Read Online Jumping in Puddles by Barbara Elsborg - Free Book Online Page B

should make a list of everything, put the items in order of importance to keep, and sell off a few things.”
    “I’m still not going to be able to raise enough capital. No point in repairing the house if there’s nothing left to show inside it.”
    “What about jewelry? Did your mother leave anything?” Her heart rate increased.
    “Some.”
    She licked her lips. “Unless it has sentimental value, you should consider selling it, especially if it’s old.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    Ellie had to press the point. “Have you sold any?”
    “Nothing that belonged to me.”
    The ring hadn’t belonged to him, but was he aware of that?
    “I know quite a lot about jewelry. I could take a look and give you a valuation.”
    “Right.”
    She’d hoped for more than “right.”
    Jago locked the rooms again, and they went down to the ground floor.
    “I hope you’re not keeping anything very valuable up there. It’s an invitation to thieves to put everything together like that. Do you have a burglar alarm?”
    “Can’t afford one, but I rarely leave the house. There’s always someone around, and now if anything goes missing, yours will be the name I give the police.”
    He might be smiling, but he didn’t trust her. Can’t be stealing when it doesn’t belong to you . That wasn’t the way the police would view it, though she had to find it first.
    Jago unlocked a door at the end of a corridor, reached in to switch on the light, and illuminated steep concrete steps leading down.
    “Torture chamber?” she asked.
    “You wanted to see where we used to chain the dragons.”
    The look on his face sent sparks swirling in her belly.
    “It’s next to where the ghost lives,” he said.
    “Bit of an oxymoron.”
    He laughed. “True.”
    Jago led her through a maze of musty arched rooms, past line after line of empty wine racks. The cellar was dark and creepy, but she’d have to come down on her own and search more thoroughly. Judging by the way she’d responded to the rose-gold ring, she’d assumed if any piece of the Kewen was near, she’d have some sort of reaction. Tingling, going hot, fainting, though that didn’t happen now when she held the ring, so she couldn’t be certain it would happen again. Plus how near did she have to be to the Kewen to feel it? Assuming she could.
    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