Let's Get Together

By Maureen Reil

Jodi Spears is fast approaching her thirtieth birthday, but it is not a date that she is looking forward to anymore. Since her world was turned upside down and rocked to its very core when her husband decided to jump off a cliff instead of staying with her to deal with the crippling debts that he had gotten himself into, that were unbeknownst to her at the time. She lost everything as a result, when the business went bankrupt and this included her home so she now lives in her car in-between house-sitting jobs and uses her wages to pay what she can off the money still owed.

The latest abode where her boss at the agency sends her to, is on a cliff top which unfortunately for Jodi is very similar to the one which had claimed the life of her late husband. As her drinking increases, so does her growing attraction for a hunky guy that she met called Reece and at last things are starting to look up as Jodi sees a light at the end of the dark tunnel she has been trapped in for nine, long hard months. However, it is never going to be that easy for Jodi seeing as she suddenly gets a blast from the past walking right back into her life and nothing will ever be the same again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maureen Reil
• Release date: Apr 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301468409

Maureen Reil

Maureen Reil writes comic commercial fiction and has had over 35 books published, so far, but she's always working on a new manuscript so she wishes to add to that tally with lots of new titles before she's done and dusted. She was born in the city of Liverpool and resides in semi-rural Lancashire UK, but longs to live by the sea. It was always a dream of hers to become a novelist and thanks to her readers, she has fulfilled that ambition, so she couldn't be more grateful if she tried. And Maureen hopes you enjoying reading her books as much as she enjoys writing them.

Book preview

Let’s Get Together

By Maureen Reil

Copyright ©2013 Maureen Reil

Updated Edition 2021

This eBook is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Maureen Reil asserts the moral right to be identified as the sole author of this work.

Also by the author Maureen Reil

Chick-Lit By Any Other Name (Chick-Lit Collection)

Chick-Lit By Any Other Name 2 (Chick-Lit Collection)

Lily Loves To Love

Sleepyhead Shares A Secret

I Hate Me, Who Do You Hate?

I Did Write What I Know

Chick-Lit Saved My Life (Chick-Lit Trilogy book 1)

Chick-Lit Stole My Life (Chick-Lit Trilogy book 2)

Chick-Lit Staged My Life (Chick-Lit Trilogy book 3)

Chick-Lit Collection

Chick-Lit Trilogy

Mistletoe And Wine (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Mistletoe And Wine 2 (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Mistletoe And Wine 3 (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Christmas Comedy Trilogy

Let’s Get Married (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get It Started (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Serious (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Ready To Rumble (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Physical (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

The Finch Family Short Break (Comical Vacations Book 0)

The Finch Family Holiday 1 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 2 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 3 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 4 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 5 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Easter Holiday 6 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Bank Holiday 7 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Christmas Holiday 8 (Comical Vacations)

A Granny Is For Life, Not Just Christmas

Let’s Get Funny Fiction 1 (Three-Book Bundle)

Let’s Get Funny Fiction 2 (Three-Book Bundle)

Let’s Get Funny Fiction (Six-Book Box Set)

Comical Vacations 1 (Three-Book Bundle)

Comical Vacations 2 (Three-Book Bundle)

Comical Vacations 3 (Three-Book Bundle)

Christmas Crackers

Wed To The Wrong Wayne

The Desperate Dater’s Intervention

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Things Can Only Get Better

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Luck Had Nothing To Do With It

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Dedicated to

Margaret Thatcher

RIP

One

If ever there was a luxury prison designed for those that have mental issues and need white leather, padded walls in case they are ever tempted to bash their scones against it when they go a bit mad then it would be like the rest of this place, only on a much larger scale. I am currently sitting on a chrome metal toilet without a loo seat (which is very strange since you keep thinking that you are about to fall down it, but you do not). While the purple loo roll (I didn’t even know they made it in that colour) is hanging on the other end of the corridor like room so that it does not get damp. Not because I might drop it down the bog mind, since I am not that clumsy but because it is also a wet room with a square shower rose fixture fitted into the ceiling. I had earlier mistaken it for a vent, until I turned it on. It forces water out of it as if you are underneath a waterfall, for it is that powerful and soaks you to the bone, especially if you are fully clothed at the time. There is also a metal urinal running along one side of the sparkly black granite walls and floor. To be frank it is rather like being in a tomb here and if I die on the throne then just seal up the door and be done with me, for I curse all who enter afterwards with a stench that would kill rats never mind humans.

