AS WE KNOW IT
AS WE KNOW IT
By Carrie Butler
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2016 by Carrie Butler
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.
www.carrieabutler.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, places, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Seaside, Oregon Drone Photo by Morrisey Productions
www.morrisey.com
Cover Design by Forward Authority
www.forwardauthority.com
Table Of Contents
AS WE KNOW IT
by Carrie Butler
Title
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Author's Note
Other Books by Carrie Butler
Let's Keep in Touch
What to Do During the Earthquake
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, a shout-out to God. Without Him, none of this would have been possible.
I would also like to thank:
My parents, who are the best friends a woman could ask for; my sister and brother-in-law, who are the second best friends a woman could ask for, because they refuse to watch Firefly; my nephew, whom I’ve promised to write a book with someday; my four-year-old niece, whose vocabulary never ceases to amaze me; Tucker (my rescue pup), who acts as my personal assistant; and the rest of my family and friends who continue to lend their support.
Laura Callahan Tom, my crazy-talented editor; Melissa Maygrove, my CP who’s been there since the beginning; Penny Avalon Rickards, who lent authenticity to Elena’s colorful use of the Spanish language; S. Usher Evans, who taught me “a few choice words”; Lisa Regan, who—mark my words—is the next Karin Slaughter; Iain Carter, who is not a “pants” friend; Katie Mettner, who can hook you up with a GIF for every occasion; PJ O’Brien, who alpha read each chapter as I went; Teresa DiLillo and Kendra Schmucker, who provided valuable reader insight; and Jo Wake, who proofread for me.
Last, but not least, high fives to Team CHAOS (my street team), the Fellowship, my Goonies, and you! :)
CHAPTER 1
Thank God it’s not bikini season.
August in Seaside, Oregon is pleasant enough—sixties with a salty breeze blowing in off the Pacific—but it’s no tropical oasis. A woman can stuff herself into a pair of leggings, mask her bowing curves with a jacket, and blend right in. Bring on the weekend.
I drum my fingers on the bar and twist my engagement ring. Again. I need to stop fiddling with the darn thing—truth be told, I should probably pawn it while I’m down here. But I can’t bring myself to part with it yet. Once it’s gone, things are really over. I’m on my own.
My phone belts out an embarrassing chorus just as a redhead with gorgeously intricate tat sleeves sets my rum and Coke down. I smile my gratitude and answer, “Hello?”
“Hey!” my best friend shouts through the receiver. “Did you make it there safe and sound?”
“Yes, Meg. I’m even out exploring, as you suggested.”
“That’s my girl.”
I owe her a lot more than a breakdown of my itinerary. She’s the one who sent me on this destination pity party, offering up her family’s unused timeshare as an escape route. Apparently, hearing your fiancé has been cheating on you because he doesn’t find you attractive anymore does have a plus side.
“How’s work?” I ask, knowing it’s a ridiculous question. We’ve worked in the same HR department for the better part of a decade. I just don’t want to give her an opportunity to continue last night’s lecture about me using this trip to “get my groove back.”
Do people even say that anymore?
“How has work been in the six hours since you left?” I can almost see her shaking her head. “Same ol’.”
“What’s the weather like?”
“Elena!” She raises her voice. “Stop trying to distract me.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, raising my glass as I scan the bar. The place is nice, but there are couples galore. In fact, the only other loner in the room is nursing a beer and… catching me staring.
I swallow.
“Did you wear the orange sundress?” Meg jars me from my panic. “That one’s my favorite. It goes perfectly with your, you know, tan.”
“My, ‘you know, tan,’ huh?” I laugh, sidestepping the fact that I hadn’t worked up the confidence to don the dress. “It’s called pigment. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“You’re hilarious.”
The man turns again at my laughter, and an avalanche of ice slides down my glass, bumping me in the nose. I quickly set it down and give my face an inconspicuous swipe with a napkin.
He’s built like an athlete, but is hunched over on his stool, elbows resting on the polished wood. The way he swings a beer bottle between his thumb and two fingers is absentminded, almost as if it’s second nature. Whatever he’s mulling over has got to be heavy.
I clear my throat. “Hey, Meg? I, uh, gotta go…”
Her distraction, while appreciated, is a little too much right now. I don’t want to be the jerk who goes to a public place to broadcast a private conversation—especially one that’s bound to end with me snot crying again.
“Okay, I love your face,” she tells me, as per our weird tradition.
“Me too.”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say you love my face.”
I sneak another glance at the guy and, thankfully, his head is down. Before I can fully comprehend what I’m doing, I tug at my ring. With a quick slip, it’s in the outside pocket of my new boho-chic bag. There. No more screwing around with that. It’s probably the first step necessary in my post-breakup program, anyway. I’ll just stick it in the hotel safe when I get back to my room. “Iloveyourface.”
