Jumping in Puddles (8 page)

The problem with the theory of feeling its presence was that her heart had been thumping from the moment Jago opened the door and scowled at her. She couldn’t trust her own senses.

“Did you ever play down here?” she whispered.

“Sometimes. Why are we whispering?”

“In case the ghost hears us.”

He moved closer. “Shall I tell you the story about the ghost?”

The sensation of his breath brushing over her ear dampened her panties.
Damn
. “As long as it ends happily.”

Jago shook with laughter. “Ghosts are dead people. How can that have a happy ending?”

“Well, pretend it does,” Ellie said.

“You’re in luck. This story should make you smile. When my brother and I were in our teens, we were convinced someone was living down here.”

She shivered.

“Things were disturbed from one day to the next, and we heard weird noises. We told our mother, but she didn’t believe us, so we planned to sleep down here and take a photo as proof.”

She stared at him without blinking. He looked so serious she wondered how this story could make her smile.

“Denzel wimped out and went back to bed, but I curled up in my sleeping bag with a flashlight. Everything was fine until I heard scratching, and then something rustled close by my ear.” He shuddered. “I didn’t know whether to wriggle deeper into my bag or run for it. Then…the ghost appeared right in front of me. A guy in an old army uniform.”

Ellie gasped. Ghosts didn’t appear to many people. They were very shy. She’d only seen one once. Did Jago have some sort of gift?

“I opened my mouth to scream, and he said, ‘I’m your great-great-grandfather, and I saved my men at the battle of Arnhem. No one knows.’” Jago gave a rueful smile. “I figured one of my ancestors wasn’t going to hurt me, so I asked if it was okay to take a photograph and promised I’d let people know what he’d done. He agreed. I took loads of shots, and he disappeared. Denzel didn’t believe me, but I had the camera. I had proof.”

“Wow.” How had he managed to take a picture of a ghost?

“Except when the photos were developed, they were black and underexposed.”

“Darn it.”

“Yeah, the spirit was willing, but the flash was weak.” His voice and expression were deadpan.

Ellie gaped at him and then laughed. “You had me there.” There was a sudden scraping sound behind her, and she squeaked. “Is that the dragon?”

“Could be. Shall I hold your hand?”

Ellie smiled. “Is your other name Saint George?”

He stared at her intently, his eyes even darker in the gloom. “Does it matter?”

She reached out to him as he reached out to her. Their fingertips touched, and Ellie felt as though she’d been caught in a brush fire. Heat raced along her veins, and her skin prickled. He slid his thumb onto her palm, and then his fingers moved over the backs of hers, and he curled his hand around her hand.

They might only be holding hands, but she knew this was far more than that. He was the one meant for her, no matter how impossible it seemed, and she had no idea what to do about it.

“Feel brave now?” he asked.

Was that a catch in his voice?

“Maybe if you had a sword in your other hand.”

His face lit in a smile. “That could be easily arranged. Or maybe you’d like to hold it.”

Ellie blazed.

“Come on. I don’t like it down here. I used to worry about getting trapped, and now, thanks to you, I have to worry about dragons too.” He tugged her back along the maze of corridors to the stairs, his hold tightening to the point of pain.

But when they reached the narrow concrete flight, he let her go. “You first,” he said. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

His gaze seared her bum as she walked up. As she emerged into the corridor, she saw a guy walking toward her carrying a basket of laundry. Jago came up at her back, and the hard outline of his cock pressed against her butt.

“Watch what you’re doing with that sword,” she whispered, and Jago snorted.

“Pretty lady been beating you up where we can’t hear the screams?” the man asked.

“This is Baxter,” Jago said. “Baxter, Ellie.”

Ellie held out her hand. “You’re so lucky. I love the idea of living here for less rent and working on the house in my spare time. Want to show me what you and the others have been doing? I’m looking forward to joining your work teams.”

Baxter winced. “Need to get this washing in the machine, sorry. Talk some other time.”

“I’ll draw up a schedule,” Ellie called to his back. “We’ll get more done if we cooperate.”

Jago sighed as Baxter fled. “He’s a lazy arse.”

“Perhaps you’d better buy me that whip.”

