yielding to the light. I have known colder nights, darker times. The light always answers.
These women behold the dark honestly, yet do not trust that light will answer. They fight, they rage, they shift the tide. Yet they keep their strength a secret, most of all from themselves.
I am in the service of love, and love is light’s sharpest arrow. The flicker of the Beloved’s essence draws me to them, and I become the light that always answers.
PART ONE
In the Lane Snow is Glistening
CHAPTER ONE
THE POLITE TAP ON Lisette Osborne’s open office door was completely expected. She rarely got more than a few minutes at a stretch without one. But the silhouetted visitor wasn’t a mother with a toddler wanting to complain about the changes to Stories Out Loud.
Oversized mirrored aviator sunglasses hid the woman’s expression so well that Lisette wished she could wear them herself.
She felt a flush of alarm across her cheeks. Without her customary ease, she managed to force her mask of professional impassivity over it. She couldn’t do a thing about the way her skin was crawling along the nape of her neck.
She didn’t know who this woman was, but Lisette knew what she was.
“How can I help you?” She had no idea if the visitor had seen her moment of panic.
“May I come in?”
She gestured at the chair across from her desk, but the blue-suited, dark-haired woman didn’t sit. So she stood up as well, putting her gaze on level with the top button of the utterly unremarkable, white-collared shirt.
She thought irrelevantly that her office didn’t often seem small, but it did now. It wasn’t that her visitor was large, but she seemed to take up a lot of space anyway. Maybe it was the sunglasses that gave her Agent Smith Matrix-style menace.
More likely it was the gun.
Lisette knew the outline of a shoulder holster when she saw one — her father had worn one to work for most of her life. He had returned home every night to hang the crisscrossed leather straps and buckles on the back of the kitchen door alongside the aprons, and to lock the revolver in the small case that sat on top of the refrigerator.
“How can I help you?” Lisette let one eyebrow lift as if to say Second Request.
“Sorry for the intrusion, ma’am. Are you the library’s manager?” The slight drawl said she hadn’t been born in or near Norcester, Connecticut.
“Yes, I am.” She held out her hand. “Lisette Osborne. Welcome to the Norcester Public Library.”
The handshake was firm and brief. “Peri Garritsen. A pleasure, ma’am. I regret to say that I am here on official business.” With an economy of motion, she withdrew a thin wallet from an inner pocket of her jacket and opened it to display her identification.
It was definitely one of those times when being right sucked — she’d expected FBI, but it was Homeland Security. Either way, it didn’t translate to holiday cheer.
So much for the hope of an ordinary Monday with nothing more pressing than staff scheduling and onboarding a new hire. She hoped she didn’t become nostalgic for the simplicity of days like that. Visits from Feds could get very ugly.
She already knew what was wanted. The answer was no, would always be no, and no was what she had said in the registered letter approved by the library’s legal counsel.
She squared her shoulders and was glad she was standing up. “Could you elaborate?”
“Yes ma’am. A certain information transaction was made from a computer on your premises via the Norcester Library network. We would like the name or description of the customer who was logged into that device at that time.”
“Patron.”
“Ma’am?” Her faint smile faded. Lisette realized that it had masked gaunt lines now apparent around the woman’s unsmiling mouth.
“The people who use our library services are patrons, not customers. You don’t have to buy anything to use our Wi-Fi, borrow our DVDs, or avail yourself of any other library service — except use of the copier or printers. For that you’ll need at least a dime, but you’re still a patron.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Her face fell into tight-jawed lines of authority. “A patron then.”
“Could you remove your sunglasses, Agent Garritsen?”
The left side of her mouth twitched. “Ma’am?”
“I understand that they were necessary outside. My glasses darken in the sun. Snow blindness is real and there is more snow on the way. They’re saying it’ll be a record for December.” Don’t babble! “But I assure you that our inside lighting is harmless.”
Agent Garritsen didn’t move.