“What was that?” She’s snickering now.
With a deep, cleansing breath, I repeat myself, “I love your face, too, Weirdo. Tell the hubs and kids I say hi.”
“Will do! Now go and have fun. I expect stories.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With the tap of a button, I’m thrust back into the hyperawareness that comes with traveling alone. I pocket the phone in my purse, take a drink, and let a familiar burn tickle my throat, leaving an almost vanilla aftertaste. This, I’m comfortable with. Frigid cubes re-assault my nose as I tilt the glass back and drain it. Maybe with a little liquid courage, I can actually enjoy this trip.
The bartender raises a perfectly arched brow in my direction. “Another one, sweetheart?”
“Sure.”
She sets to work, keeping an eye on me now that the rush has settled down. “You on vacation?”
>
“Something like that,” I tell her, touching my ringless finger out of habit. “I’m, uh, recovering from a breakup.”
Why did I say that? I make it sound like an illness.
Her lips thin as she scoops more ice from the bin. “Sorry to hear that. Were you together long?”
“Six years.” I trace the water ring where my glass had been, busying myself so I’ll stop touching my finger. “We were engaged.”
“Ouch.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how I’m this calm about it now,” I admit. “I always thought if I lost Brent, I wouldn’t be able to go on. Everything I did revolved around him.”
That’s putting it lightly. Before he left, I begged him not to go—even after he admitted to the affair. Even after he told me he was sick of watching me eat my feelings! It was the most humiliating moment of my life, and I panicked. I would’ve grasped for anything to keep me from going under.
The bartender sets my glass on a coaster and wipes down the bar where someone has just left. “Well, the way I see it, you don’t know what you can survive until you have to. Now that you’re faced with a new reality, you can either fold or embrace it. You only have two choices.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. I’m the bartender.” She winks and tosses the rag under the counter. “Free therapy, all night.”
I’d be dangerous with that level of confidence.
I stay long enough to finish my drink, and then toss a few bills on the bar. Two is my limit—at least, until I raid the mini bar in my room and spend the evening binge-watching Netflix. I hop off the stool and shoulder my purse, pushing my hair back in the process. Meg always says she’d kill for my chocolate-brown curls, but she’s never had to tame them. It’s a job in and of itself.
The open door promises sunshine as I make my way through the dim room, the clopping sound of my wedge heels muffled by a chorus of conversation. I’m within inches of the sidewalk when someone brushes against my shoulder and places a firm hand on the small of my back. I freeze.
“Sorry,” a deep voice mumbles, “wasn’t looking where I was going.”
As I turn in mortification, the scent of mint-tinged alcohol invades my personal space. It’s the guy from the bar! The guy from the bar touched me!
He offers a cool smile and tilts his chin toward the doorway. “Ladies first.”
“Th-Thanks,” I manage to reply, bolting ahead with burning cheeks. Up close, the man is pure daydream material. Rugged features, a few days of scruff—not to mention the body of a superhero. He’d be the perfect palate cleanser after Brent.
If he were drunk.
And blind.
Okay, it’s not going to happen. I sneak a quick glance back and spot him booking it down the street toward a coffee shop. He didn’t strike me as a fellow tourist, trying to hit all of the local highlights, but to each his own. Maybe he wants a muffin.
I make my way back to the promenade and am greeted by a chorus of barking. Seriously, it’s all I can hear over the waves—a boxer on the beach, a shih tzu on a nearby patio, even the bulldog on the sidewalk behind me. They’re all going nuts.
Like any other technophile in the modern age, I reach for my phone to take a video of the phenomenon. My fingers brush the device, but nothing else. No ring. I stop walking and fish around, my heart leaping into my throat. No, no… there’s no way I lost it that fast!
I pull the pocket open wide and squint in the sunlight. Nothing. There’s nothing else in there.
My breaths go ragged as I retrace my steps with renewed vigor. Nothing glitters on the pavement in the ten feet I’ve made it from the bar. I’m about to head back inside when it hits me. This is where that guy ran into me. He totally picked my pocket!
Now I’m running—or at least, hobbling. I really should have broken these heels in before the trip. If that jerk is still in the coffee shop, he’s about to experience the fiery wrath of a woman scorned. Then I’ll call the cops and he’ll go to jail, where the other inmates will rough up that stupid, handsome face of his…
A bell signals my entrance as I burst through the doorway, my eyes raking every corner. Behind the counter, a kid wearing an Oregon State t-shirt under his apron smiles wide. “Welcome to—”
“Have you seen a man come through here?” I cut him off, holding my hand over my head at the pickpocket’s approximate height. “Dirty blond hair, buzzed short; light-ish eyes, muscular build?”
