Serendipity (Book 1 of the Dana Halliday series)

MIDNIGHT ARMAGEDDON. SURPRISE LUNCH DATE. BUSINESS AND SERENDIPITY.

The next week was dreary and rainy, par for a Northwest autumn.  The house I rented was on a dirt road, just far enough up a mountain and into the woods to feel all Twin Peaksy.  I had lived there with my then-husband for six years, and by myself for almost one.  I loved that house, tiny and shabby as it was, although I probably should've gotten an apartment.  It might have been better to start over right away.

My ex, Neil, was still in the area.  We talked from time to time, but I hadn't told him I was planning to move yet.  Our breakup was no fuss, no drama, no big whoop as Neil would say.  We grew apart, that was all, and at some point we realized we were just roommates.  Roommates with benefits, but roommates.

I still had the damn dog.  Animal Control hadn't located an owner yet.  She really wasn't any trouble, and so I hadn't sent her to the shelter.  She was housebroken, quiet enough, and, dammit, pretty pleasant company.  I hated the thought of putting her in a concrete kennel, all alone, and what if someone awful adopted her?  I could hang onto her a little longer, make some inquiries myself.

This is why I don't take in strays.

The night before my last Saturday, there was a wind storm, quite exciting for our area.  The dog woke me up at midnight, barking at the back door.  The only time Joker ever barked at night was if there were deer or raccoons outside, and it always freaked me out a little.  I found myself on the back deck wielding a crowbar and a bread knife, apparently ready to take on a bear, but the wind just blew and howled.  I shook my head, trying to clear out the cobwebs.  There was a huge pine at the back of the lot, and I waited, listening to it creak and groan in the gale, and crossed my fingers that it wouldn't crash into my house.  The dog continued to bark, and I slammed the door shut just in time to keep her from darting outside.

I gazed up at the sky, seeing only the vague shapes of speeding clouds in the darkness, a turbulent river of shadow.  I grew up in the Midwest, and I've seen a lot of dramatic weather.  Sometimes I missed it, although not at midnight the week before Halloween.  "Wow," I said to the dog, who was standing at the back door and looking at me with concern.  "I know it's loud, honey, but it's okay.  No tornadoes here."

The words were hardly out of my mouth when an asteroid hit the earth just beyond the creaky tall pine.  At least, that was what my addled brain first thought of the bright flash, and the tremendous thudding crack! that shook the windows and doors of my house and made me jump at least three feet in the air.  My heart leaped into my throat, stopped, and took its sweet time re-starting.  The dog began barking again, frantic and piercing like a distressed puppy.  

The wind died, and a palpable silence descended like a curtain.  "Jesus Christ!" I gasped.  "Be quiet, pup!"

She quieted, and I heard, after a few moments of that velvety silence, other dogs barking all up and down the road.  I realized I was shivering violently, as much from cold as the shock of the near-apocalypse.

The quality of the darkness had changed, and I looked up.  The sky was clear and lovely, Orion huge just above the treetops.  It had been too cloudy to see the stars for two weeks.  "Huh.  That wasn't ominous or anything.  Please don't land the mothership in my backyard."

The dog made a disgruntled sound, as though I had woken her up.  I heard her toenails click softly on the tile of the kitchen floor as she went back toward the living room.  I took one last disbelieving look up at the stars and then went in myself.

I threw another log into the woodstove and then collapsed to the floor, on the rug nearest the heat.  The dog flopped down beside me and put her head on my chest, tail thumping the wood floor.  "Yeah," I muttered.  "Real cute."