“Shit, Suzanne,” she gasped, grabbing her sister’s arm, “I’ve got to go. Annie’s in labour! Can you look after the bags?” But Suzanne had also switched on her phone and was staring at the words on the screen: Waiting outside; tell Charlie not to panic! S x
She caught her sister’s shoulder and pulled her round to make her look at her.
“Charlie, calm down! Steve’s waiting just the other side of that door. And look, here’s our bags, now.”
She pulled the two suitcases off the carousel, shoved them onto a trolley, dropped her carry-on bag on top and pushed her gibbering sister towards the green channel. Seconds later Steve came into sight behind the barrier. As she hugged her new husband, Suzanne felt a huge sense of relief that this was one problem she wasn’t going to have to sort out on her own. He kissed the top of her head and gazed into her eyes for a couple of seconds. “Great to see you back, Mrs Ford-Jones,” he whispered, squeezing her hand. Then he turned to her sister.
“Okay, Charlie, now everything’s under control. Let’s get to the car and we’ll have you there in no time.” He turned and headed for the exit.
“How can you say that?” spluttered Charlie, wringing her hands and glancing around wildly as though looking for a faster way out of the airport. “The baby’s not due for another six weeks.”
“But lots of babies are born six weeks prematurely and are perfectly healthy,” said Suzanne. “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine.”
“But you don’t know, do you, Suzanne?” Charlie turned wild eyes on her sister. “This is one situation even you can’t control.” Then she bit her lip and reached out to grab Suzanne’s arm. “I’m sorry, Susu, I didn’t mean that.”
Suzanne grinned at her.
“I know you didn’t, sweetie,” she said. “Now come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”
Charlie climbed into the back of the car and sat hunched over, chewing her thumb.
“I should never have gone. I shouldn’t have left her. She didn’t want me to go. But I insisted. If we lose this baby, it will be my fault—and Annie will never forgive me.”
Steve turned from the driver’s seat and shook his head.
“No, Charlie, nothing’s your fault. She went for a routine check-up and the doctor was concerned, so he said she should go in. It would have happened like that whether you were here or not. But we should be in time. She only went in a couple of hours ago and your mother is with her.” Both sisters did a double take at his words and he grinned wryly. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the right way to break that particular piece of news. I’ll explain later. Let’s just get going and I’ll drive straight to the hospital.” He turned to Suzanne: “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a detour after your long journey but…”
Suzanne nodded and smiled.
“No problem; let’s just get her there as quickly as possible.”
Steve was a careful but quick driver, and they were soon out of the car park and negotiating the lanes leading to the M23. After a few miles, Suzanne looked at him and said softly, “This isn’t the quickest way to London, is it?” Charlie was staring out of the window, twisting her hands together and didn’t seem to hear what they said. He smiled at her.
“She’s not in London. She was staying at our house in Kent, remember? So when the doctor said she needed to go in, I took her to Darent Valley. We know she’ll be in good hands there.”
“And my mother? Don’t tell me she was staying with you as well?”
“It’s a long story, darling. I’ll tell you later.”
A little less than an hour after leaving the airport, they pulled into the car park at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent. Charlie looked a little confused as she got out of the car but seemed too concerned about reaching Annie to ask any questions. Steve led the way to the maternity wing and up the stairs. As they reached the delivery suite, a door opened, and Mrs Jones walked out. She opened her arms and engulfed Charlie in them.
“She’s in there, Charlie. She’s fine. But she could do with your company.”
“But, Mum, what are you doing here? I thought… and,” looking around she asked, “is Dad here too?”
“No, love, I’m on my own this time. He’s going to take a little more work. But I reckon the sight of his first little grandchild is going to work wonders. Now go on in,” giving Charlie a push, “your Annie needs you.”
Five hours later, Annie lay back on the pillows smiling at Charlie as she held their daughter gently in her arms, staring into the tiny face that was puckered in sleep. Both women had tears streaming down their cheeks.
“Look at her eyelashes; she’s got eyelashes!”
“Yes, Charlie.”
“And her nose. She’s got your nose!”
“Yes, Charlie.”
