Free Safe Harbor by Marie Ferrarella Page A

the floor, in much the same position he’d been in the first time she’d laid eyes on him.
    She didn’t remember dropping the bag containing their breakfasts. Yet she was aware of rushing to his body.
    “Oh, Mike, we have to stop meeting like this,” she muttered under her breath.
    Turning him over onto his back, Stevi attempted to rouse him again. This time she was successful. He opened his eyes.
    “What happened?” he asked, dazed.
    “You tell me,” Stevi answered. “I left you in bed. You promised me you’d stay there.”
    There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t ache. It surprised him then, that despite the varying levels of pain he could still assess her features, still feel some sort of a pull toward his bossy guardian angel.
    “I didn’t want to inconvenience you any further,” he told her.
    She laughed shortly. “News flash, Mike, finding you on the floor like this isn’t exactly an improvement. Here, let me help you back into bed.”
    Squatting, Stevi angled her body so that she could take his good arm and drape it over her own shoulders for leverage.
    “No, that’s all right. I can do it myself,” Mike protested.
    Except that he couldn’t and the upshot of it was that he fell backward and she wound up tumbling down with him. Less than half a second into the maneuver, she had landed, splayed out on top of her wounded patient.
    Stevie felt a flash of awareness, followed by a wave of embarrassment that made her cheeks burn.
    This was way too much contact with someone whose name she’d just learned less than half an hour ago, she thought.
    “Sorry, this isn’t the way to get you into bed. At least,” she stammered, tripping over her own tongue, “not the way we both want to get you into bed.” That didn’t come out right, either. “I’ll stop talking now,” she announced since he was laughing.
    “Oh, please, don’t make me laugh,” he pleaded, still directly beneath her. “It really does hurt, you know.”
    She made no comment. “Okay, we’re going to do this together on the count of three,” she said.
    “Okay,” he agreed gamely.
    Looking at her, he would have never guessed she was as strong as she was. And she was definitely even more attractive close-up.
    Eyes on Mike, Stevi began to count off the numbers. “One—two—”
    “Stevi?” Cris cried. “What’s going on? Who is this man?”
    “No wonder you haven’t been out of your room all day,” Andy chimed in, crowding in behind Cris. “Did you bring one for me?”
    Thrown off balance by her sisters’ unexpected entrance, Stevi barely stopped herself from pitching forward again.
    Braced, she shifted her body, then jumped to her feet, instantly defensive. She hadn’t heard them knock. Were they spying on her?
    “What are you two doing here?” she demanded.
    “We were worried about you. Who is this?” Cris asked, her eyes shifting toward the unidentified, rumpled man.
    “Mike Ryan,” he spoke up, introducing himself. They looked alike, the three women. It wasn’t a stretch to figure out they had to be related. Sisters, most likely.
    “I found him on the beach,” Stevi said quickly.
    “Wow. And I thought your seashell collection was getting out of hand.” Looking from Mike to Stevi, Cris demanded, “What’s he doing on the floor in your room?”
    “He’s supposed to be in my bed,” Stevi said pointedly to Mike.
    “In your bed? Are you nuts? And what was he doing there?” Cris’s voice rose with every word.
    Andy laughed under her breath.
    Stevi ignored Andy. “He’s supposed to be healing,” she informed her older sister. “Now if you’ll give me a hand here, Andy, we need to get Mike back into bed.”
    Andy looked to Cris for permission. “Is it okay?”
    Stevi could tell exactly what she was thinking. Her baby sister was worried about it getting back to their father. This mess, whatever it was, was her doing, not Andy’s. Andy got into enough trouble on her own without adding this to the