There was no way their encounter today was going to end well, so she decided to be blunt. “I dislike being at a disadvantage. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how eye contact influences human interactions.”
Her lean face was carefully impassive as she slowly removed the oversized glasses.
Lisette realized two things at once. First, the agent’s economy of motion was the result of an inability to move her left shoulder more than an inch or so, and that limitation had nothing to do with the shoulder harness or the gun in it.
Second, that what she had taken for an intimidation tactic was more complicated. A thin, still angry and red scar ran from the bridge of her wide nose and across her right eyelid to leave rough skin where the center of her eyebrow ought to have been. Whatever blow or sharp object had caused that destructive path had spared her eye, but not by much.
It happened all in an instant — the hostile, official automaton transformed to a vulnerable human being.
Well, it wasn’t going to work.
“Thank you.” Don’t react, she told herse lf. You asked to see her eyes, now you need to look into them. Look she did, hoping it wasn’t overlong.
Agent Garritsen blinked, and she saw that the scarred right lid functioned slightly slower than the left. The light brown skin was wan underneath. Clearly, the agent had suffered a serious injury of some kind, and recently.
There was no trace of sarcasm in Gerritsen’s voice as she asked, “Is that more appropriate to the hour, ma’am?”
“Yes, it is. May I see your warrant, Agent Garritsen?”
“That’s going to present a bit of a problem, ma’am.”
I knew it! “You don’t have one.”
“This investigation is part of an ongoing domestic terrorism inquiry.”
“If this inquiry is related to the written one received in August, you should have a copy of our reply to the FBI in September. The Norcester Public Library does not divulge patron data, computer use, checkouts, or any other information without a properly issued warrant or similar court order. The right to access and share information is a fundamental one and a cornerstone of a democratic society —”
“Ma’am, the law is quite clear. A national security request supersedes your policies.”
Her heart was beating high in her chest. She knew she was on firm legal ground. “You’re correct that the law is clear, but your interpretation is at odds with every ruling for the past twenty years or so. A National Security Letter doesn’t automatically cancel constitutional rights. Go get a judge to agree that you need this information. Then I will see if it even exists. I will confirm nothing until I am advised by my legal counsel that I must do so. That is our policy.”
“Ms. Osborne, we are aware of your position. I am here to tell you that the Department of Homeland Security expects their requests to be honored regardless of pending legal inquiries.”
“And I expect Christmas cookies to have no calories, but life is full of situations we must all learn to live with.”
The agent’s tension grew palpable. Again the left corner of her mouth twitched — definitely not in humor.
“Ma’am, I’m not going to leave without my questions answered.”
“The library closes at seven. If you refuse to leave then I will be forced to call the sheriff. You can then discuss your concerns with them. And review local-federal interdepartmental cooperation edicts.”
Lisette had meant the agent to hear the sarcasm, but she regretted it. “Agent Garritsen,” she added more slowly, “You can talk to anyone here you want, including the head of the Board of Trustees. The answer will be the same from everyone. We may be a small community a good way from the interstate and a long way from New York or Washington DC—”
“I’m out of the Philadelphia office.”
Not FBI and not out of New York? That was odd. “Regardless, we’re still aware of our rights, and we have all studied the Supreme Court rulings regarding library privacy. I can pull those for you if you need to review them.”
Two heartbeats away from demanding the agent acknowledge that this was a library, a library, and she was a bona fide librarian, and didn’t a federal agent have a clue what that meant, she was stunned to silence by what Agent Garritsen did next.
She smiled.
The gaunt face warmed and crinkles deepened around her good eye. “Thank you, ma’am. I’d appreciate that.”
In a surreal turn of events, Lisette found herself guiding the still smiling Agent Garritsen to a patron computer. She showed her — and it couldn’t hurt that she experienced it firsthand — how to log in as a guest. She added with rote efficiency, “When you finish your session, click on the trash icon to remove your browsing history from our system. If you don’t clear it now, the system will purge the information in twelve hours anyway.”