“Mmm. Come and look at the ballroom. That’s one room that
has
been renovated.”

She hoped he’d take her hand again, but he didn’t. When he pushed open the double doors, Ellie stopped and exhaled. Ahead was a long rectangular room with massive mirrors at either end, capital-topped marble columns running down the sides. The floor was a light polished wood, the blue walls lined with frieze panels filled with frescoes. It was like stepping back into a different century. She wished she could waltz, though how hard could it be with the right man leading?

Ellie peeked at him and then glanced up. A spectacularly ornate ceiling arched overhead.

“Each of the chandeliers contains twenty thousand sections of cut glass crystal and weighs over a ton. I washed and dried every damn piece.”

“Did
you
restore this room?”

“I made new moldings to replace the acanthus leaves and scrolls where they’d been damaged, and I did the gilding and the painting, but the plaster work I paid for. Luckily the frescoes were in good condition.”

“Imagine dancing in here.” Ellie twirled around the room. “If you look in the mirror, you can see yourself reflected into infinity. Actually, that’s kind of spooky. Hundreds and thousands and millions of me.” She spun to a halt and found Jago in front of her.

“I only need one,” he whispered.

His arms hung by his sides, and Ellie knew this was up to her, that she could walk away, that she
should
walk away, but she couldn’t.

You’re mine. You don’t know it, but you are. I don’t know how that could be, but it is
. Ellie waited.

Jago released a ragged breath and stepped back.

Bloody hell. Again?
What game was he playing?

“We haven’t finished looking round yet. Few more rooms on this floor to see, plus the baron’s hall and then the outbuildings.”

Something inside Ellie curled up in pain, but she donned the brightest smile she could and only let it fade when he couldn’t see her.

She followed him out of the ballroom, and he showed her the other rooms on that floor. Easy to see why he’d been overwhelmed by what needed to be done.

“The kitchen isn’t too bad. My mother insisted on having that replaced with something more modern.”

“It’s lovely.” But a mess with dirty pans piled up, newspapers and magazines everywhere.

A long oak table dominated the room with chairs on one side, a bench on the other. Old wood had been used to make the cabinets, and the crumb-strewn countertop was brown granite flecked with turquoise. A stove sat in an alcove, an old leather couch near the window. All it needed to look perfect was a dog. They’d never been allowed pets because Pixie was allergic.

“We share it,” Jago muttered.

“And presumably no one takes responsibility for cleaning it up.”

“I’m not picking up after my lodgers,” he snapped.

Oops
. “Where do they lead?” She nodded toward the doors on the far side of the kitchen.

“Breakfast room and utility room.”

“Is that everywhere inside?” she asked.

“I haven’t shown you the baron’s hall yet.”

“Where do you live?”

“In a room upstairs.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

She opened her eyes wider. “Please?”

He scowled and stormed out.
What bit him on the butt?
She followed him up the stairs, distracted by thoughts of biting his butt, though when he opened the door of his room, she understood his reluctance. Swallowing the temptation to comment on the piles of clothes and heaps of books, she looked for something positive to say. Her gaze settled on the surfboard. “I wish I could surf. I wish I could swim.”

“You can’t swim?”

“Twelve inches freaks me out.”

Jago spluttered.

“Lots of people have tried to teach me, but they all gave up.”

“The answer might be skinny-dipping. Tried it?”

“Only in eleven inches of bathwater.”

He laughed. “Do you not like getting your face wet?”

“It isn’t that. I practiced sticking my head in a bucket and holding my breath, and that didn’t bother me. It’s expanses of water I can’t handle. The way it looks solid and isn’t. I feel as though it’s going to swallow me.”

Jago stared at her. “You have a very weird mind.”

“Thank you.” Ellie smiled as they headed downstairs.

“I think you must be the strangest woman I’ve ever met. I have this vision of you now with your head in a bucket.”

“Not one of me skinny-dipping?”

Ellie reached the bottom and stopped. He took several more steps before he realized she wasn’t with him; then he turned to face her across the checkerboard floor. As he stared, his Adam’s apple shifted in his throat, and his cheeks flushed. Her gaze dropped.

“Do you think the place is beyond hope?” He took a step toward her. Black square.

