Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1)

Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) Read Free

Book: Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) Read Free
Author: Jenna McCormick
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clinches it.
    “That’s me.” I smile and try not to look nervous. Or guilty.
    “Mr. Edge would like to see you in his office this afternoon.”
    Crap. I started to sweat. “Okay, what time?”
    “Three o’clock, Ma’am.”
    “I’ll be there. Now, I’ve got to go let the landscapers in.”
    He steps back and I pick up the pace, my brain scrambling for purchase. Edge is going to fire me, maybe even have me escorted from the property. Pops is my only family. I have nowhere else to go.
    Serves you right. Snarkarella pipes up. You played fast and loose with his security man and the bastard told him everything.
    Shoving her bile aside, I move to the gate and try to not let my anxiety get the best of me. As Pops use to say, there’s no time to fret, there’s work to be done.
    A new copse of flowering shrubbery has been ordered for the estate gardens and grabbing a shovel, I literally dig right in, working up a decent sweat. Rosasharn is an easy shrub to maintain if put in properly, and it flowers in several different colors. I’ve acquired several hundred saplings from a nearby nursery as part of the landscaping budget and plan to plant two rows of them leading up to and around the dolphin fountain in the back yard.
    By midday, sweat runs down my back and my jeans are filthy. I pause to take a hit from my water bottle. On the east lawn of the estate, mowers run in a telling drone, making that neat chessboard pattern on the expansive front lawn.
    I will miss this place, not just because it’s the only home I’ve ever known, but also because I’ve put so much of myself into it. Even before Pops started deteriorating so quickly, he lost interest in planning the grounds, but he’d already passed the love down to me. I’m the one who arranged for the installation of the stone wall separating the east and south lawns. I winterized the gardens on the south lot and made the call to take down the tree with the fungal infection that caused it to lose its leaves last fall. I know every type of plant growing on these twelve acres.
    Looking around, it hits me like a ten ton anvil from above. This might be it, my last day, my last project here. Needing to sit down, I move toward the bench by the fountain and stare at the dolphin spouting water from his blowhole.
     At first I think panic is making a buzzing sound, but soon realize the noise is coming from the cell phone stuffed deep in my pocket. “Hello?”
    “Ms. Sinclair? This is Rebecca Green from Golden Oaks.”
    “Is my grandfather all right?” Rising to my feet, I move away from the chatter of the lawn crew.
    “I’m sorry to tell you, but he fell this morning. He’s been transferred to Vassar Hospital.”
    The world spins around me and I can’t think over the roaring of my blood. “Has his doctor been called? Do we know how bad it is?”
    “I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”
    I disconnect the call without saying goodbye and sprint for the cottage and Pops’s rusted-out pickup that looks like hell but runs like a dream. Ten minutes later I’m on the road, heading down route 44 into Poughkeepsie. Using my handsfree device, I call the doctor who’s been treating Pops and discover he’s already been notified. His office assistant tells me he’ll meet me at the hospital.
    Since I’ve lived in this area all my life, I know Vassar Hospital well. A few of my friends from the nursing program at Dutchess Community College work here now, just as I would if I hadn’t taken over for Pops at the Rosemont Estate two years ago.
    The nurse at reception directs me to a waiting room on the radiology level. Too agitated to sit, I pace back and forth while I wait, figuring, better to move my body than get lost in my own head. It’s too easy to imagine a worst-case scenario. Doctor Fletcher arrives a few minutes later. “He’s all right, Baily. It’s not a break, just some bruising.”
    I let out a relieved breath and sink into a nearby chair. “Do we know how it

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