Lisette suspected the agent was well aware that the information she sought didn’t exist. This was an officious hamster task. Someone wanted a tick mark next to a box, and they would run on the wheel until someone gave up.
She was a librarian, however, and that meant there was only one way this situation would end.
Against her instincts, she felt sorry for Agent Garritsen.
Leaning over the agent’s shoulder, she tapped and clicked until an index of relevant judicial decisions regarding libraries and the Patriot Act was displayed. “You can review the decisions in their entirety or read summaries, as you wish. If you require further assistance, please return to my office or ask at the desk where I can be found.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” As Garritsen glanced at the screen, Lisette saw a short series of suture marks, just healed and faintly visible across the crown of her scalp. The short, tightly kinked hair around it was growing in pure white on someone who, like Lisette, was in her late thirties.
Her tone was marginally softer as she said, “I don’t mean to make your job hard, Agent Garritsen. But I’m a librarian. Like you, I have my orders and my duty.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE LIBRARY MANAGER HAD left her side before Peri Garritsen allowed herself to relax. Her shoulder throbbed from the long drive, and she wanted in the worst way to put the sunglasses back on. She wasn’t used to anyone looking at her and a couple of people were openly staring.
It had been pride that had made Peri beg her boss for any kind of task. Anything to escape the tedious cycle of ice, rest, narcotic-level painkillers, physical therapy — and dwelling on what she should have, would have, and could have done differently.
To drive safely from Philly to rural Connecticut she’d omitted the morning’s dose of painkillers. Ibuprofen alone wasn’t touching any of the fingers of fire throbbing down her side. The excuse of reading judicial decisions had allowed her to sit down without it being apparent that she’d needed to do so. She’d hoped the show of humor had masked her outright relief from the sharp-eyed librarian and deep green eyes made slightly larger by round eyeglass lenses. Her grandmother had always advised, “When in doubt, put people at ease.”
And she was certainly sharp. Peri’s childhood memory from Atlanta, during one of her mother’s rare stateside postings, was of a woolen-goods-wrapped shushing grandmother figure, complete with a No. 2 pencil through her tight bun. Nothing like the stylish, fair-skinned, bright-eyed brunette who was at least a decade younger than Peri had expected her to be. Her dress was a supple gray with vivid patterns of purple and green all over it, and the ankle boots she wore had nothing orthopedic about them. She didn’t even seem the type to shush, but there was no doubt in Peri’s mind that Ms. Osbourne could enforce silence if she wished.
When had librarians changed? Lisette Osbourne was unsettling, and for a moment Peri felt as if her internal compass was no longer capable of finding true north.
Terrific — as if you need anything else to feel disoriented about.
Her boss had sent her on the in-person interview thinking it was about as easy an assignment as anyone could have. “See if you can coax some information out of this librarian,” he’d said. “She’ll probably turn into a kitten when faced with a real agent.”
Instead Peri had encountered a terrier that watched her every move and was ready to bark at a sign of threat or weakness. Except, that is, for the first moment Ms. Osbourne had first seen Peri in her doorway. That was the only time she’d been even remotely off her guard. Had that been fear?
After consulting her watch and thinking about the three-hour drive back to Philadelphia, in the snow, she was glad she’d booked a night at the cloyingly named Sleep E-Z motor lodge just the other side of the minuscule main street district. She’d drive around the Village Green, have one of the badly needed tablets and find something edible, then crash for the night without having to get behind the wheel again.
She casually people-watched in between abstracts of court rulings while she waited for the pain to abate. The library visitors were a mix. Most were attired in the tweeds and wools of winter, and there were very few designer labels. Red-and-black-plaid flannel was a favorite. Ages were easily from infant to eighties, with thirty-somethings probably the most common. Half were Caucasian, and the remaining half were primarily Black, but there were also Asian, Native, and Latino-appearing people, though that was based on a cursory glance. A group of early teens clustered around a game board in a room with see-through walls and a closed door.