There were no clues whatsoever as to whom this cliff top residence belongs to as it overlooks the English Channel on the southern border between Devon and Dorset. I mean there is usually something to give the game away, as in say a photograph or several more of a loved one (be it a beloved pet or even themselves as was the case with the actress in my last home sitting job) or there’s often an award or certificate hanging about or hanging up on the wall. Only not here, it is like a show house and if I didn’t know better than I would think it a ‘set’ for a make-believe TV programme because surely nobody actually lives here and nobody looks like they ever will. It is not a home; it is a mausoleum or monument to modern architecture. It is cold, not physically since it has under floor heating but mentally. It also seems uninviting, not that I feel I do not belong here because they are paying me to look after the place whilst the owner is away but it seems lonely. In addition, it comes across as utilitarian, not for the functionality side because it has everything you will ever need but the lack of soft furnishings makes it hard around the edges in its strict approach to design over comfort.

Given the choice, if I were rich, I would not live here that is for sure. However, this is my job and I know that I am very lucky to have any job, let alone somewhere to live these days. To be fair, it is better than trying to survive in my car so I should not complain. I cannot even afford a caravan to call home and I never thought that I would envy the travelling gypsy community so much, but I do. After the awful suicide (I say that like any way of killing yourself could ever be described as nice, not awful) of my late husband Seth and I still can’t get my head around why he would leave me. Let alone leave me in all this debt and having to deal with not only that by myself, leading to where I have found myself homeless when the bank repossessed our house. On top of which, all my wages from this type of work goes towards the mounting interest on the bills already owed. I had wondered at first if it was me, that he could not face and the thought of letting me down, more than the money problems themselves.

To be honest I had assumed that we were in this as one and seeing us set against the world with him being my best friend as well as my lover, then we would get through anything this life had to throw at us perfectly fine and if we just stuck together, we could always ride the storm out somehow. I truly believed that I could handle everything that came our way if I had him by my side, if only Seth had let me help him at the time instead of bottling it all up and keeping it to himself in an idiotic ideal of protecting me from the truth. Well guess what, his selfish death hurt me more than any truth ever could or ever will and I have not forgiven him yet as I am still very, very angry with him to this day. If he can hear this wherever he is, then I hate you for what you did. Why did you not love me enough to stay?

Seth died nine months ago from leaping off a cliff top into the sea when he left nothing behind but his car, clothing, shoes, keys, watch, wallet and a note. It read in his neat handwriting, goodbye cruel world and goodbye to my beautiful Jodi but do not forget that I will always love you from afar so remember me fondly and know that I am deeply sorry to leave you here in the lurch all alone. Say goodbye to Mum for me and tell her I will be watching over her. Take care for now and see you on the other side. Seth X. They never even found his body for me to bury and get true closure with or were that his intention all along, in saving me one less ‘funeral’ bill to foot and he did care after all.

Sadly Seth was only thirty-five when we lost him and I am coming up for the age of thirty soon and we were planning to have kids one day, but we will never get to see that ‘day’ for real. His mother blamed me of course and she has not spoken to me since, no matter how much I have tried to reach out to her. She never liked me from the start and never gave me a chance to like her, because she saw me as a rival to their close bond. Therefore, she certainly never liked the fact that I made him choose between us in the end and we moved away from her, when she started interfering in our marriage. His mother had tried to break us up by claiming that he had drunkenly cheated on me whilst he had insisted that he had not and his best mate confirmed it to be the truth, at the time. Now I am not so sure seeing as his so-called ‘mate’ had told me after Seth had died that the love-of-my-life had indeed slept with the busty blonde-haired woman on that night out, or did he. Moreover, was his mate just saying that, so that I would hate my hubby enough to sleep with him for revenge? There were not enough evil thoughts in the world to make that happen and I told him as much when he had tried it on with me.

It did worry me; the location of this job that I have been very fortunate to get only for being acquainted with my boss at the agency she runs. Stella happened to be an old neighbour of mine and when she’d found out what had happened to me, she kindly took me on. I was not qualified to do anything else and as she can vouch for how trustworthy and responsible, I am, along with the fact that I do not have a criminal record so I was in. It turned out that they were sending me to the same stretch of Jurassic coastline where my husband leapt to his demise, as I fretted over whether it would bring up a load of emotions that I would not be able to handle and I would end up joining him in his fate.