“You could tidy this in no time.”

He took another step. White square. “I mean the house.”

“Nothing is ever beyond hope,” she said firmly.

Black square. “Really?”

She sighed. “Well, unless you’re in the middle of a shark-infested sea and bleeding profusely. I think things would be pretty hopeless then.”

White square. “Is my house doomed?”

He puffed hot air onto Ellie’s lips. “Am I doomed?” he whispered.

“Ah,” she choked out. “I’ve had a few ideas. Let me think about it, make some calls, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Now she was the one who wanted to pull back.

“I can’t wait until tomorrow.” He grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her.

Ellie felt as if every molecule of her body had been charged with electricity and blasted into the sky before plummeting to earth and slamming back together. Pummeled head to toe by lightning-fast strikes of sexual excitement—every one of which arrowed to her groin—she lost her ability to think and could only respond.

His soft tongue trailed along the line of her lips, and when Ellie opened her mouth and let him in, what had seemed magical before now erupted into a blaze of colors inside her head, the spectrum exploding in every direction. Jago sagged slightly as if he’d feared she’d pull back, and Ellie moaned low in her throat, fearing he’d let her go, but he wrapped his hands around her and held her tight.

He explored her mouth slowly, feeling his way over the edges of her teeth, circling the tip of his tongue over the fleshy pads of her cheeks, skating up and down the bony curve at the top of her mouth—an action that made her wriggle against him so he did it again. Ellie made her own journey of discovery, her tongue dipping and diving, sliding alongside his. She nibbled his lips with her teeth, licked until he groaned into her mouth. Jago tasted sweet and strong and sexy, and she wanted to kiss him forever.

Hot and gentle slipped into fast and greedy. Jago pulled her closer, grinding the hard ridge of his cock against her belly, rocking into her. When his arms slid down her back and his fingers curled under the bottom edges of her shorts, she reached for his hands, threaded her fingers with his, and pressed their entwined hands against their hips. If he touched her between her legs, she’d collapse.

They pulled back for oxygen though didn’t move far. Foreheads glued together, they breathed each other’s air, their noses bumping, tongues darting out to flick a mate. Then Jago’s tongue was back inside her mouth, surging back and forth in an imitation of sex that wound her up like a mechanical mouse. Ellie feared she’d fizz in circles when he let her go.

She didn’t. She staggered back and collided with a chair. The knowledge that someone was knocking at the door filtered through into her head, and as she watched Jago pull himself together, she did the same. He dragged his fingers through untidy hair Ellie would have loved to style for him and pulled his shirt straight.

When Jago opened the door, two guys stood there.

“Good morning. We’re from Robertson’s. We’re surveying for Jeff Preston.”

Jago sighed. “Oh yes.” He turned to Ellie. “Sorry. I have to show them round. I’ll see you later. Okay?”

She tried to tell herself it was for the best they’d been deprived of the opportunity to go further but failed to convince herself. She almost left the house until she realized this was an opportunity to look for the Kewen. Before thinking stopped her, she sneaked back to Jago’s room and started to search. And while she searched, she tidied.

Ellie rarely used her magic. She suspected out of the six Norwoods, she used hers the least. Her father expended his searching for the Kewen. Her mother held the family together with hers. She had no idea what her brothers did with theirs. They no longer lived at home, but Pixie used hers up fast. Her younger sister said she didn’t have the control to stop herself doing something weird by accident. Ellie regularly had to put right Pixie’s mistakes.

The yearly recharge of power was a kind of torture, a reminder of what the family had lost, of what they could be and weren’t. Over time and with the help of the book, generations of Norwoods had worked out the limits of their power and that it varied from one person to another. Micah was the strongest, Ellie the weakest. Expend too much magical energy in a single day, and eyes stopped shining, bodies faded, and only sleep would bring recovery.

Ellie suspected the need to sleep kicked in before all power was used up, which was why Pixie was still around. Over the year, their magic faded along with the brightness of their eyes and the strength in their bodies. They weren’t supposed to use magic for ordinary things, and Ellie had already broken that rule in the garden this morning. She’d wanted to reward Henry for helping her. She wanted to make him happy.