“Uhh…” Panic registers in his expression, and he flashes a look toward the back.
“Do you know what happens to people who harbor fugitives?” I smack the nearest display rack for emphasis. Sure, it’s a stretch, but I’m getting pretty sick of men lying to me lately.
“I apologize,” he tells me, with the slightest hint of an Indian accent. “I have not seen the man you—”
A sudden, weightless jolt shoots up my spine alongside my already building panic. A chill chases that feeling, as my body rails against an abrupt loss of control. The kid must’ve felt it too, because his eyes are huge. “No way…”
“What?”
Outside, a car alarm starts going off. Another one joins it. So help me if that thief is stealing a getaway vehicle! I turn to storm back out onto the sidewalk, when a barreling force knocks me off my feet. I skid across the tiles under a man’s crushing weight, friction burning my shoulder, and let out a scream like I’m being murdered.
“Naveen, get down!” My assailant barks the order behind us, a second before the ground starts shaking.
CHAPTER 2
Correction. The ground isn’t shaking—it’s having full-blown convulsions.
Violent thrusts jar my bones against the buckled tile. Back and forth. Side to side. Even up and down. Buried beneath a stranger’s weight and shadow, my wheezing lungs gasp for air as he drags us beneath the closest table.
“Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…” His warm breath tickles my ear, and the scent is familiar. I just can’t place it. Not when I’m on the verge of hysterics, anyway.
The windows rattle in their frames until they burst, littering the floor with glass. It’s the only view I have right now. Everything else—the screams, horns, and structural groans—I’m too pinned to locate.
It’ll all be over soon. We just have to hold on a little longer. Right?
My savior bites back a curse, muttering a time somewhere past the two-minute marker, while my mind races through implausible scenarios. Ceramic mugs walk themselves off unbussed tables, crashing to the floor in unnerving succession. Chairs scoot across the floor. Some succumb and topple over, but the rest make it seem like the place has been possessed.
A baby wails outside, and I whisper a hasty prayer under my breath. This is bad. As soon as the dust settles, I’m going straight for my rental car. Vacation or not, I’ll floor it north and won’t stop until I’m back in Seattle.
The man shouts in my ear over the noise, “Still with me?” That’s when it clicks.
It’s the thief!
Fresh rage boils inside, and I struggle to get out from under him. This bastard doesn’t need another up-close opportunity to rob me blind. I’ll find my own table leg to hold on to.
“Easy!” he coaxes none too gently, bearing down on me. “It’s not over yet.”
As if on cue, something crashes, and a blood-curdling scream rents the air. Pure, unadulterated agony. I try to look back, under the thief’s arm, but he’s too solid.
“Naveen, talk to me, buddy!” he calls out.
Buddy?
The kid doesn’t answer, and my stomach drops. Is he dead? He can’t be more than early twenties, not even ten years younger than me. There’s no way his life ends here. Not over something like this. Was there anyone else in the coffee house when I walked in?
“Naveen!”
Bricks start crumbling in my peripheral vision, and a huge chunk of the ceiling crashes to the floor. Dust kicks up in clouds, and I cough until my ears rin
g. “Shit.”
This building is coming down.
Okay, okay… think. Is there a way to get out of here? Should we make a run for it? If the kid’s still holding on, I can probably carry him. He’s a scrawny little thing. But what if it’s worse out there? How the hell are we supposed to know what’s going on?
A sob escapes my throat without warning. It’s too much at once. I didn’t even tell my family I was going on a trip. They’re thousands of miles away in Indiana, completely oblivious to the fact that their daughter is about to become a statistic in some freak disaster. Will Meg have to tell them?
And is this earthquake ever going to stop?
“Shh,” the thief hushes me in what I can only assume to be his version of comfort, “we can’t afford to lose it now.”
I can’t believe I’m going to die with this jerk. If he had just left me alone, found another mark or whatever, I would’ve been out in the open alongside the beach. No risk of the sky falling on me.
Then again, he did try to save me…
Ugh! If I have to meet my maker like this, I’m so screwed.
So what if he took my ring? I wasn’t supposed to be wearing it anymore anyway. My connection to Brent had been severed long before I took it off. I need to pull up my big girl panties and get over it. It’s not important now. “I… I forgive you.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Irritation spikes my newfound serenity. “Are you really going to try that? Now?”
In the pause that follows, vines of panic creep up my body like goose bumps. There’s a chance I was wrong about him stealing my ring. I mean, I didn’t exactly scour the sidewalk with a fine-toothed comb. Maybe him bumping into me really was an accid—
“Sorry.”
I knew it! Screw obligatory rationalization. I had this guy pegged.
As We Know It Page 1