It could have gone either way when I’d pulled up to the tip of the gravel driveway in my trusty old estate car that I’d been forced to exchange for my newish sporty number (more room to live in basically) which Seth had bought me with cash on our wedding anniversary not long before he topped himself. Alternatively, was it more like a leaving present? I looked out to sea with sadness, before heading up the steep slope to the top. I had stopped the car dead and thought for a split second about not stopping at all but carrying on with my journey until the end and hauling the vehicle over the edge. And then it hit me (literally but not physically) for I was under the safe cover of a sun roof when the bird-shit splattered on top of the car which in turn, brought me back to my senses. Thank God, or anything else that people happen to believe in.

Was it a sign from God above? No matter how crap you think things are, then you must continue to strive to make it better since you do not ever, ever give-up. Why did Seth not know that? On the other hand, was it just a Seagull getting lucky and hitting the bull’s-eye with his intended shot? And there he was up in the sky smiling down because to me, they always look like they’re grinning at something or other and I just wish they’d let me in on the joke since Christ knows I could do with cheering up. Besides, I did not want my best summer frock to get wet on entry into the sea for I will never know when I can afford to replace it. As you already know, it had ended up dripping wet through when I had switched the downstairs shower on anyway on entering the house when mistaking it for a ventilation vent or air-con unit or something else entirely. Only I do not know what and have not quite decided yet, but I do regret my curiosity that is for sure.

So far, having spent three days in solitary confinement and being kept in splendid isolation from other people with nothing but plenty of time on my hands to think; well I seem to be coping okay with just the odd seabird for company. I have not gone mad despite the evidence to the contrary since I did want to dirty this pristine palace up a bit, bring it to life to make it feel lived-in and homely. Therefore, I simply had to scruffy it up by leaving my stuff around, like knickers and bras and makeup and toiletries and dishes and books half-open and not put back onto the shelves. Along with leftover sweet wrappers in the ornamental bowls, potted plants and I have even moved the furniture around to put my own stamp on things. Of course, it will be all back to normal before the day I leave and the owner returns but for now, it’s all mine to do with what I please. Maybe I’m missing having my own home, so I’m pretending that this one is it and whilst I’m here nobody can tell me what to do or how to live. Most of all, nobody can take it away from me at this moment and make me homeless to go live in my car in the dead of winter, like I’d previously had to do and suffered for it.

‘Hello . . . anyone home?’ shouted a mystery woman’s voice as it’d echoed around the vast grandness of the living room with its wall of windows running down one flank and facing the sea below it, with metal shutters that can block out the light.

‘Hi . . . I’m here . . . I’ll be right out,’ I replied through the toilet door and jumped up off the chrome downstairs loo to fasten up my penguin shaped onesie in a hurry, which only made me dizzy because I’m not up to the task right now. I feel like shit, as I have spent the last couple of days in a drunken haze to be truthful. What if it is someone, who has come to rob the place? Mind you if it were burglars then I had figured that they do not normally want to introduce themselves, so I should not feel scared. Who is it? I did not have time to ponder this as I raced to find an air freshener in the wet room’s cupboard, but no such luck.

‘I’m, Daisy . . . nice to meet you. You must be the house-sitter that they told me would be staying here. I’m the cleaner and I come in every three days to give the place the once over,’ she said and held out her pink rubber gloved hand for me to shake when I finally emerged and only opening the door the bare minimum in width for me to escape the embarrassing smell, let alone let her take it in. I couldn’t even flush the damn floater to get rid of it, so I’ve used half a roll of toilet paper in a bid to cover it over for now.

‘Yes, that is me . . . I’m Jodi Spears . . . but I was not expecting you or I would have tidied up,’ I explain the mess.

‘The idea is that you don’t need to tidy, or you’ll do me out of a job and I can’t afford to not feed those nippers of mine. So do me a favour, don’t ever tidy up . . . OK,’ she says and grabs her box of tricks to set to work whilst fastening the last popper button on her pink apron, but it soon pops back open when she bent down. Maybe she should get a bigger size, since that must surely restrict her arm movements being so tight around her ample chest like that. She is roughly my age too.

‘Yeah, sorry . . . I didn’t think . . . I’ll leave you to it.’ Daisy is the ponytailed, blonde haired buxom opposite of my short, dark haired almost flat-chest type. Next to her kind, I have