Twelve years as a Marine are behind Adam Collins when he returns to Dakota, shortly before a girl he used to date gets married. He's planning to start an architecture course, but has to rehabilitate himself to civilian life. This isn't easy, when the first group of townsfolks he meets contain two past relationships. Delaney is the engaged girl, while Marissa has taken on an old mansion to restore. Adam has a lot of memories - the good, the bad and the bleak - while his teenage stupid acts remain UNFORGIVEN. Clearly Marissa still finds him attractive, but she has her own life to lead and there seems no reason he should be a part of it. Marissa married an adrenalin junkie, who drank and drove, and died young. She's been self-sufficient ever since.

"It's easier to keep someone out than get them out once they're in," Marissa tells Adam. He hurt her years ago and she has no wish to hook up with a second adrenalin junkie. Adam has to accept that. The town has a Carnegie library which needs some work, and other buildings provide the two with ample discussion points when Adam asks Marissa to keep him company over dinner. But this is only paving the way for what will happen when they're alone together, whether it's a good idea or not....

Marissa needs an Art Deco wooden mantel to replace one that Adam had destroyed years previously and she can't finish restoring her house. The search occupies a lot of her time and the damage is a constant reminder of how reckless the young man used to be. No wonder it's hard for her to forgive. She's also agreed to let her historic house be the setting for Delaney's wedding and Adam has agreed to be best man.

Between sailing, visiting Chicago and pulling nails out of timbers, there's a lot of activity. There's also a lot of adult action and Adam places great stress on not having fooled around while a soldier, while Marissa, strangely, holds it against him that he wouldn't go all the way with her while she was just seventeen. I thought that people coming from small towns and going back to them seem doomed to find the same relationships in Anne Calhoun's book, and only a new maturity can save them from the same old disasters. UNFORGIVEN is a soul-searching read.

Book Summary

For as long as he could remember, he wanted her...

Raised by a single mother, Adam Collins resolved to take no chances with a girl's future—or his own. That's why, as hard as it was, he resisted everything he felt for Marissa Brooks. Then one night a reckless challenge left a fellow student dead and changed both their lives forever. As penance, Adam took the boy's place in the Marines, where he could disappear into discipline and duty, and left Marissa behind to struggle with her dreams.

Twelve years later, Adam is back in Walkers Ford to serve as the best man in his friend's wedding. The years haven't diminished the electric connection he has with Marissa. But Adam's mistake continues to haunt him, and Marissa is stumbling under the weight of her family's legacy. Together they wrestle with demons and dreams, but if there's any hope for a future together Adam has to not only find a way to forgive himself, but also ask others for forgiveness—especially from the woman whose heart he broke.