“And those tiny little fingers. Every nail in place. She’s just perfect!”
“Yes, Charlie.”
Finally, Charlie looked up and grinned at Annie. “So what happens, now?”
Just then, a nurse came into the room. “I’m going to pop baby into the cot for a while,” she said. “She needs her rest; it’s been a traumatic day for her.”
“For all of us,” said Charlie, handing her over and plopping herself down on the bed next to Annie. She repeated her question: “So what happens now, Annie?”
“Well, I need a sleep too, so I think you should go and spend some time with your mother. Then in a day or so, we’ll take the little one home to our house in London and start learning what it’s like to be good parents.”
“Parents! I guess we are!” said Charlie. “That’s going to be fun.”
“I just hope you’re going to be around to enjoy it.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.” Charlie slipped her arm around Annie’s shoulders and pulled her close. “I’ve already told Suzanne I’m resigning from The Jones Partnership. My adventuring days are over.”
Annie gazed at her and a single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. Then she frowned. “But you love that job, Charlie. What are you going to do instead?”
“There’s loads of freelance IT work around; and I’ve got quite a few skills in that direction, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“True; very true.”
“So, from now on, I’m going to spend all my time looking after you and the little one.” She paused and sat up. “We can’t keep calling her ‘the little one’, now can we? I suppose we should decide on a name for her?” It had seemed like tempting fate to think of names before now, so they’d agreed not to talk about it until the baby was born.
“Well, I wondered if you’d like to call her after Suzanne; but maybe a little less formal. How about Suzy?”
“That sounds perfect and Suzanne will be dead chuffed. And what about a second name? Is there anyone in your family…?”
But Annie was shaking her head.
“No, I don’t think so.” She closed her mouth firmly and Charlie decided not to pursue that topic. After a few minutes of silence, Annie went on. “I did wonder…” She stopped and bit her lip.
“What, sweetie?”
“I wondered if you might want to call her Mercy?”
“Why would I do that? She nearly killed me on the boat. And I’m still not convinced about her motives this time around either.”
“Yes, but in the end, she saved your life. And from what you’ve said, she was a friend to begin with.”
Charlie nodded her head.
“Yes, that’s true; and it would be good if she wasn’t forgotten altogether.” She paused, kicking her toe against the mottled linoleum floor covering. Then she looked up, with a grin on her face. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s call her after the woman who was completely innocent in all this, but without whom there would have been no Mercy.”
Annie stared at her for a few moments and then a big smile spread across her face. “That a lovely idea, Charlie.” She gave a deep sigh of con
tentment. “Now, why don’t you call the others in. I think it’s time they met the new addition to the family, little Suzy Grace.”
After all the travelling and the excitement of the rush to the hospital and meeting their little niece, Suzanne and Steve headed to the local Italian restaurant for a quick supper. Mrs Jones declined to join them, and they dropped her off at the house on the way.
“I’m just going to make myself a cuppa and have an early night,” she said, hugging Suzanne. “But tomorrow, we have a lot to talk about. I want to hear exactly what you girls have been getting up to.”
“Yes, Mum,” said Suzanne, climbing back into the car and blowing her mother a kiss.
“Really?” asked Steve with a raised eyebrow.
“Absolutely not!” she replied with a grin.
But as they settled down with their pasta and white wine, Suzanne pursed her lips and then sighed deeply.
“I think I’m going to have to give up this consultancy lark and find myself a proper job,” she said.
“Why on earth would you want to do that? You’d hate going back to working for someone else; and you’d make a terrible employee!”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “But Charlie’s told me she doesn’t want to do any more travelling or what she calls ‘this dangerous stuff’—and I’m not sure I want to do it on my own.”
“What about bringing someone else in to work with you?”
“No, I don’t think I’d want to do that. Charlie and I are so close. It just wouldn’t be the same with someone else.”
Steve cleared his throat.
“How about if that someone else was me? I thought we were pretty close these days.”
She reached across and linked her fingers with his.
