The Secret Cove in Croatia. Julie Caplin. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Julie Caplin
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Современная зарубежная литература
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780008323684
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      The Secret Cove in Croatia

      JULIE CAPLIN

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       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      HarperImpulse

      an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Copyright © Julie Caplin 2019

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Julie Caplin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel 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.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008323691

      Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008323684

      Version: 2019-06-20

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Chapter 1: Northumberland

      Chapter 2: London

      Chapter 3: Croatia

       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

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Epilogue

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

       About HarperImpulse

      About the Publisher

      For Gordana Sikora-Presecki who introduced me to Croatia

      … and sharing inspiring pictures when we should have been working!

       Chapter 1

       Northumberland

      Nick huddled into the collar of his coat, grateful for the thick tweed barrier protecting him from the brisk northerly wind that whipped around the lee of the craggy hillside. A wry smile touched his mouth at the sight of the two models shivering together like highly strung Arabian fillies.

      Today the models were dressed in vibrant — Pucci style, he’d been informed, whatever that was — wool ponchos. Although, if anyone had asked his opinion, he’d have said it looked as if someone had run amok in a paint shop, but he was no fashion expert. The outfits were topped with dashing tam-o’-shanter hats, perched jauntily on their heads while striped woollen scarves, wrapped several times around their elegant long necks, flapped in the breeze like Himalayan prayer flags. The poor frozen models were as out of place as a pair of tropical birds as they waited for the photographer to line up the next shot.

      Normally, at seven-thirty in the morning, he’d have the bleak moorland to himself, and if it hadn’t been for the quelling looks his sisters-in-law had shot his twin brothers, Dan and Jonathon, over dinner last night, there might have been a few more people up here.

      ‘Tara, stand on that rock in the shaft of sunshine,’ directed the brusque photographer whose facial expression was well hidden behind dark bushy eyebrows and a fearsome, glossy black beard of biblical proportions, a stark contrast to his bald head.

      Nick had to give her credit; the minute Tara moved into the unforgiving eye of the lens, she stopped shivering and threw a cool indifferent pose as if the freezing temperature was nothing. Her thin, haughty face stared out over the view, dispassionate and seemingly oblivious to the valley unfolding before her, the rich green grass softening the contours of the hillside and the sunshine dancing on the distant sea at the mouth of the valley five miles in the distance. Something twisted in his stomach at the sight of her standing on the outcrop of rocks, with one knee bent, a delicate, almost fey figure, with her flawless complexion and mane of golden hair burnished with red and gold threads picked out by the spring sunshine. She looked as if she might slip away into another realm at any moment. Then he told himself off for allowing the little kick of something to affect him and the odd desire to want to protect her from the cold. Compared to her, he was a steady, reliable carthorse hitched to unremitting destiny while she was like a delicate faerie creature, as unattainable and remote as the stars. She came from another world. A world a million miles away from this remote farm and the village community where he knew everyone and everyone knew him and had done since he was born. This