Free Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) by Jenna McCormick

Chapter One
     
    I really must stop doing this.
    Glancing over my shoulder, I make sure the grounds are completely deserted. Though I expect nothing less on a midsummer midnight on the otherwise unoccupied Rosemont Estate, the feeling of being watched sticks with me. It’s not like I’m stealing the silverware. I just want a soothing dip in the pool.
    So why don’t you ask then? My snarky inner self crosses her arms and taps her foot. Afraid he’ll say no?
    She knows me too well. Of course I’m afraid, not just that I will be forbidden from using the Olympic-sized swimming pool, but that I’ll lose my job for asking.
    Or more accurately, lose my grandfather’s job as head groundskeeper. The one he can’t do anymore and I’m secretly performing to pay for his placement in the assisted living facility.
     If the Andersons were still the owners I might have broached the subject, but six weeks ago the private compound in upstate New York was sold. I haven’t met my new boss yet, don’t even know his name. Which doesn’t stop me from helping myself to his pool.
    My cell phone rings just as I reach for the latch on the wrought iron gate. I scream, disconcert at the interruption, my heart banging around in my chest like a pinball. Sucking in a lungful of oxygen, I glance at the display, wondering who is calling so late. Please don’t be the nursing home saying something happened to Pops. Hmm, not an 845 area code, or a number I recognize.
    “Hello?”
    “Mr. Sinclair?” The voice is deep, masculine with a jagged edge, and totally unfamiliar.
    “Who’s speaking?”
    A garbled reply, totally incomprehensible through the static. Cell phone service sucks out here sometimes; all the rolling hills of the Hudson Valley make reception spotty if there isn’t a tower nearby. The closest one is about ten miles, on the other side of the village.
    “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I say, but the line’s gone dead. After checking for the signal on my phone, satisfied that the trouble wasn’t on my end, I dismiss the call from my thoughts. Probably a telemarketer on the west coast who didn’t realize he was calling at midnight my time. He can always call back and leave a voicemail.
    The well-oiled gate swings open silently and I lay my towel, keys, and phone on a chaise lounge before shucking my robe.
    Maybe I wouldn’t be so nervous about these moonlight swims if I wore a bathing suit. But then I’d be denying myself the illicit thrill of skinny dipping. Since my life seriously lacks in illicit thrills these days, I take whatever I can get.
    After executing a clean dive into the water, I start a leisurely backstroke, staring up at the fat orb of the moon. The temperature is perfect, still warm after the sweltering heat of the day. Clouds scud across the moon, casting shadows over my naked body as the light ebbs and flows. It looks to be almost full, for the second time this month. A blue moon. I remember Pops spinning tales about nocturnal creatures that only come out to play in the light of the blue moon. Fairies, werewolves, sylvans, and water sprites wreaked havoc and then disappeared. Looking at the dark, dense lines of evergreens surrounding the property, it’s easy to imagine that all sorts of things inhabit the night when no one’s looking.
    Of course, as acting groundskeeper, I know for a fact that nothing lives in that copse of trees but a few cardinals and gray squirrels. But pretending I belong with them, an enchanted creature cursed to a mortal life, makes things easier somehow. It’s a game I’ve been playing since I was a child and am not ready to give up.
    A splash directly behind me makes me jump, and I right my body as two strong arms pluck me from the water and hold me against a wall.
    “Who are you and how did you get in here?” a deep voice growls in my ear.
    The wall is actually a chest, his still clothed chest. The buttons on his waterlogged shirt dig into my spine. The cool night air on