said to her sister, who was going down in front of her. “They’re a regular accident trap.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll cushion your fall.”
“Who’s gonna cushion yours?” Sophie retorted.
She made it to the last set of stairs just fine, though. Okay, no problemo. Sierra was already on the ground level.
And there went Rudy and Catherine out the door. How was it they always managed to get so far ahead of her? Sophie picked up her pace.
And missed a step.
Suddenly it was anything but quiet inside the windmill.
7
Down the stairs Sophie went, like a puppet cut loose from its strings. Thump, thump, screech, screech. She sent two women scuttling for safety before she hit the floor and bounced over onto her side. There she lay like a landed fish with a sprained fin. A sea of concerned faces suddenly loomed over her—the two women who’d dodged a collision, the tour guide, her sister, several of the German students.
This was embarrassing. And painful. Her ankle, which she’d twisted on the way down, was screaming at her. Look what you did to me! Had she broken it? What if she’d broken it? Would she have to go to a hospital? Where was Dr. Rudy when you needed him?
“Are you all right?” asked Sierra.
“Can you move?” the tour guide asked, probably worried about lawsuits.
“Let me see,” said a male voice. It wasn’t Rudy’s. Instead, here was Trevor March, pushing through the crowd and bending next to her. “Where does it hurt?”
“My ankle,” she whimpered. “I think I broke it.”
“Maybe not.” He unzipped her ankle boot and removed it and started feeling around.
“Ow!” she protested.
“I bet she broke it,” said a brown-haired girl, one of the students. She looked dispassionately at Sophie, as if studying an interesting specimen. “She won’t be able to do anything now.”
Trevor shook his head. “I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said to Sophie.
She frowned at him. “How can you know?”
“I took a first aid course in college. Here, people,” he said, “let’s give her some room.”
Several people took a step back. With the show over, the college kids drifted away, all except for the one girl, who was taking a rather ghoulish interest in Sophie’s injury.
“Let’s see if you can stand up.” Trevor took one of Sophie’s hands and pulled her to her feet.
She winced at the thought of him pulling up her dead weight. It probably felt like pulling up a baby elephant.
“I don’t think you should put any weight on that foot,” he said, handing her back her boot. Then, before she could protest, he scooped her up into his arms.
“She can probably walk just fine,” said the girl, contradicting herself.
“You can’t carry me all the way back to the ship,” Sophie protested. “I can hop back. My sister will help me.”
“It’s a long way to hop,” he said, and started for the door. “Go ahead, put your arms around my neck.”
She did need to hang on so she did. And really, it was a long way to hop. But darn, she felt so stupid. Where was Dr. Rudy? She needed a diagnosis.
“I’ll go find Rudy,” Sierra said, as if reading her mind.
Trevor didn’t wait. He started off down the path toward where the ship was docked.
“You’re going to get a hernia,” the girl called after him.
“She’s right,” Sophie fretted.
“Don’t listen to Harriet. What does she know?”
“Everybody knows you can get hernias from lifting heavy things.”
“You’re not heavy, so don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry you’re having to carry me all this way,” Sophie said. Although it didn’t seem to be fazing him. The man wasn’t even winded.
“I’m not,” he replied, and smiled.
He had an awfully nice smile. She caught a whiff of his aftershave, something satisfyingly spicy. She could feel the hardness of his chest against her. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so sorry, either.
If only she hadn’t made such a public spectacle of herself.
“That was so embarrassing.” She would now be pointed out on the ship as the klutz who fell down the stairs in the mill.
“Those stairs were tricky. I bet you’re not the first person who’s fallen on them.”
“I wish that made me feel better.”
“I’ve got something in my room that will make you feel better.”
“Ice?”
“I can get that, too,” he said.
They were met with plenty of concerned staff as they came up the gangplank and someone was dispatched immediately to fetch ice for Sophie’s ankle, while another staff member put in a call for the doctor in port to come to the ship. Yet another staff member