Riley often reminded herself that running up and down stairs was good exercise. But today, she outright longed for a staff elevator.
Still, she made it through her review, ran back down to her office to grab her phone, which she’d absent-mindedly left on the corner of her desk, and then hustled up to the lobby via the basement stairs to check in with Annette before the morning meeting.
She was halfway up when she somehow set her left foot down wrong. The heel of her shoe wobbled and then herankle rolled. It hurt a lot. A cry of pain escaped her as she lost her balance completely.
Now she was falling backward. Her head bounced against a lower stair. She saw stars.
And then everything went black.
Chapter Twelve
Riley groaned and blinked up at the basement’s pressed tin ceiling. Her back hurt, and her head was throbbing. Her left ankle, too.
The baby…
Oh, dear Lord, had she hurt the baby?
Carefully, she laid her hand over the growing roundness where her baby slept. It felt…okay. No pain there. No cramping. And she wasn’t bleeding or anything, not as far as she could tell right now.
By some miracle, she seemed to have slid down the stairs on her back. Thank God…
Letting out another low groan, she turned her aching head to the side and saw her phone lying there, face up, maybe two feet away. Reaching out, she managed to grab it, bring it close and tip the screen toward her face. It opened automatically, and she was looking at Dillon’s grinning face. Amazing. Her phone seemed unscathed.
Not her body, though. With great care, she tried to turn to her side by pressing her left foot to the floor. That was a mistake. The yelp of pain escaped her before she even knew she would cry out.
“Oh my gosh!” A pretty dark-haired woman in housekeepingscrubs came out of the Basement Bar. “Ms. Thompson! What happened?”
“I…fell down the stairs. Bumped my head. Hurt my ankle…”
The woman darted across the floor and dropped to her knees at Riley’s side.Rosalee, Riley thought. She glanced at the woman’s name tag for confirmation. “Rosalee, right?”
Rosalee nodded. “That’s me. Oh, my goodness, let me get you—”
“Just…hold on a minute. If you’ll help me to sit up, I—”
“No way!” Rosalee put up a hand. “Stay very still.” She whipped a phone from her pocket. “I’m calling 911.”
“Wait.” Riley winced and gently felt at the back of her head. A goose egg was rising. As for her ankle, it throbbed, but it was bearable. Still, she probably shouldn’t try to walk on it.
“Ms. Thompson?” Rosalee got right down in her face. “Can. You. Hear. Me?”
“Of course I can.”
“Good. I am calling—”
“Don’t call anyone.” Riley waved her own phone. “I could do that myself if I wanted to.”
“But I think I should—”
“No. Wait. What I need you to do is to go on up to the lobby, tell Miranda at the front desk that I fell down the basement stairs and that I’m going to need help.”
Rosalee bent close. Her dark eyes spoke of sheer determination. “Ms. Thompson, you are injured. Miranda is only going to call 911. And yes, you could make the call yourself, but why not just lie there quietly and let me do it for you?”
With a sigh, Riley gave up. No, she didn’t want to admitthat she might need an ambulance. But she had more than herself to consider here. There was the baby to think of, too…
“Okay,” Riley said. “Do it. Dial 911.”
* * *
