'Twas the Night Before Veterans Day (Nights Before #5)

By Leigh Verrill-Rhys

Months of job-hunting, land Jocelyn in the protective custody of a close friend and seeking the help of a French-speaking public servant whose absence has cracked her façade of laissez faire and nonchalance. Who would have thought a tow truck driver would be her rock in a hard place?

Working a few days a week keeps her snazzy 4x4, Spike, from running out of gas and a meal on her table but can’t bring in enough to keep minutes on her cell phone when her former managing editor wants to contact her with a change of plans. Both of her least favorite authors have made demands and she can’t say no when her rent needs paying.

To compound her confusion, the trailer park nymphomaniac has competition when a new voice with attitude pipes up, giving orders and the occasional sound advice. The Veterans Day weekend brings more than a headstrong lawman to Jocelyn’s door on a night she won’t soon forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eres Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310094194

Leigh Verrill-Rhys

A native of Paris Hill, Maine, Leigh spent most of her childhood and early adult years in San Francisco before emigrating to Wales to marry and raise three sons. She has been a writer, editor and lecturer for most of her life, intermingled with career portfolios in marketing, finance and community arts projects. Leigh's debut novel, WAIT A LONELY LIFETIME, was released in April 2012, published by Avalon Books. She is a member of the Authors Guild, a former member of the Welsh Academy and the Arts Forum and admits to running with scissors and leaping before she looks.Leigh also publishes as an entrepreneurial author with Eres (eresbooks.com). In 2012 and 2013, she released the romantic comedy novel by installment, NIGHTS BEFORE, in six episodes set in Portland Maine, beginning with TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE NEW YEAR, followed by stories set during celebrations and commemorations during the year, ending with TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE. These six stories are available individually as ebooks. A print edition, NIGHTS BEFORE: THE NOVEL, is now available.For Leigh's third novel, SALSA DANCING WITH PTERODACTYLS, released in March 2014, she first had to learn how to spell ‘pterodactyl’! THIS CAN'T BE LOVE, her fourth novel and the second in the ‘Americans in Love’ in foreign places, is set in Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival.An award-winning editor, she has published three volumes of women's autobiographical writing about their lives in Wales and during World War II: ON MY LIFE; PARACHUTES & PETTICOATS; and IANCS, CONSHIS a SPAM (all published by Honno Welsh Women's Press). She has released a collection of her mother's adventures on her travels during the Second World War, FOLLOWING THE TROOPS.Leigh’s first American history novel: PAVANE FOR MISS MARCHER, set in post-civil war Maine, inspired by her brother’s, Thomas, passion for American history, many historians, including Shelby Foote, Thomas A. Desjardin, Lochlainn Seabrook, Michael Shaara, her family’s part in the Battle for Little Round Top as well as authors Louisa May Alcott and Elswyth Thane.More about all of Leigh’s independently published novels are available through her website, leighverrillrhys.com and eresbooks.com, Smashwords, as well as KDP: Amazon and most independent online booksellers.

Book preview

‘Twas the Night Before Veterans Day

#5 in the Serial Novel

Nights Before 

A story by

Leigh Verrill-Rhys

‘Twas the Night Before Veterans Day

by

Leigh Verrill-Rhys

#5 in the serial novel

Nights Before

Eres Logo

EresBooks.com

Published by Eres @ Smashwords

November 2013

1st Reprint December 2015

with minor corrections

Copyright 2013 & 2015 © Leigh Verrill-Rhys

All Rights Reserved

978-131009-419-4

Cover Design: © 2013 Gwion Dulais

Cover Photography: mccown/Shutterstock.com

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Eres Books, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Downloading this book from a ‘free books’ or pirate site is in breach of copyright law and the moral rights of the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

‘Twas the Night Before Veterans Day and the Nights Before serial are works of fiction. The characters, descriptions, events and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, either living or dead, is coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

After Words

One

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All this. A snazzy, polished up and heart-throbbing 4x4 she’d have to sell below market value. An apartment in a Federal-style, revolutionary period house with a landlord and neighbors she could live with. A dream life about to come to an end. And most of all the loss of a friend she had begun to believe she could count on. Who would have thought a tow truck driver would be her rock in a hard place?

Away from all this? Not if Jocelyn could prevent it.

Her hometown had grown on her, gotten under her skin in ways she had not thought possible when life in New York City fulfilled all its promises. Coming home had been the last possible wish she would have made before Maisie’s death sentence. Now, leaving home was not on her wish list at all.

On the days she wasn’t job-seeking, she earned part of her rent cleaning for her landlord – a kindness she could never fully repay, no matter how sparkling the communal kitchen was. On the other side of the window, Mr. Valentine wielded his hoe in the style of a matador with intent on slaughtering all unwanted growth around his perennials. There were more last cuts to the side lawn through September and Indian Summer in October kept him busy with deadheading but November was sure to live up to its reputation.

There were no job offers. From New York, her former employer and all others she queried, the answer was the same. Her former publishing house was letting half its staff go, including the editor she was closest to. Former fellow slush pile readers were in equally dire circumstances.

Those she heard from – not many since she