“Oh, we are! And I’d love to work with you. But you hate travelling!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was always reluctant before, because I’d never done any—apart from the odd school trip across the Channel. But the month in Latin America made me realise how much I’d been missing.” He picked up his glass and took a deep swig. “Suzanne, I love the surgery; I love the animals; and I love the work I do in the refuge. But I’ve been doing it for twenty plus years now. Losing Mother, meeting you, getting married—makes me realise there’s so much more out there. I’d like to see some of it.” He paused, pushed his glasses back up his nose and grabbed Suzanne’s hand. “You do so much good work in the pharmaceutical companies around the world. And you know many of those factories are making veterinary medicines, too. I think we could develop a good little business together. And it doesn’t all have to be like this last job. There doesn’t have to be any ‘dangerous stuff’.”
Suzanne stared at him.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve given it a lot of thought while you’ve been saving the world in Russia.”
“Well, there’s obviously a lot to think about,” she said, picking up her wine glass. “But here’s to a new era. To the Ford-Jones Partnership.”
Enjoyed this book?
Reviews and recommendations are very important to an author and help contribute to a book’s success. If you have enjoyed Counterfeit!, please recommend it to your friends and family. And also, please consider posting a review on the online store you bought it from; or your preferred review site.
And if you would like to read the full story of Suzanne Jones, Charlie Jones, and Francine Matheson, book 1, Counterfeit!, and book 2, Deception! are also available. Find all the details here.
Acknowledgments
I am once again very grateful for all the support provided by my friends in the thriving community of writers and readers, both in Devon and beyond. In particular, my thanks go to Margaret Barnes for being my writing partner for the third time; to my friends in Chudleigh Writers’ Circle and Exeter Writers; and to Jenny Benjamin, Jo Cole, Mary Anne McFarlane, Heather Morgan and Richard Morgan, my beta readers.
I had some wonderful (and occasionally not so wonderful) times while working in Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s and 2000s. Everyone I worked with was eager to learn, keen to teach and, most importantly, happy to share.
Berni Stevens (@circleoflebanon) is responsible for the beautiful cover; Julia Gibbs (@ProofreadJulia) made sure the final text is as error-free as possible. My thanks go to both of them. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my sisters, Margaret Andow and Sheila Pearson, for their analytical reading skills and ongoing cheerleading.
Finally, my thanks go, as always, to my husband Michael McCormick, my fiercest critic and strongest supporter, who keeps me smiling throughout.
About the Author
Elizabeth Ducie was born and brought up in Birmingham. As a teenager, essays and poetry won her an overseas trip via a newspaper competition. Despite this, she took scientific and business qualifications and spent more than thirty years as a manufacturing consultant, business owner and technical writer before returning to creative writing in 2006. She has written short stories and poetry for competitions—and has had a few wins, several honourable mentions and some short-listing. She is published in several anthologies.
Under the Chudleigh Phoenix Publications imprint, she has published one collection of short stories and co-authored another two. She also writes non-fiction, including ebooks for writers running their own small business. Her debut novel, Gorgito’s Ice Rink, was runner-up in the 2015 Self-Published Book of the Year awards.
Elizabeth is the editor of the Chudleigh Phoenix Community Magazine. She is a member of the Chudleigh Writers’ Circle. Exeter Writers, and ALLi (The Alliance of Independent Authors).
For more information on Elizabeth, visit her website: http://elizabethducieauthor.co.uk/; follow her on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest; or watch the trailers for her books on YouTube. To keep up to date with her writing plans, subscribe to her quarterly newsletter (the link is on the website): or just drop her a line; she loves to chat with readers: [email protected].
Other books by Elizabeth Ducie
Deception! (Suzanne Jones Book 2)
Counterfeit! (Suzanne Jones Book 1)
Gorgito’s Ice Rink
Parcels in the Rain and Other Writing
Sunshine and Sausages
The Business of Writing series:
Part One Business Start-Up (ebook only)
Part Two Finance Matters (ebook only)
Part Three Improving Effectiveness (ebook only)
The Business of Writing Parts One—Three (print only)
WRITTEN WITH SHARON COOK
Life is Not a Trifling Affair
Life is Not a Bed of Roses
Corruption! Page 23