The Secrets Women Keep Read Online Free PDF

glanced up towards the sound of snoring.
There, slung between two olive trees, was a hammock containing the slumbering Terry, on his back, mouth open. His paperback lay on the ground beside him. Not even Harlan Coben had the page-turning
power to keep him awake.
    Above them the sky was an uninterrupted cornflower blue. She organised all the essentials – her suntan cream, Kindle, BlackBerry and dark glasses – on the table, then went to dip her
hand in the water. She pulled it back sharply. She’d expected the temperature to be much more inviting. Then she recalled the spartan thread that ran through Daniel. Anything sporty must push
you to your limit. Not for him the heated pool. She had a sudden memory of him coming into the refectory of their student halls in Edinburgh, having run round Arthur’s Seat before breakfast.
In those days, running was for the few, and at that time of the day, certainly not for the student. How different things had been then. The two of them had never made the mistake of believing they
were in love with one another, but their relationship had certainly been satisfyingly intense and, if she thought about it, pleasantly fulfilling during the short time it lasted. Then Will came
along. Then Rose. But that was all a long time ago.
    Reproaching herself for being so feeble, she walked to the end of the pool, relishing the sun on her pale skin, feeling the modesty frill on the maternity costume tickle the tops of her thighs.
She paused for a moment, then swung her arms in front of her and pushed off with her toes. The dive was executed perfectly. As she entered the water, the first shock of the cold paralysed the nerve
endings the length of her body. By the time she was halfway down the pool, that sudden numbness had begun to wear off. She surfaced with a gasp, treading water as she took in her surroundings: the
olive grove below the pool, the sloping stretch of garden between her and the old farmhouse itself. They’d all thought Rose and Dan were crazy when they’d bought such a wreck of a
place. But the pair of them had lavished such care and attention on it over the years that it had become a haven for all of them.
    She concentrated on pushing herself through the water. Dan had given her her first lesson in crawl in the sea off Musselburgh that summer after she’d confessed that the only stroke
she’d mastered at school was a stately, head-held-out-of-the-water breaststroke. In those days she hadn’t been put off by the cold. He’d laughed and showed her how to propel
herself through the water, to time her breathing, to turn her head every third stroke, to use her arms and kick. After a few lengths, she slowed down and rolled on to her back, keeping herself
afloat with gentle movements of her arms and feet. The vast blue bowl above her was marked by the vapour trail from an aircraft, high, high up, moving like a rigid faraway bird.
    She shut her eyes, tried to empty her mind, to concentrate on the heat on her face, the sensation of weightlessness. But it was useless. One by one her children – though strictly speaking
they were too old to be called that – came marching into her mind, besieging her with one trivial kind of worry or another. She didn’t want to have to think about the squalid flat where
the twins were living, whether they were ever going to earn enough to cover their living expenses, whether it was going to work out at Gresham Hall for Charlie or whether Millie would get her
meaningless degree and what she would do with it if she did. Beyond that, there was her own future. The small literary agency for children’s authors and illustrators that she’d dared to
set up years ago was facing a tough time in the current economic climate.
    She kept her eyes shut against the sun, aware of dogs barking in the distance, the buzz of an insect flying by her face. Weightless, suspended, alone.
    Eyes closed, she ran through her client list. As far as she was